This instance is quoted out of many to show that the art of "Boycotting" is advancing from the proportions of a mere local strike to those of an almost national combination against any person who has incurred the resentment of the popular party. It is noteworthy that strict adherence to the "constitutional weapon" is mainly confined to the cases of those whom it is unsafe to attack by more violent means. His enemies dare not make an onslaught on Mr. Stacpoole himself, for reasons well known and thoroughly appreciated; so they clip the ears of wretched hinds who are neither strong nor courageous enough to resist their violence, which is just now only employed against the defenceless; but such outrages are apparently quite sufficient to make the power of the Jacquerie absolute.

I am weary of hearing from panic-stricken interviewers that the "real Government of Ireland is that of the Land League;" but the facts adduced can hardly be passed over in silence. For the present, creditors have only two courses to pursue—to accept Griffith's valuation where they can get it, or to do nothing, await the action of Parliament, and go without money for their Christmas bills. "Weak holders," as they are called in the commercial world, must take what they can get, and stronger capitalists may wait for better times; for it is impossible to put the existing laws for the recovery of debt into effect. Evictions are out of the question. Neither Dublin writs nor "civil bills" can be served, except in a large town or its immediate neighbourhood, and seizure of goods for a common debt in country places is quite out of the question. The principal process-server in the town of Tipperary has retired from service, and addressed himself to "J.J." for several days past. That matters are going from bad to worse is proved by the calibre of the persons who are amply capable of paying their rent, but are afraid to do so. More than this, those who have paid before they received notices are threatened with pains and penalties if they do not join, publicly approve of, and subscribe to the popular combination.

Startling cases have just occurred in Tipperary. A farmer paying a very large rent even by English measure is leaving the country because he is threatened by vengeance if he do not immediately take back a labourer whom he dismissed for misconduct. Another large farmer is informed that all his labourers will be compelled to leave his employment unless he instantly joins the League. His farm includes a large percentage of tillage, and he must either undergo heavy pecuniary loss or submit, as he probably will do. A smaller tenant, who had been discovered to have paid on account a trifle more than Griffith's valuation, has been compelled to ask his landlord to give him the little balance back and a receipt in full. The request was acceded to, for the poor man declared that his life was not safe; that nobody would speak to him, and that nobody would work for him until he had righted himself with "the only Government which can carry its decrees into effect."

The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade has just arrived from Gibraltar, under the command of Colonel Carr Glyn, and will remain, together with the 26th Regiment, under Colonel Carr, and three troops of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, in Cork. The 37th Regiment leaves to make room for the Rifle Brigade; three companies go to Waterford, and the remainder to Kilkenny.



XVI.

A CRUISE IN A GROWLER.

CORK, December 21.

Just before starting towards the scene of the last case of Boycotting I had returned from a tour in Kerry, undertaken mainly with the object of collecting facts and ideas concerning the fiercely-debated question of peasant propriety. There are other great estates in Kerry besides that of Lord Kenmare, which is twenty-six miles long, and covers 91,080 acres. There are Lord Lansdowne's still greater estate of 94,983 acres, and the large property held by Trinity College, both of which have given rise to considerable controversy of late.

In many parts of Kerry may be found townlands vying in wretchedness with Coshleen and Champolard, with Derryinver, Cleggan, and Omey Island while others give abundant evidence of improvement and enlightened management. On the north side of Dingle Bay lies the estate of Lord Ventry, a popular landlord I am told, for the reason that he has not "harassed his tenants" with improvements, nor sought to wipe out the effect of the old middleman style of mismanagement by reducing their number and forcing them to live in habitations better perhaps than they care for. The crowding of people into a few villages, brought about partly by the desire of middlemen to make a profit, partly by electioneering schemes, and partly by the natural gregariousness of the peasants, has been already too fully dwelt upon to need repetition. What was done by landlords and middlemen in many places has been emulated by squatters wherever they have succeeded in occupying free land like the Commons of Ardfert, the condition whereof rivals that of Lurgankeale, in Louth, and of the historic townland of Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some time in the Library of the House of Commons. This last-named spot consisted of 164 statute acres, divided into 222 lots among eleven tenants, who cultivated alternate ridges and patches in the same field. Whether held by small tenants or landlords or of middlemen or by small proprietors, the land was always in the same state of confusion.

On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice to "neither a borrower nor a lender be," was systematically ignored. It is curious to hear that two eminent patriots of the period, Daniel O'Connell and the Knight of Kerry, were both middlemen, and in the case of Cahirciveen had one of the Blennerhassets as a co-middleman under Trinity College, and that the compact was only finally annulled by the resolution of the latter to have no more to do with it. The great "Liberator" considered as a middleman appears in an odd light, but he was a liberal specimen of the genus, and with his partners supplied Cahirciveen with previously unheard-of drainage and pavement. At the same time the ends of the Island of Valentia were leased by Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, the friend of Castlereagh and Wellington, to other middlemen, and it seemed that the work of confusion could go no further.

The Island of Valentia was, I was informed, a favourable spot on which to study the operation of paternal government. Sir Peter Fitzgerald, the late Knight of Kerry, had enjoyed unbounded popularity, and had employed his personal influence to raise the population under his care in the social scale. When he had retaken the lands leased to Sir James O'Connell or his ancestor, he found certain lowlands, notably that of Bally Hearny, among a number of small holders; but the patches held by each tenant were oddly distributed. Three men held farms of thirty acres each, made up of detached lots completely separate one from the other, and scattered broadcast over the area of the townlands; while another man's farm of the same area extended from the sea at one end to the top of the mountain at the other, measuring one mile and fourteen perches in length, with an average width of twenty perches. After some difficulties had been surmounted the fields were "squared," the odds and ends of lands consolidated, and the partnership in fields, with its absurd practice of cultivating alternate ridges, abolished.

In a speech addressed by the Knight of Kerry to his tenants, he distinctly put his foot down on the system of subdivision, to which the peasantry of Ireland are almost insanely attached. He determined to permit nothing of the kind in the future. To those who had already subdivided he offered new mountain farms, leaving the sub-dividers to decide who should remain and who should remove. To those removed for sub-dividing their small holdings, and to those whose still smaller patches made their removal imperative, reclaimed and reclaimable lands at Corobeg and Bray Head were offered, with brand new houses; and after much discussion and final casting of lots the extruded ones resigned themselves to the fearful doom of removal from the spots to which they had long clung like limpets.

