Chapter IV: Part 4

“Why, to tell you the truth, Connor, you have hit me off pretty well. I'm beginning to get a taste for agriculture.”

“But,” said Connor, scratching his head, “won't your honor allow us the price of a glass, or a pint o' portlier, for our hard day's work. Bad cess to me, sir, but this meadow 'ill play the puck wid us afore we get it finished.--Atween ourselves, sir--if it wouldn't be takin' freedoms--if you'd look to your own farmin' yourself. The steward, sir, is a dacent kind of a man; but, sowl, he couldn't hould a candle to your honor in seein' to the best way of doin' a thing, sir. Won't you allow us glasses apiece, your honor? Faix, we're kilt entirely, so we are.”

“Here is half-a-crown among you, Connor; but don't get drunk.”

“Dhrunk! 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! Pp., thin, the curse o' the crows upon you, pijor, darlin', but you are a Manus!* The damn' rip o' the world, that wouldn't give the breath he breathes to the poor for God's sake, and he'll threwn a man half-a-crown that 'll blarney him for farmin', and him doesn't know the differ atween a Cork-red a Yellow-leg.” **

* A soft booby easily hoaxed.

**Different kinds of potatoes.

“Faith, he's the boy that knows how to make a Judy of himself any way, Pether,” exclaimed another. “The divil a hapurt'h asier nor to give these Quality the bag to hould, so there isn't. An' they think themselves so cute, too!”

“Augh!” said a third, “couldn't a man find the soft side o' them as asy as make out the way to' his own nose, widout being led to it. Divil a sin it is to do them, any way. Sure, he thinks we wor tooth an' nail at the meadow all day; an' me thought I'd never recover it, to see Pether here--the rise he tuck out of him! Ha, ha, ha--och, och, murdher, oh!”

“Faith,” exclaimed Connor, “'twas good, you see, to help the poor scholar; only for it we couldn't get shkamin' the half-crown out of him. I think we ought to give the crathur half of it, an' him so sick: he'll be wantin' it worse nor ourselves.”

“Oh, be Gorra, he's fairly entitled to that. I vote him fifteen pince.”

“Surely!” they exclaimed unanimously. “Tundher-an'-turf! wasn't he the manes of gettin' it for us?”

“Jemmy, a bouchal,” said Connor, across the ditch to M'Evoy, “are you sleepin'?”

“Sleepin'! Oh, no,” replied Jemmy; “I'd give the wide world for one wink of asy sleep.”

“Well, aroon, here's fifteen pince for you, that we skham--Will I tell him how we cot it?”

“No, don't,” replied his neighbors; “the boy's given to devotion, and maybe might scruple to take it.”

“Here's fifteen pince, avourneen, on the shovel, that we're givin' you for God's sake. If you over * this, won't you offer up a prayer for us? Won't you, avick?”

*That is--to get over--to survive.

“I can never forget your kindness,” replied Jemmy; “I will always pray for you, and may God for ever bless you and yours!

“Poor crathur! May the Heavens above have prosthration on him! Upon my sowl, it's good to have his blessin' an' his prayer. Now don't fret, Jemmy; we're lavin' you wid a lot o' neighbors here. They'll watch you time about, so that whin you want anything, call, avourneen, an' there'll still be some one here to answer. God bless you, an' restore you, till we come wid the milk we'll stale for you, wid the help o' God. Bad cess to me, but it 'ud be a mortual sin, so it would, to let the poor boy die at all, an' him so far from home. For, as the Catechiz says 'There is but one Faith, one Church, and one Baptism!' Well, the readin' that's in that Catechiz is mighty improvin', glory be to God!”

It would be utterly impossible to detail the affliction which our poor scholar suffered in this wretched shed, for the space of a fortnight, notwithstanding the efforts of those kind-hearted people to render his situation comfortable.

The little wigwam they had constructed near him was never, even for a moment, during his whole illness, without two or three persons ready to attend him. In the evening their numbers increased; a fire was always kept burning, over which a little pot for making whey or gruel was suspended. At night they amused each other with anecdotes and laughter, and occasionally with songs, when certain that their patient was not asleep. Their exertions to steal milk for him were performed with uncommon glee, and related among themselves with great humor. These thefts would have been unnecessary, had not the famine which then prevailed through the province been so excessive. The crowds that swarmed about the houses of wealthy farmers, supplicating a morsel to keep body and soul together, resembled nothing which our English readers ever had an opportunity of seeing. Ragged, emaciated creatures, tottered about with an expression of wildness and voracity in their gaunt features; fathers and mothers reeled under the burthen of their beloved children, the latter either sick, or literally expiring for want of food; and the widow, in many instances, was compelled to lay down her head to die, with the wail, the feeble wail, of her withered orphans mingling with her last moans! In such a state of things it was difficult to procure a sufficient quantity of milk to allay the natural thirst even of one individual, when parched by the scorching heat of a fever. Notwithstanding this, his wants were for the most part anticipated, so far as their means would allow them; his shed was kept waterproof; and either shovel or pitchfork always ready to be extended to him, by way of substitution for the right hand of fellowship.

