The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale Page 8
LETTER III.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
I perceive my father emulates the policy of the British Legislature,and delegates English ministers to govern his Irish domains. Who doyou think is his _fac totum_ here? The rascally son of his cunningLeicestershire steward, who unites all his father’s artifice to aproportionable share of roguery of his own, I have had some reasonto know the fellow; but his servility of manner, and apparent rigiddischarge of his duties, has imposed on my father; who, with all hissuperior mind, is to be imposed on, by those who know how to find outthe clew to his fallibility: his noble soul can never stoop to dive intothe minute vices of a rascal of this description.
Mr. Clendinning was absent from M-------- house when I arrived, butattended me the next morning at breakfast, with that fawning civility ofmanner I abhor, and which, contrasted with the manly courteousness of mylate companion, never appeared more grossly obvious. He endeavoured toamuse me with a detail of the ferocity, cruelty, and uncivilized stateof those among whom (as he hinted,) I was banished for my sins. He hadnow, he said, been near five years among them, and had never met anindividual of the lower order, who did not deserve a halter at least:for his part, he had kept a tight hand over them, and he was justifiedin so doing, or his lord would be the sufferer; for few of them wouldpay their rents till their cattle were driven, or some such measure wastaken with them. And as for the labourers and workmen, a slave-driverwas the only man fit to deal with them; they were all rebellious, idle,cruel, and treacherous; and for his part, he never expected to leave thecountry with his life.
It is not possible a better defence for the imputed turbulence of theIrish peasantry could be made, than that which lurked in the unprovokedaccusations of this narrow-minded sordid steward, who, it is evident,wished to forestall the complaints of those on whom he had exercised thenative tyranny of his disposition (even according to his own account,)by every species of harrassing oppression within the compass of hisability. For if power is a dangerous gift even in the regulated mindof elevated rank, what does it be come in the delegated authority ofignorance, meanness, and illiberality? *
* A horde of tyrants exist in Ireland, in a class of men that are unknown in England, in the multitude of agents of absentees, small proprietors, who are the pure Irish squires, middle men, who take large farms, and squeeze out a forced kind of profit by letting them in small parcels; lastly, the little farmers themselves, who exercise the same insolence they receive from their superiors, on those unfortunate beings who are placed at the extremity of the scale of degradation--the Irish peasantry.--An Enquiry into the Causes of Popular Discontents in Ireland.
My father, however, by frequent visitations to his Irish estates (withinthese few years at least,) must afford to his suffering tenantry anopportunity of redress; for who that ever approached him with a _tear_of suffering, but left his presence with a tear of gratitude! But many,very many of the English nobility who hold immense tracts of landin this country, and draw from hence in part the suppliance of theirluxuries, have never visited their estates, since conquest first putthem in the possession of their ancestors. Ours, you know, fell to usin the Cromwellian wars, but since the time of General M--------, whoearned them by the sword, my father, his lineal descendant, is the firstof the family who ever visited them. And certainly, a wish to conciliatethe affections of his tenantry, could alone induce him to spend so muchof his time here as he has done; for the situation of this place isbleak and solitary, and the old mansion, like the old manor housesof England, has neither the architectural character of an antiquestructure, nor the accommodation of a modern one.
“_Ayant l’air delabri, sans l’air antique_.”
On enquiring for the key of the library, Mr. Clendinning informed mehis lord always took it with him, but that a box of books had come fromEngland a few days before my arrival.
As I suspected, they were all law books--well, be it so; there are fewsufferings more acute than those which forbid complaint, because theyare self-created.
Four days have elapsed since I began this letter, and I have beenprevented from continuing it merely for want of something to say.
I cannot now sit down, as I once did, and give you a history of myideas or sensations, in the deficiency of fact or incident; for I havesurvived my sensations, and my ideas are dry and exhausted.
I cannot now trace my joys to their source, or my sorrows to theirspring, for I am destitute of their present, and insensible to theirformer existence. The energy of youthful feeling is subdued, and thevivacity of warm emotion worn out by its own violence. I have lived toofast in a moral as well as a physical sense, and the principles ofmy intellectual, as well as my natural constitution are, I fear, fasthastening to decay I live the tomb of my expiring mind, and preserveonly the consciousness of my wretched state, without the power, andalmost without the wish to be otherwise than what I am. And yet, Godknows, I am nothing less than contented.
