THIRD ERA
From that day, the pestilence began to abate in violence. The cases of disease became fewer and less fatal; and at last, like a spent bolt, the malady ceased to work its mischief. Men were slow enough to recognise this bettered aspect of their fortune. Calamity had weighed too heavily on them to make them rally at once. They still walked like those who felt the shadow of death upon them, and were fearful lest any imprudent act or word might bring back the plague among them.
With time, however, these features passed off: people gradually resumed their wonted habits; and, except where the work of death had been more than ordinarily destructive, the malady was now treated as “a thing that had been.”
If Owen Connor had not escaped the common misfortune of the land, he could at least date one happy event from that sad period – his reconciliation with Phil Joyce. This was no passing friendship. The dreadful scenes he had witnessed about him had made Phil an altered character. The devotion of Owen – his manly indifference to personal risk whenever his services were wanted by another – his unsparing benevolence, – all these traits, the mention of which at first only irritated and vexed his soul, were now remembered in the day of reconciliation; and none felt prouder to acknowledge his friendship than his former enemy.
Notwithstanding all this, Owen did not dare to found a hope upon his change of fortune; for Mary was even more distant and cold to him than ever, as though to shew that, whatever expectations he might conceive from her brother’s friendship, he should not reckon too confidently on her feelings. Owen knew not how far he had himself to blame for this; he was not aware that his own constrained manner, his over-acted reserve, had offended Mary to the quick; and thus, both mutually retreated in misconception and distrust. The game of love is the same, whether the players be clad in velvet or in hodden grey. Beneath the gilded ceilings of a palace, or the lowly rafters of a cabin, there are the same hopes and fears, the same jealousies, and distrusts, and despondings; the wiles and stratagems are all alike; for, after all, the stake is human happiness, whether he who risks it be a peer or a peasant! While Owen vacillated between hope and fear, now, resolving to hazard an avowal of his love and take his stand on the result, now, deeming it better to trust to time and longer intimacy, other events were happening around, which could not fail to interest him deeply. The new agent had commenced his campaign with an activity before unknown. Arrears of rent were demanded to be peremptorily paid up; leases, whose exact conditions had not been fulfilled, were declared void; tenants occupying sub-let land were noticed to quit; and all the threatening signs of that rigid management displayed, by which an estate is assumed to be “admirably regulated,” and the agent’s duty most creditably discharged.
Many of the arrears were concessions made by the landlord in seasons of hardship and distress, but were unrecorded as such in the rent-roll or the tenant’s receipt. There had been no intention of ever redemanding them; and both parties had lost sight of the transaction until the sharp glance of a “new agent” discovered their existence. So of the leases: covenants to build, or plant, or drain, were inserted rather as contingencies, which prosperity might empower, than as actual conditions essential to be fulfilled; and as for sub-letting, it was simply the act by which a son or a daughter was portioned in the world, and enabled to commence the work of self-maintenance.
This slovenly system inflicted many evils. The demand of an extravagant rent rendered an abatement not a boon, but an act of imperative necessity; and while the overhanging debt supplied the landlord with a means of tyranny, it deprived the tenant of all desire to improve his condition. “Why should I labour,” said he, “when the benefit never can be mine?” The landlord then declaimed against ingratitude, at the time that the peasant spoke against oppression. Could they both be right? The impossibility of ever becoming independent soon suggested that dogged indifference, too often confounded with indolent habits. Sustenance was enough for him, who, if he earned more, should surrender it; hence the poor man became chained to his poverty. It was a weight which grew with his strength; privations might as well be incurred with little labour as with great; and he sunk down to the condition of a mere drudge, careless and despondent. “He can only take all I have!” was the cottier’s philosophy; and the maxim suggested a corollary, that the “all” should be as little as might be.
But there were other grievances flowing from this source. The extent of these abatements usually depended on the representation of the tenants themselves, and such evidences as they could produce of their poverty and destitution. Hence a whole world of falsehood and dissimulation was fostered. Cabins were suffered to stand half-roofed; children left to shiver in rags and nakedness; age and infirmity exhibited in attitudes of afflicting privation; habits of mendicity encouraged; – all, that they might impose upon the proprietor, and make him believe that any sum wrung from such as these must be an act of cruelty. If these schemes were sometimes successful, so in their failure they fell as heavy penalties upon the really destitute, for whose privations no pity was felt. Their misery, confounded in the general mass of dissimulation, was neglected; and for one who prospered in his falsehood, many were visited in their affliction.