When he called for anything, the usual observation was, “Husht! the crathur's callin'. I must take the shovel an' see what he wants.”

There were times, it is true, when the mirth of the poor fellows was' very low, for hunger was generally among themselves; there were times when their own little shed presented a touching and melancholy spectacle--perhaps we ought also to add, a noble one; for, to contemplate a number of men, considered rude and semi-barbarous, devoting themselves, in the midst of privations the most cutting and oppressive, to the care and preservation of a strange lad, merely because they knew him to be without friends and protection, is to witness a display of virtue truly magnanimous. 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. During these melancholy periods of want, everything in the shape of an esculent disappears. The miserable creatures will pick up chicken-weed, nettles, sorrell, bug-loss, preshagh, and sea-weed, which they will boil and eat with the voracity of persons writhing under the united agonies of hunger and death! Yet the very country thus groaning under such a terrible sweep of famine is actually pouring from all her ports a profusion of food, day after day; flinging it from her fertile bosom, with the wanton excess of a prodigal oppressed by abundance.

Despite, however, of all the poor scholar's nurse-guard suffered, he was attended with a fidelity of care and sympathy which no calamity could shake. Nor was this care fruitless; after the fever had passed through its usual stages he began to recover. In fact, it has been observed very truly, that scarcely any person has been known to die under circumstances similar to those of the poor scholar. These sheds, the erection of which is not unfrequent in case of fever, have the advantage of pure free air, by which the patient is cooled and refreshed. Be the cause of it what it may, the fact has been established, and we feel satisfaction in being able to adduce our humble hero as an additional proof of the many recoveries which take place in situations apparently so unfavorable to human life. 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. Hard is the heart that cannot feel his sorrows, when, stretched beside the common way, without a human face to look on, he called upon the mother whose brain, had she known his situation, would have been riven--whose affectionate heart would have been broken, by the knowledge of his affliction. It was a situation which afterwards appeared to him dark and terrible. The pencil of the painter could not depict it, nor the pen of the poet describe it, except like a dim vision, which neither the heart nor the imagination are able to give to the world as a tale steeped in the sympathies excited by reality.

His whole heart and soul, as he afterwards acknowledged, were, during his trying illness, at home. The voices of his parents, of his sisters, and of his brothers, were always in his ears; their countenances surrounded his cold and lonely shed; their hands touched him; their eyes looked upon him in sorrow--and their tears bedewed him. Even there, the light of his mother's love, though she herself was distant, shone upon his sorrowful couch; and he has declared, that in no past moment of affection did his soul ever burn with a sense of its presence so strongly as it did in the heart-dreams of his severest illness. But God is love, and “temporeth the wind to the shorn lamb.”

Much of all his sufferings would have been alleviated, were it not that his two best friends in the parish, Thady and the curate, had been both prostrated by the fever at the same time with himself. There was consequently no person of respectability in the neighborhood cognizant of his situation. He was left to the humbler class of the peasantry, and honorably did they, with all their errors and ignorance, discharge those duties which greater wealth and greater knowledge would, probably, have left unperformed.

On the morning of the last day he ever intended to spend in the shed, at eleven o'clock he hoard the sounds of horses' feet passing along the road, The circumstance was one quite familiar to him; but these horsemen, whoever they might be, stopped, and immediately after, two respectable looking men, dressed in black, approached him. His forlorn state and frightfully wasted appearance startled them, and the younger of the two asked, in a tone of voice which went directly to his heart, how it was that they found him in a situation so desolate.

The kind interest implied by the words, and probably a sense of his utterly destitute state, affected him strongly, and he burst into tears. The strangers looked at each other, then at him; and if looks could express sympathy, theirs expressed it.

“My good boy,” said the first, “how is it that we find you in a situation so deplorable and wretched as this? Who are you, or why is it that you have not a friendly roof I to shelter you?”

“I'm a poor scholar,” replied Jemmy, “the son of honest but reduced parents: I came to this part of the country with the intention of preparing myself for Maynooth and, if it might plase God, with the hope of being able to raise them out of their distress.”

