--O'Driscol rivals Falstaff--Who Buck English was supposed to be.
M'Carthy, on finding that he had failed, in consequence of the
disappearance of Finnerty, in developing the system which nurtured such
cowardly and inhuman principles, now found it necessary, independent
of all threats uttered against him, to return to college in order to
prosecute his studies, and maintain the high position which he had
there obtained by honors already won, and the general brilliancy of his
answering. A kind of love-quarrel had taken place between himself and
Julia Purcel, which, as is frequently the case, prevented him on the one
side from giving, and her on the other, from receiving an explanation.
The consequence was that they separated, each laboring under that
yearning of the heart towards the other, which combines the most
delicious sensations connected with the passion--tenderness disguised
under an impression of offence, hope, uncertainty, and that awful anger
that is never to forgive or change, but which, in the meantime, is
furtively seeking for an opportunity to be reconciled, and vent its rage
in kisses and in tears.
In the meantime, the state of the country was fast becoming such as
had seldom, or perhaps never been recollected by living man. The
confederation, conspiracy, opposition, rebellion, or what you will, had
risen to a gigantic height. In point of fact, it ought rather to have
been termed an unarmed insurrection. Passive resistance was the
order and the practice of the day. The people were instructed by the
agitators, or rather by the great agitator himself, to oppose the
laws without violating them; a piece of advice which involved an
impossibility in the first place, but which was as false in itself,
as replete with dishonesty and imposture, as it was deceitful and
treacherous to the poor people who were foolish and credulous enough to
be influenced by it. We are not now assailing the Whigs for the
reforms which they effected in the Irish establishment, because we most
cordially approve of them. Nay, more, we are unquestionably of opinion
that that reform was not only the boldest, the most brilliant, but the
most just and necessary act of policy, which they ever offered as a boon
to this country. But what we do blame them for is, that they should have
suffered themselves to be kept in such gross ignorance of the state of
the Irish church, as to allow its shocking and monstrous corruptions to
remain uncorrected so long; that they should have allowed themselves to
be baffled and imposed upon, and misled by the hypocritical howlings
and fictitious alarms of the old Tory party, who, whenever they felt the
slightest dread that the Irish Establishment would slip through their
fingers, filled heaven and earth with prophetic denunciations against
England, not forbearing to threaten the very throne itself with a
general alienation of Protestant attachment and allegiance, if any of
its worst and rottenest corruptions should be touched. No; the Whigs
should have known the state and condition of the Irish church from
clear and correct sources, and not have subjected the country to the
pernicious and degrading consequences of a turbulent agitation. What
is just in itself ought to be conceded to reason and utility, and not
withheld until violence and outrage seem to extort it; for this only
holds out a bounty to future agitation. Be this as it may, the whole
country, at the period of which we write, was in a state of general
commotion and tumult altogether unparalleled. Law was completely
paralyzed, set at defiance, and laughed at. Large bodies, consisting of
many thousands, traversed different parts of the country in open day,
swearing every one they met to resist the payment of tithes in every
way and in every sense. Many gentlemen, who had either paid it or been
suspected to do so, or who had been otherwise obnoxious as landlords,
or for strong party feeling, were visited by these licentious multitudes
with an intention of being put to death, whilst the houses of several
wealthy farmers, who had unfortunately paid the hated impost, were
wrecked in the face of day. Nor was this all: men were openly and
publicly marked for destruction, and negotiations for their murder
entered into in fairs, and markets, and houses of entertainment, without
either fear or disguise. In such a state of things, it is unnecessary to
say that many lives were taken, and that great outrages were from
time to time committed. Two or three clergymen were murdered, several
tithe-proctors or collectors of tithe were beaten nearly to death;
and to such a pitch did the opposition rise, that at length it became
impossible to find any one hardy and intrepid, or, in other words, mad
enough, to collect tithe, unless under the protection either of the
military or police. Our friends, Proctor Purcel and his sons, were now
obliged, not merely to travel armed, but frequently under the escort of
police. Their principal dread, however, was from an attack upon their
premises at night; and, as fearful threats were held out that such an
attack would be made, Purcel, who, as the reader knows, was a man of
great wealth, engaged men to build a strong and high wall about his
house and out-offices, which could now be got at only through a gate of
immense strength, covered with thick sheet-iron, and bound together by
bars of the same metal, in such a way that even the influence of fire
could not destroy it, or enable an enemy to enter.
With such a condition of society before us, it is scarcely necessary to
inform our readers that the privations of the Protestant clergy were not
only great, but dreadful and without precedent. It was not merely that
their style of living was lowered or changed for the worse, but that
they suffered distress of the severest description--want, destitution,
and hunger, in their worst forms. First came inconvenience from a delay
in the receipt of their incomes; then the necessity of asking for a
longer term of credit; after this the melancholy certainty that tithes
would not be paid; again followed the pressure from creditors for
payment, with its distracting and harassing importunities; then the
civil but firm refusal to supply the necessaries of life on further
credit; then again the application to friends, until either the
inclination or ability failed, and benevolence itself was exhausted.
After this came the disposal of books, furniture, and apparel; and, when
these failed, the secret grapple with destitution, the broken spirit,
the want of food--famine, hunger, disease, and, in some cases, death
itself. These great sufferings of a class who, at all events, were
educated gentlemen, did not occur without exciting, on their behalf,
deep and general sympathy from all classes. In their prosperity, the
clergy, as a body, raised and spent their income in the country. They
had been kind and charitable to the poor, and their wives and daughters
had often been ministering angels to those who were neglected by the
landlords or gentry of the neighborhood, their natural protectors. It
is true, an insurrection exhibiting the manifestation of a general and
hostile principle against the source of their support, had spread over
the country; but, notwithstanding its force and violence, the good that
they had done was not forgotten to them in the hour of their trials and
their sorrows. Many a man, for instance, whose voice was loud in the
party procession, and from whose lips the shout of “down with the
blood-stained tithe!” issued with equal fervor and sincerity, was often
known to steal, at the risk of his very life, in the dead hour of night,
to the house of, the starving parson and his worn family, and with
blackened face, that he might not by any possibility be known, pay the
very tithes for whose abolition he was willing to peril his life. Nay,
what is more, the priest himself--the actual living idolatrous priest,
the benighted minister of the Scarlet Lady, has often been known
to bring, upon his own broad and sturdy shoulders, that relief in
substantial food which has saved the lives of more than one of those
ungodly parsons, who had fattened upon a heretic church, and were the
corrupted supporters of the mammon of unrighteousness. Here, in fact,
was the popish, bigoted priest--the believer in transubstantiation, the
denouncer of political enemies, the advocate of exclusive salvation,
the fosterer of pious frauds, the “surpliced ruffian,” as he has been
called, and heaven knows what besides, stealing out at night,
loaded like a mule, with provisions for the heretical parson and his
family--for the Bible-man, the convent-hunter, the seeker after filthy
lucre, and the black slug who devoured one-tenth of the husbandman's
labors. Such, in fact, was the case in numberless instances, where the
very priest himself durst not with safety render open assistance to his
ecclesiastical enemy, the parson.
In this combination against tithe, it is to be observed, that, as in
all other agitations, whether the object be good or otherwise, those
who took a principal part among the people in the rural districts were
seldom any other than the worst and most unprincipled spirits--reckless
ruffians and desperate vagabonds, without any sense of either religious
or moral obligation to restrain them from the commission of outrage.
It is those men, unfortunately, who, possessed of strong and licentious
energies, and always the most active and contaminating in every
agitation that takes place among us, and who, influenced by neither
shame nor fear, and regardless of consequences, impress their
disgraceful character upon the country at large, and occasion the great
body of society to suffer the reproach of that crime and violence which,
after all, only comparatively a few commit.
