William Carleton

“ Is it reasonable to suppose that a Roman Catholic tenantry, who, whatever they may bear, are impatient of any insult or injustice offered to their creed, or, which is the same thing, to themselves on account of that creed,—is it reasonable, I say, to suppose that such a people could rest satisfied with a man who acts towards them only through the medium of his fierce and ungovernable prejudices? Is it not absurd to imagine for one moment that property can be fairly administered through such hands, and, if not property, how much less justice itself. ”

“ My Lord, I say again, that, as a conscientious man, and as far as mere human reason—which is at best but short-sighted—enables me to judge, I am truly cheered in spirit by this, I trust, providential change in the agency of your property. My Lord, in my various correspondence, I generally endeavor to make it a rule not to forget my Christian duties, or, so to speak, to cast a single grain of the good seed into the hearts of those to whom I am privileged to write. The calls of religion are, indeed, strong upon us, if we permitted ourselves to listen to them as we ought. ”

“ M'Clutchy is there no hope? I trust, sir, that when you consider how long my family and my husband have been living on this property, you'll think better of it than to bring myself and my poor orphan boy to beggary and ruin. What will become of him and myself!”
“D—n my honor, Mrs. Tyrrell, but I feel for you,” said Phil, eagerly, as if rushing head foremost into a fit of the purest humanity.
“Do not be cast down, Mrs. Tyrrell,” said Solomon, “there is one who can befriend the widow, and who will be a father to the fatherless. ”

“ You're confoundedly unreasonable, Hickman. Why feel, or pretend to feel, more for these fellows, their barelegged wives, and ragged brats, than you do for a nobleman of rank, to whom you are deeply indebted. I mean you no offence, Hickman; you are in other respects an honest fellow enough, and if possessed of only a little less heart, as the times go, and more skill in raising money from these people, you would be invaluable to such a distressed devil as I am. As it is, I regret to say, that you are more a friend to my tenantry than to myself, which is a poor qualification for an agent. ”

“ Oh! what is it to you—but poverty, and misery, and hardship—the cowld cabin and the damp bed—the frost of the sky—the frown of power, and the scourge of law—all this, oh, right hand of my affection, with the hard labor and the scanty food, do you fly from! Sure we had no friend in this world to protect or defend us against them that, would trample us under their feet! No friend for us because we are poor, and no friend for our religion because it is despised. ”

“ Hartley looked at him with surprise but said nothing.
“Now,” he proceeded, “I will tell you what we will do. If you and Sir William pledge your words, as men of honor, that you will not accept the votes of these men, the matter you wish shall be managed.”
Sir William started to his feet.
“Great God,” said he, “is it not monstrous that an oath of secrecy should bind us to conceal these inquiries?”
“It is monstrous, Sir William,” replied his friend; “I do believe there is not such, a scene of shameless and hardened corruption on earth, as a Grand Jury Room at the present day.” ”

“ If there be one misery in life more calculated than another to wither and consume the heart, to make society odious, man to look like a blot in the creation, and the very providence of God doubtful, it is to feel one's character publicly slandered and misrepresented by the cowardly and malignant, by the skulking scoundrel and the moral assassin—to feel yourself loaded with imputations that are false, calumnious, and cruel. Mary M'Loughlin felt all this bitterly. ”

“ I do not suffer any one who has an immortal soul to be saved to stand in my office—and as you have one to be saved, Darby, you must sit. The pride of this vain life is our besetting sin, and happy are they who are enabled to overcome it—may he be praised!—sit down.”
“I'm thankful to you, sir,” said Darby, “oh, thin, Mr. M'Slime, it would be well for the world if every attorney in it was like you, sir—there would be little honesty goin' asthray, sir, if there was.” ”

“ God pardon me! how-and-ever, but upon my conscience, it isn't the religion that keeps a man poor, but the religion that puts the flesh on his bones, and keeps it there, that is the right one—aye, and not only that, but that keeps a good coat on his back, your honor, and a good pair of breeches to his posterals—for which raison, whenever I do sariously turn it'll be—but you may guess—it'll be to the only true and loyal church;—for when a man can get both fat, and loyal, and religious, all at one move, he's a confounded fool that won't become religious. ”

“ M'Clutchy?” said M'Loughlin.
“Proceed,” he replied, looking at him, as it were, with amazement; “proceed—ha, ha, ha!”
“Truly that is unchristian mirth,” observed Solomon; “I must say as much—even although your cause be a just cause, and one supported by the laws—by our blessed laws, that protect the rights of the tenant and landlord with equal justice and impartiality; for it is a glorious privilege to live under a constitution that protects the tenant from the malignity and oppression of the landlord or his agents. It is that,” said Solomon; “oh, it is that precious thing, indeed.” ”