The strangers looked more earnestly at the boy; sickness had touched his fine intellectual features into a purity of expression almost ethereal. His fair skin appeared nearly transparent, and the light of truth and candor lit up his countenance with a lustre which affliction could not dim.

The other stranger approached him more nearly, stooped for a moment, and felt his pulse.

“How long have you been in this country?” he inquired.

“Nearly three years.”

“You have been ill of the fever which is so prevalent; how did you come to be left to the chance of perishing upon the highway?”

“Why, sir, the people were afeard to let me into their houses in consequence of the faver. I got ill in school, sir, but no boy would venture to bring me home, an' the master turned me out, to die, I believe. May God forgive him!”

“Who was your master, my child?”

“The great' Mr.------, sir. If Mr. O'Brien, the curate of the parish, hadn't been ill himself at the same time, or if Mr. O'Rorke's son, Thady, hadn't been laid on his back, too, sir, I wouldn't suffer what I did.”

“Has the curate been kind to you?”

“Sir, only for him and the big boys I couldn't stay in the school, on account of the master's cruelty, particularly since my money was out.”

“You are better now--are you not?” said the other gentleman.

“Thank God, sir!--oh, thanks be to the Almighty, I am! I expect to be able to lave this place to-day or to-morrow.”

“And where do you intend to go when you recover?”

The boy himself had not thought of this, and the question came on him so unexpectedly, that he could only reply--

“Indeed, sir, I don't know.”

“Had you,” inquired the second stranger, “testimonials from your parish priest?”

“I had, sir: they are in the hands of Mr. O'Brien. I also had a character from my father's landlord.”

“But how,” asked the other, “have you existed here during your illness? Have you been long sick?”

“Indeed I can't tell you, sir, for I don't know how the time passed at all; but I know, sir, that there were always two or three people attendin' me. They sent me whatever they thought I wanted, upon a shovel or a pitchfork, across the ditch, because they were afraid to come near me.”

During the early part of the dialogue, two or three old hats, or caubeens, might have been seen moving steadily over from the wigwam to the ditch which ran beside the shed occupied by M'Evoy. Here they remained stationary, for those who wore them were now within hearing of the conversation, and ready to give their convalescent patient a good word, should it be necessary.

“How were you supplied with drink and medicine?” asked the younger stranger.

“As I've just told you, sir,” replied Jemmy; “the neighbors here let me want for nothing that they had. They kept me in more whey than I could use; and they got me medicine, too, some way or other. But indeed, sir, during a great part of the time I was ill, I can't say how they attended me: I wasn't insinsible, sir, of what was goin' on about me.”

One of those who lay behind the ditch now arose, and after a few hems and scratchings of the head, ventured to join in the conversation.

“Pray have you, my man,” said the elder of the two, “been acquainted with the circumstances of this boy's illness?”

“Is it the poor scholar, my Lord?* Oh thin bedad it's myself that has that. The poor crathur was in a terrible way all out, so he was. He caught the faver in the school beyant, one day, an' was turned out by the nager o' the world that he was larnin' from.”

* The peasantry always address a Roman Catholic Bishop
as “My Lord.”

“Are you one of the persons who attended him?”

“Och, och, the crathar! what could unsignified people like us do for him, barrin' a thrifle? Any how, my Lord, it's the meracle o' the world that he was ever able to over it at all. Why, sir, good luck to the one of him but suffered as much, wid the help o' God, as 'ud overcome fifty men!”

“How did you provide him with drink at such a distance from any human habitation?”

“Throth, hard enough we found it, sir, to do that same: but sure, whether or not, my Lord, we couldn't be sich nagers as to let him die all out, for want o' sometlrm' to moisten his throath wid.”

“I hope,” inquired the other, “you had nothing to do in the milk-stealing which has produced such an outcry in this immediate neighborhood?”

“Milk-stalin'! Oh, bedad, sir, there never was the likes known afore in the caunthry. The Lord forgive them, that did it! Be gorra, sir, the wickedness o' the people': mighty improving if one 'ud take warnin' by it, glory be to God!”

“Many of the fanners' cows have been milked at night, Connor--perfectly drained. Even my own cows have not escaped; and we who have suffered are certainly determined, if possible, to ascertain those who have committed the theft. I, for my part, have gone even beyond my ability in relieving the wants of the poor, during this period of sickness and famine; I therefore deserved this the less.”

“By the powdbers, your honor, if any gintleman desarved to have his cows _unmilked_, it's yourself. But, as I said this minute, there's no end to the wickedness o' the people, so there's not, although the Catechiz is against them; for, says it, 'there is but one Faith, one Church, an' one Baptism.' Now, sir, isn't it quare that people, wid sich words in the book afore them, won't be guided by it? I suppose they thought it only a _white_ sin, sir, to take the milk, the thieves o' the world.”