Our friend the proctor, we have already stated, had collected the tithes
of three or four parishes; and it is unnecessary, therefore, to say,
that the hostility against him was spread over a wide and populous
district. This was by no means the case with O'Driscol, who was much
more the object of amusement to the people than of enmity. The mask of
bluster, and the cowardly visage it covered, were equally well known
in the neighborhood; and as the Irish possess a quick and almost
instinctive perception of character, especially among their superiors,
we need scarcely say that they played off, on more than one occasion,
many ludicrous pranks at his expense. He was certainly a man of great
importance, at least in his own opinion, or if he did understand
himself, he wished, at all events, to be considered so in the eyes of
others. He possessed, however, much more cunning than any one would feel
inclined to attribute to him, and powers of flattery that were rarely
ever equalled. He was, in fact, one of the few men who could administer
that nauseating dose, without permitting the person who received it to
become sensible that he did so. He had scraped together some wealth by
the good oldsystem of jobbing--had got himself placed upon the Grand
Panel of the county,' and ultimately, by some corrupt influence at
an election, contrived to have the merit of returning the government
candidate, a service which procured him a magistracy. O'Driscol was very
fond of magnifying trifles, and bestowing, a character of importance
upon matters that were of the utmost insignificance. For instance, if
a poor decrepit devil, starving in a hut, and surrounded by destitution
and beggary, were to be arrested for some petty misdemeanor, he would
mount his horse with vast pomp, and proceed at the head of twelve or
eighteen armed policemen to make his caption. But, on the
contrary, whenever any desperate and intrepid character was to be
apprehended--some of those fellows like the notorious Ryan (Puck), who
always carried a case of pistols or a blunderbuss about them, or perhaps
both---our valiant magistrate was either out of the way or had a visit
from the gout--a complaint which he was very fond of parading, because
it is one of aristocratic pretensions, but one, of which, we are
honestly bound to say, he had never experienced a single twitch.
We have already stated that he had received a threatening notice, and
attempted to describe the state of conflicting emotions into which it
threw him. We forgot to state, however, that he had before received
several other anonymous communications of a somewhat more friendly
stamp; the difference between them being the simple fact, that the one
in question was read, and the others of his own composition.
The latter were indeed all remarkable for containing one characteristic
feature, which consisted in a solemn but friendly warning that if he
(the magistrate) were caught at a particular place, upon a particular
day, it might be attended with dangerous consequences to himself.
Our magistrate, however, was not a man to be frightened by such
communications; no,--He was well known in the neighborhood, and he would
let the cowardly scoundrels feel what a determined man could be. He
thought his daredevil character had been sufficiently known; but
since it seemed that it was not, he would teach them a lesson of
intrepidity--the scoundrels. His practice was, on such occasions, to get
a case of pistols, mount his horse, and, in defiance to all entreaty to
the contrary, proceed to the place of danger, which he rode past,
and examined with an air of pompous heroism that was ludicrous in the
extreme.
One morning, about this time, he sat at breakfast, reading the
Potwollopers' Gazette, or the No-Popery Advocate, when, as usual, he
laid it down, and pushing it over to Fergus, he resumed his toast and
butter.
“Well, now,” said he, upon my honor and conscience, it is extraordinary
how these matters creep into the papers. At all events, Fergus, my
friend the Castle will persaive what kind of stuff it's best supporters
consist of.”
“Very appropriate, sir,” replied Fergus--“stuff is an excellent word.”
“And why is it an excellent word, Fergy?”
“It is so significant, sir, as an illustration?”
“Well, I dare say it is,” returned the father; “don't we say of a game
man, such a fellow has good stuff in him? but, setting that aside, do
look at the paragraph about that attack! My friend Swiggerly has done me
full justice. Upon my word, it is extramely gratifying, and especially
in such critical times as these, read it for Kate there, will you?”
“What is it, papa?”
“An account, my dear, of the attack made upon us, and of--but Fergus
will read it out for you.”
Fergus accordingly read as follows:--
EXTRAORDINARY COURAGE AND INTREPIDITY--SEVERAL HUNDRED WHITEBOYS MOST
SPIRITLY REPULSED--FITZGERALD O'DRISCOL, ESQ. J. P.
“On the night of the 24th ultimo, the house of this most active and
resolute magistrate was attacked by a numerous band of ruffianly
Whiteboys, amounting to several hundreds--who, in defiance of his
well-known resolution, and forgetting the state of admirable preparation
and defence in which he always maintains his dwelling-house, surrounded
it with the intention, evidently, of visiting upon him the consequences
of his extraordinary efforts at preserving the peace of the country,
and bringing offenders to justice. The exact particulars of this fearful
conflict have not reached us, but we may, without offence, we trust, to
the modesty of Mr. O'Driscol, venture to give a general outline of the
circumstances, as far as we have heard them. About two o'clock, on the
morning alluded to, and while the whole family were asleep, an attempt
was made to break open the hall-door. This, however, having been heavily
chained, barred, and bolted, and the keys removed to Mr. O'Driscol's
sleeping-room, resisted all attempts of the Whiteboys to enter--a
circumstance which filled them with fury and indignation. In a moment
the family were alarmed, and up. On that night it so happened that Mr.
Alick Purcel, a friend and neighbor of Mr. O'Driscol's, happened to be
staying with them, and almost immediately Mr. O'Driscol, placing the
two young men in something like a steady military position, led them
on personally, in the most intrepid manner, to a position behind the
shutters. From this place the fire of the enemy was returned for a
considerable time with equal bravery, and, it is presumed, effect,
as the grounds about the hall-door were found the next morning to be
stained with blood in several places. Tho heroism of the night, however,
is yet to be related. Mr. O'Driscol, who was certainly supported by his
son and Mr. Purcel in a most able and effective manner, hearing a low,
cautious noise in the back part of the house, went to reconnoitre, just
in time to grapple with the leader of these villains--a most desperate
and ferocious character-cruel, fearless, and of immense personal
strength. He must have got in by some unaccountable means not yet
discovered, with the hope, of course, of admitting his accomplices from
without. A terrific struggle now ensued, which terminated by the fellow,
on finding, we presume, the mettle of the person opposed to him, flying
down stairs towards the kitchen, and from thence, as Mr. O'Driscol
thought, to the coal-hole, whether he fearlessly pursued him, but in
vain. On examining the coal-hole, which Mr. O'Driscol did personally in
the dark--we really shudder at that gentleman's absence of all fear--the
ferocious Whiteboy could not be found in it. The presumption is that he
gave Mr. O'Driscol the slip during pursuit, doubled back, and escaped
from the lobby window, which, on examination, was found open. On this
almost unprecedented act of bravery it is useless to indulge in comment,
especially as we are restrained by regard for Mr. O'Driscol's personal
feelings and well-known modesty on this peculiar subject. His worthy
son, we are aware, inherits his father's courage.”
“The devil I do!” exclaimed Fergus; “ha! ha! ha! Faith, I'm braver than
I had given myself credit for.”
“And we are glad to hear that the present government, sensible of their
obligations to Fitzgerald O'Driscol, Esq., are about to confer the
office of Stipendiary Magistrate upon his son. We are, indeed, glad to
hear this; the office cannot possibly be better bestowed; and thus, so
far as relates to his father, at least, may valuable public services in
critical times be ever appropriately rewarded!”
“Well, Fergy, what do you think of our friend Swiggerly now?”
“In God's name, sir, what does all this rigmarole, in which there is
scarcely a word of truth, mean?”
“Mane! why it manes, sir, that I am anxious to get you a Stipendiary
Magistracy.”
“A Stipendiary Magistracy, father, if you wish and if you can; but not
by such means as this--it is shameful, father, indeed it is.”
“I tell you, Fergus, that unless a man plays a game in this world, he
has little business in it. Manes! Why, what objections can you have to
the manes? A bit of a harmless paragraph that contains very little more
than the truth. I tell you that I threw it out as a hint to my friend
the Castle, and I hope it will act on it, that's all.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed the son, laughing, “take care you don't overdo
the business; for my own part, I wish to obtain a magistracy only by
honorable means;--that is, since you have put the matter into my head,
for until last week I never once thought of it.”
“Neither did I until a couple of weeks ago; and between you and me,
Fergus, the country's in a devil of a state--a very trying one for
Stipendiaries,” replied his father; “but it struck me that I am myself
rather advanced in years for such an appointment, and, in the meantime,
that something of the kind might be in your way, and it is for this
rason that I am feeling the pulse of my friend the Castle.”
“But I am too young, sir, for such an appointment.”
“Not at all, you blockhead; although you get a magistracy in the
paragraph, you don't imagine, I expect, you should get one directly.
No, no; there are gradations in all things. For instance, now,--first
a Chief Constableship of Police; next, a County Inspectorship; and
thirdly, a Stipendiary Magistracy. It is aisy to run you through the
two first in ordher to plant you in the third--eh? As for me I'm
snug enough, unless they should make me a commissioner, of excise or
something of that sort, that would not call me out upon active duty but,
at all events, there's nothing like having one's eye to business, and
being on the lookout for an opportunity.”