To reach Valentia Island it is necessary to leave the railway track from Mallow to Tralee, and at Killarney commence what in London parlance might be called a cruise in a "growler;" for an unmistakable "growler," well built and comfortably lined, was the vehicle supplied to me as a "carriage," with a pair of excellent horses, by Spillane, the sometime guide and present postingmaster of Killarney. The postchaise assumes many forms in Ireland, but only once have I met the original coupe holding only two persons. It is a long drive to the ferry at the extremity of the peninsula between the bays of Kenmare and Dingle. Beyond, the Island of Valentia lies like a breakwater against the Atlantic, and the scene at nightfall is strange enough, with flashing lanterns, shouting ferrymen, and plashing oars. The ferryman is far from considering Valentia Harbour as a drawback to the island, and, like a fine old discontented retainer as he is, complains bitterly of the attempt made years ago by the late Knight of Kerry to establish a steam ferry. But ferrymen are always stern sticklers for vested rights. Doubtless Charon claimed heavy compensation when the Styx Ferry was disestablished. Apart from the ferryman, however, the Valentians are by no means enamoured of their insular position. "That ould blackgyard of a ferry" is, in fact, just now a serious item of discontent.

It is urged by the islanders, nearly three thousand in number, including the villagers, the quarrymen, and the staff of telegraphists, presided over by the skilful and courteous Mr. Graves, that the ferry is the cause of half their troubles. The peasants, who sell their stock at the thirteen fairs held yearly at Cahirciveen, declare that the cost of the ferry-boat for themselves and their beasts is a substantial reason for the reduction of the rent, inasmuch as they are put at a disadvantage with the people on the mainland. This is not the only grievance of that section transplanted to the hill side by Bray Head. They complain that they are afar off—a droll objection on an island six miles long—and have given their settlement the nickname of "Paris," in allusion to its remoteness from Knightstown and the ferry which leads to the grogshops and Fenian centres of Cahirciveen. I am told that the duty on the spirits sold in that cheerful townlet exceeds the whole annual value of the barony of Iveragh, and can bear witness to the convergence of the surrounding population on market day.

Beside the grievances already enumerated, and only felt in their full poignancy since the establishment of a branch of the Land League at Cahirciveen, the Valentians now complain that their land is "set" too high.

Amid the mass of conflicting evidence and the diverse methods of calculation, it is very difficult to arrive at any conclusion on this point. That the land is let above Griffith's valuation is certain, but so is much more of the cheapest land in the west and south. Moreover, the improvements made by the late Sir Peter Fitzgerald were not only considerable in the way of draining and fencing, but are visible to the naked eye in the shape of some fifty new houses, well and solidly built of stone with slate roofs, sleeping rooms up stairs, properly separated after the most approved fashion, a cowhouse, and other offices required by the Board of Works. These houses, which contrast remarkably with the old structures not yet improved off the face of the island, accommodate half of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald's agricultural tenants, of whom there are about 100 on his part of the island, as well as eighty-eight cottier or labourer tenants, who work for the farmers or at the slate quarry, and have little patches of ground attached to their cabins. Each new house built out-and-out has cost 80l., and those put on existing foundations about 60l. It seems to me wonderful that anybody should dream of building anything on the site of an Irish peasant's hut, but perhaps I am fastidious. So far as I make it out, about 6 per cent. has been charged for building and other improvements to the tenant, whose rent has thus in one case been raised by 2s. 6d., and in others by as much as 3s. 3d. per acre. As the entire rent in one case reaches 8s., and in the other 10s. 9d. per acre, it does not seem enormous; but it is no business of mine to decide on value. I only state facts as distinctly as I can, and whether the rent be light or heavy there is no doubt that the tenants have paid it with some approach to regularity even up to date, and that the local agitation is deprived of much of its effervescence owing to this fact. Against this fair side of the picture is the awkward truth that during the bad times of last winter the Valentians, including the tenants of the Knight of Kerry and those of Trinity College, received about 1,200l. worth of relief among a couple of thousand souls.

It is equally worthy of remark that those tenants for whom new houses have been built are by no means enthusiastic about them, and apparently would rather save the rent of them and live in a rough stone cabin as of old. I am aware that in making this statement I am liable to a charge of prejudice against the ignorant people, of whom I can only speak with pity not unmixed with kindness. I may be told that pigs were thought to be dirty until people took to keeping them clean, and that the animals are known to prefer their last state to their first. I may also be told that filth is the outcome of poverty, and that the Irish peasantry are filthy in their habits because they are poor. Now, to speak out plainly, this is not true; for I have seen people with a round sum on deposit at the bank, and in one case paying as much as 250l. rent for their farms, living amid almost indescribable filth. The dislike of soap and water, except for the visible parts of the human body on high days and holidays, appears to be part of the general indifference to beauty remarkable in the Irish peasant. His cottage is never adorned with flowers. Neither rose, honeysuckle, nor jasmine clings around his door. In a climate which allows fuchsia hedges to grow and bloom luxuriantly none appear round the peasant's garden. Myrtles, laurel, and bay there are in plenty at Valentia, but they are grouped near the gigantic fuchsia bush at Glanleam, or nestle among the houses of the telegraphic company. It is the same in other places. All is unloveliness and squalor, even when potatoes are plentiful and butter fetches a high price at Cork.

These thoughts were borne strongly in upon me during a visit to "Paris." A drifting rain obscured the Skelligs, and drove me to take shelter in a "Parisian" household. The house stood sound and square to the wind with its slated roof and thick stone whitewashed walls, whitewash being ordained by a Board of Works wildly striving for cleanliness and health. The exterior of the house itself was well enough, but alack for the approaches and the interior! Plunging through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window, descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people—to be just to them—seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80l. house was built not a drop of water had been expended on its interior. The wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in such condition that I shuddered to touch its sticky surface, the floor so filthy that I instinctively gathered up the skirts of my overcoat, the bedsteads filled up with blankets and odds and ends of unimaginable shades of dirt colour.