“Maybe, your honor,” said another, “that it was only to keep the life in some poor sick crathur that wanted it more nor you or the farmers, that they did it. There's some o' the same farmers desarve worse, for they're keepin' up the prices o' their male and praties upon the poor, an' did so all along, that they might make money by our outlier destitution.”

“That is no justification for theft,” observed the graver of the two. “Does any one among you suspect those who committed it in this instance? If you do, I command you, as your Bishop, to mention them.”

“How, for instance,” added the other, “were you able to supply this sick boy with whey during his illness?”

“Oh thin, gintlemen,” replied Connor, dexterously parrying the question, “but it's a mighty improvin' thing to see our own Bishop,--God spare his Lordship to us!--an the Protestant minister o' the parish joinin' together to relieve an' give good advice to the poor! Bedad, it's settin' a fine example, so it is, to the Quality, if they'd take patthern by it.”

“Reply,” said the Bishop, rather sternly, “to the questions we have asked you.”

“The quistions, your Lordship? It's proud an' happy we'd be to do what you want; but the sarra man among us can do it, barin' we'd say what we ought not to say. That's the thruth, my Lord; an' surely 'tisn't your Gracious Reverence that 'ud want us to go beyant that?”

“Certainly not,” replied the Bishop. “I warn you both against falsehood and fraud; two charges which might frequently be brought against you in your intercourse with the gentry of the country, whom you seldom scruple to deceive and mislead, by gliding into a character, when speaking to them, that is often the reverse of your real one; whilst at the same time you are both honest and sincere to persons of your own class. Put away this practice, for it is both sinful and discreditable.”

“God bless your Lordship! an' many thanks to your Gracious Reverence for advisin' us! Well we know that it's the blessed thing to folly your words.”

“Bring over that naked, starved-looking man, who is stirring the fire under that pot,” said the Hector. “He looks like Famine itself.”

“Paddy Dunn! will you come over here to his honor, Paddy! He's goin' to give you somethin,” said Connor, adding of his own accord the last clause of his message.

The tattered creature approached him with a gleam of expectation in his eyes that appeared like insanity.

“God bless your honor for your goodness,” exclaimed Paddy. “It's me that's in it, sir!--Paddy Dunn, sir, sure enough; but, indeed, I'm the next thing to my own ghost, sir, now God help me!”

“What, and for whom are you cooking?”

“Jist the smallest dhrop in life, sir, o' gruel, to keep the sowl in that lonely crathur, sir, the poor scholar.”

“Pray how long is it since you have eaten anything yourself?”

The tears burst from the eyes of the miserable creature as he replied--

“Before God in glory, your honor, an' in the presence of his Lordship here, I only got about what 'ud make betther nor half a male widin the last day, sir. 'Twas a weeshy grain o' male that I got from a friend; an' as Ned Connor here tauld me that this crathur had nothin' to make the gruel for him, why I shared it wid him, bekase he couldn't even beg it, sir, if he wanted it, an' him not able to walk yit.”

The worthy pastor's eyes glistened with a moisture that did him honor. Without a word of observation, he slipped a crown into the hand of Dunn, who looked at it as if he had been paralyzed.

“Oh thin,” said he, fervently, “may every hair on your honor's head become a mould-candle to light you into glory! The world's goodness is in your heart, sir; an' may all the blessin's of Heaven rain down upon you an' yours!”

The two gentlemen then gave assistance to the poor scholar, whom the Bishop addressed in kind and encouraging language:

“Come to me, my good boy,” he added, “and if, on further inquiry, I find that your conduct has been such as I believe it to have been, you may rest assured, provided also you continue worthy of my good opinion, that I shall be a friend and protector to you. Call on me when you got well, and I will speak to you at greater length.”

“Well,” observed Connor, when they were gone, “the divil's own hard puzzle the Bishop had me in, about stalin' the milk. It went agin' the grain wid me to tell him the lie, so I had to invint a bit o' truth to keep my conscience clear; for sure there was not a man among us that could tell him, barrin' we said that we oughtn't to say. Doesn't all the world know that a man oughtn't to condimn himself? That was thruth, any way; but divil a scruple I'd have in blammin' the other--not but that he's one o' the best of his sort. Paddy Dunn, quit lookin' at that crown, but get the shovel an' give the boy his dhrink--he's wantin' it.”

The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy's cheering interview with the Bishop was, for three days afterwards, somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence. In less than a week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O'Rorke's family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had expected.

When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to recommence his studies under his tyrant master. He certainly knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress. The severity to be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater than that which he had already suffered; he therefore decided, if possible, to complete his education under him.