“You know, father,” observed Fergus, “I don't now nor ever did approve
of the system, or principle you pursue in these matters, and as I
will not join you in them, I can only say if I do receive a government
appointment, I shall not owe it to anything personally unbecoming
myself.”
“Ah, you're young and green yet, Fergus, but time and expariance will,
open your eyes to your own interests, and you'll live to acknowledge the
folly of having scruples with the world--ay will you.”
“It may be so, sir; but I thank God the time you speak of has not come
yet.”
“Well,” continued his father, “now that we have talked over that matter,
read this;”,and, as he spoke, he handed Fergus a notice, evidently a
friendly one, to the following; effect--
“Hunda.
“Mr. O'Driscol.--It's said that ye're to goto Lisnagola on Shoosda next.
Now I tel ye there's a set upon yer life--don't go on that day, or it'll
bee worser for ye--any way don't pass Philpot's corner betuxt 2 and fore
o'cluck.
“A FRIEND THAT YEW WANST SAVED.”
“What do you think of that, Fergus?”
“Why, sir, it's a proof that you have friends among these turbulent
people. I hope you don't intend going to Lisnagola on that day; by the
way it must mean this day, for this is Tuesday, and the note or notice,
or whatever you call it, is dated on Sunday, I perceive. I trust you
don't intend to to-day, sir, and expose yourself.
“I shall certainly go, sir,” replied his father, rising up quite
indignantly. “What do you think I am? Do you think, sir, that
I--Fitzgerald O'Driscol, am the man to be intimidated by blood-thirsty
dogs like these? No, sir. I shall, at the proper time, arm myself, mount
my good horse and ride, calm as a milestone, past the very spot. D--n
the rascals! do they think to terrify me?”
“If the author of that letter does,” replied Fergus, “he is most
certainly mistaken;” and as he said so he looked significantly at his
sister, who smiled as one would who thoroughly understood the matter.
Just at that moment, Alick Purcel was seen approaching the hall-door,
and in a few minutes he joined them.
“Well, Alick,” said the magistrate, “all well at Longshot Lodge--all
safe and sound for so far?”
“All well, sir, thank you, and safe and sound for so far.”
“Do you know what I think, Alick?”
“No, sir.”
“Upon my honor and conscience I am of opinion, that it's something in
your favor to live so near to me. I act as a kind of protection for you,
Alick. I am morally convinced, ay, and have good raison to know it
from more than one quarther, that your father's house would have
been attacked long since, if it were not for the near neighborhood of
dare-devil O'Driscol. And yet these fellows like courage, Alick; for
instance, read that warning. There you see is a plot laid for my life;
but I'll show the villains that they have the wrong sow by the ear. I
have showed them as much before, and will show them as much again.”
He then handed the note, with an air of triumph, to Alick, who read it
over and assumed a look of great terror.
“Of course you will be guided by this, Mr. O'Driscol.”
“Of course I will not, Mr. Purcel; not a bit of it. I will ride--armed,
of course--past Philpot's corner this very day, at half-past three
o'clock; that is all I say.”
“Well all I can say,” returned Alick, “is that you are a
fearfully-determined man, sir.”
“I grant that, Alick, I know I am; but then it is in my nature. I was
born with it--I was born with it. Any news?”
“Why not much, sir. That scoundrel, Buck English, has written to my
father, notwithstanding all that happened, to know if he will consent to
let Julia marry him. He says in his letter that, although he may be
put off with a refusal now, he will take good care that he shan't be
unsuccessful the next time he asks her.”
“Does nobody, or can nobody find out how that scoundrel--” here the
valorous magistrate's voice sank as if instinctively, and he gave
a cautious glance about him at the same time, but seeing none but
themselves, present he resumed his courage--“how that, rascal finds
manes to cut the figure he-does?”
“I believe not,” replied the other; “but for my part, I am often
disposed to look upon the man as mad; yet still the puzzle is to think
how he lives in such buck style--the vagabond. He certainly is involved
in some-mystery, for every one you meet or talk to is afraid of him.”
“No, not every one, Alick; come, come, my boy, every general rule has an
exception; whisper--I could name you one who is not afraid of him”--and
this he said in a jocular tone--“I only wish,” he added, raising his
voice with more confidence, “that I could get my thumb upon him, I
would--”
He was here interrupted by a loud but mellow voice, which rang
cheerfully with the following words:--
“I'm the rantin' Cannie Soogah.”
“Ha! the Jolly Pedlar! Throw open the window, Fergus, till we have a
chat with him. Well, my rantin' Cannie Soogah, how are you?”
“Faith, your honor, I'm jist betwixt and between, as they say--naither
betther nor worse, but mixed middlin', like the praties in harvest.
However, it's good to be any way at all in these times; so thank God my
head's on my body still.”
“Cannie,” said Fergus, “we were just-talking of Buck English. Mr. Purcel
here-says that there's some mystery about him; for nobody knows how he
lives, and every one almost is afraid of him. My Father, however, denies
that every one is afraid of him.”
“Buck English!” exclaimed the pedlar. “Mr. O'Driscol, darlin', what did
your honor say about him?”
“Why, I--I--a-hem--I wished to have the pleasure, Cannie,
of--of--shaking hands, with the honest fellow; was not that it, Alick?”
“Hands, or thumbs, or something that way,” replied Alick; “threatening
him, as it were.”
“Shaking hands, upon honor, Alick--thumb to thumb, you know.”
“Well, Mr. O'Driscol, you're well known! to have more o' the divil
than the man in you--beggin' your pardon, sir, for the freedoms, I'm
takin'--but it's all for your own good I'm doin' it. Have you e're a
mouse-hole about your place, sir?”
“A-hem! Why, Cannie,” asked O'Driscol, with an expression of strong
alarm in his face--“why do you ask so--so--singular a question as that?”
“Bekaise, sir, sooner than you should breathe--mind, breathe's the
word--one syllable against Buck English, I'd recommend you to go into
the mouse-hole I spoke of, and never show your face out of it agin.
I--an' everybody knows me, an' likes me, too, I hope--I meek--hem!
throth I do make it a point never to name him at all, barrin' when
I can't help it. Nobody knows anything about him, they say. By all
accounts, he never sleeps a week, or at any rate more than a week, in
the same place; an' whatever dress he has on comin' to any particular
part of the counthry, he never changes; but they say that if you find
him in any other part of the counthry, he has a different dress on him:
he has a dress, they say, for every part.”
“He has honored my father,” said Alick, “by sending him a written
proposal for my sister Julia--ha! ha! ha!”
“Well, now, did he, Mr. Alick?”
“Yes; and he says that he may be refused now, but won't the next time he
asks her.”
“Well, then, Mr. Alick, I'll tell you what I'd advise you to do: go
home, and tell your father to send for him, if he knows where to
find him, and let him not lose a day in marryin' her to him; for if
everything is thrue that's said of him, he was never known to break a
promise, whether it was for good or ill.”
“Ha! ha! ha! thank you, Cannie,--excellent!” replied Alick.
“Who can he be, Cannie?” asked Miss O'Driscol, “this person of such
wonderful mystery? I have never seen him, but I wish I could.”
“Ay, have you, often--I'll engage, Miss.”
“And so do I,” added her father; “I wish to see him also, and to have
everything mysterious cleared up.”
“Well,” continued the pedlar, “I know nothing myself about him, only as
I hear; but if all's thrue that's said, he could give your father, and
you, Mr. Alick, lave to walk through the whole counthry in the hour of
noonday or midnight, widout a finger ever bein' raised against one o'
you; and as for you, Mr. O'Driscol, he could have the house pulled about
your ears in an hour's time, if he wished--ay, and he would, too, if he
heard that you spoke a harsh word of him.”
“As for me, Cannie,” replied the magistrate, “I trust I'm a Christian
man, and not in the habit of abusing the absent. Indeed, I don't see
what right any one has to make impertinent inquiries into the life or
way of living of any respectable person--I do not see it, Cannie; and, I
assure you, I always set my face against such prying inquiries.”
“I know, myself,” continued the pedlar, “that there's a great many
things said about him, an' people wishes to know who he is. Now I was
tould a thing wanst by a sartain parson--I won't say who, but I believe
it's not a thousand miles from the truth I'm spakin' about who he is.”
“And who is he?” asked Fergus; “out with it Cannie.”
“Well, then,” he proceeded, in a cautious and confidential whisper,
“it's said by them that ought to know, that he's an illaygal brother to
the Great Counsellor. There now, you have it.”