Yet this apparently poverty-stricken home was already subdivided in defiance of the conditions of tenancy. The eldest daughter had been married some little time without the landlord or bailiff finding it out, and there was the bridegroom established in half of the house and endowed with half of the farm. He was at home too; a huge black-browed fellow, doing nothing at all, after the manner of his kind. And this was the outcome of an attempt to distribute the Valentians in holdings of respectable size and to make them live in houses instead of hovels. Two families were already established in the place of one, and the house was already like unto a stye. The inhabitants, however, were mighty civil when they recovered from their surprise, and spoke well of their landlord and of everybody connected with him, especially of the ladies of his family, who had done much to find paying employment for the girls by getting them a market for knitted and other needlework.

Pursuing my cruise in a Growler round the coast I came past some magnificent scenery by Waterville, at the head of Ballinskelligs Bay to Derrynane, once the abode of the "Liberator," and now occupied by Mr. Daniel O'Connell, his grandson, who gave me a curious instance of the profit to be realised on a dairy and grazing farm. He has leased the island of Scariff from Lord Dunraven for 60l. per annum, has put a dairyman upon it, and sells off of it yearly produce, butter, cattle, sheep, wool, and pigs, to the value of 230l., the valuation of the island, according to Griffith, being, including the dairyman's house 27l. 5s. Mr. O'Connell also gave me an odd proof of the retribution which appears likely to fall upon the landowners of the barony of Iveragh.

When the Government valuation was first made public it was protested against by Sir James O'Connell, who succeeded in getting it reduced by 30 per cent., an unfortunate circumstance for the present proprietors if the Land League continue to have it all their own way. The League, however, has not yet troubled Derrynane; the tenants, who since 1841 have been greatly reduced in number by emigration and the consolidation of holdings, have paid their rent fairly up to this, that is to say fairly according to the usage of that remote part of Kerry. They average "the grass of six cows," with the run of the mountain, "for rather more" collops or young cows, not yet in milk.

Derrynane rejoices in many memorials of the Liberator, but the relic of "Ould Dan" that all visitors, and especially Irishmen, are most anxious to see, is in the oblong mahogany box lying on the tall desk at which he was wont to stand and write. It is that article of furniture without which no Irish gentleman's equipment was more complete than his house without an avenue. "My pistols which I shot Captain Marker," as poor Rawdon Crawley put it. There reposes peacefully enough now by the side of its companion, the weapon with which the "Liberator" shot Mr. D'Esterre. It is a flint lock pistol of very large bore, and with stock reaching to the muzzle. One peculiarity about this pistol is worthy of note. Beneath the trigger guard a piece of steel extends curving downwards and outwards towards the muzzle, a convenient device, as I find, for steadying the weapon by aid of the second finger. On the stock is cut rudely a capital D., for D'Esterre. There are no other marks, although the pistols have a pedigree and a story attached to them.

One day an English officer stationed in Ireland found himself in the painful position of waiting for remittances. Knowing nobody likely to be useful to him he appealed to the most noteworthy Irishman of his day, and stating his pressing need, asked him to lend him 50l. until his funds came to hand. Daniel O'Connell, who was a keen judge of character, lent him the money without hesitation, and was shortly repaid, with many expressions of gratitude. About a year afterwards the Englishman was ordered on a foreign station, and, unwilling to leave Ireland without giving some tangible expression of his thankfulness to O'Connell, called upon him and presented him with the duelling pistols in question, which were accepted as heartily as the money was lent. On taking his leave the Englishman said, "If you should ever have occasion to use these pistols you will find them very good ones; they have already killed ten men." The first and only time "Ould Dan" used them he killed Mr. D'Esterre, to whose family, it must be added, he afterwards did all he could to atone for that injury.

Mr. O'Connell also showed me a brass blunderbuss once the property of Robert Emmet. It has a revolving chamber, which, instead of turning automatically, must be adjusted by hand after every shot, a curious forerunner of Colt's invention, adaptation, or revival. Derrynane is delightfully situated at a spot called appropriately "White Strand," from the silvery sand washed by the Atlantic waves. Above it stands the celebrated circular fort of Staigue, built of dry stone, and with an inclined plane inside like those at West Cove and Ballycarbery. Opposite is the magnificent rocky peninsula of Lamb Head, the road across which much resembles parts of St. Gothard, plus the magnificent sea shining in the sun.

The crag of Lamb Head, broken into a thousand jagged slopes, is here and there overgrown with short sweet herbage. Wherever grass grows there will a Kerry calf or "collop" be found. How the pretty little black cattle cling like flies to those dizzy windy heights is marvellous; but there they are, night and day, for months at a stretch, giving no trouble to anybody, growing into condition ready for "finishing" on richer pasture, and giving life and beauty to a scene which would, without them, be but grandly desolate. The little Kerries are greatly prized as "milkers," and they yield good beef, but very little of it—not more than four hundredweight per beast. By the side of the superb shorthorns of the Ardfert herd they look like goats; but such cattle as Mr. Crosbie's cream-coloured bull are only suited to richer pasture than the rocks of Lamb Head. It may also be added that for the purpose of dairy-farms the best commercial cows are all bred between the rough native cattle and shorthorns, or between Devon and Ayrshire, the latter cross being specially liked by Mr. Hegarty, of Mill Street, county Cork, referred to in a previous letter, and by many other good judges. This fact, however, by no means detracts from the value of such a magnificent herd as that of Mr. Crosbie. On the contrary it is held by many experts that first-class shorthorn bulls are a necessity for preventing the cross-bred animals from reverting to the original local type.

The improvement in cattle in Kerry, owing to the importation of shorthorns by Mr. Crosbie, and in a smaller degree by other proprietors, is very marked; but despite this the thoroughbred Kerry still remains and is likely to remain lord of the mountain until mayhap he be displaced by the smaller Scotch cattle, as he has already been in some localities by the black-faced sheep, who leads an equally hardy and independent life until wanted for "finishing."

From Derrynane the road passes along the coast, and through Sneem to Derryquin, the estate of that typical landlord, Mr. F.C. Bland, beyond whose lands lie those of Mr. Mahony, of Dromore, the apostle of concrete and author of a pamphlet which has made a great noise in Ireland, and is accepted by "improving" landlords as stating their case perfectly. Mr. Bland, whose domain lies on the north side of the embouchure of the Kenmare River, owns about thirty-eight square miles of territory, and is one of the most popular men in Kerry. Extraordinary stories are told of him. "Know 'um, begorra," answered a native to my query, "Don't I know 'um; and it is he that's the good man, your honour, and every man and baste will do anything for 'um, and he has got tame lobsthers that sit up to be fed, and a tame salmon that follows 'um about like a dog."