The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more than an hour assembled, but the thinness of the attendance not only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue's vinegar aspect into an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy. When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:--

“Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude immediately. No school ever can prosper in which that _hirudo_, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than mine.”

“I only entrate you,” replied our poor hero, “to suffer me to join the class I left while I was sick, for about another year. I'll be very quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do everything you wish me.”

“Ah! you are a crawling reptile,” replied the savage, “and, in my opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you have imposed yourself upon Mr. O'Brien for what you are not; that is, the son of an honest man. I have no doubt, but many of your nearest relations died after having seen their own funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't your father's wife, I'll be bail.”

The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes flashed, and his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indignation.

“It is false,” he exclaimed; “it is as false as your own cruel and cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant! 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!”

“Kill him!” replied the master; “kill him, indeed! Faith, he'd be no common man who could kill him; he has as many lives in him as a cat! Sure, he can live behind a ditch, wid the faver on his back, wid-out dying; and he would live if he was stuck on the spire of a steeple.”

In the meantime the boy gave no symptoms of returning life, and the master, after desiring a few of the scholars to bring him oat to the air, became pale as death with apprehension. He immediately withdrew to his private apartment, which joined the schoolroom, and sent out his wife to assist in restoring him to animation. With some difficulty this was accomplished. The unhappy boy at once remembered what had just occurred; and the bitter tears gushed from his eyes, as he knelt down, and exclaimed “Merciful Father of heaven and earth, have pity on me! You see my heart, great God! and that what I did, I did for the best!”

“Avourneen,” said the woman, “he's passionate, an' never mind him. Come in an' beg his pardon for callin' him a liar, an' I'll become spokesman for you myself. Come, acushla, an' I'll get lave for you to stay in the school still.”

“Oh, I'm hurted!” said the poor youth: “I'm hurted inwardly--somewhere about the back, and about my ribs!” The pain he felt brought the tears down his pale cheeks. “I wish I was at home!” said he. “I'll give up all and go home!” The lonely boy then laid his head upon his hands, as he sat on the ground, and indulged in a long burst of sorrow.

“Well,” said a manly-looking little fellow, whilst the tears stood in his eyes, “I'll tell my father this, anyhow. I know he won't let me come to this school any more. Here, Jemmy, is a piece of my bread, maybe it will do you good.”

“I couldn't taste it, Frank dear,” said Jemmy; “God bless you; but I couldn't taste it.”

“Do,” said Frank; “maybe it will bate back the pain.”

“Don't ask me, Frank dear,” said Jemmy; “I couldn't ate it: I'm hurted inwardly.”

“Bad luck to me!” exclaimed the indignant boy, “if ever my ten toes will darken this school door agin. By the livin' farmer, if they ax me at home to do it, I'll run away to my uncle's, so I will. Wait, Jemmy, I'll be big yit; an', be the blessed Gospel that's about my neck, I'll give the same masther a shirtful of sore bones, the holy an' blessed minute I'm able to do it.”

Many of the other boys declared that they would acquaint their friends with the master's cruelty to the poor scholar; but Jemmy requested them not to do so, and said that he was determined to return home the moment he should be able to travel.

The affrighted woman could not prevail upon him to seek a reconciliation with her husband, although the expressions of the other scholars induced her to press him to it, even to entreaty. Jemmy arose, and with considerable difficulty reached the Curate's house, found him at home, and, with tears in his eyes, related to him the atrocious conduct of the master.

“Very well,” said this excellent man, “I am glad that I can venture to ride as far as Colonel B------'s to-morrow. You must accompany me; for decidedly such brutality cannot be permitted to go unpunished.”

Jemmy knew that the curate was his friend; and although he would not himself have thought of summoning the master to answer for his barbarity, yet he acquiesced in the curate's opinion. He stopped that night in the house of the worthy man to whom Mr. O'Brien had recommended him on his first entering the town. It appeared in the morning, however, that he was unable to walk; the blows which he had received were then felt by him to be more dangerous than had been supposed. Mr. O'Brien, on being informed of this, procured a jaunting-car, on which they both sat, and at an easy pace reached the Colonel's residence.

The curate was shown into an ante-room, and Jemmy sat in the hall: the Colonel joined the former in a few minutes. He had been in England and on the continent, accompanied by his family, for nearly the last three years, but had just returned, in order to take possession of a large property in land and money, to which he succeeded at a very critical moment, for his own estates were heavily encumbered. He was now proprietor of an additional estate, the rent-roll of which was six thousand per annum, and also master of eighty-five thousand pounds in the funds. Mr. O'Brien, after congratulating him upon his good fortune, introduced the case of our hero as one which, in his opinion, called for the Colonel's interposition as a magistrate.

