Chapter VII: Irish Slavery (3)

"When I was little _bouchaleen_ iv a boy I used to be ahead on
the mountain face, an' 'twas often I sheltered myself behind
them gray rocks that's at the gable iv my house; an' somehow it
came into my head that the new Squire, being a grate man for
improvin' might let me try to brake in a bit iv land there; an'
so I goes off to him, an' one iv the sarvints bein' a sort iv
cousin iv mine, I got to spake to the Squire, an' behould yees
he guv me lave at onst. Well, there's no time like the prisint,
an' as I passed out iv the back yard of the mentioned (mansion)
house, I sees the sawyers cutting some Norway firs that had been
blown down by the storm, an' I tells the sawyers that I had got
lave to brake in a bit iv land in the mountains, an' what would
some pieces iv fir cost. They says they must see what kind of
pieces they was that I wished for; an' no sooner had I set about
looking 'em through than the Squire himself comes ridin' out of
the stable-yard, an' says he at onst, 'McNale,' says he, 'you may
have a load iv cuttins to build your cabin, or two if you need
it.' 'The Heavens be your honour's bed,' says I, an' I wint off
to the room where I an' Biddy lived, not knowin' if I was on my
head or my heels. Next day, before sunrise, I was up here, five
miles up the face of Slieve-dan, with a spade in my fist, an'
I looked roun' for the most shiltered spot I could sit my eyes
an. Here I saw, where the house an' yard are stan'in', a plot
iv about an acre to the south iv that tall ridge of rocks, well
sheltered from the blast from the north an' from the aste, an'
it was about sunrise an' a fine morning in October that I tuk
up the first spadeful. There was a spring then drippin' down
the face iv the rocks, an' I saw at once that it would make
the cabin completely damp, an' the land about mighty sour an'
water-_slain_; so I determined to do what I saw done in Scotland.
I sunk a deep drain right under the rock to run all along the
back iv the cabin, an' workin' that day all alone by myself, I
did a grate dale iv it. At night it was close upon dark when I
started to go home, so I hid my spade in the heath an' trudged
off. The next morning I bargained with a farmer to bring me up a
load iv fir cuttins from the Squire's, an' by the evenin' they
were thrown down within a quarter iv a mile iv my place, for
there was no road to it then, an' I had to carry 'em myself for
the remainder of the way. This occupied me till near nightfall;
but I remained that night till I placed two upright posts of fir,
one at each corner iv the front iv the cabin.

"I was detarmined to get the cabin finished as quickly as
possible, that I might be able to live upon the spot, for much
time was lost in goin' and comin'. The next day I was up betimes,
an' finding a track iv stiff blue clay, I cut a multitude of
thick square sods iv it, an' having set up two more posts at
the remainin' two corners iv the cabin, I laid four rows iv one
gable, rising it about three feet high. Havin' laid the rows, I
sharpind three or four straight pine branches, an' druv them down
through the sods into the earth, to pin the wall in its place.
Next day I had a whole gable up, each three rows iv sods pinned
through to the three benathe. In about eight days I had put up
the four walls, makin' a door an' two windows; an' now my outlay
began, for I had to pay a thatcher to put on the sthraw an' to
assist me in risin' the rafthers. In another week it was covered
in, an' it was a pride to see it with the new thatch an' a wicker
chimbly daubed with clay, like a pallis undernathe the rock. I
now got some turf that those who had cut 'em had not removed, an'
they sould 'em for a thrifle, an' I made a grate fire an' slept
on the flure of my own house that night. Next day I got another
load iv fir brought to make the partitions in the winter, an' in
a day or two after I had got the inside so dhry that I was able
to bring poor Biddy to live there for good and all. The Heavens
be praised, there was not a shower iv rain fell from the time I
began the cabin till I ended it, an' when the rain did fall, not
a drop came through—all was carried off by my dhrain into the
little river before yees.

"The moment I was settled in the house I comminced dhraining
about an acre iv bog in front, an' the very first winter I sowed
a shillin's worth of cabbidge seed, an' sold in the spring a
pound's worth of little cabbidge plants for the gardins in the
town below. When spring came, noticin' how the early-planted
praties did the best, I planted my cabbidge ground with praties,
an' I had a noble crap, while the ground was next year fit for
the corn. In the mane time, every winther I tuk in more and more
ground, an' in summer I cut my turf for fewel, where the cuttins
could answer in winther for a dhrain; an' findin' how good the
turf were, I got a little powney an' carried 'em to the town to
sell, when I was able to buy lime in exchange an' put it on my
bog, so as to make it produce double. As things went on I got
assistance, an' when I marrid, my wife had two cows that guv me a
grate lift.

"I was always thought to be a handy boy, an' I could do a turn
of mason-work with any man not riglarly bred to it; so I took
one of my loads of lime, an' instead of puttin' it on the land,
I made it into morthar—and indeed the stones being no ways
scarce, I set to an' built a little kiln, like as I had seen down
the counthry. I could then burn my own lime, an' the limestone
were near to my hand, too many iv 'em. While all this was goin'
on, I had riz an' sould a good dale iv oats and praties, an'
every summer I found ready sale for my turf in the town from one
jontleman that I always charged at an even rate, year by year.
I got the help of a stout boy, a cousin iv my own, who was glad
iv a shilter; an' when the childher were ould enough, I got some
young cattle that could graze upon the mountain in places where
no other use could be made iv the land, and set the gossoons to
herd 'em.

