Ireland as It Is Part 7

'Michael Hegarty,' says I, 'where did ye scour up yer thievin' set o'

rag-heaps?' says I. 'Ye'd bate me wid blackthorns, would ye? Come on, you and your dirty thribe, till I put sivin shots into yez. Shure I could pick the eye out o' yez shure I could shoot a louse off yer ear,' says I. 'Anger me,' says I, 'an' I'll murther the whole parish; raise a stick to me, an' I'll shlaughter the whole counthry side.' An'

wid that I c.o.c.ked me little shootin'-iron.

"Ye should have seen that shebeen-keeper; ye should have seen the whole o' them whin I raised me voice an' lifted me little Colt!

"They tumbled away through the dure, crossin' each other like threes ye'd cut down, lavin' the landlord, struck all iv a heap, the mug on him white as a new twelve-pinny, staggerin' on his two s.h.i.+n-bones, an'

thrimblin' an' s.h.i.+verin' wid fright, till ye'd think he'd shake the teeth out iv his head.

"The murdherin' vilyans want shtandin' up to, an' they'll rispict ye.

I had no further trouble. That was the last o' thim. 'Tis the wake an'

difinceless people they bate an' murther. I heerd there was talk o'

shootin' me from the back iv a ditch; an' that one said, 'But av ye missed?' says he. 'What thin?' says he.

"Ye should sind ould Gladstone an' Morley an' the other ould women to Carrignaheela till I give them a noggin' o' right poteen an' insinse thim into the way iv it. The only way o' managin' me counthrymin is to be the masther all out, an' 'tis thrue what I spake, an' sorra one o'

me cares who hears me opinion. I'm the only man in the counthry that dares open his teeth, an' yet they all thrate me well now, an' the priest invites me to his house. An' all because I spake me mind, an'

don't care three thraneens for the whole o' thim. 'Twas in America I larned the secret."

Cork, April 20th.

No. 11.--THE CRY FOR PEACE AND QUIETNESS.

"What's the next place to this?" I asked, as the Southern and Western Railway deposited me at Tralee. I was uncertain as to whether the place was a terminus, but the gintleman who dhrove the cyar I hailed marvelled greatly at my ignorance. He surveyed me from top to toe with a compa.s.sionate expression. No doubt he had heard much of the ignorance of the uncivilised English, but this beat the record. Not to know that Tralee was on the sea, not to know that the little port frowned o'er the wild Atlantic main, as Mr. Micawber would have said.

He struggled for a moment with his emotion and then said,

"Musha, the next parish is Amerikay!"

I apologised for my imperfect geographical knowledge, but the cyar-man was immovable. No pardoning look stole over his big red face, which was of the size and complexion of a newly cut ham. Nor would he enter into conversation with the inquiring stranger. He cursed his horse with a copiousness which showed his power of imagination, and with a minute attention to detail which demonstrated a superior business capacity. Put him in the House amongst the Nationalist members, and he is bound to come to the front. The qualifications above-mentioned cannot fail to ensure success. We have the examples before us, no need to mention names. A hard cheek, a bitter tongue, and a good digestion are the three great steps in the Irish Parliamentary _gradus ad Parna.s.sum_, the cheek to enable its happy possessor to "snub up" to gentlemen of birth and breeding, the tongue to drip gall and venom on all and sundry, the digestion to eat dirt _ad libitum_ and to endure hebdomadal horsewhippings. Such a man, I am sure, was the dhriver of my cyar, who may readily be identified. His physiognomy is very like the railway map of Ireland, coloured red, with the rivers and mountain ranges in dark-blue or plum-colour. As a means of ready reference he would be invaluable in the House of Commons. How interesting to see Mr. Gladstone poring over his cheek (Connaught and Leinster), his jaw (Munster, with a pimple for Parnellite Cork), and his forehead (Ulster, with the eyes for Derry and Belfast). The G.O.M. would find the Kerry member invaluable. Like the rest he would probably be devoid of shame, untroubled by scruples, and a straight voter for his side, so long as he was not allowed to go "widout a male." Who knows but that, like the Prime Minister's chief Irish adviser, he may even have been reared on the savoury tripe and the succulent "drischeen"?