This, to say the least, appeared an ample statement; but I confess the temptation to see the man who owned contented tenants and tame fish was too strong to be overcome, and I therefore procured an introduction to Mr. Bland, who with great modesty promised to show me his improvements on condition that I would also look over those of that arch improver his neighbour, Mr. Mahony. To appraise the real value of the work done by these two gentlemen at Derryquin and Dromore—a region of some eighty-five square miles altogether—it must be understood that forty years ago this part of Kerry was, with the exception of the main track to Cork, absolutely without roads, an almost impassable tract of wild mountain and morass cut up by streams, which when swollen stopped all communication even for foot passengers. Yet it was inhabited by a considerable population paying rent, sometimes, for the mountain farms, to which they carried their store of meal on their backs.

It is said that the father of Mr. Bland went to his first school in a pannier, a stone being put in the opposite one to steady the load on the ass's back. This was the "good old-time," when few of the people could speak English, none could read or write, all spun their wool and made their bread at home, and none dreamed of opposing "the master's will." Fortunately they were in good hands, for Mr. Bland went to work, at first gently and afterwards more swiftly, at the task of making land and people more civilised than had been thought possible up to his time. During thirty years he has laid out 7,000l. of his own and 10,000l. of Government money in bringing his estate and people somewhat into consonance with modern ideas. He has made twenty-three miles of road, built thirty stone houses with slated or tiled roofs, and three schools. When the estate came into his hands there was not a cart upon it except at Derryquin itself. Now two-thirds of the tenants have carts and horses. Forty years ago the entire export and import trade was done by a carrier who came from Cork once a month and was looked for as anxiously as the periodical steamer at a station on the West Coast of Africa. Now there are carriers weekly in all directions, and steamboats calling regularly in Kenmare Bay. All this work has been compassed by the landlord, with the partial assistance of the Government, with the exception of one solitary house, which was built by the tenant.

The story of Mr. Bland's tame fish, which "sat up, and followed him about like a dog," turns out to have had some foundation in fact. There is a fine pool of salt water at Derryquin (Ang. "Oakslope") Castle, which stands on the edge of Kenmare Bay; and this pool not long since held a number of tame fish, which came to be fed when anybody approached, just as carp do in many well-known places. Unluckily, however, a neighbouring otter found this out, and carried away the unfortunate fish at the rate of two every night till not a single fish is left. I hear that both salmon and pollock became equally tame, but that the former, although eating everything offered them, became miserably poor in a comparatively short time. The only denizen of the pool that I actually saw was a lobster, who came out from under a stone as I approached, in the hope, I was told, that I was going to give him a mussel.

Mr. Bland, however, if he has not proved so redoubtable a fishtamer as my original informant opined, has proved very successful in oyster culture. Having a little salt-water inlet, with a river running into it, he conceived the idea of breeding and raising oysters, but found the climate bad for "spatting," and now buys his tiny young oysters by the ten thousand at the Isle of Rhe, and puts them down in long perforated boxes on his oyster beds. When they are between three and four years old he consigns them to a correspondent at Ballyvaughan, who puts them in, I believe, deep-sea oyster beds for a while and converts them into the famous Burren oysters, which, like the Marenne oysters, are generally preferred by Englishmen to "Natives," while the "spat" of the latter is eagerly sought by the French for development into Huitres d'Ostende.

It rained so furiously at Derryquin that I hardly saw so much of Mr. Bland's estate as I could have wished, but between the showers I was able to form a fair idea of his building and road improvement. It is a matter of pride to the proprietor that on a territory once impassable by a wheeled vehicle he can now drive to every farm in a carriage and pair, and that among tenants averaging "the grass of six cows" apiece; men and women at least speak English, and children go to school. The barbarous state of the country and inhabitants forty years ago may be gathered from the following anecdote. Two gentlemen were out shooting on the mountain and were driven by a "Kerry shower"—which is as much like a cataract as anything I know of—into a peasant's cabin. The man received them with all the dignity and self-possession peculiar to the best of his class, and when the storm cleared off invited them to eat with him on their return from the hillside. When they came back, expecting only potatoes and butter, they were astounded to see their host take several pieces of some kind of meat out of the pot and place them on the table, for there were no plates before them. It turned out that the mysterious meat was that of a newly-born calf whose dam was yet lying helpless in a corner of the cabin. The man was quite unconscious that there was anything objectionable in the dreadful food, and offered it to "the masthers" with perfect grace, and without the slightest pang at the costliness of the banquet. He had given the best and only meat he had to his guests. Like the Italian gentleman with his falcon, or rather the Arab sheik with his horse, who, my friend Mr. Browning tells me, is the original of Boccaccio's mamby-pamby story, the Kerry mountaineer had fulfilled the rites of hospitality at whatever cost. For long after the date of the grim repast just recorded, in fact, even till to-day, the peasants on the Derryquin estate have been accustomed to refer their almost innumerable wrangles and squabbles to the decision of "the masther," who might be figured as a kind of Hibernian St. Louis, sitting under a tree, and adjudicating between his subjects. Sometimes it was not very easy to arrive at a decision. Not very long ago a man came with a complaint that his once-intended son-in-law had behaved shabbily and fraudulently. It appeared that the father of the girl had agreed with the "boy" that a cow should be killed "to furnish forth the marriage table;" that the father should provide the cow for the happy day, and that the cost of the animal should be shared between them. The cow had been killed, and the bride had been dressed, but the Kerry "county Guy" had not been forthcoming, that mercenary youth having married out of hand another girl with four more cows to her fortune than the one he was engaged to. Hereat the outraged parent demanded, not that he should pay damages for breach of promise, but his share of the cost of the cow. "And," said the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply; "mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but his "honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say that he has numerous children.