That men in such circumstances as these should listen with greedy ears to any representation which reflected heavily on their wealthier neighbours, is little to be wondered at. The triumph of knavery and falsehood is a bad lesson for any people; but the fruitlessness of honest industry is, if possible, a worse one. Both were well taught by this system. And these things took place, not, be it observed, when the landlord or his agent were cruel and exacting – very far from it. They were the instances so popularly expatiated on by newspapers and journals; they were the cases headed – “Example for Landlords!” “Timely Benevolence!” and paragraphed thus: – “We learn, with the greatest pleasure, that Mr. Muldrennin, of Kilbally-drennin, has, in consideration of the failure of the potato-crop, and the severe pressure of the season, kindly abated five per cent of all his rents. Let this admirable example be generally followed, and we shall once more see,” &c. &c. There was no explanatory note to state the actual condition of that tenantry, or the amount of that rent from which the deduction was made. Mr. Muldrennin was then free to run his career of active puffery throughout the kingdom, and his tenantry to starve on as before.
Of all worldly judgments there is one that never fails. No man was ever instrumental, either actively or through neglect, to another’s demoralisation, that he was not made to feel the recoil of his conduct on himself. Such had been palpably the result here. The confidence of the people lost, they had taken to themselves the only advisers in their power, and taught themselves to suppose that relief can only be effected by legislative enactments, or their own efforts. This lesson once learned, and they were politicians for life. The consequence has been, isolation from him to whom once all respect and attachment were rendered; distrust and dislike follow – would that the catalogue went no further!
And again to our story. Owen was at last reminded, by the conversation of those about, that he too had received a summons from the new agent to attend at his office in Galway – a visit which, somehow or other, he had at first totally neglected; and, as the summons was not repeated, he finally supposed had been withdrawn by the agent, on learning the condition of his holding. As September drew to a close, however, he accompanied Phil Joyce on his way to Galway, prepared, if need be, to pay the half-year’s rent, but ardently hoping the while it might never be demanded. It was a happy morning for poor Owen – the happiest of his whole life. He had gone over early to breakfast at Joyce’s, and on reaching the house found Mary alone, getting ready the meal. Their usual distance in manner continued for some time; each talked of what their thoughts were least occupied on; and at last, after many a look from the window to see if Phil was coming, and wondering why he did not arrive, Owen drew a heavy sigh and said, “It’s no use, Mary; divil a longer I can be suffering this way; take me or refuse me you must this morning! I know well enough you don’t care for me; but if ye don’t like any one else better, who knows but in time, and with God’s blessin’, but ye’ll be as fond of me, as I am of you?”
“And who told ye I didn’t like some one else?” said Mary, with a sly glance; and her handsome features brightened up with a more than common brilliancy.
“The heavens make him good enough to desarve ye, I pray this day!” said Owen, with a trembling lip. “I’ll go now! that’s enough!”
“Won’t ye wait for yer breakfast, Owen Connor? Won’t ye stay a bit for my brother?”
“No, thank ye, ma’am. I’ll not go into Galway to-day.”
“Well, but don’t go without your breakfast. Take a cup of tay anyhow, Owen dear!”
“Owen dear! O Mary, jewel! don’t say them words, and I laving you for ever.”
The young girl blushed deeply and turned away her head, but her crimsoned neck shewed that her shame was not departed. At the moment, Phil burst into the room, and standing for a second with his eyes fixed on each in turn, he said, “Bad scran to ye, for women; but there’s nothing but decate and wickedness in ye; divil a peace or ease I ever got when I quarrelled with Owen, and now that we’re friends, ye’re as cross and discontented as ever. Try what you can do with her yourself, Owen, my boy; for I give her up.”
“‘Tis not for me to thry it,” said Owen, despondingly; “‘tis another has the betther luck.”
“That’s not true, anyhow,” cried Phil; “for she told me so herself.”
“What! Mary, did ye say that?” said Owen, with a spring across the room; “did ye tell him that, darling?”