"There was one bit iv ground nigh han' to the cabin that puzzled
me intirely. It was very poor and sandy, an' little better than
a rabbit burrow; an' telling the Squire's Scotch steward iv it,
he bade me thry some flax; an' sure enuf, so I did, an' a fine
crap iv flax I had as you might wish to see; an' the stame-mills
being beginnin' in the counthry at that time, I sould my flax
for a very good price, my wife having dhried it, beetled it, an'
scutched it with her own two hands.

"I should have said before that the Squire himself came up here
with a lot iv fine ladies and jontlemen to see what I had done;
an' you never in your life seed a man so well plased as he was,
an' a mimber of Parlimint from Scotland was with him, an' he
tould me I was a credit to ould Ireland; an' sure didn't Father
Connor read upon the papers, how he tould the whole story in
the Parlimint house before all the lords an' quality. But faix,
he didn't forgit me; for a month or two after he was here, an'
it coming on the winter, comes word for me an' the powney to go
down to the mentioned (mansion) house, for the steward wanted
me. So away I wint, an' there, shure enuf, was an illigant
Scotch plough, every inch of iron, an' a lot of young Norroway
pines—the same you see shiltering the house an' yard—an' all
was a free prisint for me from the Scotch jontleman that was the
mimber of Parlimint. 'Twas that plough that did the meracles iv
work hereabouts; for I often lint it to any that I knew to be
a careful hand, an' it was the manes iv havin' the farmers all
round send an' buy 'em. At last I was able to build a brave snug
house; and, praised be Providence, I have never had an hour's ill
health nor a moment's grief, but when poor Biddy, the cratur,
died from us. It is thirty years since that morning that I tuk up
the first spadeful from the wild mountain side; an' twelve acres
are good labour land, an' fifteen drained an' good grazin'. I
have been payin' rint twinty years, an' am still, thank God, able
to take my own part iv any day's work—plough, spade, or flail."

"Have you got a lease?" said I.

"No, indeed, nor a schrape of a pin; nor I never axed it. Have I
not my _tinnant-rite_?"

At any moment the labours of poor Con might have been rendered of no benefit to him. He held the wretched hovel and the ground he tilled merely by the permission of the landlord, who could have desolated all by the common process of eviction; and Con would then have been driven to new exertions or to the workhouse. The rugged ballad of "Patrick Fitzpatrick's Farewell," presents a case more common than that of Con McNale:—

"Those three long years I've labour'd hard as any on Erin's isle,
And still was scarcely able my family to keep;
My tender wife and children three, under the lash of misery,
Unknown to friends and neighbours, I've often seen to weep.
Sad grief it seized her tender heart, when forced her only cow
to part,
And canted[94] was before her face, the poor-rates for to pay;
Cut down in all her youthful bloom, she's gone into her
silent tomb;
Forlorn I will mourn her loss when in America."

In the same ballad we have an expression of the comparative paradise the Irish expect to find—and do find, by the way—in that land which excites so much the pity of the philanthropic aristocracy:—

"Let Erin's sons and daughters fair now for the promised
land prepare,
America, that beauteous soil, will soon your toil repay;
_Employment, it is plenty there, on beef and mutton you can fare,
From five to six dollars is your wages every day_.
Now see what money has come o'er these three years from
Columbia's shore;
But for it numbers now were laid all in their silent clay;
California's golden mines, my boys, are open now to crown our joys,
So all our hardships we'll dispute when in America."

As an illustration of the manner in which eviction is sometimes effected by heartless landlords in Ireland, and the treatment which the lowly of Great Britain generally receive from those who become their masters, we may quote "Two Scenes in the Life of John Bodger," from "Dickens's Household Words." The characters in this sketch are English; but the incidents are such as frequently occur in Ireland:—

"In the year 1832, on the 24th of December, one of those clear
bright days that sometimes supersede the regular snowy, sleety
Christmas weather, a large ship lay off Plymouth; the Blue Peter
flying from her masthead, quarters of beef hanging from her
mizzen-booms, and strings of cabbages from her stern rails;
her decks crowded with coarsely-clad blue-nosed passengers, and
lumbered with boxes, barrels, hen-coops, spars, and chain-cables.
The wind was rising with a hollow, dreary sound. Boats were
hurrying to and fro, between the vessel and the beach, where
stood excited groups of old people and young children. The
hoarse, impatient voices of officers issuing their commands, were
mingled with the shrill wailing of women on the deck and the
shore.

"It was the emigrant ship 'Cassandra,' bound for Australia
during the period of the 'Bounty' system, when emigration
recruiters, stimulated by patriotism and a handsome percentage,
rushed frantically up and down the country, earnestly entreating
'healthy married couples,' and single souls of either sex,
to accept a free passage to 'a land of plenty.' The English
labourers had not then discovered that Australia was a country
where masters were many and servants scarce. In spite of
poverty and poorhouse fare, few of the John Bull family could
be induced to give heed to flaming placards they could not
read, or inspiring harangues they could not understand. The
admirable education which in 1832, at intervals of seven days,
was distributed in homœopathic doses among the agricultural
olive-branches of England, did not include modern geography, even
when reading and writing were imparted. If a stray Sunday-school
scholar did acquire a faint notion of the locality of Canaan, he
was never permitted to travel as far as the British Colonies.