“I have applied to you, sir,” he proceeded, “rather than to any other of the neighboring gentlemen, because I think this friendless lad has a peculiar claim upon any good offices you could render him.”

“A claim upon me! How is that, Mr. O'Brien?”

“The boy, sir, is not a native of this province. His father was formerly a tenant of yours, a man, as I have reason to believe, remarkable for good conduct and industry. It appears that his circumstances, so long as he was your tenant, were those of a comfortable independent farmer. If the story which his son relates be true--and I, for one, believe it--his family have been dealt with in a manner unusually cruel and iniquitous. Your present agent, Colonel, who is known in his own neighborhood by the nickname of Yellow Sam, thrust him out of hia farm, when his wife was sick, for the purpose of putting into it a man who had married his illegitimate daughter. If this be found a correct account of the transaction, I have no hesitation in saying, that you, Colonel B------, as a gentleman of honor and humanity, will investigate the conduct of your agent, and see justice done to an honest man, who must have been oppressed in your name, and under color of your authority.”

“If my agent has dared to be unjust to a worthy tenant,” said the Colonel, “in order to provide for his bastard, by my sacred honor, he shall cease to be an agent of mine! I admit, certainly, that from some circumstances which transpired a few years ago, I have reason to suspect his integrity. That, to be sure, was only so far as he and I were concerned; but, on the other hand, during one or two visits I made to the estate which he manages, I heard the tenants thank and praise him with much gratitude, and all that sort of thing. There was 'Thank your honor!'--'Long may you reign over us, sir!'--and, 'Oh, Colonel, you've a mighty good man to your agent!' and so forth. I do not think, Mr. O'Brien, that he has acted so harshly, or that he would dare to do it. 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. The class most hateful to the people are those low wretches who spring up from nothing into wealth, accumulated by dishonesty and rapacity. They are proud, overbearing, and jealous, even to vindictiveness, of the least want of respect. It is to such upstarts that the poorer classes are externally most civil; but it is also such persons whom they most hate and abhor. They flatter them to their faces, 'tis true even to nausea; but they seldom spare them in their absence. Of this very class, I believe, is your agent, Yellow Sam; so that any favorable expressions you may have heard from your tenantry towards him, were most probably the result of dissimulation and fear. Besides, sir, here is a testimonial from M'Evoy's parish priest, in which his father is spoken of as an honest, moral, and industrious man.”

“If what you say, Mr. O'Brien, be correct,” observed the Colonel, “you know the Irish peasantry much better than I do. Decidedly, I have always thought them in conversation exceedingly candid and sincere. With respect to testimonials from priests to landlords in behalf of their tenants, upon my honor I am sick of them. I actually received, about four years ago, such an excellent character of two tenants, as induced me to suppose them worthy of encouragement. But what was the fact? Why, sir, they were two of the greatest firebrands on my estate, and put both me and my agent to great trouble and expense. No, sir, I wouldn't give a curse for a priest's testimonial upon such an occasion. These fellows were subsequently convicted of arson on the clearest evidence, and transported.”

“Well, sir, I grant that you may have been misled in that instance. However, from what I've observed, the two great faults of Irish landlords are these:--In the first place, they suffer themselves to remain ignorant of their tenantry; so much so, indeed, that they frequently deny them access and redress when the poor people are anxious to acquaint them with their grievances; for it is usual with landlords to refer them to those very agents against whose cruelty and rapacity they are appealing. 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. Respectable men, resident on or-near the estate, possessing both character and property, should always be selected for this important trust. But, above all things, the curse of a tenantry is a percentage agent. He racks, and drives, and oppresses, without consideration either of market or produce, in order that his receipts may be ample, and his own income large.”

“Why, O'Brien, you appear to be better acquainted with all this sort of thing than I, who am a landed proprietor.”

“By the by, sir, without meaning you any disrespect, it is the landlords of Ireland who know least about the great mass of its inhabitants; and I might also add, about its history, its literature, the manners of the people, their customs, and their prejudices. The peasantry know this, and too often practise upon their ignorance. There is a landlord's _Vade mecum_ sadly wanted in Ireland, Colonel.”

“Ah! very good, O'Brien, very good! Well, I shall certainly inquire into this case, and if I find that Yellow Ham has been playing the oppressor, out he goes. I am now able to manage him, which I could not readily do before, for, by the by, he had mortgages on my property.”

“I would take it, Colonel, as a personal favor, if you would investigate the transaction I have mentioned.”