“Sure if I did, ye wouldn’t believe me,” said Mary, with a side-look; “women is nothing but deceit and wickedness.”
“Sorra else,” cried Owen, throwing his arm round her neck and kissing her; “and I’ll never believe ye again, when ye say ye don’t love me.”
“‘Tis a nice way to boil the eggs hard,” said Phil, testily; “arrah, come over here and eat your breakfast, man; you’ll have time enough for courting when we come back.”
There needed not many words to a bargain which was already ratified; and before they left the house, the day of the wedding was actually fixed.
It was not without reason, then, that I said it was a happy day for Owen. Never did the long miles of the road seem so short as now; while, with many a plan for the future, and many a day-dream of happiness to come, he went at Phil’s side scarce crediting his good fortune to be real.
When they arrived at the agent’s office in the square at Galway, they found a great many of their neighbours and friends already there; some, moody and depressed, yet lingered about the door, though they had apparently finished the business which brought them; others, anxious-looking and troubled, were waiting for their turn to enter. They were all gathered into little groups and parties, conversing eagerly together in Irish; and as each came out of the office, he was speedily surrounded by several others, questioning him as to how he had fared, and what success he met with.
Few came forth satisfied – not one happy-looking. Some, who were deficient a few shillings, were sent back again, and appeared with the money still in their hands, which they counted over and over, as if hoping to make it more. Others, trusting to promptitude in their payments, were seeking renewal of their tenures at the same rent, and found their requests coldly received, and no pledge returned. Others, again, met with severe reproaches as to the condition of their dwellings and the neglected appearance of their farms, with significant hints that slovenly tenants would meet with little favour, and, although pleading sickness and distress, found the apology hut slightly regarded.
“We thought the ould agent bad enough; but, faix, this one bates him out, entirely.” Such was the comment of each and all, at the treatment met with, and such the general testimony of the crowd.
“Owen Connor! Owen Connor!” called out a voice, which Owen in a moment recognised as that of the fellow who had visited his cabin; and passing through the densely crowded hall, Owen forced his way into the small front parlour, where two clerks were seated at a table, writing.
“Over here; this way, if you please,” said one of them, pointing with his pen to the place he should stand in. “What’s your name?”
“Owen Connor, sir.”
“What’s the name of your holding?”
“Ballydorery, Knockshaughlin, and Cushaglin, is the townlands, and the mountain is Slieve-na-vick, sir.”
“Owen Connor, Owen Connor,” said the clerk, repeating the name three or four times over. “Oh, I remember; there has been no rent paid on your farm for some years.‘’
“You’re right there, sir,” said Owen; “the landlord, God be good to him! tould my poor father – ”
“Well, well, I have nothing to do with that – step inside – Mr. Lucas will speak to you himself; – shew this man inside, Luffey;” and the grim bailiff led the way into the back parlour, where two gentlemen were standing with their backs to the fire, chatting; they were both young and good-looking, and, to Owen’s eyes, as unlike agents as could be.
“Well, what does this honest fellow want? – no abatement, I hope; a fellow with as good a coat as you have, can’t be very ill off.”
“True for you, yer honor, and I am not,” said Owen in reply to the speaker, who seemed a few years younger than the other. “I was bid spake to yer honor about the little place I have up the mountains, and that Mr. Leslie gave my father rent-free – ”
“Oh, you are the man from Maam, an’t you?”
“The same, sir; Owen Connor.”
“That’s the mountain I told you of, Major,” said Lucas in a whisper; then, turning to Owen, resumed: “Well, I wished to see you very much, and speak to you. I’ve heard the story about your getting the land rent-free, and all that; but I find no mention of the matter in the books of the estate; there is not the slightest note nor memorandum that I can see, on the subject; and except your own word – which of course, as far as it goes, is all very well – I have nothing in your favour.”
While these words were being spoken, Owen went through a thousand tortures; and many a deep conflicting passion warred within him. “Well, sir,” said he at last, with a heavily drawn sigh, “well, sir, with God’s blessin’, I’ll do my best; and whatever your honour says is fair, I’ll thry and pay it: I suppose I’m undher rent since March last?”
“March! why, my good fellow, there’s six years due last twenty-fifth; what are you thinking of?”