"To the ploughman out of employ, Canaan, Canada, and Australia
were all '_furrin parts_;' he did not know the way to them; but
he knew the way to the poorhouse, so took care to keep within
reach of it.

"Thus it came to pass that the charterers of the good ship
'Cassandra' were grievously out in their calculations; and
failing to fill with English, were obliged to make up their
complement with Irish; who, having nothing to fall upon, but
the charity of the poor to the poorer, are always ready to go
anywhere for a daily meal.

"The steamers from Cork had transferred their ragged, weeping,
laughing, fighting cargoes; the last stray groups of English
had been collected from the western counties; the Government
officers had cleared and passed the ship. With the afternoon
tide two hundred helpless, ignorant, destitute souls were to
bid farewell to their native land. The delays consequent on
miscalculating the emigrating taste of England had retarded until
midwinter, a voyage which should have been commenced in autumn.

"In one of the shore-boats, sat a portly man—evidently neither
an emigrant nor a sailor—wrapped in a great coat and comforters;
his broad-brimmed beaver secured from the freezing blast by a
coloured bandanna tied under the chin of a fat, whiskerless face.
This portly personage was Mr. Joseph Lobbit, proprietor of 'The
Shop,' farmer, miller, and chairman of the vestry of the rich
rural parish of Duxmoor.

"At Duxmoor, the chief estate was in Chancery, the manor-house in
ruins, the lord of it an outlaw, and the other landed proprietors
absentees, or in debt; a curate preached, buried, married, and
baptized, for the health of the rector compelled him to pass the
summer in Switzerland, and the winter in Italy; so Mr. Lobbit was
almost the greatest, as he was certainly the richest, man in the
parish.

"Except that he did not care for any one but himself, and did not
respect any one who had not plenty of money, he was not a bad
sort of man. He had a jolly hearty way of talking and shaking
hands, and slapping people on the back; and until you began to
count money with him, he seemed a very pleasant, liberal fellow.
He was fond of money, but more fond of importance; and therefore
worked as zealously at parish-business as he did at his own farm,
shop, and mill. He centred the whole powers of the vestry in one
person, and would have been beadle, too, if it had been possible.
He appointed the master and matron of the workhouse, who were
relations of his wife; supplied all the rations and clothing for
'the house,' and fixed the prices in full vestry (viz. himself,
and the clerk, his cousin,) assembled. He settled all the
questions of out-door relief, and tried hard, more than once, to
settle the rate of wages too.

"Ill-natured people did say that those who would not work on
Master Lobbit's farm, at _his_ wages, stood a very bad chance
if they wanted any thing from the parish, or came for the doles
of blankets, coals, bread, and linsey-woolsey petticoats,
which, under the provisions of the tablets in Duxmoor church,
are distributed every Christmas. Of course, Mr. Lobbit supplied
these gifts, as chief shopkeeper, and dispensed them, as senior
and perpetual churchwarden. Lobbit gave capital dinners; plenty
smoked on his board, and pipes of negro-head with jorums of gin
punch followed, without stint.

"The two attorneys dined with him—and were glad to come, for
he had always money to lend, on good security, and his gin was
unexceptionable. So did two or three bullfrog farmers, very rich
and very ignorant. The doctor and curate came occasionally; they
were poor, and in his debt at 'The Shop,' therefore bound to
laugh at his jokes—which were not so bad, for he was no fool—so
that, altogether, Mr. Lobbit had reason to believe himself a very
popular man.

"But there was—where is there not?—a black drop in his
overflowing cup of prosperity.

"He had a son whom he intended to make a gentleman; whom he
hoped to see married to some lady of good family, installed in
the manor-house of Duxmoor, (if it should be sold cheap, at the
end of the Chancery suit,) and established as the squire of the
parish. Robert Lobbit had no taste for learning, and a strong
taste for drinking, which his father's customers did their best
to encourage. Old Lobbit was decent in his private habits; but,
as he made money wherever he could to advantage, he was always
surrounded by a levee of scamps, of all degrees—some agents and
assistants, some borrowers, and would-be borrowers. Young Lobbit
found it easier to follow the example of his father's companions
than to follow his father's advice. He was as selfish and greedy
as his father, without being so agreeable or hospitable. In the
school-room he was a dunce, in the play-ground a tyrant and
bully; no one liked him; but, as he had plenty of money, many
courted him.

"As a last resource his father sent him to Oxford; whence, after
a short residence, he was expelled. He arrived home drunk, and in
debt; without having lost one bad habit, or made one respectable
friend. From that period he lived a sot, a village rake, the
king of the taproom, and the patron of a crowd of blackguards,
who drank his beer and his health; hated him for his insolence,
and cheated him of his money.

"Yet Joseph Lobbit loved his son, and tried not to believe the
stories good-natured friends told of him.

