William Carleton

“ From this moment, sir, you cease to be my agent. You have betrayed the confidence I reposed in you; you have misled me as to the character of my tenants; you have been a deceitful, cunning, cringing, selfish and rapacious tyrant. My people you have ground to dust; my property you have lessened in value nearly one-half, and for your motives in doing this, I refer you to certain transactions and legal documents which passed between us. There is nothing cruel or mercenary which you did not practice, in order to enrich yourself. ”

“ The poor boy silently and with difficulty arose, collected his books, and, slinging on his satchel, looked to his schoolfellows, as if he had said, “Which of you will afford me a place where to lay my aching head?” All, however, kept aloof from him; he had caught the contagion, and the contagion, they knew, had swept the people away in vast numbers. At length he spoke. “Is there any boy among you,” he inquired, “who will bring me home? You know I am a stranger, an' far from my own, God help me!” ”

“ But how is it possible to detail what M'Evoy suffered during this fortnight of intense agony? Not those who can command the luxuries of life—not those who can reach its comforts—nor those who can supply themselves with its bare necessaries—neither the cotter who struggles to support his wife and helpless children—the mendicant who begs from door to door—nor even the felon in his cell—can imagine what he felt in the solitary misery of his feverish bed. ”

“ The lad's heart yearned to the generous farmer, for he felt that his kindness had the stamp of truth and sincerity upon it. He could only raise his eyes in a silent prayer, that none belonging to him might ever be compelled, as strangers and way-farers, to commit themselves, as he did, to the casualties of life, in pursuit of those attainments which poverty cannot otherwise command. ”

“ In everything you have said of my father, mother, and friends, and of myself, too, you are' a liar, from the hat on your head to the dirt undher your feet—a liar, a coward, and a villain!”
The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable:—he ran at the still feeble lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless to the earth. There were now no large boys in the school to curb his resentment, he therefore kicked him in the back when he fell. Many voices exclaimed in alarm—“Oh, masther! sir; don't kill him! Oh, sir! dear, don't kill him! Don't kill poor Jemmy, sir, an' him still sick!” ”

“ M'Evoy,” the Colonel proceeded, “you will reply to my questions with strict truth. You will state nothing but what has occurred between you and my agent; you must not even turn a circumstance in your own favor, nor against Mr. Carson, by either adding to, or taking away from it, more or less than the truth. I say this to you, and to all present; for, upon my honor, I shall dismiss the first case in which I discover a falsehood.”
“Wid the help o' the Almighty, sir, I'll state nothing but the bare thruth.” ”

“ Fiction is successful only by borrowing her habiliments. Now, James, for a little more advice. Don't let the idea of having been a poor scholar deprive you of self-respect; neither let your unexpected turn of fortune cause you to forget what you have suffered. Hold a middle course; be firm and independent; without servility on the one hand, or vanity on the other. You have also too much good sense, and, I hope, too much religion, to ascribe what this day has brought forth in your behalf, to any other cause than God. It has pleased him to raise you from misery to ease and comfort ”

“ The food on which some of the persons were occasionally compelled to live, was blood boiled up with a little oatmeal; for when a season of famine occurs in Ireland, the people usually bleed the cows and bullocks to preserve themselves from actual starvation. It is truly a sight of appalling misery to behold feeble women gliding across the country, carrying their cans and pitchers, actually trampling upon fertility, and fatness, and collected in the corner of some grazier's farm waiting, gaunt and ravenous as Ghouls, for their portion of blood. ”

“ Many a summer evening have I gone to the march-ditch of the farm that my father's now in, and looked at the place I loved, till the tears blinded me, and I asked it as a favor of God to restore us to it! Sir, we are in great poverty at home; before God we are; and my father's heart is breaking.”
The Colonel drew his breath deeply, rubbed his hands, and as he looked at the fine countenance of the boy—expressing, as it did, enthusiasm and sorrow—his eye lightened with a gleam of indignation. It could not be against the poor scholar; no, gentle reader, but against his own agent. ”

“ We love the place, sir, for its own sake;—it is the place of our fathers, and our hearts are in it. I often think I see the smooth river that runs through it, and the meadows that I played in when I was a child;—the glen behind our house, the mountains that rose before us when we left the door, the thorn-bush at the garden, the hazels in the glen, the little beach-green beside the river—Oh, sir, don't blame me for crying, for they are all before my eyes, in my ears, and in my heart! ”

