was Owen Connor's oft-repeated reflection, as he ascended the narrow
pathway towards his cabin; “'tis the good backing makes us brave, God
help us!” From that hour forward, the gay light-hearted peasant became
dark, moody, and depressed; the very circumstances which might be
supposed calculated to have suggested a happier frame of mind, only
increased and embittered his gloom. His prosperity made daily labour
no longer a necessity. Industry, it is true, would have brought
more comforts about him, and surrounded him with more appliances of
enjoyment; but long habits of endurance had made him easily satisfied
on this score, and there were no examples for his imitation which
should make him strive for better. So far, then, from the landlord's
benevolence working for good, its operation was directly the reverse;
his leniency had indeed taken away the hardship of a difficult and
onerous payment, but the relief suggested no desire for an equivalent
amelioration of condition. The first pleasurable emotions of gratitude
over, they soon recurred to the old customs in every thing, and
gradually fell hack into all the observances of their former state, the
only difference being, that less exertion on their parts was now called
for than before.
Had the landlord been a resident on his property--acquainting himself
daily and hourly with the condition of his tenants--holding up examples
for their imitation--rewarding the deserving--discountenancing the
unworthy--extending the benefits of education among the young--and
fostering habits of order and good conduct among all, Owen would have
striven among the first for a place of credit and honour, and speedily
have distinguished himself above his equals. But alas! no; Mr. Leslie,
when not abroad, lived in England. Of his Irish estates he knew nothing,
save through the half-yearly accounts of his agent. He was conscious of
excellent intentions; he was a kind, even a benevolent man; and in the
society of his set, remarkable for more than ordinary sympathies with
the poor. To have ventured on any reflection on a landlord before him,
would have been deemed a downright absurdity.
He was a living refutation of all such calumnies; yet how was it,
that, in the district he owned, the misery of the people was a thing to
shudder at? that there were hovels excavated in the bogs, within which
human beings lingered on between life and death, their existence like
some terrible passage in a dream? that beneath these frail roofs famine
and fever dwelt, until suffering, and starvation itself, had ceased to
prey upon minds on which no ray of hope ever shone? Simply he did not
know of these things; he saw them not; he never heard of them. He was
aware that seasons of unusual distress occurred, and that a more than
ordinary degree of want was experienced by a failure of the potato-crop;
but on these occasions, he read his name, with a subscription of a
hundred pounds annexed, and was not that a receipt in full for all the
claims of conscience? He ran his eyes over a list in which Royal and
Princely titles figured, and he expressed himself grateful for so much
sympathy with Ireland! But did he ask himself the question, whether, if
he had resided among his people, such necessities for alms-giving
had ever arisen? Did he inquire how far his own desertion of his
tenantry--his ignorance of their state--his indifference to their
condition--had fostered these growing evils? Could he acquit himself of
the guilt of deriving all the appliances of his ease and enjoyment, from
those whose struggles to supply them were made under the pressure
of disease and hunger? Was unconsciousness of all this, an excuse
sufficient to stifle remorse? Oh, it is not the monied wealth dispensed
by the resident great man; it is not the stream of affluence, flowing in
its thousand tiny rills, and fertilising as it goes, we want. It is far
more the kindly influence of those virtues which. And their congenial
soil in easy circumstances; benevolence, sympathy, succour in sickness,
friendly counsel in distress, timely aid in trouble, encouragement to
the faint-hearted, caution to the over-eager: these are gifts, which,
giving, makes the bestower richer; and these are the benefits which,
better than gold, foster the charities of life among a people, and bind
up the human family in a holy and indissoluble league. No benevolence
from afar, no well wishings from distant lands, compensate for the want
of them. To neglect such duties is to fail in the great social compact
by which the rich and poor are united, and, what some may deem of more
moment still, to resign the rightful influence of property into the
hands of dangerous and designing men.
It is in vain to suppose that traditionary deservings will elicit
gratitude when the present generation are neglectful. On the contrary,
the comparison of the once resident, now absent landlord, excites very
different feelings; the murmurings of discontent swell into the louder
language of menace; and evils, over which no protective power of human
origin could avail, are ascribed to that class, who, forgetful of one
great duty, are now accused of causing every calamity. If not present
to exercise the duties their position demands, their absence exaggerates
every accusation against them; and from the very men, too, who have, by
the fact of their desertion, succeeded in obtaining the influence that
should be theirs.