"Another trouble fell upon the prosperous churchwarden. On
the north side of the parish, just outside the boundaries of
Duxmoor Manor, there had been, in the time of the Great Civil
Wars, a large number of small freehold farmers: each with from
forty to five acres of land; the smaller, fathers had divided
among their progeny; the larger had descended to eldest sons
by force of primogeniture. Joseph Lobbit's father had been one
of these small freeholders. A right of pasture on an adjacent
common was attached to these little freeholds; so, what with
geese and sheep, and a cow or so, even the poorest proprietor,
with the assistance of harvest work, managed to make a living,
up to the time of the last war. War prices made land valuable,
and the common was enclosed; though a share went to the little
freeholders, and sons and daughters were hired, at good wages,
while the enclosure was going on, the loss of the pasture for
stock, and the fall of prices at the peace, sealed their fate.
John Lobbit, our portly friend's father, succeeded to his little
estate, of twenty acres, by the death of his elder brother, in
the time of best war prices, after he had passed some years as a
shopman in a great seaport. His first use of it was to sell it,
and set up a shop in Duxmoor, to the great scandal of his farmer
neighbours. When John slept with his fathers, Joseph, having
succeeded to the shop and savings, began to buy land and lend
money. Between shop credit to the five-acred and mortgages to
the forty-acred men, with a little luck in the way of the useful
sons of the freeholders being constantly enlisted for soldiers,
impressed for sailors, or convicted for poaching offences, in
the course of years Joseph Lobbit became possessed, not only of
his paternal freehold, but, acre by acre, of all his neighbours'
holdings, to the extent of something like five hundred acres.
The original owners vanished; the stout and young departed, and
were seen no more; the old and decrepit were received and kindly
housed in the workhouse. Of course it could not have been part
of Mr. Lobbit's bargain to find them board and lodging for the
rest of their days at the parish expense. A few are said to have
drunk themselves to death; but this is improbable, for the cider
in that part of the country is extremely sour, so that it is more
likely they died of colic.

"There was, however, in the very centre of the cluster of
freeholds which the parochial dignitary had so successfully
acquired, a small barren plot of five acres with a right of road
through the rest of the property. The possessor of this was a
sturdy fellow, John Bodger by name, who was neither to be coaxed
nor bullied into parting with his patrimony.

"John Bodger was an only son, a smart little fellow, a capital
thatcher, a good hand at cobhouse building—in fact a handy man.
Unfortunately, he was as fond of pleasure as his betters. He sang
a comic song till peoples' eyes ran over, and they rolled on
their seats: he handled a singlestick very tidily; and, among the
light weights, was not to be despised as a wrestler. He always
knew where a hare was to be found; and, when the fox-hounds were
out, to hear his view-halloo did your heart good. These tastes
were expensive; so that when he came into his little property,
although he worked with tolerable industry, and earned good wages
for that part of the country, he never had a shilling to the
fore, as the Irish say. If he had been a prudent man, he might
have laid by something very snug, and defied Mr. Lobbit to the
end of his days.

"It would take too long to tell all Joseph Lobbit's ingenious
devices—after plain, plump offers—to buy Bodger's acres had
been refused. John Bodger declined a loan to buy a cart and
horse; he refused to take credit or a new hat, umbrella, and
waistcoat, after losing his money at Bidecot Fair. He went on
steadily slaving at his bit of land, doing all the best thatching
and building jobs in the neighbourhood, spending his money, and
enjoying himself without getting into any scrapes; until Mr.
Joseph Lobbit, completely foiled, began to look on John Bodger as
a personal enemy.

"Just when John and his neighbours were rejoicing over the defeat
of the last attempt of the jolly parochial, an accident occurred
which upset all John's prudent calculations. He fell in love. He
might have married Dorothy Paulson, the blacksmith's daughter—an
only child, with better than two hundred pounds in the bank, and
a good business—a virtuous, good girl, too, except that she was
as thin as a hurdle, with a skin like a nutmeg-grater, and rather
a bad temper. But instead of that, to the surprise of every
one, he went and married Carry Hutchins, the daughter of Widow
Hutchins, one of the little freeholders bought out by Mr. Lobbit,
who died, poor old soul, the day after she was carried into the
workhouse, leaving Carry and her brother Tom destitute—that is
to say, destitute of goods, money, or credit, but not of common
sense, good health, good looks, and power of earning wages.

"Carry was nearly a head taller than John, with a face like a
ripe pear. He had to buy her wedding gown, and every thing else.
He bought them at Lobbit's shop. Tom Hutchins—he was fifteen
years old—a tall, spry lad, accepted five shillings from his
brother-in-law, hung a small bundle on his bird's-nesting stick,
and set off to walk to Bristol, to be a sailor. He was never
heard of any more at Duxmoor.

"At first all went well. John left off going to wakes and fairs,
except on business; stuck to his trades; brought his garden
into good order, and worked early and late, when he could spare
time, at his two fields, while his wife helped him famously. If
they had had a few pounds in hand, they would have had 'land and
beeves.'