“ We trust they will persevere in this plan; * but we can assure them, that all the virtues of the best agent can never compensate, in the opinion of the people, for neglect in the “Head Landlord.” One visit, or act, even of nominal kindness, for him, will at any time produce more attachment and gratitude among them, than a whole life spent in good offices by an agent. Like Sterne's French Beggar, they would prefer a pinch of snuff from the one, to a guinea from the other. The agent only renders them a favor, but the Head Landlord does them an honor. ”

“ The hitherto moderated grief of the wife arose to a pitch much wilder than the death of her husband could, under ordinary circumstances, occasion. To die without absolution—to pass away into eternity “unanointed, unaneled”—without being purified from the inherent stains of humanity—was to her a much deeper affliction than her final separation from him. She cried in tones of the most piercing despair, and clapped her hands, as they do who weep over the dead. ”

“ Ireland, Colonel, abounds with instances of similar virtue, brought out, probably, into fuller life and vigor by the sad changes and depressions which are weighing down the people. In her glens, on her bleak mountain sides, and in her remotest plains, such examples of pure affection, uncommon energy, and humble heroism, are to be seen; but, unfortunately, few persons of rank or observation mingle with the Irish people, and their many admirable qualities pass away without being recorded in the literature of their country. ”

“ If you could see how the father of a family, after striving to bear up, sinks down at last; if you could see the look he gives at the childhre that he would lay down his heart's blood for, when they sit naked and hungry about him; and the mother, too, wid her kind word and sorrowful smile, proud of them in all their destitution, but her heart breaking silent! All the time, her face wasting away. Her eye dim, and her strength gone—Sir, make one such family happy—for all this has been in my father's house! ”

“ They are the only people who can rush out from the very virtues of private life to the perpetration of crimes at which we shudder. There is, to be sure, an outcry about their oppression; but that is wrong. Their indigence and ignorance are rather the result of neglect;—of neglect, sir, from the government of the country—from the earl to the squireen. They have been taught little that is suitable to their stations and duties in life, either as tenants who cultivate our lands, or as members of moral or Christian society. ”

“ This is a carte blanche to the agent to trample upon them if he pleases. In the next place, Irish landlords too frequently employ ignorant and needy men to manage their estates; men who have no character, no property, or standing in society, beyond the reputation of being keen shrewd, and active. These persons, sir, make fortunes; and what means can they have of accumulating wealth, except by cheating either the landlord or his tenants, or both? A history of their conduct would be a black catalogue of dishonesty, oppression, and treachery. ”

“ Every head was instantly turned round, with a hope that it might be the parish priest or his curate; but, alas! they were doomed to experience a fresh disappointment. The stranger, though clerical enough in his appearance, presented a countenance with which none of them was acquainted. On glancing at the group who knelt around the door, he appeared to understand the melancholy cause which brought them together.
“How is this?” he exclaimed. “Is there any one here sick or dying?”
“Poor Misther Lanigan, sir, is jist departing glory be to God! ”

“ I had some notion of goin' to look for him; but he tould us he would never write, or let us hear from him, till he'd be either one thing or other.”
“I can tell you, for your satisfaction, that your son is well, M'Evoy. Believe me, he is well—I know it.”
“Well! Before God, does your honor spake truth? Well! Oh, sir, for His sake that died for us, an' for the sake of his blessed mother, can you tell me is my darlin' son alive?”
“He is living; is in excellent health; is as well dressed as I am; and has friends as rich and as capable of assisting him as myself. ”

“ No, sir, I should make a bad agent, having no capacity for transacting business. I could direct and overlook, but nothing more.”
“Well, then, I shall set out to-morrow; and in the meantime, permit me to say that I am deeply sensible of your kindness in pointing out my duty as an Irish landlord, conscious that I have too long neglected it.”
“Kindness, Colonel, is the way to the Irish heart. There is but one man in Ireland who can make an Irishman ungrateful, and that is his priest. ”