“Is it to Counsellor O'Connell?”
“Ay, to Counsellor O'Connell--divil a one else. He's as like him as two
pays, barrin' the color o' the hair. Sure the Counsellor puts every
one down that crosses him, and so does Buck English. Miss Katherine,
darlin,' won't you buy something? Here's the best of everything; don't
be afeard of high prices. My maxim always is--to buy dear and sell
chape, for the sake o' the fair sect. Come, gintlemen, Cannie
Soogah's pack is a faist for the leedies--hem--I mane a feest for the
ladies--hillo--ha! ha! ha! there's a touch of Buck English himself for
you. Well, of coorse, what's a faist for the ladies must surely be a
thrate to the gintlemen.”
Alick here availed himself of M'Carthy's experience, and presented Miss
O'Driscol with a beautiful bracelet; O'Driscol and Fergus purchased some
pocket-handkerchiefs and other matters, and our Jolly Pedlar went on his
way rejoicing.
Fergus O'Driscol who was a shrewd and keen observer, could perceive,
during the foregoing interview, that there was on the pedlar's
countenance an expression of grave, hard, solemn irony, which it was
difficult to notice, or having noticed it, to penetrate, or in any way
analyse or understand. To him it was a complete enigma, the solution of
which seized very strongly on his imagination, and set all his powers
of reasoning and investigation to work. All admitted there was a mystery
about Buck English; but Fergus felt a strong impression that there was
one equally impenetrable about the pedlar himself. Having little else,
however, than a passing thought, a fancy, on which to ground this
surmise, he prudently concealed it, from an apprehension of being
mistaken, and, consequently, of subjecting himself to ridicule.
Fergus now brought Alick out to the garden, where they seemed to enjoy
a very merry dialogue if several fits of hearty laughter may be said to
constitute mirth; after this Alick went home; not, however, we should
say until he first contrived to enjoy a short _tete-a-tete_ with Miss
O'Driscol.
When the hour for the departure of the magistrate to test the resolution
of the “men in buckram,” who had resolved upon his assassination, had
arrived, he most magnanimously got a double case of pistols, and in
spite of all remonstrance from both son and daughter, he mounted his
horse--Duke Schomberg--and in a most pompous and heroic spirit rode
forth to quell the latent foe.
We have already stated that O'Driscol's real character was thoroughly
known by the country-folks around him, as the character of every such
person usually is. Whilst he proceeds, then, upon his daring and heroic
enterprise, we beg leave to state very briefly, that Fergus and Alick
Purcel, having laid their heads together, procured, each, two of their
father's laborers, whom they furnished material wherewith to blacken
their faces; not omitting four large cabbage-stalks, with the heads
attached, and kept under the right arm of each. These had been trimmed
and blackened also, in order to have more the appearance of fire-arms.
Thus armed, and with appropriate instructions, they planted themselves
inside the hedges which inclosed the narrow turn of the road at
Philpot's cornet, and awaited their “unsuspecting victim,” as the phrase
unhappily, and with too much truth, goes.
O'Driscol, on approaching the fatal spot, regretted that there were no
eyes upon this extraordinary manifestation of courage. He stretched up
his neck and looked about him in all directions, with a hope that some
one might observe the firmness and utter absence of all fear with which
he came up to the place where the assassins were to lie in wait for
him. He had now come within ten or twelve yards of it when, such was the
force of his own cowardly imagination, that it had worked him up from a
fictitious into a real terror; and on approaching the spot, he could not
prevent himself from coughing pretty loudly, in order to ascertain that
there really was no such thing as ah assassin behind the hedges. He
coughed, we say, with a double case of pistols in his hand, when, heaven
and earth! was the cough responded to--and in a jarring style--from
behind the hedge to the right? He paused, pulled up his horse, and
coughed again, when it also was responded to from that on the left; and
at the same time four faces, dreadfully blackened, peeped, two on
each side of him, and levelling their black and dreadful-looking
blunderbusses--for they could be nothing else--were about to rid the
world of a loyal magistrate, and deprive the Castle of its best friend
and correspondent, when the latter gentleman, wheeling Duke Schomberg
round, put him to most inglorious flight, and scampered off at the top
of his speed.
The jest was admirably managed; and nothing could exceed the unction
with which he related his encounter with the villains. In fact, upon
Falstaff's principle, he had discharged his pistols on the way home,
as a proof of the desperate contest he had had with the blood-thirsty
scoundrels. Like all his other exploits, however, it was added to the
catalogue of his daring conflicts with the Whiteboys, and, ere the lapse
of twenty-four hours, was in possession of “his friend the Castle.”
CHARTER XV.--Scene in a Parsonage--An Anti-Tithe Ringleader.
Hitherto we have described the tithe-agitation as one which was
externally general as well as deep-rooted; and so far we were perfectly
correct. Our readers, however, are not to understand by this that there
did not exist among the people--ay, and the priesthood too--a strong
under-current of sympathy for the sufferings of the protestant clergy.
The latter had indeed been now reduced to such privation as it is
pitiable even to look back upon. One-half the glebe-houses presented
such symptoms of cold nakedness and destitution, such a wrecked and
gutted appearance, as could scarcely be conceived at present. Hundreds
of their occupants had been obliged to part by degrees with all that
was valuable or could be turned into money. The elegant and accomplished
young female, hitherto accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries of
life, was now to be taught a lesson of suffering and endurance as severe
as it was unexpected. Many--many such lessons were taught, and we may
add--well and nobly, and with true Christian fortitude, were they borne.
We have already said that Purcel had the collection of tithe for four
Parishes, and now that the distress among the clergy and their families
had assumed such a dreadful and appalling aspect, he had an opportunity
of ascertaining the extraordinary respect and affection for them which
existed after all in the minds of the people. His own house and premises
were now so strongly secured, and his apprehension of nocturnal attacks
so strongly justified by the threats he had already received, and the
disorganized state of the country around him, that he was forced to
decline receiving the tithe at unseasonable hours; it being impossible
for him to know whether the offer of payment might not have been a plan
of the people to get into his dwelling, and wreak their vengeance
upon him and his sons. Under these circumstances, his advice to them,
communicated with due regard to his own safety, was to pay the money
directly to the clergyman himself, or at least to some of his family;
and this, indeed, when they lived near the clergyman, they always
preferred doing. To be sure, the step was a hazardous one, but, as
they say, where there is a will there is a way; and so it was in many
instances on this occasion. The dead hour of the night was necessarily
selected for the performance of this kind office, and in this way
many an unexpected act of relief was experienced by the starving and
destitute clergy, at the hands of the very persons who were sworn to
abolish tithes, and to refuse paying them in any shape.
Sometimes, to be sure, when Purcel or his sons happened to be abroad
on business, attended as they now generally were by policemen for their
protection, a countryman, for instance, would hastily approach him or
them, as the case might be, and thrusting a sum of money rolled up in
paper, into his hand, exclaim, “It's the thrifle o' the last gale o'
rint, sir, that I was short in--you'll find a bit o' murnmyrandim in
the paper, that'll show you it's all right.” This, uttered with a dry,
significant expression of countenance, was a sufficient indication of
the object intended. On examining the paper, it was generally found to
contain some such direction as the following--
“MR. PURCEL, SIR--The enclosed is for the Rev. Misther Harvey. For God's
sake, give it to him as soon as you can; as I undherstand himself and
family is starvin' outright--I daren't give it to him myself, or be seen
goin' near his house. Sure when we think of the good he done, himself
an' his family, whin they had the manes, it's enough to make one pity
them, especially when we know what they're sufferin' so quietly, an'
without makin' any hubbub about it; but sure, God help us, there's
humbug enough in the counthry. Don't lose time, i' you plase, Mr.
Purcel, as I'm tould that they're brought to the dry praitie at last,
God help them.”
It was in the early part of the day of O'Driscol's last triumph on Duke
Schomberg, that John Purcel went to discharge to a clergyman in the next
parish, a commission of a similar nature to that just recited. He drove
there on a car, accompanied by three policemen, avoiding, as well as he
could, all narrow and dangerous passes, and determined to return, if at
all practicable, by a different road, for such of late was the practice
of the family, when out on business. An it is, however, we shall
leave him on his way and take the liberty of requesting our readers
to anticipate his arrival, for the purpose of getting a glimpse at the
condition of those to whom he was carrying some slight means of mere
temporary relief.