"But the first year twins came—a boy and girl; and the next
another girl, and then twins again, and so on. Before Mrs. Bodger
was thirty she had nine hearty, healthy children, with a fair
prospect of plenty more; while John was a broken man, soured,
discontented, hopeless. No longer did he stride forth eagerly to
his work, after kissing mother and babies; no longer did he hurry
home to put a finishing-stroke to the potato-patch, or broadcast
his oat crop; no longer did he sit whistling and telling stories
of bygone feats at the fireside, while mending some wooden
implement of his own, or making one for a neighbour. Languid and
moody, he lounged to his task with round shoulders and slouching
gait; spoke seldom—when he did, seldom kindly. His children,
except the youngest, feared him, and his wife scarcely opened her
lips, except to answer.

"A long, hard, severe winter, and a round of typhus fever, which
carried off two children, finished him. John Bodger was beaten,
and obliged to sell his bit of land. He had borrowed money on it
from the lawyer; while laid up with fever he had silently allowed
his wife to run up a bill at 'The Shop.' When strong enough for
work there was no work to be had. Lobbit saw his opportunity,
and took it. John Bodger wanted to buy a cow, he wanted seed, he
wanted to pay the doctor, and to give his boys clothes to enable
them to go to service. He sold his land for what he thought
would do all this and leave a few pounds in hand. He attended to
sign the deed and receive money; when instead of the balance of
twenty-five pounds he had expected, he received one pound ten
shillings, and a long lawyer's bill _receipted_.

"He did not say much; for poor countrymen don't know how to talk
to lawyers, but he went toward home like a drunken man; and, not
hearing the clatter of a horse behind him that had run away, was
knocked down, run over, and picked up with his collar-bone and
two ribs broken.

"The next day he was delirious; in the course of a fortnight he
came to his senses, lying on a workhouse bed. Before he could
rise from the workhouse bed, not a stick or stone had been left
to tell where the cottage of his fathers had stood for more
than two hundred years, and Mr. Joseph Lobbit had obtained, in
auctioneering phrase, a magnificent estate of five hundred acres
within a ring fence.

"John Bodger stood up at length a ruined, desperate, dangerous
man, pale, and weak, and even humble. He said nothing; the fever
seemed to have tamed every limb—every feature—except his eyes,
which glittered like an adder's when Mr. Lobbit came to talk to
him. Lobbit saw it and trembled in his inmost heart, yet was
ashamed of being afraid of a _pauper_!

"About this time Swing fires made their appearance in the
country, and the principal insurance companies refused to insure
farming stock, to the consternation of Mr. Lobbit; for he had
lately begun to suspect that among Mr. Swing's friends he was not
very popular, yet he had some thousand pounds of corn-stacks in
his own yards and those of his customers.

"John Bodger, almost convalescent, was anxious to leave the
poorhouse, while the master, the doctor, and every official,
seemed in a league to keep him there and make him comfortable,
although a short time previously the feeling had been quite
different. But the old rector of Duxmoor having died at the early
age of sixty-six, in spite of his care for his health, had been
succeeded by a man who was not content to leave his duties to
deputies; all the parish affairs underwent a keen criticism, and
John and his large family came under investigation. His story
came out. The new rector pitied and tried to comfort him; but his
soothing words fell on deaf ears. The only answer he could get
from John was, 'A hard life while it lasts, sir, and a pauper's
grave, a pauper widow, pauper children; Parson, while this is all
you can offer John Bodger, preaching to him is of no use.'

"With the wife the clergyman was more successful. Hope and belief
are planted more easily in the hearts of women than of men, for
adversity softens the one and hardens the other. The rector was
not content with exhorting the poor; he applied to the rich
Joseph Lobbit on behalf of John Bodger's family, and as the
rector was not only a truly Christian priest, but a gentleman of
good family and fortune, the parochial ruler was obliged to hear
and to heed.

"Bland and smooth, almost pathetic, was Joseph Lobbit: he was
'heartily sorry for the poor man and his large family; should be
happy to offer him and his wife permanent employment on his Hill
farm, as well as two of the boys and one of the girls.'

"The eldest son and daughter, the first twins, had been for some
time in respectable service. John would have nothing to do with
Mr. Lobbit.

"While this discussion was pending, the news of a ship at
Plymouth waiting for emigrants, reached Duxmoor.

"The parson and the great shopkeeper were observed in a long warm
conference in the rectory garden, which ended in their shaking
hands, and the rector proceeding with rapid strides to the
poorhouse.

"The same day the lately established girls' school was set to
work sowing garments of all sizes, as well as the females of
the rector's family. A week afterward there was a stir in the
village; a wagon moved slowly away, laden with a father, mother,
and large family, and a couple of pauper orphan girls. Yes, it
was true; John and Carry Bodger were going to 'furrin parts,'
'to be made slaves on.' The women cried, and so did the children
from imitation. The men stared. As the emigrants passed the Red
Lion there was an attempt at a cheer from two tinkers; but it
was a failure; no one joined in. So staring and staring, the men
stood until the wagon crept round the turn of the lane and over
the bridge, out of sight; then bidding the 'wives' go home and be
hanged to 'em, their lords, that had twopence, went in to spend
it at the Red Lion, and those who had not, went in to see the
others drink, and talk over John Bodger's 'bouldness,' and abuse
Muster Lobbit quietly, so that no one in top-boots should hear
them;—for they were poor ignorant people in Duxmoor—they had
no one to teach them, or to care for them, and after the fever,
and a long hard winter, they cared little for their own flesh
and blood, still less for their neighbours. So John Bodger was
forgotten almost before he was out of sight.