“Sure you don’t mean I’m to pay, for what was given to me and my father?” said Owen, with a wild look that almost startled the agent.
“I mean precisely what I say,” said Lucas, reddening with anger at the tone Owen assumed. “I mean that you owe six years and a half of rent; for which, if you neither produce receipt nor money, you’ll never owe another half year for the same holding.”
“And that’s flat!” said the Major, laughing.
“And that’s flat!” echoed Lucas, joining in the mirth.
Owen looked from one to the other of the speakers, and although never indisposed to enjoy a jest, he could not, for the life of him, conceive what possible occasion for merriment existed at the present moment.
“Plenty of grouse on that mountain, an’t there?” said the Major, tapping his boot with his cane.
But, although the question was addressed to Owen, he was too deeply sunk in his own sad musings to pay it any attention.
“Don’t you hear, my good fellow? Major Lynedoch asks, if there are not plenty of grouse on the mountain.”
“Did the present landlord say that I was to pay this back rent?” said Owen deliberately, after a moment of deep thought.
“Mr. Leslie never gave me any particular instructions on your account,” said Lucas smiling; “nor do I suppose that his intentions regarding you are different from those respecting other tenants.”
“I saved his life, then!” said Owen; and his eyes flashed with indignation as he spoke.
“And you saved a devilish good fellow, I can tell you,” said the Major, smiling complacently, as though to hint that the act was a very sufficient reward for its own performance.
“The sorra much chance he had of coming to the property that day, anyhow, till I came up,” said Owen, in a half soliloquy.
“What! were the savages about to scalp him? Eh!” asked the Major.
Owen turned a scowl towards him that stopped the already-begun laugh; while Lucas, amazed at the peasant’s effrontery, said, “You needn’t wait any longer, my good fellow; I have nothing more to say.”
“I was going to ask yer honner, sir,” said Owen, civilly, “if I paid the last half-year – I have it with me – if ye’ll let me stay in the place till ye’ll ask Mr. Leslie – ”
“But you forget, my friend, that a receipt for the last half-year is a receipt in full,” said Lucas, interrupting.
“Sure; I don’t want the receipt!” said Owen hurriedly; “keep it yourself. It isn’t mistrusting the word of a gentleman I’d be.”
“Eh, Lucas! blarney! I say, blarney, and no mistake!” cried the Major, half-suffocated with his own drollery.
“By my sowl! it’s little blarney I’d give you, av I had ye at the side of Slieve-na-vick,” said Owen; and the look he threw towards him left little doubt of his sincerity.
“Leave the room, sir! leave the room!” said Lucas, with a gesture towards the door.
“Dare I ax you where Mr. Leslie is now, sir?” said Owen, calmly.
“He’s in London: No. 18 Belgrave Square.”
“Would yer honour be so kind as to write it on a bit of paper for me?” said Owen, almost obsequiously.
Lucas sat down and wrote the address upon a card, handing it to Owen without a word.
“I humbly ax yer pardon, gentlemen, if I was rude to either of ye,” said Owen, with a bow, as he moved towards the door; “but distress of mind doesn’t improve a man’s manners, if even he had more nor I have; but if I get the little place yet, and that ye care for a day’s sport – ”
“Eh, damme, you’re not so bad, after all,” said the Major: “I say, Lucas – is he, now?”
“Your servant, gentlemen,” said Owen, who felt too indignant at the cool insolence with which his generous proposal was accepted, to trust himself with more; and with that, he left the room.
“Well, Owen, my boy,” said Phil, who long since having paid his own rent, was becoming impatient at his friend’s absence; “well, Owen, ye might have settled about the whole estate by this time. Why did they keep you so long?”
In a voice tremulous with agitation, Owen repeated the result of his interview, adding, as he concluded, “And now, there’s nothing for it, Phil, but to see the landlord himself, and spake to him. I’ve got the name of the place he’s in, here – it’s somewhere in London; and I’ll never turn my steps to home, before I get a sight of him. I’ve the half-year’s rent here in my pocket, so that I’ll have money enough, and to spare; and I only ax ye, Phil, to tell Mary how the whole case is, and to take care of little Patsy for me till I come back – he’s at your house now.”
“Never fear, we’ll take care of him, Owen; and I believe you’re doing the best thing, after all.”