All the Tralee folks are shy of political talk. They eye you for a long time before they commit themselves, but when once started they can hardly stop, so warm are they, so intensely interested in the great question. Running down the line, a Cork merchant said "The Kerry folks are decent, quiet folks by nature. Do not believe that these simple villagers are the determined murderers they would seem to be.

No brighter intellects in Ireland, no better hearts, no more hospitable hosts in the Emerald Isle. They are very superst.i.tious.

There you have it all. 'Tis their beautiful ingenuousness that makes them so easily led astray. What do these simple country folks, living on their farms, without books, without newspapers, without communication with large centres--what do they know about intricate State affairs? What can they do but listen to the priest, regarded as the great scholar of the district, reverenced as almost--nay, quite infallible, and credited with the power to give or withhold eternal life? For while in England the people only respect a parson according to the esteem he deserves as a man, in Ireland the priestly office invests the man with a character entirely different from his own, and covers everything. These poor folks felt the pinch of hard times, and the agitators, backed by their Church, saw their opportunity and commenced to use it. Hence the Kerry moonlighters, poor fellows, fighting in their rude and uncouth way for what they believed to be patriotism and freedom. They should be pitied rather than blamed, for they were a.s.suredly acting up to their light, and upon the advice of men they had from childhood been taught to regard as wise, sincere, and disinterested counsellors.

"Ah me, what terrible times we had in Cork! Belfast may boast, but Belfast is not in it. We were in the centre of the fire. The shopkeepers of Patrick Street deserve the fullest recognition from the British nation. They had to furnish juries to well and truly try the moonlighters of Kerry, Clare, and several other counties. They sat for eight months, had to adjourn over Christmas, and those men returned true bills at the peril of their lives. The venue was changed to Cork for all these counties, and every man jack of the jury knew full well that any day some fanatic friend of the convicted men might shoot or stab him in the street. The loyalty of Belfast is all the talk, but it has never undergone so severe a test. There the Loyalists have it all their own way. Here the Loyalists, instead of being three to one, are only one to three. The Ulstermen are the entrenched army; the Cork Unionists are the advanced picket. More judges got promotion from Cork than elsewhere. We changed the barristers' silk to ermine, too. All this shows what we went through. Everything is quiet now; Balfour terrified the life out of them, and Captain Moonlight at the mention of that name would skip like spring-heeled Jack."

The Kerry folks turned out bright as their reputation. It was hard to believe that these simple, kindly peasants had ever stained their beautiful pastoral country with the bloodiest, cruellest deeds of recent times. They have a polite, deferential manner without servility, and a pious way of interpolating prayer and thanksgiving with their ordinary conversation.

"Good morning, Sir."

"Good mornin', an' G.o.d save ye, Sorr."

"Fine weather."

"'Tis indeed foine weather, glory be to G.o.d."

"Nice country."

"Troth, it is a splindid country. The Lord keep us in it."

A prosperous-looking shop with a portly personage at the door looked so uncommonly Unionistic that I ventured to make a few inquiries _re_ the antiquities of the district. The inevitable topic soon turned up, and to my surprise my friend avowed himself a Home Ruler and a Protectionist. His opinions and ill.u.s.trations struck me as remarkable, and with his permission I record them here.

"Yes, I am a Home Ruler--in theory. I think Home Rule would be best for both. Best for you and best for me, as the song says; but mark me well--NOT YET.

"You are surprised that I should say Not Yet so emphatically, but the fact is I love my country, and, besides, all my interests and those of my children are bound up with the prosperity of the country. This ought to sharpen a man's wits, if anything could do it, and I have for many years been engaged in thinking out the matter, and my mind is now made up.

"Home Rule from Gladstone will ruin us altogether. We must have Home Rule from Balfour. We _must_ have Home Rule, but we must have it from a Conservative Government. You smile. Is that new to you? It is? Just because Home Rulers in this country cannot afford to express their views at this moment. But the hope is entertained by all, I will say all, the most advanced Irish Home Rulers. By advanced I mean educated, enlightened. Let me give you an ill.u.s.tration which I heard from a friend in Cork.

"Here is Ireland, a delicate plant requiring untold watching and careful training. Around it on the ground are a number of slugs and snails. Or call them hireling agitators if you like. I sprinkle salt around the roots to kill off the brutes and save my darling plant.