"By the road-wagon which the Bodgers joined when they reached the
highway, it was a three days' journey to Plymouth.

"But, although they were gone, Mr. Lobbit did not feel quite
satisfied; he felt afraid lest John should return and do him
some secret mischief. He wished to see him on board ship, and
fairly under sail. Besides his negotiation with Emigration
Brokers had opened up ideas of a new way of getting rid, not
only of dangerous fellows like John Bodger, but of all kinds of
useless paupers. These ideas he afterward matured, and although
important changes have taken place in our emigrating system,
even in 1851, a visit to government ships, will present many
specimens of parish inmates converted, by dexterous diplomacy,
into independent labourers.

"Thus it was, that contrary to all precedent, Mr. Lobbit left his
shopman to settle the difficult case of credit with his Christmas
customers, and with best horse made his way to Plymouth; and now
for the first time in his life floated on salt water.

"With many grunts and groans he climbed the ship's side; not
being as great a man at Plymouth as at Duxmoor, no chair was
lowered to receive his portly person. The mere fact of having to
climb up a rope-ladder from a rocking boat on a breezy, freezing
day, was not calculated to give comfort or confident feelings to
an elderly gentleman. With some difficulty, not without broken
shins, amid the sarcastic remarks of groups of wild Irishmen, and
the squeaks of barefooted children—who not knowing his awful
parochial character, tumbled about Mr. Lobbit's legs in a most
impertinently familiar manner—he made his way to the captain's
cabin, and there transacted some mysterious business with the
Emigration Agent over a prime piece of mess beef and a glass of
Madeira. The Madeira warmed Mr. Lobbit. The captain assured him
positively that the ship would sail with the evening tide. That
assurance removed a heavy load from his breast: he felt like
a man who had been performing a good action, and also cheated
himself into believing that he had been spending _his own_ money
in charity; so, at the end of the second bottle, he willingly
chimed in with the broker's proposal to go down below and see how
the emigrants were stowed, and have a last look at his 'lot.'

"Down the steep ladder they stumbled into the misery of a
'bounty' ship. A long, dark gallery, on each side of which were
ranged the berths; narrow shelves open to every prying eye;
where, for four months, the inmates were to be packed like
herrings in a barrel, without room to move, almost without air
to breathe; the mess table, running far aft the whole distance
between the masts, left little room for passing, and that little
was encumbered with all manner of boxes, packages, and infants,
crawling about like rabbits in a warren.

"The groups of emigrants were characteristically employed.
The Irish 'coshering,' or gossiping; for, having little or
no baggage to look after, they had little care; but lean and
ragged, monopolized almost all the good-humour of the ship. Acute
cockneys, a race fit for every change, hammering, whistling,
screwing and making all snug in their berths; tidy mothers,
turning with despair from alternate and equally vain attempts to
collect their numerous children out of danger, and to pack the
necessaries of a room into the space of a small cupboard, wept
and worked away. Here, a ruined tradesman, with his family,
sat at the table, dinnerless, having rejected the coarse, tough
salt meat in disgust: there, a half-starved group fed heartily
on rations from the same cask, luxuriated over the allowance of
grog, and the idea of such a good meal daily. Songs, groans,
oaths: crying, laughing, complaining, hammering and fiddling
combined to produce a chaos of strange sounds; while thrifty
wives, with spectacle on nose, mended their husband's breeches,
and unthrifty ones scolded.

"Amid this confusion, under the authoritative guidance of the
second mate, Mr. Lobbit made his way, inwardly calculating how
many poachers, pauper refractories, Whiteboys, and Captain
Rocks, were about to benefit Australia by their talents, until
he reached a party which had taken up its quarters as far as
possible from the Irish, in a gloomy corner near the stern. It
consisted of a sickly, feeble woman, under forty, but worn,
wasted, retaining marks of former beauty in a pair of large,
dark, speaking eyes, and a well-carved profile, who was engaged
in nursing two chubby infants, evidently twins, while two little
things, just able to walk, hung at her skirts; a pale, thin boy,
nine or ten years old, was mending a jacket; an elder brother, as
brown as a berry, fresh from the fields, was playing dolefully on
a hemlock flute. The father, a little, round-shouldered man, was
engaged in cutting wooden buttons from a piece of hard wood with
his pocket-knife; when he caught sight of Mr. Lobbit he hastily
pulled off his coat, threw it into his berth, and, turning his
back, worked away vigorously at the stubborn bit of oak he was
carving.

"'Hallo, John Bodger, so here you are at last,' cried Mr. Lobbit;
'I've broken my shins, almost broken my neck, and spoilt my coat
with tar and pitch, in finding you out. Well, you're quite at
home, I see: twins all well?—both pair of them? How do you find
yourself, Missis?'

"The pale woman sighed, and cuddled her babies—the little man
said nothing, but sneered, and made the chips fly faster.

"'You're on your way now to a country where twins are no object;
your passage is paid, and you've only got now to pray for the
good gentlemen that have given you a chance of earning an honest
living.'

"No answer.

"'I see them all here except Mary, the young lady of the family.
Pray, has she taken rue, and determined to stay in England, after
all; I expected as much'—

"As he spoke, a young girl, in the neat dress of a parlour
servant, came out of the shade.