Mr. Bland has under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings, albeit averaging the grass of six cows, vary very considerably in size and quality. Thus one farmer holds 803 acres, or "the grass of twenty-four cows," with mountain run attached, at a rent of 35l., while another who has 1,493 acres is only charged 26l. for "the grass of seventeen cows," with proportionate mountain. Even on holdings of this size, as well as on others of less value, such as 250 acres at a rent of 13l. 15s., Mr. Bland has experienced great difficulty in inducing the tenants to bear any share of the cost of building and other improvements. Of course there are tenants and tenants at Derryquin, as elsewhere, but the general feeling has undoubtedly been averse to paying an extra percentage for improvements. Mr. Bland has done what he could, but has rarely found anybody inclined to pay more than 2 per cent., and one irreconcilable actually refused to pay 1l. a year extra to have a 70l. house built for him. The "masther" appears to take a view of the subject which might have been with great advantage more widely distributed among Irish proprietors of the improving sort. It is not extravagant to ask a farmer with the nominal grass of twenty cows, and a mountain run on which he grazes twice as many bullocks, to pay 5 per cent. on 80l. or 100l. as the rent of a good and substantial house; but it is preposterous to ask the holder of a ten-acre lot to do likewise. Such peasants should, as I observed in one of my early letters, not be called farmers at all. Their condition is about equal to that of the English farm labourer. When the landlord can afford to build better cottages for them than they now have, he should certainly not expect more than 1, or at best 2 per cent. for his outlay, and carry the balance to his profit and loss account, after the manner of English landowners of the best class. The Derryquin houses or cottages are very well built and excellently planned; they are also very pretty with their whitewashed walls, red tile roofs, and doors painted red to match. These patches of bright colour give extraordinary cheerfulness to a landscape otherwise of green, brown, and grey, looking cold enough under a weeping sky. The walls are of stone, "dashed" after the Irish fashion with mortar or concrete, and slate roofs have now given place to red tiles in fancy patterns. Inside they are divided into two rooms on the ground floor, paved with concrete, and two sleeping rooms above, in order, if possible, to keep the people from huddling together at night. It is a fact, impossible as it may appear, that when the pretty and tasteful lodge at the gate of Derryquin was first built, the occupants, four in number, all slept together in one room rather than be separated at night, and were only induced to occupy the apartments built to prevent this habit by the threat of eviction. I might have doubted this amazing story had I not seen the condition of a cottage rebuilt recently on an old foundation at a cost of 60l., for which a rent of 1l. is charged. The tenant fought hard against the innovation, and yielded to the imposition of 1l. a year, and a clean new house, only under fear of being turned off the estate. He and his have only been in the new building for a few weeks, but they have made wild work of it already. In the room to the left of the door a "bonneva," or half-grown pig of the size called a "shote," in the State of Georgia, was disporting himself by looking on at a girl spinning wool, a "boy" doing nothing, and two dirty youngsters wallowing on the floor. In the other brand new room, not long since left sweet and tidy by the builders, were piled an immense heap of turf and a great store of potatoes, over against which stood a bedstead and a pair of boots. There was nothing else in the room, not the slightest fragment of table or chair, not a sign of water or washing utensils; in the room above were also bedsteads, without anything that could be called bedding, and no other stick of furniture. Before the front door was a rough stone causeway, already ankle-deep in filth. Close up to the rear of the house was a dung-heap of portentous size and savour. Evidently this was a case of taking the horse to the water and being unable to make him drink, for the people thrust into a clean house were obviously doing their best to bring it into harmony with their own views. I heard also of a remarkable case of subdivision on the part of some labourers on Mr. Bland's estate, higher up on the mountain. A couple or three years ago two "boys" received permission to occupy a cabin on a little patch of land. This spot has since grown into a colony. The "boys" have both got married, and have children. Their brothers-in-law also, with wives and children, as a matter of course, have built their cabins against the original one given to the two bachelors, and the holding has a population of forty-five souls. These poor people are surely the most affectionate in the world, and the uproar when any one of the colony is ailing is astonishing, and bewildering to more civilised and perhaps colder-blooded folk.

Mr. R. Mahony's estate of Dromore (Anglice "Big Ridge") is the theatre of even more extensive improvements than those of Derryquin. Mr. Mahony has 29,163 acres in Kerry, valued by Griffith at 3,071l. In his pamphlet he states:—"In the year 1851 I came into possession of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty years I have built about eighty houses and offices slated or tiled, made twenty-eight miles of road, built nine bridges, made twenty-three miles of fences, thoroughly drained about five hundred acres, planted one hundred and fifty acres of waste land, and proportionately improved the condition and circumstances of the people."

There is abundant evidence of Mr. Mahony's work on his estate, which is not only valuable in itself but as an example. The roads are admirably laid, and the employment of concrete made of Portland cement and the sand and pebbles of the seashore, since followed at Ardfert, was initiated at Dromore. Walls, floors, partitions, are all of concrete, and the roofs of the houses last built of handsome red tiles. The disposition of the apartments in the Dromore cottages varies somewhat from that of the neighbouring estate. The principal room, or kitchen, has nothing above it but the high-pitched roof, lined with wood tastefully disposed. The remaining three apartments are two on the ground floor, a tiny parlour and convenient bedroom, and one full-sized bedroom above. Separate cow-houses and pigsties are also appended to each cottage. So far as can be judged from a hurried visit, many of the houses are very well and tidily kept; in fact, so treated as not to destroy hope in the future of the Irish peasant cultivator, although this trimness is by no means so general as it might be. Mr. Mahony has also, by way of showing his people how things should be done, a model farm and dairy, of such moderate size as not to be beyond the ambition of a successful tenant. The proprietor has also, like Mr. Bland and Mr. Butler, of Waterville, a successful salmon fishery, great part of the produce whereof goes, at some little advance on sixpence per pound, to the agents of a London firm, who also get an enormous supply of mushrooms from county Kerry.

There is a greatly-improved property in county Cork, lying west of Macroom and south of Mill Street. This is Ballyvourney, one of the estates of Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, whose father laid out an immense sum in reclaiming a portion of the 25,000 acres, which bring him in about 5,000l. per annum.

There are other landlords in the counties of Cork and Kerry who, like Mr. Bence Jones, have done well by their land; but there is no occasion to multiply experiences of a similar character. The purpose of my Kerry excursion was to observe the Kerry peasant when he had been left to himself, and where he had been looked after, and perhaps governed, by a landlord whose interest in him had not been diminished by recent legislation. My impression is very much the same as that produced by my visit to Connemara, that the peasant requires firm as well as gentle handling, and that his emancipation from the control of his landlord should be accompanied by some other authority representing the State, and interfering to prevent the tendency to local congestion of population.