“Undoubtedly I shall, and that very soon. But about this outrage committed against the boy himself? We had better take his informations, and punish the follow.”

“Certainly; I think that is the best way. His conduct to the poor youth has been merciless and detestable. We must put him out of this part of the country.”

“Call the lad in. In this case I shall draw up the informations myself, although Gregg usually does that.”

Jemmy, assisted by the curate, entered the room, and the humane Colonel desired him, as he appeared ill, to sit down.

“What is your name?” asked the Colonel.

“James M'Evoy,” he replied. “I'm the son, sir, of a man who was once a tenant of yours.”

“Ay! and pray how did he cease to be a tenant of mine?”

“Why, sir, your agent, Yallow Sam, put him out of our farm, when my poor mother was on her sick-bed. He chated my father, sir, out of some money--part of our rent it was, that he didn't give him a receipt for. When my father went to him afterwards for the receipt, Yallow Sam abused him, and called him a rogue, and that, sir, was what no man ever called my father either before or since. My father, sir, threatened to tell you about it, and you came to the country soon after; but Yallow Sam got very great wid my father at that time, and sent him to sell bullocks for him about fifty miles off, but when he come back again, you had left the country. Thin, sir, Yallow Sam said nothing till the next half-year's rent became due, whin he came down on my father for all--that is, what he hadn't got the receipt for, and the other gale--and, without any warning in the world, put him out. My father offered to pay all; but he said he was a rogue, and that you had ordered him off the estate. In less than a week after this he put a man that married a bastard daughter of his own into our house and place. That's God's truth, sir; and you'll find it so, if you inquire into it. It's a common trick of his to keep back receipts, and make the tenants pay double.” *

* This is the fact. The individual here alluded to,
frequently kept back receipts when receiving rents,
under pretence of hurry, and afterwards compelled the
tenants to pay the same gale twice!

“Sacred Heaven, O'Brien! can this be possible?”

“Your best way, Colonel, is to inquire into it.”

“Was not your father able to educate you at home, my boy?”

“No, sir. We soon got into poverty after we left your farm; and another thing, sir, there was no Latin school in our neighborhood.”

“For what purpose did you become a poor scholar?”

“Why, sir, I hoped one day or other to be able to raise my father and mother out of the distress that Yallow Sam brought on us.”

“By Heaven! a noble aim, and a noble sentiment. And what has this d--d fellow of a schoolmaster done to you?”

“Why, sir, yesterday, when I went back to the school, he abused me, and said that he supposed that most of my relations were hanged; spoke ill of my father; and said that my mother”--Here the tears started to his eyes--he sobbed aloud.

“Go on, and be cool,” said the Colonel. “What did he say of your mother?”

“He said, sir, that she was never married to my father. I know I was wrong, sir; but if it was the king on his throne that said it of my mother, I'd call him a liar. I called him a liar, and a coward, and a villain: ay, sir, and if I had been able, I would have tramped him under my feet.”

The Colonel looked steadily at him, but the open clear eye which the boy turned upon him was full of truth and independence. “And you will find,” said the soldier, “that this spirited defence of your mother will be the most fortunate action of your life. Well; he struck you then, did he?”

“He knocked me down, sir, with his fist--then kicked me in the back and sides. I think some of my ribs are broke.”

“Ay!--no doubt, no doubt,” said the Colonel. “And you were only after recovering from this fever which is so prevalent?”

“I wasn't a week out of it, sir.”

“Well, my boy, we shall punish him for you.”

“Sir, would you hear me for a word or two, if it would be pleasing to you?”

“Speak on,” said the Colonel.

“I would rather change his punishment to--I would--that is--if it would be agreeable to you--It's this, sir--I wouldn't throuble you now against the master, if you'd be pleased to rightify my father, and punish Yallow Sam. Oh, sir, for God's sake, put my heart-broken father into his farm again! If you would, sir, I could shed my blood, or lay down my life for you, or for any belonging to you. I'm but a poor boy, sir, low and humble; but they say there's a greater Being than the greatest in this world, that listens to the just prayers of the poor and friendless. I was never happy, sir, since we left it--neither was any of us; and when we'd sit cowld and hungry, about our hearth, We used to be talking of the pleasant days we spent in it, till the tears would be smothered in curses against him that put us out of it. Oh, sir, if you could know all that a poor and honest family suffers, when they are thrown into distress by want of feeling in their landlords, or by the dishonesty of agents, you would consider my father's case. I'm his favorite son, sir, and good right have I to speak for him. If you could know the sorrow, the misery, the drooping down of the spirits, that lies upon the countenances and the hearts of such people, you wouldn't, as a man and a Christian, think it below you to spread happiness and contentment among them again. In the morning they rise to a day of hardship, no matter how bright and cheerful it may be to others--nor is there any hope of a brighter day for them: and at night they go to their hard beds to strive to sleep away their hunger in spite of cowld and want. 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! Give us back our light spirits, our pleasant days, and our cheerful hearts again! We lost them through the villainy of your agent. Give them back to us, for you can do it; but you can never pay us for what we suffered. Give us, sir, our farm, our green fields, our house, and every spot and nook that we had before. 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! 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.