Would you hear my journal? I rise late to my solitary breakfast, becauseit is solitary; then to study, or rather to yawn over _Giles_ versus_Haystack_, until (to check the creeping effects of lethargy) I risefrom my reading desk, and lounge to a window, which commands a boundlessview of a boundless bog; then, “with what appetite I may,” sit down to ajoyless dinner. Sometimes, when seduced by the blandishments of an evening singularly beautiful, I quit my _den_ and _prowl_ down to the seashore where, throwing myself at the foot of some cliff that “battleso’er the deep,” I fix my vacant eye on the stealing waves that
“Idly swell against the rocky coast,
And break--as break those glittering shadows,
Human joys.”
Then wet with the ocean spray and evening dew, return to my bed, merelyto avoid the intrusive civilities of Mr. Clendinning. Thus wear thehours away.”
I had heard that the neighbourhood about M-------- house was good: Ican answer for its being populous. Although I took every precaution toprevent my arrival being known, yet the natives have come down on me inhordes, and this in all the form of _haut ton_, as the innumerablecards of the clans of Os and Macs evince. I have, however, neitherbeen visible to the visitants, nor accepted their invitations: for “mandelights me not, nor woman either.” Nor woman either! Oh! uncertaintyof all human propensities! Yet so it is, that every letter that composesthe word _woman!_ seems cabalistical, and rouses every principle ofaversion and disgust within me; while I often ask myself with Tasso,
“Se pur ve nelle amor alcun dileito.”
It is certain, that the diminutive body of our worthy steward, is theabode of the transmigrated soul of some _West Indian_ planter. I havebeen engaged these two days in listening to, and retributing thoseinjuries his tyranny has inflicted, in spite of his rage, eloquence, andthreats, none of which have been spared. The victims of his oppressionhaunt me in my walks, fearful lest their complaints should come to theknowledge of this puissant _major domo_.
“But why,” said I to one of the sufferers, after a detail of seizedgeese, pounded cows, extra labour cruelly extorted, ejectments, &c.&c.. given in all the tedious circumlocution of Irish oratory,--“why notcomplain to my father when he comes among you?”
“Becaise, please your Honour, my Lord stays but a few days at a timehere together, nor that same neither; besides, we be loth to trouble hisLordship, for feard it would be after coming to Measther Clendinning’sears, which would be the ruination of us all; and then when my Lord isat the Lodge, which he mostly is, he is always out amongst the quality,so he is.”
“What Lodge?” said I.
“Why, please your Honour, where my Lord mostly takes up when he comeshere, the place that belonged to Measther Clendinning, who call ed itthe _Lodge_, becaise the good old Irish name that was upon it did notsuit his fancy.”
In the evening I asked Mr. Clendinning if my father did not sometimesreside at the Lodge? He seemed surprised at my information, and said,that was the name he had given to a ruinous old place which, with afew acres of indifferent land, he h
ad purchased of his hard labour, andwhich his Lord having taken an unaccountable liking to, rented from him,and was actually the tenant of his own steward.
O! what arms of recrimination I should be furnished with against myrigidly moral father, should I discover this remote _Cassino_, (forremote I understand it is) to be the _harem_ of some wild Irish_Sultana_; for I strongly suspect “that metal more attractive” than thecause he assigns, induces him to pay an annual visit to a countryto which, till within these few years, he nurtured the strongestprejudices. You know there are but nineteen years between him and mybrother; and his feelings are so unblunted by vicious pursuits, his lifehas been guided by such epicurian principles of enjoyment, that he stillretains much of the first warm flush of juvenile existence, and hasonly sacrificed to time, its follies and its ignorance. I swear, at thismoment he is a younger man than either of his sons; the one chilledby the coldness of an icy temperament into premature old age, and theother!!!------Murtoch has been to see me. I have procured him a littlefarm, and am answerable for the rent. I sent his wife some rich wine;she is recovering very fast. Murtoch is all gratitude for the wine, butI perceive his faith still lies in the _bacon!_