Owen felt this desertion sorely. Had Mr. Leslie been at home, he would
at once have had recourse to him. Mr. French, the agent, lived on the
property--but Mr. French was “a hard man,” and never liked the Connors;
indeed, he never forgave them for not relinquishing the mountain-farm
they held, in exchange for another he offered them, as he was anxious
to preserve the mountain for his own shooting. At the time we speak of,
intemperance was an Irish vice, and one which prevailed largely. Whisky
entered into every circumstance and relation of life. It cemented
friendships and ratified contracts; it celebrated the birth of the
newly-born, it consoled the weeping relatives over the grave of
the departed; it was a welcome and a bond of kindness, and, as the
stirrup-cup, was the last pledge at parting. Men commemorated their
prosperity by drink, and none dared to face gloomy fortune without it.
Owen Connor had recourse to it, as to a friend that never betrayed. The
easy circumstances, in comparison with many others, he enjoyed, left him
both means and leisure for such a course; and few days passed without
his paying a visit to the “shebeen-house” of the village. If the old man
noticed this new habit, his old prejudices were too strong to make him
prompt in condemning it. Indeed, he rather regarded it as a natural
consequence of their bettered fortune, that Owen should frequent these
places; and as he never returned actually drunk, and always brought back
with him the current rumours of the day, as gathered from newspapers and
passing gossip, his father relied on such scraps of information for his
evening's amusement over the fire.
It was somewhat later than usual that Owen was returning home one night,
and the old man, anxious and uneasy at his absence, had wandered part
of the way to meet him, when he saw him coming slowly forward, with that
heavy weariness of step, deep grief and pre-occupation inspire. When
the young man had come within speaking distance of his father, he halted
suddenly, and looking up at him, exclaimed, “There's sorrowful news for
ye to-night, father!”
“I knew it! I knew it well!” said the old man, as he clasped his hands
before him, and seemed preparing himself to bear the shock with courage.
“I had a dhrame of it last night; and 'tis death, wherever it is.”
“You're right there. The master's dead!”
Not another word was spoken by either, as side by side they slowly
ascended the mountain-path. It was only when seated at the fire-side,
that Owen regained sufficient collectedness to detail the particulars he
had learned in the village. Mr. Leslie had died of the cholera at
Paris. The malady had just broken out in that city, and he was among its
earliest victims. The terrors which that dreadful pestilence inspired,
reached every remote part of Europe, and at last, with all the
aggravated horrors of its devastating career, swept across Ireland. The
same letter which brought the tidings of Mr. Leslie's death, was the
first intelligence of the plague. A scourge so awful needed not the
fears of the ignorant to exaggerate its terrors; yet men seemed to vie
with each other in their dreadful conjectures regarding it.
All the sad interest the landlord's sudden death would have occasioned
under other circumstances was merged in the fearful malady of which he
died. Men heard with almost apathy of the events that were announced as
likely to succeed, in the management of the property; and only listened
with eagerness if the pestilence were mentioned. Already its arrival in
England was declared; and the last lingering hope of the devotee was,
that the holy island of St. Patrick might escape its ravages. Few cared
to hear what a few weeks back had been welcome news--that the old agent
was to be dismissed, and a new one appointed. The speculations which
once would have been rife enough, were now silent. There was but one
terrible topic in every heart and on every tongue--the Cholera.
The inhabitants of great cities, with wide sources of information
available, and free conversation with each other, can scarcely estimate
the additional degree of terror the prospect of a dreadful epidemic
inspires among the dwellers in unfrequented rural districts. The cloud,
not bigger than a man's hand at first, gradually expands itself, until
the whole surface of earth is darkened by its shadow. The business of
life stands still; the care for the morrow is lost; the proneness
to indulge in the gloomiest anticipations common calamity invariably
suggests, heightens the real evil, and disease finds its victims more
than doomed at its first approach. In this state of agonising suspense,
when rumours arose to be contradicted, reasserted, and again disproved,
came the tidings that the Cholera was in Dublin. The same week it had
broken out in many other places; at last the report went, that a poor
man, who had gone into the market of Galway to sell his turf, was found
dead on the steps of the chapel. Then, followed the whole array of
precautionary measures, and advices, and boards of health. Then, it
was announced that the plague was raging fearfully--the hospitals
crowded--death in every street.