That salt is Conservatism. It is furnished by people of property, by men who have interests to guard. Salt is a grand thing, let me tell you! Balfour is the man to sprinkle salt. Home Rule from him would be safe. He is the greatest man that ever governed Ireland, but that must be stale to you. You must have heard that everywhere. He put his foot on rebellion and crushed it out of existence. On the other hand the poor folks of the West coast would lie down and let him walk over them. They hold him in such esteem that they would regard it a favour if he would honour them by wiping his feet on them. He might walk unarmed and unattended through Ireland from end to end with perfect safety. But which of the Nationalist members could do that? Not one.

The city sc.u.m, the criminal, irreclaimable cla.s.s, shout 'h.e.l.l to Balfour,' but these poor readers of the _Freeman's Journal_ and such-like prints, prepared for their special use and written down to their level, must not be cla.s.sed with the people of Ireland at all.

Every country has its ruffian element, every country has its poisonous press. Ireland is no worse than other countries in these respects."

My Irish Conservative Home Ruler would have gone on indefinitely, furnis.h.i.+ng excellent matter, for he improved as he warmed up, but unhappily a priest called on him to make some purchase, and he had to leave me without much notice. "Over the way," he said. "Trip across to the opposite shop, and you'll find another Tory Home Ruler."

As I "tripped" across I thought of the Pills and Ointment man who ama.s.sed a colossal fortune by fifty years' advertising of the fact that wonders never will cease. Mr. Overtheway was not quite so Tory as might be supposed, after all. He said:--

"I have no objection to Home Rule, but, although a Catholic, I have the greatest objection to Rome Rule, which is precisely what it means.

I object to this great Empire being ruled from Rome. The greatest Empire that the world ever saw to be bossed by a party of priests! Do the English know what they are now submitting to?

"Let me put the thing logically, and controvert me if you can.

"If Mr. Gladstone wished to go to war to-morrow, is he not at the mercy of the Irish Nationalist party? Could he get votes of supply without their aid? In the event of any sudden, or grave emergency, any serious and critical contingency, would they not hold the key of the position, would they not have the power to make or mar the Empire?

Surely they would. And are not these men in the hands of the priests?

Surely they are. That is a matter of common knowledge, as sure as that water will drown and fire will burn. A pretty position for a sensible man like John Bull to be placed in by a blethering idiot, who can argue with equal volubility on either side, but with more conviction when in the wrong. Bull must have been drunk, and drunk on stupid beer, when he placed his heart strings between the finger and thumb of a quack like that, who, whatever the result, whether we get Home Rule or not, has ruined the country for five-and-twenty years.

"Yes, I am a Home Ruler. But for heaven's sake don't thrust self-government on an unfortunate country that is not ready for it.

That country cries for it, you say. The snuffling old air-pump across the Channel says the same thing. Says he: 'Beloved brethren, I greet you. I fall on your neck and kiss your two ears, and give you all you ask. For why, beloved brethren? Why do I this thing. Let us in a spirit of love enquire. Because it is the wish of the country; because it is the aspiration of the people; because I feel a deep-seated, internal affection for your beautiful land, in whose affairs, during my eighty-four years' pilgrimage in this vale of tears, I have, as you know, always shown the strongest, the warmest, the most pa.s.sionate interest, and on whose lovely sh.o.r.es I have during my seven dozen years spent (altogether) nearly a week. It has been said that I have never been in Ulster, and that, therefore, I am unable to appreciate the situation. An atrocious falsehood. I have spent two hours (nearly) in the northern province, having landed from Sir Somebody's yacht to see the Giant's Causeway. I have studied the Irish question by means of mineral specimens gathered from the four provinces, and I am, therefore, competent to settle the Irish question for ever. Do you know a greater man than myself? I confess I don't. Bless you, my children. You ask for Home Rule. Enough. The fact that you ask proves a Divine right to have what you ask for. You are a people rightly struggling to be free,' says owld Gladstone. 'h.e.l.l to my sowl,' says he, 'but that's what ye are,' says he.

"And he starts to murder us by giving what the most ignorant, unthinking, unpatriotic, self-seeking people in the country have asked for, and swears that because they ask they must have.

"As well give a razor to a baby that cried for it.

"Ireland must be treated as an infant.