"'Oh! you are there, are you, Miss Mary? So you have made up your
mind to leave your place and Old England, to try your luck in
Australia; plenty of husbands there: ha, ha!'

"The girl blushed, and sat down to sew at some little garments.
Fresh, rosy, neat, she was as great a contrast to her brother,
the brown, ragged ploughboy, as he was to the rest of the family,
with their flabby, bleached complexions.

"There was a pause. The mate, having done his duty by finding
the parochial dignitary's _protegés_, had slipped away to more
important business; a chorus of sailors 'yo heave ho-ing' at a
chain cable had ceased, and for a few moments, by common consent,
silence seemed to have taken possession of the long, dark gallery
of the hold.

"Mr. Lobbit was rather put out by the silence, and no answers; he
did not feel so confident as when crowing on his own dunghill,
in Duxmoor; he had a vague idea that some one might steal behind
him in the dark, knock his hat over his eyes, and pay off old
scores with a hearty kick: but parochial dignity prevailed, and,
clearing his throat with a 'hem,' he began again—

"'John Bodger, where's your coat?—what are you shivering there
for, in your sleeves?—what have you done with the excellent coat
generously presented to you by the parish—a coat that cost, as
per contract, fourteen shillings and fourpence—you have not
dared to sell it, I hope?'

"'Well, Master Lobbit, and if I did, the coat was my own, I
suppose?'

"'What, sir?'

"The little man quailed; he had tried to pluck up his spirit,
but the blood did not flow fast enough. He went to his berth and
brought out the coat.

"It was certainly a curious colour, a sort of yellow brown, the
cloth shrunk and cockled up, and the metal buttons turned a dingy
black.

"Mr. Lobbit raved; 'a new coat entirely spoiled, what had he
done to it?' and as he raved he warmed, and felt himself at
home again, deputy acting chairman of the Duxmoor Vestry. But
the little man, instead of being frightened, grew red, lost his
humble mien, stood up, and at length, when his tormentor paused
for breath, looked him full in the face, and cried, 'Hang your
coat!—hang you!—hang all the parochials of Duxmoor! What have
I done with your coat? Why, I've dyed it; I've dipped it in a
tan-yard; I was not going to carry your livery with me. I mean
to have the buttons off before I'm an hour older. Gratitude you
talk of;—thanks you want, you old hypocrite, for sending me
away. I'll tell you what sent me,—it was that poor wench and
her twins, and a letter from the office, saying they would not
insure your ricks, while lucifer matches are so cheap. Ay, you
may stare—you wonder who told me that; but I can tell you more.
Who is it writes so like his father the bank can't tell the
difference?'

"Mr. Lobbit turned pale.

"'Be off!' said the little man; 'plague us no more. You have
eaten me up with your usury; you've got my cottage and my bit of
land; you've made paupers of us all, except that dear lass, and
the one lad, and you'd wellnigh made a convict of me. But never
mind. This will be a cold, drear Christmas to us, and a merry,
fat one to you; but, perhaps, the Christmas may come when Master
Joseph Lobbit would be glad to change places with poor, ruined
John Bodger. I am going where I am told that sons and daughters
like mine are better than "silver, yea, than fine gold." I leave
you rich on the poor man's inheritance, and poor man's flesh and
blood. You have a son and daughter that will revenge me. "Cursed
are they that remove landmarks, and devour the substance of the
poor!"'

"While this, one of the longest speeches that John Bodger
was ever known to make, was being delivered, a little crowd
had collected, who, without exactly understanding the merits
of the case, had no hesitation in taking side with their
fellow-passenger, the poor man with the large family. The Irish
began to inquire if the stout gentleman was a tithe-proctor or
a driver? Murmurs of a suspicious character arose, in the midst
of which, in a very hasty, undignified manner, Mr. Lobbit backed
out, climbed up to the deck with extraordinary agility, and,
without waiting to make any complaints to the officers of the
ship, slipped down the side into a boat, and never felt himself
safe, until called to his senses by an attempt on the part of the
boatman to exact four times the regular fare.

"But a good dinner at the Globe (at parochial expense) and a
report from the agent that the ship had sailed, restored Mr.
Lobbit's equanimity; and by the time that, snugly packed in the
mail, he was rattling along toward home by a moonlight Christmas,
he began to think himself a martyr to a tender heart, and to
console himself by calculating the value of the odd corner of
Bodger's acres, cut up into lots for his labourers' cottages. The
result—fifty per cent.—proved a balm to his wounded feelings.

"I wish I could say that at the same hour John Bodger was
comforting his wife and little ones; sorry am I to report that he
left them to weep and complain, while he went forward and smoked
his pipe, and sang, and drank grog with a jolly party in the
forecastle—for John's heart was hardened, and he cared little
for God or man.

"This old, fond love for his wife and children seemed to have
died away. He left them, through the most part of the voyage, to
shift for themselves—sitting forward, sullenly smoking, looking
into vacancy, and wearying the sailors with asking, 'How many
knots to-day, Jack? When do you think we shall see land?' So that
the women passengers took a mortal dislike to him; and it being
gossiped about that when his wife was in the hospital he never
went to see her for two days, they called him a brute. So 'Bodger
the Brute' he was called until the end of the voyage. Then they
were all dispersed, and such stories driven out of mind by new
scenes.