Terrible and appalling as these tidings were, the fearful fact never
realised itself in the little district we speak of, until a death
occurred in the town close by. He was a shopkeeper in Oughterarde, and
known to the whole neighbourhood. This solitary instance brought with
it more of dreadful meaning than all the shock of distant calamity. The
heart-rending wail of those who listened to the news smote many more
with the cold tremour of coming death. Another case soon followed, a
third, and a fourth succeeded, all fatal; and the disease was among
them.
It is only when a malady, generally fatal, is associated with the
terrors of contagion, that the measure of horror and dread flows over.
When the sympathy which suffering sickness calls for is yielded in a
spirit of almost despair, and the ministerings to the dying are but
the prelude to the same state, then indeed death is armed with all his
terrors. No people are more remarkable for the charities of the sick-bed
than the poor Irish. It is with them less a sentiment than a religious
instinct; and though they watched the course of the pestilence, and saw
few, if any, escape death who took it, their devotion never failed them.
They practised, with such skill as they possessed, every remedy in turn.
They, who trembled but an hour before at the word when spoken, faced the
danger itself with a bold heart; and, while the insidious signs of the
disease were already upon them--while their wearied limbs and clammy
hands bespoke that their own hour was come, they did not desist from
their good offices, until past the power to render them.
It was spring-time, the season more than usually mild, the prospects of
the year were already favourable, and all the signs of abundance rife
in the land. What a contrast the scene without to that presented by
the interior of each dwelling! There, death and dismay were met with at
every step. The old man and the infant prostrated by the same
stroke; the strong and vigorous youth who went forth to labour in the
morning--at noon, a feeble, broken-spirited creature--at sunset, a
corpse.
As the minds and temperaments of men were fashioned, so did fear operate
upon them. Some, it made reckless and desperate, careless of what should
happen, and indifferent to every measure of precaution; some, became
paralysed with fear, and seemed unable to make an effort for safety,
were it even attainable; others, exaggerating every care and caution,
lived a life of unceasing terror and anxiety; while a few--they were
unfortunately a very few--summoned courage to meet the danger in a
spirit of calm and resolute determination; while in their reformed
habits it might be seen how thoroughly they felt that their own hour
might be a brief one. Among these was Owen Connor. From the day the
malady appeared in the neighbourhood, he never entered the public-house
of the village, but, devoting himself to the work of kindness the
emergency called for, went from cabin to cabin rendering every service
in his power. The poorest depended on him for the supply of such little
comforts as they possessed, for at every market-day he sold a sheep or
a lamb to provide them; the better-off looked to him for advice and
counsel, following his directions as implicitly as though he were a
physician of great skill. All recognised his devotedness in their cause,
and his very name was a talisman for courage in every humble cabin
around. His little ass-cart, the only wheeled vehicle that ever ascended
the mountain where he lived, was seen each morning moving from door to
door, while Owen brought either some small purchase he was commissioned
to make at Oughterarde, or left with the more humble some offering of
his own benevolence.
“There's the salt ye bid me buy, Mary Cooney; and here's fourpence out
of it,--do ye all be well, still?”
“We are, and thank ye, Owen.” “The Lord keep ye so!” “How's Ned Daly?”
“He's off, Owen dear; his brother James is making the coffin; poor boy,
he looks very weak himself this morning.”
The cart moved on, and at length stopped at a small hovel built against
the side of a clay ditch. It was a mere assemblage of wet sods with the
grass still growing, and covered by some branches of trees and loose
straw over them. Owen halted the ass at the opening of the miserable
den, through which the smoke now issued, and at the same moment a
man, stooping double to permit him to pass out into the open air, came
forward: he was apparently about fifty years of age--his real age was
not thirty; originally a well-formed and stout-built fellow, starvation
and want had made him a mere skeleton. His clothes were, a ragged coat,
which he wore next his skin, for shirt he had none, and a pair of worn
corduroy trousers; he had neither hat, shoes, nor stockings; but still,
all these signs of destitution were nothing in comparison with the
misery displayed in his countenance. Except that his lip trembled with
a convulsive shiver, not a feature moved--the cheeks were livid and
flattened--the dull grey eyes had lost all the light of intelligence,
and stared vacantly before him.