“ Clement entered, the lonely mother looked upon him with an aspect of such bitter sorrow, of such helpless supplication in her misery, as if she said, am I left to the affliction of my own heart! Am I cut off from the piety and comfort, which distress like mine ought to derive from Christian sympathy and fellowship! Have I not even a human face to look upon, but those of my dying children! ”

“ She was Brian M'Loughlin's only daughter—a creature that breathed of goodness, grace, and all those delightful qualities that make woman a ministering angel amidst the cares, and miseries, and sorrows of life. Her figure, symmetry itself, was so light, and graceful, and elegant, that a new charm was displayed by every motion, as a new beauty was discovered by every change of her expressive countenance; her hair was like the raven's wing, and her black eye, instead of being sharp and piercing, was more in accordance with the benignity of her character, soft, sweet, and mellow. ”

“ But you, Phil, could never be so vexatious as a foe to Popery as I could—your very passions and prejudices would occasionally obstruct you even in persecution—but I—I can do it coolly, clearly, and upon purely philosophical principles. I hate M'Loughlin upon personal principles—I hate the man, not his religion; and here there must be passion: but in matters of religion, Phil, there is nothing so powerful—so destructive—so lasting—so sharp in persecution—and so successful, as a passionless resentment. ”

“ I cannot forget that your church is a market for venal and titled slaves, who are bought by the minister of the day to uphold his party—that it is a carcass thrown to the wolfish, sons and brothers of the English and Irish aristocracy—and that its bishops and dignitaries exceed in pride, violence of temper, and insolence of deportment, any other class of persons in society. Sure they have their chaplains to pray for them—but my soul to glory—those that pray by proxy will go to heaven by proxy—and so they ought. Eh—faith I'm peppering you. ”

“ No, I must open the door myself, and it will require all my strength to shut it.”
“I hear it all, now,” said Torley, “the cries and the shouting, the screechings and the—well, you need not be afeared; put poor Brian in with me, for I know there is no Irishman but will respect a death-bed, be it landlord, or agent, ay, or bailey. Oh, no, father, the hand of God is upon us, and if they respect nothing else, they will surely respect that. They won't move me, mother, when they see me; for that would kill me—that would be to murder a dying man.” ”

“ Again, my Lord, you have no magistrate of true Protestant and Ascendancy principles, who from time to time, might manifest to the government that you did not forget their interests no more than your own. Now, my Lord, what man can be, or is better qualified to serve your Lordship in all these capacities than that staunch and unflinching Protestant, Mr. Val M'Clutchy? In what individual could the commission of the peace more appropriately or worthily rest than in your own agent? ”

“ Drink! why, man, let me drink, swear, and play the devil among the ladies, surely you know that my thorough Protestantism and loyalty will make up for, and redeem all. Hey, then, for the glass of brandy, in which I'll drink your health, and hang me, I'll not abuse you again—unless when you deserve it, ha, ha, ha!”
“At all events,” said Val, “keep yourself steady for this day; this is the day, Phil, on which I will glut my long cherished vengeance against Brian M'Loughlin—against him and his. ”

“ Justice belongs to God, and in mocking justice you mock the God of Justice.”
“But you don't know, Father Roche,” said O'Regan, “you couldn't imagine all the villany he and his son have been guilty of, and all they've made the people suffer.”
“I do know it too well; and these are grievances that God in his own good time will remove; but it is not for us to stain our souls with guilt in order to redress them. Now, my children, do you believe that I feel an interest in your welfare, and in your happiness hereafter? Do you believe this?”
“We do, sir; who feels for us as you do?” ”

“ On that night there was not a hill head on all the Castle Cumber estate which had not its bonfire and its rejoicing—for the re-appointment of Mr. Hickman to the agency. It might, however, be observed in-general—and it is frightful to be forced to record such a surfeit of things—that the tenantry, one and all appeared to feel a singular complacency of temper on the occasion—a strong sense as it were, of great relief—a revival of good spirits—a cherishing of rational hope—associated with dreams of domestic comfort, reasonable indulgence, sympathy, and common justice. ”

“ Darby's reply was not a long one, but its effect was powerful. The very notion that Val M'Clutchy could, should, might, or ought to have such influence over the Grand Jury of the county was irresistible with the father; and that he should live to be actually called squire, nay to hear the word with his own ears, was equally so with the son.
Vanity! What sensation can the hearts of thousands—millions feel, that ought for a moment be compared, in an ecstatic sense of enjoyment, with those which arise from gratified vanity? ”