"John was hired to go into the far interior, where it was
difficult to get free servants at all; so his master put up with
the dead-weight encumbrance of the babies, in consideration
of the clever wife and string of likely lads. Thus, in a
new country, he began life again in a blue jersey and ragged
corduroys, but with the largest money income he had ever known."

The second scene is a picture of John Bodger's prosperity in Australia, where eviction and workhouses are forgotten. If Australia had not been open to John as a refuge, most probably he would have become a criminal, or a worthless vagrant. Here is the second scene:—

"In 1842, my friend Mrs. C. made one of her marches through the
bush with an army of emigrants. These consisted of parents with
long families, rough, country-bred single girls, with here and
there a white-handed, useless young lady—the rejected ones of
the Sydney hirers. In these marches she had to depend for the
rations of her ragged regiment on the hospitality of the settlers
on her route, and was never disappointed, although it often
happened that a day's journey was commenced without any distinct
idea of who would furnish the next dinner and breakfast.

"On one of these foraging excursions—starting at day-dawn on
horseback, followed by her man Friday, an old _lag_, (prisoner,)
in a light cart, to carry the provender—she went forth to look
for the flour, milk, and mullet, for the breakfast of a party
whose English appetites had been sharpened by travelling at the
pace of the drays all day, and sleeping in the open air all night.

"The welcome smoke of the expected station was found; the light
cart, with the complements and empty sack despatched; when
musing, at a foot-pace, perhaps on the future fortune of the
half-dozen girls hired out the previous day, Mrs. C. came upon a
small party which had also been encamping on the other side of
the hills.

"It consisted of two gawky lads, in docked smock frocks, woolly
hats, rosy, sleepy countenances—fresh arrivals, living monuments
of the care bestowed in developing the intelligence of the
agricultural mind in England. They were hard at work on broiled
mutton. A regular, hard-dried bushman had just driven up a pair
of blood mares from their night's feed, and a white-headed, brisk
kind of young old man, the master of the party, was sitting
by the fire, trying to feed an infant with some sort of mess
compounded with sugar. A dray, heavily laden, with a bullock-team
ready harnessed, stood ready to start under the charge of a
bullock-watchman.

"The case was clear to a colonial eye; the white-headed man had
been down to the port from his bush-farm to sell his stuff, and
was returning with two blood mares purchased, and two emigrant
lads hired; but what was the meaning of the baby? We see strange
things in the bush, but a man-nurse is strange even there.

"Although they had never met before, the white-headed man almost
immediately recognised Mrs. C.,—for who did not know her, or of
her, in the bush?—so was more communicative than he otherwise
might have been; so he said—

"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place these
three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse
about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving the
first year, and my daughters have married pretty well, and my
boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three of them
married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we could set up
for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as they were all
busy at home, I went down for the first time to get a couple of
mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships to help
us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have docked
their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do after a
bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I when I
first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had from you)
will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things on the
dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being my
first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about this
babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to hire my
shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country; and while
I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husband had been
drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying very ill,
with a young babby, and not likely to live.

"'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on board,
she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my voice;
one word brought on another, when it came out she was the wife of
the son of my greatest enemy.

"'She had been his father's servant, and married the son
secretly. When it was found out, he had to leave the country;
thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled,
and the business that put her husband in danger might be settled.
For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the father, but
with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor lasses.
Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not seem so
ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was, and I did
not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and cried out,
'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she screamed, and
screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and never came to her
senses until she died.

"'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby,
and as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and
my grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the
gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently
buried.

"'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and I've been
five days on the road. But I think my missis will be pleased as
much as with the gown I've brought her.'

"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came over in
the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'

"'Yes, ma'am.'

"'John, the Brute?'

"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-_ly_.'

"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph Lobbit's
daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or something, and
would have been lagged if he'd staid in England. I don't know but
I might have been as bad if I had not got out of the country when
I did. But there's something here in always getting on; and not
such a struggling and striving that softens a poor man's heart.
And I trust what I've done for this poor babby and its mother
may excuse my brutish behaviour. I could not help thinking when
I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit, (I mind her well, a nice little
lass, about ten years old,) I could not help thinking as she lay
in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a beautiful stone cut with
her name and age, and a text on her grave, how different it is
even for poor people to be buried here. Oh, ma'am! a man like
me, with a long family, can make ahead here, and do a bit of
good for others worse off. We live while we live; when we die we
are buried with decency. I remember, when my wife's mother died,
the parish officers were so cross, and the boards of the coffin
barely stuck together, and it was terrible cold weather, too. My
Carry used to cry about it uncommonly all the winter. The swells
may say what they like about it, but I'll be blessed if it be'ent
worth all the voyage to die in it.'

"Not many days afterward, Mrs. C. saw John at home, surrounded
by an army of sons and daughters; a patriarch, and yet not sixty
years old; the grandchild of his greatest enemy the greatest pet
of the family.

"In my mind's eye there are sometimes two pictures. John Bodger
in the workhouse, thinking of murder and fire-raising in the
presence of his prosperous enemy; and John Bodger, in his happy
bush-home, nursing little Nancy Lobbit.