The two friends passed the evening together, at least until the time arrived, when Owen took his departure by the mail. It was a sad termination to a day which opened so joyfully, and not all Phil’s endeavours to rally and encourage his friend could dispossess Owen’s mind of a gloomy foreboding that it was but the beginning of misfortune. “I have it over me,” was his constant expression as they talked; “I have it over me, that something bad will come out of this;” and although his fears were vague and indescribable, they darkened his thoughts as effectually as real evils.
The last moment came, and Phil, with a hearty ‘“God speed you,” shook his friend’s hand, and he was gone.
It would but protract my story, without fulfilling any of its objects, to speak of Owen’s journey to England and on to London. It was a season of great distress in the manufacturing districts; several large failures had occurred – great stagnation of trade existed, and a general depression was observable over the population of the great trading cities. There were daily meetings to consider the condition of the working classes, and the newspapers were crammed with speeches and resolutions in their favour. Placards were carried about the streets, with terrible announcements of distress and privation, and processions of wretched-looking men were met with on every side.
Owen, who, from motives of economy, prosecuted his journey on foot, had frequent opportunities of entering the dwellings of the poor, and observing their habits and modes of life. The everlasting complaints of suffering and want rung in his ears from morning till night; and yet, to his unaccustomed eyes, the evidences betrayed few, if any, of the evils of great poverty. The majority were not without bread – the very poorest had a sufficiency of potatoes. Their dwellings were neat-looking and comfortable, and, in comparison with what he was used to, actually luxurious. Neither were their clothes like the ragged and tattered coverings Owen had seen at home. The fustian jackets of the men were generally whole and well cared for; but the children more than all struck him. In Ireland, the young are usually the first to feel the pressure of hardship – their scanty clothing rather the requirement of decency, than a protection against weather: here, the children were cleanly and comfortably dressed – none were in rags, few without shoes and stockings.
What could such people mean by talking of distress, Owen could by no means comprehend. “I wish we had a little of this kind of poverty in ould Ireland!” was the constant theme of his thoughts. “‘Tis little they know what distress is! Faix, I wondher what they’d say if they saw Connemarra?” And yet, the privations they endured were such as had not been known for many years previous. Their sufferings were really great, and the interval between their ordinary habits as wide, as ever presented itself in the fortunes of the poor Irishman’s life. But poverty, after all, is merely relative; and they felt that as “starvation” which Paddy would hail as a season of blessing and abundance.
“With a fine slated house over them, and plenty of furniture inside, and warm clothes, and enough to eat, – that’s what they call distress! Musha! I’d like to see them, when they think they’re comfortable,” thought Owen, who at last lost all patience with such undeserved complainings, and could with difficulty restrain himself from an open attack on their injustice.
He arrived in London at last, and the same evening hastened to Belgrave Square; for his thoughts were now, as his journey drew to a close, painfully excited at the near prospect of seeing his landlord. He found the house without difficulty: it was a splendid town-mansion, well befitting a man of large fortune; and Owen experienced an Irishman’s gratification in the spacious and handsome building he saw before him. He knocked, at first timidly, and then, as no answer was returned, more boldly; but it was not before a third summons that the door was opened; and an old mean-looking woman asked him what he wanted.
“I want to see the masther, ma’am, av it’s plazing to ye!” said Owen, leaning against the door-jamb as he spoke.
“The master? What do you mean?”
“Mr. Leslie himself, the landlord.”
“Mr. Leslie is abroad – in Italy.”
“Abroad! abroad!” echoed Owen, while a sickly faint-ness spread itself through his frame. “He’s not out of England, is he?”
“I’ve told you he’s in Italy, my good man.”
“Erra! where’s that at all?” cried Owen, despairingly.
“I’m sure I don’t know; but I can give you the address, if you want it.”
“No, thank ye, ma’am – it’s too late for that, now,” said he. The old woman closed the door, and the poor fellow sat down upon the steps, overcome by this sad and unlooked-for result.
It was evening. The streets were crowded with people, – some on foot, some on horseback and in carriages. The glare of splendid equipages, the glittering of wealth – the great human tide rolled past, unnoticed by Owen, for his own sorrows filled his whole heart.