“ Upon my honor, I heard those warm expressions of gratitude from the lips of the tenants themselves.”
“If you knew the people in general, Colonel, as well as I do,” replied the curate, “you would admit, that such expressions are often either cuttingly ironical, or the result of fear. You will always find, sir, that the independent portion of the people have least of this forced dissimulation among them. A dishonest and inhuman agent has in his own hands the irresponsible power of harassing and oppressing the tenantry under him. ”

“ Is the man honest?”
“Remarkably so; and has paid his rents very punctually. He is one of our safest tenants.”
“Do you know a man called Cullen?”
“The most litigious scoundrel on the estate.”
“Indeed? Oh, then, we must look into the merits of his petition, as he is not honest. Had he been honest like Brady, Carson, I should have dismissed it.”
“Cullen, sir, is a dangerous fellow. Do you know, that rascal has charged me with keeping back his receipts, and with making I him pay double rent!—ha, ha, ha! Upon my honor, its fact.” ”

“ O'Brien, that every clergyman of your church resembled you, and acted up to your sentiments: our common country would be the better for it.”
“I endeavor to act, sir, as a man who has purely spiritual duties to perform. It is not for us to be agitated and inflamed by the political passions and animosities of the world. Our lot is differently cast, and we ought to abide by it. The priest and politician can no more agree than good and evil. ”

“ Our readers will perceive that there was not a single prejudice, or weakness, or virtue, in the disposition of his auditory, left untouched in this address. He moved their superstition, their pride of character, their dread of hell and purgatory, their detestation of Yellow Sam, and the remembrance of the injury so wantonly inflicted on M'Evoy's family; he glanced at the advantage to be derived from the lad's prayers, the example they should set to Protestants, made a passing hit at tithes; and indulged in the humorous, the pathetic, and the miraculous. ”

“ This worthy agent died soon after his disgrace, without any legitimate issue; and his property, which amounted to about fifty thousand pounds, is now inherited by a gentleman of the strictest honor and integrity. To this day his memory is detested by the people, who, with that bitterness by which they stigmatized a villain, have erected him into a standard of dishonesty. If a man become remarkable for want of principle, they usually say—“he's as great a rogue as Yallow Sam;” ”

“ Musha, long may you reign, Sir! Be the scythe in my hand, I'd rather—Och, faix, you're one o' the ould sort, sir—the raal Irish gintleman, your honor. An' sure your name's far and near for that, any how.”
Connor's face would have done the heart of Brooke or Cruikshank good, had either of them seen it charged with humor so rich as that which beamed upon it, when the Major left them to enjoy their own comments upon what had happened.
“Oh, be the livin' farmer,” said Connor, “are we all alive at all afther doin' the Major! ”

“ The Irishman may miss it too; but to console himself he will break the head of any man who may have impeded him in his efforts, as a proof that he ought to have succeeded; or if he cannot manage that point, he will crack the pate of the first man he meets, or he will get drunk, or he will marry a wife, or swear a gauger never to show his face in that quarter again; or he will exclaim, if it be concerning a farm, with a countenance full of simplicity—“God bless your honor, long life and honor to you, sir! ”

“ Even this abstracted hatred, however, has been the curse of our unhappy country; it has kept us too much asunder, or when we met exhibited us to each other in our darkest and most offensive aspects.
Dominick's conduct in the matter of the priest's money was also a happy illustration of that mixture of simplicity and shrewdness with which an Irishman can frequently make points meet, which superstition, alone, without such ingenuity, would keep separate for ever. Many another man might have refused the money from an ignorant dread of its proving unlucky ”

“ The conversation already detailed between father and son took place on Friday, and on Saturday, a day on which the priest never holds a Station, and, of course, is generally at home, Dominick M'Evoy went to his house with the object already specified in view. The priest was at home; a truly benevolent man, but like the worthies of his day, not over-burdened with learning, though brimful of kindness and hospitality mixed up with drollery and simple cunning. ”

“ After arriving at the next town, Jemmy found himself once more prosecuting his journey alone. In proportion as he advanced into a strange land, his spirits became depressed, and his heart cleaved more and more to those whom he had left behind him. There is, however, an enthusiasm in the visions of youth, in the speculations of a young heart, which frequently overcomes difficulties that a mind taught by the experience of life would often shrink from encountering. ”