The Kerry peasant's qualities are in the main good, and he is upheld under difficulties by hopefulness almost equal to his vanity and habit of exaggeration. A Kerry man's boat is a ship, his cabin is a house, his shrubs are trees, his "boreen" is an avenue, and, as a native bard declares, "all his hens are paycocks." He may be briefly described as in morals correct, disposition kindly, manners excellent, customs filthy. It is, however, despite his hopefulness, difficult to find any trace of that gaiety for which he was formerly famous, whether justly or not. His amusements outside the calm of Derrynane, Derryquin, and Dromore, appear to be cattle fairs, whisky, and sedition. At times he is unconsciously humorous, as in the story of the Duchess of Marlborough's Indian meal distributed for the relief of the poor during the hard time of last winter. A gentleman, who ought to know better, was buying some potheen, or illicit whisky, of the maker. "Now, Pat," said he, "I hope this lot is better than the last." "And, your honour," was the reply, "the last was but the name of whisky. Begorra, it's the Duchess's meal as makes mighty poor potheen." This was said quite seriously and with an injured air. For there is no merriment in Kerry. The old dances at the cross roads are danced no more. The pipe of the piper is played out.



XVII.

"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE.

KILFINANE, CO. LIMERICK, Christmas Eve.

The fox-terrier sits blinking on the hearth-rug in the pretty drawing-room as nightfall approaches, and a servant appears with a message that a woman has come with a big cake from Mrs. O'Blank, a sympathising neighbour. There is no mistake about the size and condition of the cake; it is a yard and a quarter in circumference; it has a shining holiday face, like that of the fabled pigs who ran about ready roasted, covered with delicately-browned "crackling," perfumed with sage and onions, and carrying huge bowls of apple-sauce in their mouths. As the pigs cried, "Come and eat me," so does the cake appeal, but in more subtle manner, to the instincts and nostrils of all present. It has that pleasant scent with it peculiar to newly-baked plumcake. Huge plums, which have worked their way perseveringly to the surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by being smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl.

Biddy has watched the moment when the "boys" on the watch—scowling ruffians by the same token—had gone in quest of tea or more potent refreshment, and has slipped from the avenue which runs past the house instead of up to it, by the lodge gate and up to the door in that spirit-like fashion peculiar to this part of Ireland. When they wish to do so, the people appear to spring out of the ground. Two minutes before the monotony of existence is broken by a fight there will not be a soul to be seen, but no sooner is it discovered that some unlucky wight is in present receipt of a "big bating" than hundreds appear on the spot, and struggle for a "vacancy," like the lame piper who howled for the same at the "murthering" of a bailiff.

This ghost-like faculty, however, has served us right well, for I need not speculate upon what would have happened to Mrs. M'Carthy (whose real name is not given for obvious reasons) if she had been discovered carrying a huge cake to a house under ban. She would not have been injured bodily; no soul in Kilfinane would have touched the cake, much less have eaten the hateful food made and baked and attempted to be carried to the stronghold of the "tyrant"; but it would have gone ill with the brave little woman nevertheless. Her husband would have been compelled to seek elsewhere for a livelihood, for neither farmer nor tradesman would dare to employ either him or her. Her elder children would have been pointed at as they went to school, and sent to Coventry while there; and she would have been refused milk for the younger ones. Not a potato nor a pound of meal nor an egg could she have bought all through the hamlet; and if people at a distance had sold her anything, they would have been intercepted and compelled to take it back again. The carriers would not have delivered to or taken parcels from her; she would, in fact, have been very much in the condition that Eve, according to Lord Byron, thought she could put Cain into by cursing him.

Fortunately, however, the cake-bearer has escaped, and we fall with keen appetites upon the not very digestible banquet she has provided. The blockade has been successfully run, and we celebrate the event accordingly. We are not so very badly off after all, and in fact have passed a by no means dull time for the last two days. It is not quite so easy to frighten our garrison as a pack of sympathising peasants who attempt no kind of resistance against the mysterious leaders of the Jacquerie. The son of the house and his two grown cousins are here, the butler and gardener still remain staunch, as well as the coachman and a couple of bailiffs living outside, all "Boycotted" also. Moreover, we have a cook and housemaid with us, and two members of the Royal Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram, announcing that meat or other stores will arrive by a certain train, we drive down to meet it, and without the slightest assistance, for not a single gloomy by-stander would do us a hand's turn, we carry it off to our own car, and thanks to the awe inspired by army revolvers, Winchester rifles, one constable on the car, and those officially at the railway station, bring our property away.

A day since there was great excitement concerning the arrival of a daughter of the house, who was coming down to keep house for the "boys" whose guest I am. Her brother and one of her cousins went down on the car to meet her, armed as usual, for although they would be comparatively safe with a lady on the car, they ran considerable risk until she was actually on board. The train came, but not the young lady, and as it was broad daylight her well-armed escort came back again. Towards the hour for the arrival of the evening train there was more anxiety. It was dark, but it was absolutely necessary to go down to Kilmallock again, on the off chance that she might have come later than was expected, and had forgotten to telegraph. If she had arrived and nobody had been there to meet her, the consequences would have been awkward. She would not, it is true, have been exposed to the slightest insult, for except in the case of Miss Gardiner, of Farmhill, I believe Irishmen have never forgotten their natural gallantry so much as to insult, much less shoot at and wound, a lady. There would, therefore, have been no fear of violence; but it is very doubtful whether anybody would have removed her trunks from the spot on which they had been laid down. Most assuredly no cardriver would have dared to drive her home, and I question if any house in Kilmallock would have afforded her shelter. However, she did not come by the train after all, and the "boys" drove back, not without an Irish howl to keep them company on the road.

Dinner over, the company being composed of the three "boys" and the writer, who among them made short work of a plump turkey and a vigorous inroad on a round of beef, besides disposing of soups, sweets, and sherry—not a bad menu under "Boycotting" rules—we, after seeing that the front door was properly barred, bolted, and chained, and the iron-linked shutters, relics of the Fenian time, made equally secure, adjourned to the kitchen for a smoke, a common practice in this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject, "the state of the country," discussed, the eye reposes complacently on the treasures suspended from the hooks on the ceiling, plump hams and sides of well-fed bacon giving assurance that the garrison is far from being reduced to extremities. But there are in the kitchen other objects less suggestive of festivity. On the round table by the central column supporting the kitchen roof lie sundry revolvers, and nearer one of the windows a couple of repeating rifles and the double-barrelled carbines of the constabulary. Two members of that well-grown and well set-up corps are seated at a corner of the dresser, deeply engrossed in the intricacies of the mysterious game of forty-five, before which the mind of the dull Saxon remains bewildered in hopeless incapacity. Presently the well-thumbed pack is laid aside, and one of the constables addresses himself to the task of closing and barring up the shutters, thus shutting out all chance of any present being picked off by a shot through the window, as was done when Miss Gardiner was wounded under somewhat similar circumstances.