The clergyman, whose desolate habitation he was about to visit, had
passed about sixty winters, fifteen of which he had spent in that house,
and thirty in the parish. That is to say, he had been fifteen years
curate, and fifteen rector, without ever having been absent more than
a month or six weeks at a time; and even these absences occurred
but rarely. We remember him well, and with affection, as who of his
survivors that ever knew him does not? He was tall, that is, somewhat
above the middle height, and until pressed down by the general
affliction which fell upon his class and his family, he had been quite
erect in his person. He was now bent, however, as by a load of years,
and on his pale face lay the obvious traces of sorrow and suffering. But
this was not all; whilst Destitution of the severest kind had impressed
on that venerable countenance the melancholy exponent of her presence,
Religion had also blended with it that beautiful manifestation of her
unshaken trust in God; of patience, meekness, and a disposition to
receive at his hands the severest dispensations of life, with a spirit
of cheerful humility and resignation. Take a cursory glance at his face,
and there, no doubt, you saw at once that sorrow and suffering lay.
Look, however, a little longer; observe the benign serenity of that
clear and cloudless eye; mark the patient sweetness of that firm and
well-formed mouth, and the character of heroic tranquility that pervades
his whole person, and sanctifies his sorrows, until they fill the heart
of the spectator with reverence and sympathy, and his mind with a sense
of the dignity, not to say sublimity, which religion can bestow upon
human suffering, in which it may almost be said that the creature gains
a loving triumph over the Creator himself.
Every one knows that, in general, the clergy of Ireland, as a class,
lived from hand to mouth, and that the men who suffered most during
the period of which we write were those whose livings were of moderate
income. The favored individuals, who enjoyed the rich and larger
incumbencies, the calamity did not reach, or if it did, only in
a slighter degree, and with but comparatively little effect. The
cessation, therefore, of only one year's income to those who had no
other source of support on which to depend, was dreadful. In many
instances, however, their tithes had been refused for two, and, in
some localities, for nearly three years, although the opposition to
the payment had not for such a length of time assumed the fierce and
implacable spirit which had characterized it during the last twelve
months. These observations will now enable our readers to understand
more clearly the picture with which we are about to present them.
On entering the house of this truly pious and patient pastor, the first
thing that struck you was the sense of vacancy and desolation united. In
other words, you perceived at a glance that everything of any value was
gone. You saw scarcely any furniture--no clock, no piano, no carpeting,
no mahogany chairs or tables, or at least none that were not of absolute
necessity. Feather beds had gone, curtains had gone; and all those
several smaller elegancies which it is difficult, and would be tedious,
to enumerate here. Seated at a breakfast-table, in an uncarpeted parlor,
was the clergyman himself, surrounded by his interesting but afflicted
family. His hair, which, until within the last twelve months, had been
an iron gray, was now nearly white, and his chin was sunk in a manner
that had not, until recently, been usual with him. Servants, male and
female, had been dismissed, and those whose soft, fair hands had
been accustomed only to the piano, the drawing-pencil, or the
embroidery-frame, were now engaged in the coarsest and commonest
occupations of domestic life. Nor were they, too, without their
honorable sacrifices of personal vanity and social pride, to the
calamity that was upon them. Silks and satins, laces and gauzes,
trinkets, unnecessary bonnets and veils, were all cheerfully parted
with; and it was on such occasions that our friend the _Cannie Soogah_
became absolutely a kind of public benefactor. He acted not only in the
character of a pedlar, but in that of a broker; and so generally known
were his discretion and integrity throughout the country, that such
matters were disposed of to him at a far less amount of shame and
suffering than they could have been in any other way.
The family in question consisted of the father, his wife, four
daughters, and three sons; the eldest daughter had been, for some
months, discharging the duty of governess in a family of rank; the
eldest son had just got an appointment as usher in a school near
the metropolis; two circumstances which filled the hearts of this
affectionate family with a satisfaction that was proportionately
heightened by their sufferings.
About this period they expected a letter from their daughter; and on the
morning in question their father had dispatched one of his boys to the
post-office, with a hope of receiving it. The male portion of the family
were the younger, with the exception of the eldest son, who was their
third child. Their position was as follows: the old man sat at the end
of a plain table, with his bible open before him--for they had just
concluded prayer: his wife, a younger-looking woman, and faded more
by affliction than by age, sat beside him, holding on her breast their
third daughter--she who had been once the star of their hearth, and who
reclined there in mute sorrow, her pale cheek and wasted hands giving
those fatal indications of consumption in its last stage, which so
severely tries the heart of parent or relative to witness. The other two
girls sat opposite, one of them in tears, turning her heart-broken
look now upon the countenance of her father and again upon that of her
gentle, but almost dying sister, whilst her companion endeavored to
soothe her little brother, who was crying for food; for the simple fact
was, that they had not yet breakfasted, nor were the means of providing
a breakfast under their roof. Their sole hope for that, as well as for
more enlarged relief, depended upon the letter which they expected from
their eldest daughter.
It is scarcely necessary to say that they all looked pale, sickly, and
emaciated with suffering, and want of' the comfortable necessaries of
life. Their dress was decent, of course, but such as they never expected
to have been forced to wear so long. The crying boy was barefooted,
and the young creature who endeavored to console him had thin and worn
slippers on her tender feet, and her snowy skin was in more than one
place visible through the rents of her frock. The old man looked
at them, from time to time; and there might have been observed,
notwithstanding the sweetness and placidity of his smile, a secret
expression of inward agony--the physical and natural feelings of the
parent and the man mingling, or rather struggling, with the great
principle of dependence on God, without which he must at once have sunk
down prostrate and hopeless.
“When,” said the boy, “will Edward come from the post-office? Is there
nothing at all in the house, mamma, that I could eat?”
“Hush! Frank,” said his sister; “where's your generosity and your
patience? Did we not all promise to think of papa and mamma before
ourselves--yes, and of our poor Maria, too, who is so ill?”
“That is true,” replied the boy, “but when I promised that, I wasn't so
hungry as I am now. But, still, if I had anything to eat, I would
give the best part of it to papa or mamma, or Maria, if she could eat
it--that is, after I had taken one mouthful for myself. Oh will Ned
never come from the post-office?”
“Mamma,” said the sick girl, looking up into her mother's eyes, “I
am sustained by one hope, and that is, that I will soon cease to be a
burthen upon dear papa--my heartbroken papa and you. I am anxious to
pass away to that blessed place where all tears shall be wiped from my
eyes;” and as she spoke she raised herself a little, and quietly wiped
one or two from them; and, she proceeded, “where the weary will be at
rest. Alas! how little did we expect or imagine this great weight of
suffering!”
“My darling child,” said her mother, kissing her pale cheek, and
pressing her more tenderly to her bosom, “you have ever been more
solicitous for the comfort and well-being of others than you have been
for your own; yet, well and dearly as we love you, how can we grudge you
to God? It was He who gave you to us--it is He who is taking you from
us; and what can we say, but blessed be His name?”
“My children,” said the old man, “what would life be if there were
nothing to awaken us to a sense of our responsibilities to our Creator?
If it presented to us nothing but one unshaken path of pleasure and
ease--one equal round of careless enjoyment and indolent apathy? Alas!