“Well, Martin, how is she?”
“I don't know, Owen dear,” said he, in a faltering voice; “maybe 'tis
sleeping she is.”
Owen followed him within the hut, and stooping down to the fire, lighted
a piece of bogwood to enable him to see. On the ground, covered only by
a ragged frieze coat, lay a young woman quite dead: her arm, emaciated
and livid, was wrapped round a little child of about three years old,
still sleeping on the cold bosom of its mother.
[Illustration: 096]
“You must take little Patsy away,” said Owen in a whisper, as he lifted
the boy in his arms; “_she's_ happy now.”
The young man fell upon his knees and kissed the corpse, but spoke not
a word; grief had stupified his senses, and he was like one but half
awake. “Come with me, Martin; come with me, and I'll settle every thing
for you.” He obeyed mechanically, and before quitting the cabin, placed
some turf upon the fire, as he was wont to do. The action was a simple
one, but it brought the tears into Owen's eyes. “I'll take care of
Patsy for you till you want him. He's fond of me of ould, and won't
be lonesome with me;” and Owen wrapped the child in his greatcoat, and
moved forwards.
When they had advanced a few paces, Martin stopped suddenly and
muttered, “She has nothing to drink!” and then, as if remembering
vaguely what had happened, added, “It's a long sleep, Ellen dear!”
Owen gave the directions for the funeral, and leaving poor Martin in the
house of one of the cottiers near, where he sat down beside the hearth,
and never uttered a word; he went on his way, with little Patsy still
asleep within his arms.
“Where are you going, Peggy?” asked Owen, as an old lame woman moved
past as rapidly as her infirmity would permit: “you're in a hurry this
morning.”
“So I am, Owen Connor--these is the busy times wid me--I streaked five
to-day, early as it is, and I'm going now over to Phil Joyce's. What's
the matter wid yourself, Owen? sit down, avich, and taste this.”
“What's wrong at Phil's?” asked Owen, with a choking fulness in his
throat.
“It's the little brother he has; Billy's got it, they say.
“Is Mary Joyce well--did ye hear?”
“Errah! she's well enough now, but she may be low before night,”
muttered the crone; while she added, with a fiendish laugh, “her purty
faytures won't save her now, no more nor the rest of us.”
“There's a bottle of port wine, Peggy; take it with ye, dear. 'Tis the
finest thing at all, I'm tould, for keeping it off--get Mary to take a
glass of it; but mind now, for the love o' ye, never say it was me gav
it. There's bad blood between the Joyces and me, ye understand.”
“Ay, ay, I know well enough,” said the hag, clutching the bottle
eagerly, while opening a gate on the roadside, she hobbled on her way
towards Phil Joyce's cabin.
It was near evening as Owen was enabled to turn homewards; for besides
having a great many places to visit, he was obliged to stop twice to get
poor Patsy something to eat, the little fellow being almost in a state
of starvation. At length he faced towards the mountain, and with a sad
heart and weary step plodded along.
“Is poor Ellen buried?” said he, as he passed the carpenter's door,
where the coffin had been ordered.
“She's just laid in the mould--awhile ago.”
“I hope Martin bears up better;--did you see him lately?”
“This is for him,” said the carpenter, striking a board with his hammer;
“he's at peace now.”
“Martin! sure he's not dead?--Martin Neale, I mean.”
“So do I too; he had it on him since morning, they say; but he just
slipped away without a word or a moan.”
“O God, be good to us, but the times is dreadful!” ejaculated Owen.
“Some says it's the ind of the world's comin',” said an old man, that
sat moving his stick listlessly among the shavings; “and 'twould be well
for most of us it was too.”
“Thrue for you, Billy; there's no help for the poor.”
No sentiment could meet more general acceptance than this--none less
likely to provoke denial. Thrown upon each other for acts of kindness
and benevolence, they felt from how narrow a store each contributed to
another's wants, and knew well all the privations that charity like this
necessitated, at the same time that they felt themselves deserted by
those whose generosity might have been exercised without sacrificing
a single enjoyment, or interfering with the pursuit of any accustomed
pleasure.