Men in all their worldliness, – some, on errands of pleasure, some, care-worn and thoughtful, some, brimful of expectation, and others, downcast and dejected, moved past: scarcely one remarked that poor peasant, whose travelled and tired look, equally with his humble dress, bespoke one who came from afar.
“Well, God help me, what’s best for me to do now?” said Owen Connor, as he sat ruminating on his fortune; and, unable to find any answer to his own question, he arose and walked slowly along, not knowing nor caring whither.
There is no such desolation as that of a large and crowded city to him, who, friendless and alone, finds himself a wanderer within its walls. The man of education and taste looks around him for objects of interest or amusement, yet saddened by the thought that he is cut off from all intercourse with his fellow-men; but, to the poor unlettered stranger, how doubly depressing are all these things! Far from speculating on the wealth and prosperity around him, he feels crushed and humiliated in its presence. His own humble condition appears even more lowly in contrast with such evidences of splendour; and instinctively he retreats from the regions where fashion, and rank, and riches abound, to the gloomy abodes of less-favoured fortunes.
When Owen awoke the following morning, and looked about him in the humble lodging he had selected, he could scarcely believe that already the end of his long journey had been met by failure. Again and again he endeavoured to remember if he had seen his landlord, and what reply he had received; but except a vague sense of disappointment, he could fix on nothing. It was only as he drew near the great mansion once more, that he could thoroughly recollect all that had happened; and then, the truth flashed on his mind, and he felt all the bitterness of his misfortune. I need not dwell on this theme. The poor man turned again homeward; why, he could not well have answered, had any been cruel enough to ask him. The hope that buoyed him up before, now spent and exhausted, his step was slow and his heart heavy, while his mind, racked with anxieties and dreads, increased his bodily debility, and made each mile of the way seem ten.
On the fourth day of his journey – wet through from morning till late in the evening – he was seized with a shivering-fit, followed soon after by symptoms of fever. The people in whose house he had taken shelter for the night, had him at once conveyed to the infirmary, where for eight weeks he lay dangerously ill; a relapse of his malady, on the day before he was to be pronounced convalescent, occurred, and the third month was nigh its close, ere Owen left the hospital.
It was more than a week ere he could proceed on his journey, which he did at last, moving only a few miles each day, and halting before nightfall. Thus wearily plodding on, he reached Liverpool at last, and about the middle of January arrived in his native country once more.
His strength regained, his bodily vigour restored, he had made a long day’s journey to reach home, and it was about ten o’clock of a bright and starry night that he crossed the mountains that lie between Ballinrobe and Maam. To Owen, the separation from his home seemed like a thing of years long; and his heart was full to bursting as each well-remembered spot appeared, bringing back a thousand associations of his former life. As he strode along he stopped frequently to look down towards the village, where, in each light that twinkled, he could mark the different cabins of his old friends. At length, the long low farmhouse of the Joyces came into view – he could trace it by the line of light that glittered from every window – and from this, Owen could not easily tear himself away. Muttering a heartfelt prayer for those beneath that roof, he at last moved on, and near midnight gained the little glen where his cabin stood. Scarcely, however, had he reached the spot, when the fierce challenge of a dog attracted him. It was not his own poor colley – he knew his voice well – and Owen’s blood ran chilly at the sound of that strange bark. He walked on, however, resolutely grasping his stick in his hand, and suddenly, as he turned the angle of the cliff, there stood his cabin, with a light gleaming from the little window.
“‘Tis Phil Joyce maybe has put somebody in, to take care of the place,” said he; but his fears gave no credence to the surmise.
Again the dog challenged, and at the same moment the door was opened, and a man’s voice called out, “Who comes there?” The glare of the fire at his back shewed that he held a musket in his hand.
“‘Tis me, Owen Connor,” answered Owen, half sulkily, for he felt that indescribable annoyance a man will experience at any question, as to his approaching his own dwelling, even though in incognito.
“Stay back, then,” cried the other; “if you advance another step, I’ll send a bullet through you.”
“Send a bullet through me!” cried Owen, scornfully, yet even more astonished than indignant. “Why, isn’t a man to be let go to his own house, without being fired at?”
“I’ll be as good as my word,” said the fellow; and as he spoke, Owen saw him lift the gun to his shoulder and steadily hold it there. “Move one step now, and you’ll see if I’m not.”