There is a great deal of gossip concerning the "Boycotting" of Mr. Bence Jones, and that of the most recent victim, The Macgillicuddy of the Reeks, whose family is well known to all present; but even the one engrossing subject wears itself out at last. One cannot attain any wild pitch of hilarity among bolts and bars and Winchester rifles. Nobody appears to care for any stories but such as bear upon the present troubles and the Fenian affair in 1867. At Kilmallock there is no sign of song or dance; no talk of pantomimes, and what jokes are made bear grim reference to troubles actually endured and possible troubles to come.

By day it is by no means dreary. To begin with, the house is built on a charming spot six miles distant from a railway station; in front and beyond the lawn is a pretty little lake broken up by islands, making a tender foreground for the Galtee and nearer mountains. From the opposite side the view is equally delightful, the hills being crowned with trees and brushwood, an unusual sight in Ireland. Down the slope of the immense saddle-backed range lie fields of the brightest green, divided by banks and hedges delightful to look at after the grim stone walls of Mayo, Galway, and Clare. From behind these grassy slopes peeps the purple crest of the distant mountains, giving grandeur to a scene which might otherwise have been deemed tame. The climate, although chilled by recent heavy rains, is deliciously soft, and the breeze has none of that incisive quality common to the more northern hills. It is needless to say that at sunrise there is no chance of meeting any watchers of the "Boycotting" brigade. At seven o'clock any quantity of cargo might be "run" into the beleaguered citadel; but so for that matter can anything one likes be done at noon, under sufficient escort. When nothing is to be carried there is not the slightest occasion for escort in Kilfinane itself, although the attitude of the people is hostile in the extreme. Going for a stroll with the nephew of the absent "master," I am recommended to put a pistol in my pocket, and, much against the grain, do so.

I must confess that I draw a line at agents. Alone I should not dream of going about armed, although "indignation meetings" have been held to denounce me for speaking the truth and believing my own eyes, and I consider myself quite safe while in the company of many landlords. But agents are another matter. There is while with them always the off chance of something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing of it, but if so they have earned it, for their position always reminds one of that assigned by Lord Macaulay to the officers of the East India Company, such as Olive and Warren Hastings. To these founders of our Eastern Empire "John Company" said, "Respect treaties; keep faith with native rulers; do not oppress the people; but send us money."

This is exactly what easy-going Irish absentee proprietors preach—"Don't hurt my tenants; don't make my name to stink in the land; above all, let there be no evictions among my people; but send me a couple of thousand pounds before Monday, or remit me at least one thousand to Nice some time next week.—Yours, The O'Martingale." This, I take it, has been the situation for the last quarter of a century, since the younger sons of Irish families took to land agency as a profession because there seemed nothing else in Ireland for them to do. Nevertheless they are hideously unpopular, and I like to be armed when I take a stroll with them in a lonely country district.

So we walk down to Kilfinane to look after the progress made in arranging quarters for the soldiers presently expected, some fifty odd redcoats or rifles as the authorities may decide. It is instructive to observe the demeanour of the people towards us. My companion formerly lived at Kilfinane, and took his share of the work there, but he was the first of his family "Boycotted," and was obliged to take up his quarters in his uncle's house. Not a blacksmith could be found to shoe his horse, and not a living creature to cook his food; so a forge belonging to the mounted division of the Royal Irish Constabulary was sent down for the horse, and the master of that interesting animal went up to the big house to eat and sleep, and the "Boycotters" were, so far, brought to nought. But the good folk of Kilfinane eye us terribly askant, or, to be more literally exact, do not eye us at all; at least, their eyes betray "no speculation." Had I driven in from Charleville alone I might have gossipped with all the idlers of the village, but now that I am walking with a "Boycotted" person I seem to have become invisible. A few men are on the side walks—a few women at their doors—but they either look at us as if we were transparent as panes of glass, or suddenly become interested in their boots or finger nails, both which would be better for more regular attention. The children run away and hide themselves as if a brace of megalosauri or other happily extinct monsters had crawled out of the bog and come into Kilfinane to look for a meal. It is altogether a strange experience. It dawns upon me that the man who has driven me over from Charleville might issue from the hotel and ask for my orders, but he does not.

The edifice wherein he has established himself, his vehicle and horses, is of a bright salmon colour, rejoiceful to the eyes of the natives. My driver, on being asked at my arrival, greatly preferred the rude freedom and plenty of this pink hostelry to the supposed narrow rations of a house under ban. Possibly he loves the ruddy-faced village inn on account of its affinity in hue to that of his own visage, in which nose and beard contend fiercely for pre-eminence in warmth of tone. But be this as it may, he is just now giving warmth and colour to the interior of the establishment, instead of trying to catch my eye as I go past.

There is absolutely no sign of life or movement in the "Salmon Arms," or "The Rose," or whatever its name may be. Thus we stride down the street of Kilfinane in lonely grandeur till we come to the schoolmaster's house, to be presently converted with the schools into a barrack. Schoolmaster and wife are being temporarily evicted to make room for the military, in whose behalf a quantity of work is being done, not surely by the "Boycotters," who have already determined to "Boycott" the soldiers as far as they can by refusing to let a car carry a single article from the railway station. The military when they arrive and give that sense of security attached to a redcoat in Ireland, will be obliged to bring every kind of vehicle and transport animal with them.

In the cabbage garden of the school-house I meet an old acquaintance, Sub-Inspector Fraser, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who seems to enjoy a monopoly of posts in which the roughest kind of "constabulary duty is to be done." Whether he esteems his "lot a happy one" I do not know; but at any rate, he looks hearty and healthy enough upon it, and is mightily cheerful withal. He has finished off one tough job, for it was Mr. Fraser who was left at Pallas on the great day when horse, foot, and artillery smote the combined "Three and four year olds," or, rather, would have smitten them if they had been so misguided as to show fight. I have already recorded how the Palladians on that memorable occasion displayed a keen appreciation of the better part of valour, and I also marked my surprise that after it had taken "the fut and the dthragoons in shquadrons and plathoons," and "the boys who fear no noise" to boot, to bring the "makings" of a police hut from the railway station, where they lay "Boycotted," to Bourke's farm, twenty-five constables should have been judged a sufficiently imposing force to overawe the Palladians and to build the hut. But I hear that Mr. Fraser's slender army proved quite sufficient for its purpose, and that the hut is not only built, but very well built, and likely to vex the souls of the Palladians for some time to come. There is plenty of work to do in getting ready for the soldiers. Masons and carpenters are hard at work—that is to say, as hard as anybody ever works in this part of Ireland.