my darlings, do not we, who are aged and have experience, know that it
is those who are not taken by calamity and suffering who gradually fall
into that hardness of heart, which prevents the spirit from feeling one
of the most wholesome of truths--that indifference is danger, and that a
neglect of the things which belong to a better life, and which serve
to prepare us for it, is the great omission of those who are not
called upon to suffer. You know, my children, that whom God loveth He
chasteneth, and it is true. To those whom He graciously visits with
affliction, it may be said that He communicates, from time to time,
a new revelation of Himself; for it is by such severe but wholesome
manifestations that He speaks to and arouses the forgetful or the
alienated heart. Our calamity, however, and sufferings, possess more
dignity, and are associated with a greater work than that involved
in the isolated sorrows of a single family. God is chastising a cold,
corrupt, and negligent church, through the turbulence and outrage of the
people. What has our church in this country been, within the memory of
man, but a mere secular establishment, like the law or the army, into
which men enter not from a lofty and pure sense of the greatness
of their mission, but as a convenient means of securing an easy and
indolent profession? I know not what our church might have been if left
to herself; but this I do know, that for many a long year the unblushing
iniquity of British policy has served only to corrupt and degrade her,
and to make what ought to be the speaking oracle of God's truth, the
consolation of the penitent sinner, the sure guide to the ignorant or
the doubtful--yes, to make that Church, which ought to be a source of
purity, of blessing, and of edification, to all--a system of corrupt
rewards for political prostitution, parcelled out to meet the sordid
spirit of family alliances and ungodly bargains; or, in other words, to
turn her into a mass of bribes--a base appendage to the authority of
the British minister, who used her as the successful medium of at
once enslaving and demoralizing the country, instead of elevating and
civilizing it. It is for this great neglect of national duty, and for
permitting ourselves to be imbued with the carnal and secular spirit,
which has led us so far from practical truth and piety, that the church
is now suffering. We have betrayed our trust, and been treacherous both
to God and man. For my own part, my children, I am glad that I and mine
have been counted worthy to suffer in this cause. We are now passing
through the furnace, but we shall come out purified. Our grossness shall
be purged away, and the proud spirit of mammon burned out of us. But you
know that God, my dear ones, can accomplish a double purpose by the
same means. Our church shalt be exalted and purified, and her ministers
prepared for a higher and holier mission than that in which they
have hitherto been engaged. She shall awaken to a sense of her great
responsibility; a new spirit shall be created within her; a living
energy shall characterize those who have slumbered under the unholy
shadows which she has cast around her, and those who think that they
are smiting her unto death shall find that they have been made only
the instruments in God's hands for the purification of her body and the
regeneration of her spirit. Charles,” he added, turning to the boy, who
still wept, although as furtively as he could, “bear up, my child: Ned,
you may rest assured, will make as little delay as possible, and I hope
he will bring us relief.”
“Mamma,” said the invalid, looking up tenderly into her face, “will
you--oh! no, not you, mamma--Emily will--a mouthful of drink, Emily
dear, and let it be pure water, Emily; I think it agrees with me best.”
“Alas, my darling!” exclaimed her mother, wiping away a few quiet tears,
“I have nothing else to give you.”
“Well, mamma, but you know I like it very much.”
“Precious child,” replied her mother, again tenderly pressing her to her
bosom; “we all know your goodness, and the reluctance with which you ask
anything that you fear might occasion us trouble. Dearest life, it will
be the memory of these glimpses of angelic goodness that will wring
our hearts when you are----” She paused, for the words had been uttered
unconsciously.
“Yes,” said her father, “they will console us, my child, and make your
memory smell sweet, and blossom from the very dust. You have probably
heard of the beautiful sentiment so exquisitely delineated by the great
painter--'I too have been in Arcadia,'--and will it not be something to
us to be able to say,--'We too have an angel in paradise!'”
Her sister brought her a cup of cold water, with which, after thanking
her with a sweet smile, she merely wet her lips. “Alas! I am very
troublesome to you all, but I shall not long--”
“Darling sister,” said Emily, tenderly kissing her, “do not speak so;
you are too good, and ever were so. Ah! Maria,” she exclaimed, gushing
into tears, “is it come to this at last!”
The sick girl placed her hand affectionately upon her cheek, and
said--“Dear, dear sister, how I love you! Oh! how I love you all! and
papa, my dear papa, how I pity you in your sorrow!”
“Thanks, my darling, I know that your heart is pervaded and sustained by
all tenderness and affection; and indeed it is a consolation that since
calamity has come upon us, it has fallen upon a family of love--of love
to which it only gives greater strength and tenderness. This is a great
blessing, my children, and we ought to feel deeply thankful for it. But,
at the same time, it matters not what we suffer, we must allow nothing
in this world of trial to shake our trust in God. Here, however, is our
poor little messenger. Well Edward, any letter?”
“Oh, yes, papa; there is one from Matilda. I know her writing.”
He then handed the letter to his father, and immediately going over
to his sick sister, he placed a slice of bread and butter in her hand,
adding, “The head-constable of police gave it to me; I would have
refused it though--but for Maria.”
“Did you eat none of it yourself, Edward?” asked Maria.
“No,” he replied, “I thought mamma might make you up some light nice
thing out of it.”
“But I cannot eat it, my dear Ned; divide it as you wish, but thank you,
darling, from my heart, for thinking of me.”
He then would have shared it as equally as he could among them, but to
himself and his brother it was left; the others, from a feeling which
may easily be understood, declined to partake of it.
We do not, of course, give this as a general picture of the distress
which was felt; but we do give it as a picture which was by no means
rare among the established clergy at the period of which we write. We
know, from the best authority, that the privations of the time were
frequently so severe as to find many families without food to eat.
Their daughter's letter was touching and simple, but unfortunately it
contained, not the remittance they expected; a circumstance which, in
their condition, was such a disappointment as cannot well be described.
She stated that, in consequence of the absence from home, for some days,
of the family with whom she lived, it was out of her power to send them
the full amount of her first quarter's salary as she had intended, or
any money at all, as they knew she had none except her salary to send.
She wrote, however, lest they might think or suppose for a moment that
she had forgotten them. She sent her warmest love and affection to them
all, especially to Maria, whom she hoped her letter would find better.
Here she mentioned them all by name, and concluded by saying, that the
moment the family returned home, she would remit to her dear papa the
amount of her whole quarter's salary.
The youngsters all burst into tears, the fact being that they had not
tasted food for more than eighteen hours. The mother, worn and pale
with anxiety and distress, turned sorrowfully to her husband and said:
“Charles, what is to be done? must our children die? must they perish
with famine?”
“Send Charles over to M'Mahon's,” replied her husband; “he is poor, it
is true, but he is our next neighbor, and from him, if he will oblige
us, relief will come soonest. Charles, go, my child, and ask Con M'Mahon
if he will be good enough to send me a stone or two of potatoes for a
few days; and I will feel obliged--your brother, poor child, is fatigued
by his journey to the post-office, and from other causes--or being the
elder I would make him go--if M'Mahon obliges me, tell him that I will
thank him to send them, as I have no messenger to fetch them. I have
always found poor M'Mahon respectful and neighborly, and I am certain he
will not refuse us.”
We shall not detail the distressing and melancholy conversation, in
which they were engaged until the child's return. It is enough to say
that, although he met with no refusal, the expected relief was not sent.
“Well, my child,” inquired his anxious father, “what reply did he give?”
“He said, papa,” returned the child, “that he would give you a whole
sack of potatoes with pleasure, but that, to send them in the open day,
would be more than his life is worth--he dare not do it.”
The old man looked up, then clasping his hands together, and glancing at
his unhappy family, a few bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.
“But,” added the boy, “he said he would bring over as many as he could
carry, about twelve o'clock to-night.”
“Well,” continued his father, “that is civil; and I believe, as to the
danger, he is right. But, in the meantime, what is to be done? I fear
all the available sources of relief have been already exhausted, with
the exception of heaven alone--in which, my children, we must not permit
anything to shake our trust. I am feeble, but yet I must go forth and
try to secure some food for you, my poor famishing family: hold up,
then, my dear children, even for a little, for certain I am that God
will provide for us still.”
He was, accordingly, upon the point of going out, when John Purcel
entered; and as the object of his visit is already known to the reader,
we shall leave to his imagination the sense of the relief which it
afforded.
This now is not an overdrawn picture of particular cases--and they were
numerous--which occurred during the period of what was termed the Tithe
rebellion.
The circumstance of the message to M'Mahon's, however, was the cause
of a scene which we could not possiby omit, in a work treating of this
peculiar and most distressing crisis. As the boy Charles was on his way
to M'Mahon's--and this he mentioned to the family afterwards--he was
met, he said, by a gentleman dressed in rusty black, mounted upon a
strong, coarse horse; and who, after looking at him with a good deal of
surprise, said--“What is your name, my fine fellow?” and on hearing
it he asked him where he was going. The child, who had been trained to
nothing but truth; mentioned at once the object of his message; upon
which the gentleman in question, after having heard it, thrust his hands
into his smallclothes pocket, and then drew them out with an air of
impatience, exclaiming--“Bad luck to it for poverty--it's the curse
o' the counthry.” Now this worthy priest, for such he was, had not been
many weeks in the parish at the period of his meeting with the little
boy; and it so happened, that his residence was within about a quarter
of a mile of the glebe house. He was, besides, one of the few who had
given, upon more than one occasion, rather unequivocal manifestations of
violent opposition to the whole system of tithes. As a matter of course,
he was the last individual from whom anything like sympathy for those
who suffered in such a cause might be expected. Much of the same
character was M'Mahon, to whom the distressed parson had applied for the
humble loan of food. He assailed, in fact, the whole Establishment, and
took both an active and conspicuous part in the excitement which then
agitated the country. He joined the crowds, vociferated and shouted
among them at the top of his lungs, and took the liberty of laying down
the law on the subject, as he termed it: that is to say, of swearing
that one stick or stone of their dirty Establishment should not be
left upon another, but that the whole bobbery of it must be sent to
blazes--where it would all go yet, plaise God. Of course his neighbor,
the parson, was by no means cognizant of this violence on the part of
M'Mahon, or he would never have thought of applying to him, even under
the severest pressure of absolute destitution.