“O'Brien,” said he, “what do you think, and this noble boy is the son of a man who belongs to a class of which I am ignorant! By Heaven, we landlords are, I fear, a guilty race.”

“Not all, sir,” replied the Curate. “There are noble exceptions among them; their faults are more the faults of omission than commission.”

“Well, well, no matter. Come, I will draw up the informations against this man; afterwards I have something to say to you, my boy,” he added, addressing Jemmy, “that will not, I trust, be unpleasant.”

He then drew up the informations as strongly as he could word them, after which Jemmy deposed to their truth and accuracy, and the Colonel, rubbing his hands again, said--

“I will have the fellow secured. When you go into town, Mr. O'Brien, I'll thank you to call on Meares, and hand him these. He will lodge the miscreant in limbo this very night.”

Jemmy then thanked him, and was about to withdraw, when the Colonel desired him to remain a little longer.

“Now,” said he, “your father has been treated inhumanly, I believe; but no matter. That is not the question. Your sentiments, and conduct, and your affection for your parents, are noble, my boy. At present, I say, the question is not whether the history of your father's wrongs be true or false; you, at least, believe it to be true. From this forward--but by the by, I forgot; how could your becoming a poor scholar relieve your parents?”

“I intended to become a priest, sir, and then to help them.”

“Ay! so I thought; and, provided your father were restored to the farm, would you be still disposed to become a priest?”

“I would, sir; next to helping my father, that is what I wish to be.”

“O'Brien, what would it cost to prepare him respectably for the priesthood?--I mean to defray his expenses until he completes his preparatory education, in the first place, and afterwards during his residence in Maynooth?”

“I think two hundred pounds, sir, would do it easily and respectably.”

“I do not think it would. However, do you send him--but first let me ask what progress he has already made?”

“He has read--in fact he is nearly prepared to enter Maynooth. His progress has been very rapid.”

“Put him to some respectable boarding-school for a year; then let him enter Maynooth, and I will bear the expense. But remember I do not adopt this course in consequence of his father's history. Not I, by Jupiter; I do it on his own account. He is a noble boy, and full of fine qualities, if they be not nipped by neglect and poverty. I loved my father myself, and fought a duel on his account; and I honor the son who has spirit to defend his absent parent.”

“This is a most surprising turn in the boy's fortunes, Colonel.”

“He deserves it. A soldier, Mr. O'Brien, is not without his enthusiasm, nor can he help admiring it in others, when nobly and virtuously directed. To see a boy in the midst of poverty, encountering the hardships and difficulties of life, with the hope of raising up his parents from distress to independence, has a touch of sublimity in it.”

“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. They are certainly a strange people, Colonel, almost an anomaly in the history of the human race. 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.”

“Well, well: I believe what you say is too true. But touching the records of virtue in human life, pray who would record it when nothing goes down now-a-days but what is either monstrous or fashionable?”

“Very true, Colonel; yet in my humble opinion, a virtuous Irish peasant is far from being so low a character as a profligate man of rank.”

“Well, well, well! Come, O'Brien, we will drop the subject. In the meantime, touching this boy, as I said, he must be looked to, for he has that in him which ought not to be neglected. We shall now see that this d--d pedagogue be punished for his cruelty.” The worthy Colonel in a short time dismissed poor Jemmy with an exulting heart; but not until he had placed a sufficient sum in the Curate's hands for enabling him to make a respectable appearance. Medical advice was also procured for him, by which he sooner overcame the effects of his master's brutality.

On their way home Jemmy related to his friend the conversation which he had had with his Bishop in the shed, and the kind interest which that gentleman had taken in his situation and prospects. Mr. O'Brien told him that the Bishop was an excellent man, possessing much discrimination and benevolence; “and so,” said he, “is the Protestant clergyman who accompanied him. They have both gone among the people during this heavy visitation of disease and famine, administering advice and assistance; restraining them from those excesses which they sometimes commit, when, driven by hunger, they attack provision-carts, bakers' shops, or the houses of farmers who are known to possess a stock of meal or potatoes. God knows, it is an excusable kind of robbery; yet it is right to restrain them.”