Mr McQueen was a good farmer, but at the time he lived in Ireland,
farmers could not own their farms.
The land was all owned by rich landlords, who did not do any work
themselves. These landlords very often lived away in England or France,
and did not know much about how the poor people lived at home, or how
hard they had to work to get the money for the rent of their farms.
Sometimes, when they did know, they didn't care. What they wanted was
all the money they could get, so they could live in fine houses and wear
beautiful clothes, and go where they pleased, without doing any work.
When the landlords were away, they had agents to collect the rents for
them.
The business of these agents was to get all the rent money they could,
and they made life very hard for the farmers.
Sometimes when the farmers couldn't pay all the rent, the agent would
turn them out of their houses. This was called "evicting" them. The
farm that Mr McQueen lived on, as well as the village and all the
country roundabout, was owned by the Earl of Elsmore, who lived most of
the year in great style in England. The agent who collected rents was
Mr Conroy. Nobody liked Mr Conroy very much, but everybody was afraid
of him, because he could do so much to injure them.
So one morning when Mr McQueen came back very early from his
potato-field, he was not glad to see Mr Conroy's horse standing near
his door, and Mr Conroy himself, leaning on the farmyard fence, looking
at the fowls.
"How are you, McQueen?" said Mr Conroy, when Mr McQueen came up.
"Well enough, Mr Conroy," said Mr McQueen.
"And you're doing well with the farm, too, it seems," said Mr Conroy.
"Those are good-looking fowls you have, and the pig is fine and fat.
How many cows have you, now?"
"Two, and a heifer," said Mr McQueen.
"You drained that field over by the bog this year, didn't you, and have
it planted to turnips?" went on Mr Conroy. "I'm glad to see you so
prosperous, McQueen. Of course, now, the farm is worth more than it was
when you first took it, and so you'll not be surprised that I'm raising
the rent on you."
"If the farm is worth more, 'tis my work that has made it so," said Mr
McQueen, "and I shouldn't be punished for that. The house is none too
good at all, and the place is not worth more. Last year was the drought
and all manner of bad luck, and next year may be no better. Truly, Mr
Conroy, if you press me, I don't know how I can scrape more together
than I'm paying now."
"Well, then," said Mr Conroy. "You must just find a way, for this is
one of the best farms about here, and you should pay as much as any
one."
"You can't get money by shaking a man with empty pockets," said Mr
McQueen.
But Mr Conroy only laughed and said:
"You'll have five pounds in yours when next rent-day comes around, or
'twill be the worse for you. You wouldn't like to be evicted, I'm
sure."
Then he mounted his horse and rode away.
Mr McQueen went into the house with a heavy heart, and told his wife
the bad news.
"Faith," said Mrs McQueen, "I'd not be in that man's shoes for all you
could offer. It's grinding down the faces of the poor he is, and that
at the telling of some one else! Not even his badness is his own! He
does as he's bid."
"He gets fat on it," said Mr McQueen.
"Faith, we'll get along somehow," said Mrs McQueen. "We always have,
though 'tis true it's been scant fare we've had now and again."
Mr McQueen didn't answer. He went back to his work in the fields.
Mrs McQueen got the Twins started off to school, with their lunch in a
little tin bucket, and began her washing, but she did not sing at her
work that day as she sometimes did.
Larry and Eileen knew that something was wrong, though their Father and
Mother had not said anything to them about it.
They had seen Mr Conroy talking with their Father in the yard. "And
it's never a sign of anything good to see Mr Conroy," Eileen said.