Having premised thus much concerning these two individuals, we request
our readers to accompany us to the house of the Rev. Anthony Casey,
and to suppose that it is a little after the hour of eleven o'clock at
night. The worthy gentleman and his curate had just seated themselves
in his snug, but humble little parlor, where a pleasant turf fire was
beginning to get somewhat dim, when the following dialogue occurred
between them:
“Pettier,” said Father Anthony to his curate, who had just returned from
a sick call, “you found the night bitther, I think?”
“It is very cold, indeed, sir.”
“You have had a long ride of it upon that mountain road, without even a
bush to shelther you.”
“It is not less than fourteen miles I think,” replied the curate, “and a
cold, desolate road as I ever travelled.”
“You have read your office?”
“I have, sir.”
“You have discharged your duty to that poor, sick widow?”
“I hope so, sir.”
“And you have ridden under a severe night, along a naked road, a
distance of fourteen miles?”
“I have, sir.”
“And you feel your mind aisy, and your conscience at rest?”
“I can say so with truth, thank God,” replied the curate.
“Well, then, in that case,” proceeded the kind-hearted priest, “I think
you had better take a tumbler of punch: it will comfort you, and make
you sleep like a top.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied the curate, “I am much obliged to you; but I
don't require it, I have no particular wish for it.”
“But I tell you, man alive, that it will do you good; and lest you might
feel solitary, I think I will take one with you, merely to keep you in
countenance;--here Katty!”
Katty, a complacent, kind-looking woman, somewhat past the middle period
of life, then made her appearance. “Well, your reverence?”
“Get hot water and tumblers--Father Pettier is starved after his long
ride such a night, and must have a tumbler of punch to warm him, poor
fellow, and I am going to keep him in countenance; and see, Katty, bring
the poteen that's in Ould Broadbottom, at the right-hand side o'
the cubbard. Stir the fire a little, Pettier, and throw on a sod or
two--it's getting dull.”
This was complied with; and Father Peter observed, after he had trimmed
the grate a little:--
“The country, sir, is in a frightful state. This tithe rebellion is
quite general. On my way out to Drumfurrar and home again, I met large
crowds on the roads, cold as the night is; and on speaking to, and
remonstrating with them, upon meeting and being abroad at such hours,
they desired me to mind my own business, and allow them to mind theirs.
The country is literally alive with them night and day.”
“Very well,” replied Father Anthony, “let them work out their own
purposes, provided they keep within the limits of the law. You know the
Established Church is nothing else than an English garrison to support
and keep alive British interests in this country; but the people are
going the right way to work; for I tell you, Pettier, that, by strictly
observing the doctrine of passive resistance, they will starve the same
garrison clane and clear out o' the country. And won't that be a great
day for Ireland, Pettier?”
“Yes, sir, no doubt of it; but in the meantime the unfortunate parsons
are suffering dreadfully: many of them are starving literally, and it
is those who have not hoarded up the mammon of unrighteousness, but have
been charitable and benevolent to the poor, who are now suffering most.”
“Ay, faith, that's not a bad thought, Pettier; but I tell you the mammon
of unrighteousness is by no means a bad thing. We may say as we will, we
priests and parsons, but I say to you, what is a man worth in this world
without money? Not a thraneen. A complete nonenity, and sorras thing
else. And whisper, Pettier; what is the starving of the parsons to us?
They had the fat an' marrow of the land long, enough, and I think it's
full time that we should come in for a lick at last. Think of you or I
living to see ourselves rolling about in a rich carriage, with a lump
of a mithre, like a pair of ass's ears stuck together, painted on the
outride of it, and we waiting, and drinkn' of the best. Arra, salvation
to me, but the prospect's a born beauty, so it is, and will be rayalized
yet, plaise God.”
“Too much wealth, sir, is an enemy to religion.”
“Well, Pettier, that may be so occasionally; but here's your health, and
in the meantime, I didn't care that some of us had a little more of it.
I would have given a pound-note today to have had five shillings about
me; and sorra testher I had in my company.”
“You must have been pretty closely pressed for cash, when you would have
given such a premium.”
“Troth, then, I was; and when the poor boy mentioned whose son he was,
and when I saw his little delicate feet without shoes, and heard his
story--mammon of unrighteousness! devil a thing in life aiquil to it.
It enables a man to do the practical good, and not satisfy himself or
escape with empty words.”
“They say our neighbor here, Mr. Goodison, is very ill off.”
“Well, I dare say he's not on the top of the wheel; however, as I said,
what's their starvation to us? If it was laid upon them for their sins,
do you think it would be right in us to intherfare and set ourselves
against Providence?--blessed be His name.”
“Well, I must confess,” replied his amiable curate, “that I was not
prepared for such an argument as that from you. You know we ought to
love our enemies.”
“Very well,” replied Father Anthony; “I have no objection to love our
enemies, provided they feed themselves. But surely to love and feed them
is rather too much of a good thing.”
During this brief dialogue they had mixed each his tumbler of punch,
and after a pause of some minutes, during which the hardhearted parish
priest sighed deeply as he looked into the fire, he exclaimed--
“You know, Pettier, that I am opposed to a Protestant Established Church
in this country; and you know, besides, that I have gone farther in this
tithe affair than most of my brethren, and on that account I hope you
are not surprised at my opinions. Starve them out's my maxim. But still,
aftcher all, salvation to me, but it's a trying case to be without food,
and above all, to see your own children--”
“My own children,” exclaimed the curate, with a smile.
“Ay, Pether,” proceeded this benevolent hypocrite, forgetting
everything but the image that was before him--“Ay, in troth, your own
children--your own children, poor things, without a morsel to put
into their mouths; and your wife, Pether, that you love betther
than--than--aye, than a station dinner, a thousand times--sittin' with a
pale face and a breaking, or, maybe, a broken heart, looking on at their
privations and their miserable destitution, without being able to
render them the laist assistance. Bad luck to it, for a mammon of
unrighteousness, it's never in the way when it's wanted.”
After he had concluded, he took out a red cotton pocket-handkerchief,
spotted at equal distances with white dice, and wiped away the tears
that had gushed to his eyes whilst he spoke.
“Pettier,” said he, immediately, “finish your tumbler and go to bed; you
know we must be off to-morrow to station before six o'clock, and after
your bitther ride to-night you want rest, poor fellow.”
When about a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and he had seen Peter
to bed, he went to the kitchen, and asked Katty, his housekeeper, who
always attended upon him and his curate, if she had done what he desired
her.
“It's done, your reverence,” she replied, “but you'll never be able to
carry it.”
“That's not your affair, Katty--do you hear now?”
“I do, your reverence.”
“Very well, then, I tell you that's none of your affair,--the sorra bit.
I hope you did'nt let Barney go to bed?”
“Of coorse not, sir, when you bid me keep him up.”
“Very well, then; and if either he or you brittle a syllable of this
to Father Pether, I'll read you both oat--do you hear that now? Bring
Barney here, then.”
Barney accordingly made his appearance.
“Now mark me,” continued the priest, “if either of you ever brathes a
syllable of this, salvation to me, but I'll read you both out from the
althar. Here now help me on with this sack; it's for a distressed person
in the neighborhood that wants it badly, as you may judge, or I wouldn't
be trudging off with it at this hour of the night. Katty, you go to
bed, and let Barney stay up till I come back--did you mind my words, I
repate--read you both out, if ever a syllable comes to Father Pother's
ears, or anybody's else's but our own.”
The servant man accordingly assisted him to raise upon his stout and
honest shoulders a short heavy bag of oatmeal, into which he had
thrust a large flitch of newly-hung bacon; and thus loaded, the violent
anti-tithe priest bent his way, nearly at the hour of twelve o'clock, to
the residence of the Rev. Mr. Goodison, his neighbor.