“ It reminded one somewhat of the light which coming death throws upon the cheek of youth when he treacherously treads in the soft and noiseless steps of decline—or rather of that still purer light, which, when the aged Christian arrives at the close of a well spent life, accompanied by peace, and hope, and calmness, falls like a glory on his bed of death. The ruin was but small, a remnant of one of those humble, but rude temples, in which God was worshipped in simplicity and peace, far from the noisy tumults and sanguinary conflicts of ambitious man. ”

“ No, I tell you, if there stood man for man before you, even without arms in their hands, you would not dare to act and swagger as you do, or to play these cruel pranks of oppression and tyranny anywhere, much less in the house of death and affliction. Fie upon you, you are a disgrace to everything that is human, a reproach to every feeling of manhood, and every principle of religion. ”

“ With respect to my political creed, gentlemen, you all know it is my boast that I belong to no party. I advocate broad and general principles; and the more comprehensive they are, so does my love of kind take a wider range. I am a patriot, that is my boast—a moderate man—an educated man; I am, at least, a competent master of the English language, which I trust I can write and speak like a gentleman. I am not given to low and gross habits of life; I am never found in a state of beastly intoxication late at night, or early in the day ”

“ Aged men we met, bent, with years, and weighed down still more by that houseless sorrow, which is found accompanying them along the highways of life:—through its rugged solitudes and its dreariest paths—in the storm and in the tempest—wherever they go—in want, nakedness, and destitution—still at their side is that houseless sorrow—pouring into their memories and their hearts the conviction, which is most terrible to old age, that it has no home here but the grave—no pillow on which to forget its cares but the dust. ”

“ Lucre! Protestant and True Blue forever—hurra!”
“The true Church forever, Father M'Cabe, the jewel that you war! Give the horse the spurs, avourneen. Sowl, Paddy, but the bodagh parson has the advantage of him in the cappul. Push on, your reverence; you have the divil and the parson against you, for the one's drivin' on the other.”
“Cross the corner of the Barny Mother's meadow, Mr. Lucre, and wheel in at the garden ditch; your horse can do it, although you ride the heaviest weight. Lay on him, sir, and think of Protestant Ascendancy. King William against Popery and wooden shoes; hurra!” ”

“ Phil,” said she; “he is the only man living that can prevent the damnable work that is designed against your family this night.”
She had scarcely uttered the words when Phil came breathless to the window, and, as if moved by a sense of alarm, and an apprehension of danger still greater than that expressed by Poll herself, he exclaimed—
“Miss M'Loughlin, it's no time for ceremony—my father's blood-hounds are at your father's door; and there is but one way of saving your family from violence and outrage. ”

“ There's no knavery in the grave, my Vulture. There the honest man and the knave are alike; and this being the case, what the devil is public opinion worth?”
“It's worth a great deal if we use it for our own purposes while we're here; otherwise I agree with you that it's valueless in itself.”
“You're a cursed clever fellow, Val, an able knave, as I said—but I don't like your son; he's a dishonest blockhead, and I needn't tell you that the man who has not brains enough to be dishonest is a most contemptible scoundrel.” ”

“ Gentlemen, I cannot let that—that beautiful toast pass without—out adding a few words to it. Gentlemen it presents a glorious sight, a glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good—ha, beg pardon, gentlemen—a glorious, pious, and immortal sight—think of the pillory, gentlemen, isn't that in itself a glorious and pious sight? And think of the pope, gentlemen; isn't the pope also a glorious and pious sight?'
“'With all truth and piety, and undher God, I deny that,' said Bob Spaight. ”

“ I tell you—I say unto you—that you would be much better to have no religion than the Popish. You have reminded me of one proverb, suffer me to remind you of another; do you not know, to speak in a worldly figure, that an empty house is better than a bad tenant? why, I looked on you with pride, with a kind of and joy as one wilom I had wrestled for, and won from the enemy; but I fear you are elapsing.”
“I hope in God sir,” very gravely, “that you and he won't have to toss up for me; for I feel myself sometimes one thing, and sometimes the other.” ”

“ Again, sir, if you are a Protestant, and have thoroughly cast Popery from your heart, you must necessarily be a loyal man and a good subject; but if you refuse to prosecute him, you can be neither the one nor the other, but a Papist and an impostor, and I've done with you. If Mr. M'Clutchy knew, sir, that you refused to prosecute a priest for such a violent outrage upon your person, I imagine you would not long hold the situation of bailiff under him. ”

“ I trust, my dear M'Clutchy, that,in taking vengeance upon this man and his family, you will do so in a proper spirit, and guard against the imputations of an uncharitable world. When you take vengeance, let your motives be always pure and upright and even charitable—of course you expect and hope that you ruin this man and his; family for their own spiritual good. The affliction that you are about! to bring on them, will soften and subdue their hard and obstinate hearts, and lead them it is to be hoped, to a better and more Christian state of feeling. ”