There is no more common theme than the ingratitude of the poor--their
selfishness and hard-heartedness; and unquestionably a life of poverty
is but an indifferent teacher of fine feelings or gentle emotions. The
dreary monotony of their daily lives, the unvarying sameness of the
life-long struggle between labour and want, are little suggestive of
any other spirit than a dark and brooding melancholy: and it were well,
besides, to ask, if they who call themselves benefactors have been
really generous, and not merely just? We speak more particularly of the
relations which exist between the owner of the land and those who till
it; and where benevolence is a duty, and not a virtue depending on the
will: not that they, in whose behalf it is ever exercised, regard it
in this light--very far from it! Their thankfulness for benefits is
generally most disproportioned to their extent; but we are dissatisfied
because our charity has not changed the whole current of their fortunes,
and that the favours which cost us so little to bestow, should not
become the ruling principle of their lives.
Owen reflected deeply on these things as he ascended the mountain-road.
The orphan child he carried in his arms pressed such thoughts upon
him, and he wondered why rich men denied themselves the pleasures of
benevolence. He did not know that many great men enjoyed the happiness,
but that it was made conformable to their high estate by institutions
and establishments; by boards, and committees, and guardians; by all
the pomp and circumstance of stuccoed buildings and liveried attendants.
That to save themselves the burden of memory, their good deeds were
chronicled in lists of “founders” and “life-subscribers,” and their
names set forth in newspapers; while, to protect their finer natures
from the rude assaults of actual misery, they deputed others to be the
stewards of their bounty.
Owen did not know all this, or he had doubtless been less unjust
regarding such persons. He never so much as heard of the pains that
are taken to ward off the very sight of poverty, and all the appliances
employed to exclude suffering from the gaze of the wealthy. All his
little experience told him was, how much of good might be done within
the sphere around him by one possessed of affluence. There was not a
cabin around, where he could not point to some object claiming aid or
assistance. Even in seasons of comparative comfort and abundance, what a
deal of misery still existed; and what a blessing it would bring on him
who sought it out, to compassionate and relieve it! So Owen thought,
and so he felt too; not the less strongly that another heart then
beat against his own, the little pulses sending a gush of wild delight
through his bosom as he revelled in the ecstacy of benevolence. The
child awoke, and looked wildly about him; but when he recognised in
whose arms he was, he smiled happily, and cried, “Nony, Nony,” the name
by which Owen was known among all the children of the village and its
neighbourhood.
“Yes, Patsy,” said Owen, kissing him, “your own Nony! you're coming home
with him to see what a nice house he has upon the mountain for you, and
the purty lake near it, and the fish swimming in it.”
[Illustration: 104]
The little fellow clapped his hands with glee, and seemed delighted at
all he heard.
“Poor darlin',” muttered Owen, sorrowfully; “he doesn't know 'tis the
sad day for him;” and as he spoke, the wind from the valley bore on it
the mournful cadence of a death-cry, as a funeral moved along the road.
“His father's berrin'!” added he. “God help us! how fast misfortune does
be overtaking us at the time our heart's happiest! It will be many a day
before he knows all this morning cost him.”
The little child meanwhile caught the sounds, and starting up in Owen's
arms, he strained his eyes to watch the funeral procession as it slowly
passed on. Owen held him up for a few seconds to see it, and wiped the
large tears that started to his own eyes. “Maybe Martin and poor Ellen's
looking down on us now!” and with that he laid the little boy back in
his arms and plodded forward.
It was but seldom that Owen Connor ascended that steep way without
halting to look down on the wide valley, and the lake, and the distant
mountains beyond it. The scene was one of which he never wearied;
indeed, its familiarity had charms for him greater and higher than mere
picturesque beauty can bestow. Each humble cabin with its little family
was known to him; he was well read in the story of their lives; he had
mingled in all their hopes and fears from childhood to old age; and,
as the lights trembled through the dark night, and spangled the broad
expanse, he could bring before his mind's eye the humble hearths round
which they sat, and think he almost heard their voices. Now, he heeded
not these things, but steadily bent his steps towards home.