It is necessary to state here, that the glebe-house of that gentleman
was situated within about two hundred yards of two crossroads, one of
which went by the gate of entrance to it. After a severe trudge, during
a night that began now to brighten as the moon rose, Father Anthony
found himself approaching the cross-roads in question, and for a moment
imagined that he saw his own shadow before him, an impression which
soon changed on observing that the shadow, or whatever it was, although
loaded much as he himself was, that is to say, with a sack on his
shoulders, evidently approached him--a circumstance which he knew to
be an impossibility, and that it must, consequently, be a distinct
individual. Having satisfied himself of this, he got under the shade of
a hedge, a movement in which he was instantly imitated by the stranger.
Each stood concealed for some time, with a, hope that the other might
advance and turn probably out of his way; but neither seemed disposed to
move. At length, Father Anthony gave a kind of inquisitive, dry cough,
by way of experiment, which was instantly responded to by another cough
equally dry and mysterious. These were repeated two or three times
without success, when at last Father Anthony advanced a little under
shadow of the hedge, and found as before that the strange individual did
the same; and thus, in fact, they kept gradually, coughing at each other
and approaching until they fairly met face to face, each with a sack
upon his shoulders.
“Con M'Mahon!” exclaimed the priest, “why, what on earth brought you out
at this hour of the night, and--aisy, what is this you're' carrying?”
“Faix, your reverence,” replied the other, “I might as well ask yourself
the same two questions.”
“I know you might,” said Father Anthony; “but in the manetime you had
better not.”
The priest spoke like one whose wind had not been improved by the
burthen he carried; and M'Mahon, anxious if possible to get rid of
him, determined to enter into some conversation that might tire out his
strength. He consequently selected the topic of the day as being best
calculated for that purpose.
“Isn't these blessed times that's coming, plaise your reverence,” said
M'Mahon, “when we'll be done wid these tithes, and have the millstone
taken from our necks altogether?”
This was spoken in a most wheedling and insinuating tone replete with
the the confidence of one who knew that the stronger he spoke the more
satisfaction he would give his auditor, and the more readily he would
avert any suspicion as to his object and appearance at such an hour.
“Yes,” returned the priest, giving his burthen an uneasy twitch, “we
have had too weighty a load upon our shoulders this many a day, and the
devil's own predicament it is to be overburthened with anything--we all
know that.”
“Sorra doubt of it,” replied the other, easing himself as well as he
could by a corresponding hitch; “but it's one comfort to myself anyhow,
that I done my duty against the same tithes--an' bad luck to them!”
“If you did your duty, you weren't without a good example, at all
events,” replied the priest; “I taught you how to hate the accursed
impost--but at the same time, you know I always told you to make a
distinction between the tithes and the--hem--”
“An' what, your reverence?”
“Hem--why you know, Con, that we're commanded to love our enemies, and
it was upon this ground that I always taught you to make a distinction,
as I say, between the tithes and the parsons themselves. And by the way,
now, I don't know but it would be our duty,” he proceeded, “to render
the same parsons, now that they're suffering, as much good for evil as
possible. It would be punishing the thieves by heaping, as the Scripture
says, coals of fire upon their heads.”
“And do you think, your reverence,” replied the other, who was too quick
of apprehension not to suspect what the priest was driving at, “do you
think that I have been so long listening to your advice, not to know
that such a coorse was my duty?”
“That's the way,” continued the priest, “to punish them like a
Christian.”
“Ay, to punish them, your reverence, as you say--an' in troth, I'm the
man myself that 'ud go any length to do it.”
“But where are you bound to now, Con, and what--ahem--what is that you
are carrying?” asked the priest.
“Why then, it's the butt-end of a sack o' pittities,” replied Con,
giving an answer only to the easiest side of the query.
“Well, but who are you bringing them?” he asked again, “because, thank
God, there's not much poverty in this neighborhood at present.”
“Well, then, God forgive me!” replied the other, concealing his
benevolence by a grin, which he could not prevent at his own ingenuity,
but which he endeavored to conceal as well as he could; “God forgive me!
but hearin' that Goodison the parson here, and his family were in great
distress, I thought I might as well have my revenge aginst him, by
fetchin' him a load o' praties, which is all I can spare the poor
ould--hem--the heretical ould creature--and so, says I to myself, it's
a good opportunity of heapin' the coals upon him that you spoke about,
sir. And upon my conscience, as far as a good weighty butt o' praties
goes, I'll punish him this very night.”
The priest gave a short hiccup or two, as if laboring under some
momentary affection of the throat, which soon extended to the eyes, for
with some difficulty he put up his naked hand and wiped away a kind of
moisture, that in ordinary cases would have very much resembled tears.
“Ah, I see, Con!” he said, after clearing his throat a little, “you
had a grudge against him like myself, and you determined to--ay--just
so--you see, Con, here's the way of it; he didn't visit me yet since I
came to the parish--do you understand?--and I tell you, flesh or blood
couldn't overlook such a slight; so I'm glad, at all events, that you
had the spirit to follow my advice--for the truth is, I'm goin' to have
my revenge as well as yourself; but when one does take his revenge, Con,
it's always best to take it like a Christian. So now that we understand,
one another, let us go up to the glebe--otherwise I'll drop.--However,
salvation to me!” he exclaimed with a smile, “if we'll bear their
burthens much longer! I have a butt of meal here, I saw his son to-day,
too, without a stitch to his foot, poor boy.”
“And so did I,” replied M'Mahon; “he sent one o' them over to me for the
loan of a lock o' praties.”
“Oh, God help them!” exclaimed the priest. “Come, Con, let us hurry--but
why didn't you send them then?”
“Why, sir--why, bekaise I daren't send them in open daylight.”
“True enough,” said the other; “and it was stupid of me to ask. I myself
would have sent what I'm carrying to him by Barney Brennan, but that I
feared it would take wind, in which case the people might withdraw their
confidence from me, from an apprehension that I wanted to curry favor
with the parson of the parish, which I assure you, Condy, I do not. But
listen to me, now; you're never to brathe a syllable of this adventure.”
“Ill give you my oath of it, sir, if you wish, takin' it for granted, at
the same time, that I'm safe with you.”
“Never fear that; I'm not the man to play the traitor on any poor fellow
that I might catch at any illegal work of the kind.”
Both were now within a few perches of the hall-door, when the
priest, who was scarcely able to speak from fatigue, said with some
difficulty:--
“Con, as we have met, I think you must take the responsibility of this
night's adventure on yourself. Here, now,” said he, depositing his
burden against the door as he spoke, “I think the best thing to do, in
order to spare their feelings--for I need not tell you, that they are,
by all accounts, a delicately-minded and highly-educated family--and
it will be well to tax them as little as possible; I say then,--let us
place, these sacks against the hall-door, and as soon as it is opened,
they will tumble in heels foremost upon them, and then you can cut. So
now I leave you to manage it, only, on any earthly account, don't name
me to a living soul in the business. Good night, now, and God bless
you--as He will,” he added, retreating from the hall-door--“as He will,
you kind-hearted, good-natured ringleader you.”
The matter, however, did not end here, for, as Burns says, “the
best-laid schemes of mice and men may gang agree.” The aid received
by the venerable Mr. Goodigon and his family had escaped through the
children, in the early part of the next day, and had spread through the
neighborhood; and sooth to say, there was scarcely a voice among them
louder in condemnation of the fact than that of Con M'Mahon, who said
it was a bad way to banish tithes by assistin' the parsons. So far as
he was concerned, however, the secret did not at all transpire. His
reverence, however, was by no means so fortunate. The next morning,
he and his curate were under the necessity of holding a station in a
distant part of the parish. Father Anthony, however, feeling himself
fatigued by his burthen of the preceding night, sent the curate on
before him, with an assurance that he would follow him in an hour or
two. He accordingly did so, but, with his usual inattention to dress,
was seen the next morning, about ten o'clock, riding along the public
road--which was a great thoroughfare--towards the locality of the
station with the history of the previous night's transaction written
as clearly oh his back as if it had been labelled there in large and
legible print. The truth is, the humane and charitable priest had
neglected to get his coat brushed--an operation which it never underwent
unless on a Sunday morning--and the consequence was, that whilst the
front part of his dress was tolerably black, the back part of it would
have done credit to the coat of a miller. The sagacity of the people
was not for a moment at fault. Both circumstances were immediately
connected; his reverence's secret took wind, and before the expiration
of forty-eight hours was known to the whole parish.