"An Irish Legislature would lead to untold miseries. We might arrive there some day, but not at a jump. The change is too sudden. We want a little training. We want to grow, and growth is a thing that cannot be forced. It takes time. Give us time for heaven's sake. Give us Home Rule, but also give us time. Give us milk, then fish, then perhaps a chop, and then, as we grow strong, beefsteak and onions. A word in your ear. This is certain truth, you can go Nap on it. Tell the English people that the people are getting sick of agitation, that they want peace and quietness, that they are losing faith in agitators, having before them a considerable stretch of history, which, notwithstanding the scattered population, is filtering down into the minds of the people, with its morals all in big print. The Irish folks are naturally quick-witted. They are simple and confiding, many of them very ignorant, if you will, but they find out their friends in the long run. Look at Balfour. Not a man in the whole world for whom the people have so much affection. Which do you think would get the best welcome to-morrow--Balfour or Morley? Balfour a hundred thousand times. Ah, now; my countrymen know the real article when they see it. Home Rule we want for convenience and for cheapness. We don't want to be compelled to rush to London before we can build a bridge.

But rather a million times submit to expense and inconvenience than hand the country over to a set of thieves who'd sell us to-morrow.

We're not such fools as ye take us for. Don't we know these heroes?

And when we see them and Gladstone and Morley and Humbug Harcourt with his seventeen chins, all rowling together in Abraham's bosom (as ye may say)--Harcourt licking Harrington's boots, when only yesterday Tim was spittin' in his eye--we say to ourselves 'Wait yet awhile, my Boys, wait yet awhile.' But when ye've finished yer slavering and splathering, and when Tim Healy can find time to take his heel off Morley's neck, then, and not before, we'll have something to say to you.

"But you should call on my friend on the right. He is also a Home Ruler--like myself."

Number three had powerfully-developed opinions. He said--"Home Rule on Conservative lines is my ticket. We'll get it on no other. I console myself with that idea. Otherwise it would be a frightful business, and what would become of us, I cannot tell. But I do not believe that even Gladstone would be so insane as to give it us. I cannot believe that the middle cla.s.s voters of England would stand by and see the corresponding cla.s.s in this country exterminated. Home Rule as much as you like, if we had the right men. The very poorest peasants are becoming alive to the fact that under present circ.u.mstances the thing would never do for them. They want the right men, that is, men of money and character, to come forward. And I declare most solemnly, that I am convinced that the Irish people would fall into line, and see the bill thrown out with perfect quietude. Now the push has come, they really do not want Home Rule, and, what is more, they absolutely dread it, and I firmly believe that a general election at the present moment would send a majority of Unionists to power. The priests are working for life and death. They see that this is their best chance, perhaps their very last opportunity. I am a Catholic; but then I am a Parnellite, a Tory Parnellite. And I have no intention of bartering away my political freedom to my Church, which, in my opinion, should keep clear of politics. The clergy have now advised payment of rent, so that the Government may not be embarra.s.sed at a very critical juncture. And the tenants are paying their rent, although the present period is one of great agricultural depression. Look at this: The Ulster farmers are terribly hard up, are complaining that they cannot pay. This is the Protestant province, where the priests have little scope. But in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the people are paying the landlord. The word has gone round--pay the landlord, whomever else you don't pay! The oilcake man, the implement man, the shopkeeper, are not getting their dues, but notwithstanding the pinch of the present moment, the landlord (who knows all about it) is paid. And the priests in some cases are actually remitting the clerical dues to enable the small men to pay the rint. Pay the rint, say they, if you pledge your very boots, if you have to go to the gombeen man (money-lender), if you have almost to rob the Church. They want to get possession, they want to get power, they want to get Home Rule; and then they know that, as Scripture says, 'All these things shall be added unto them.'

Let them once get the upper hand, and they can very soon recoup themselves.

"The priests are showing England their power, with a view to future good bargains. 'You see what we can do,' say they. Arrange the matter with us. We are the boys. The Reverend Father O'Codling is the man.

Have no dealings, except such as are authorised by us, with the red-headed Tim Healy Short. The Clergy have only one idea; that is, of course, the predominance of their Church. Very natural, and, from their point of view, very proper. I find no fault with them, but I say their object hardly commends itself to my undivided admiration, and, being still friendly, we on this subject part company. I wish to let the priests down easy. They are mostly very good men, apart from politics. They are good customers to me, and they pay very promptly.