On the dairy farms, which form the principal "industry"—save the mark!—of this rich part of the country, the life of the male kind is of the laziest imaginable. Employing girls to milk the cows and make the butter, the farmer appears to me to do nothing whatever except go to market and drink himself into a disaffected, discontented condition. He is rarely visible before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, except on market days, and he appears to smoke and dawdle most of his time away. Just now he broods over his wrongs, and declares he "will have his own again," whatever that may signify. He says he is enormously over-rented. Perhaps he is; but I cannot forget that it is not many years since he and his neighbours in the adjacent county of Tipperary boasted that they had brought about an equitable adjustment of values by an ingenious process invented by themselves—that of "shooting down the rents." Have they gone up since under maleficent Saxon coercion? Verily, I do not know; for the faith I put in estimates and valuations, not excepting "The Book of Griffith," is but small.

Information in Ireland depends entirely on the person who "infawrrrums" one, and is rarely complete. Almost everybody seems to think that an inquirer has some object to serve, and they either tell him what they think will amuse him or advance their own interest if it be repeated; but there are notable exceptions to this as to all other Irish rules.

Chatting easily, we stroll back through Kilfinane, bewailing the sternness of military rule, which keeps officers and men together, and will not permit of the principal coming warriors being quartered at Spa-hill. On one point we are most anxious, and that is, that the troops shall be in Kilfinane by Christmas-day, to the end that the gaiety proper to the British Army should enliven the "Boycotted" establishment at dinner time; while the imposing presence of Thomas Atkins should overawe the village mutineers, and bring grist to the proprietor of the Couleur de Rose Hotel. As evening gathers in we sit down drowsily to listen to the loud ticking of the clock and drink a glass of sherry to the health of "all poor and distressed Boycottees" within her Majesty's "sometime kingdom of Ireland." Soothed by sherry, incipient sleep, and the subtle influence of the season, the little garrison of Spa-hill gradually waxes benevolent, until one of its number actually suggests that a fat goose should be sent to the proximate cause of all its woes, Father Sheehy. Even as a big loaf of bread was once thrown into an enemy's camp, at one moment this spirited proposition is nearly carried, but it breaks down before the remark that the coachman, gardener, and two bailiffs are "Boycotted," bringing up the total number to about thirty-six, and that geese would be better distributed among these than flung away on the enemy; and the clock goes on to tick, the ticking growing louder and louder, and then comes the harsh, grating sound of shooting bolts and the clank of the chain on the front door.

There is some pretence on the part of one of my young hosts of going into his uncle's office and drawing a lease, until he is reminded that he will probably be performing a work of supererogation, that leases and feudalism and property are going out of date, and that the land agents of the future, if suffered to cumber the earth at all, will be elected by the tenants, as the New York magistrates are elected by the persons whom they will be called upon to judge. And the clock ticks and the fox-terrier whines in his sleep. He is dreaming of rats, perhaps. It is pleasant to dream, even if one is a dog.

A sudden start. The long-looked-for telegram has come announcing the arrival of the daughter of the house shortly at Kilmallock Station. There is another skirmish for rifles, rugs, and revolvers, and a sally out of the fortress. No sooner has the brave young lady arrived, who with her brother and cousin, and perhaps the representatives of the British army, will form the Christmas dinner-party, than she draws up a bill of fare, which includes, as well as turkey, ham, and plum pudding, lobsters brought from afar, thanks to feminine foresight. The retainers will feast on mighty joints of beef and on plum pudding galore. And now another telegram—The troops will arrive before the bells ring in Christmas-day.

As I approach the end of my letter, it occurs to me that although the place, events, and persons described would be recognised by anybody living in the counties of Limerick, Cork, or Tipperary, this account might appear to English readers rather as an imaginative and highly-coloured picture, painted for the Christmas market from a number of models, than as a simple sketch in neutral greys as exactly and faithfully drawn as is possible to the writer. To prevent any such misapprehension, I will observe that the events which I describe as occurring before me, have all taken place within forty-eight hours in and near the house of Mr. Townsend, of Spa-hill, Kilfinane, county Limerick, and are telegraphed from Limerick city to the Daily News, because there was no nearer or more convenient office from which to send so long a message. Mr. Uniacke Townsend is one of a large family mostly engaged in land agency, and has incurred the ire of the people of Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Charleville, and the surrounding country, in consequence of a difficulty with one Murphy, a fairly large farmer according to the Irish measure of farming capacity. Murphy's farm is known as Lisheen. It includes between 40 and 50 acres, and the rent, 240l. per annum, has, I am informed, not been changed for forty-six years. When Murphy owed a clear year's rent and a balance on a "broken gale," he was sued for the whole amount. By May of this year he owed another gale of half a year's rent, and he was formally evicted and a caretaker put in possession on the 21st June.

It has been explained in a previous letter that after receiving any amount of credit an Irish farmer is again allowed six months' "redemption" after eviction. After paying up everything, including the additional "gale" incurred, less the proceeds of the farm, he re-enters on possession at any time within the margin of six months. Thus another "gale" fell due in November, and Murphy was still unprovided with funds. He did, however, very well without them; for the Land League, having become strong in the meanwhile in county Limerick, the caretaker was frightened away from the farm and Murphy reinstated. Mr. Uniacke Townsend requested him to give up possession, and was refused, and it then became known that Murphy might expect imprisonment or fine for trespass. Thereat a meeting was held, and Mr. Townsend solemnly adjudged worthy of "Boycotting." The lead in these disgraceful proceedings was taken by a Father Sheehy.

Whatever the merits of Murphy's case may be, and it seems that members of his family have held Lisheen for some considerable time, there is no doubt that Father Sheehy made an almost frantic speech against Mr. Townsend, the agent, and Mr. Coote, the owner of the property, declaring that "the very name of Coote smelt of blood." I am not aware of the sanguinary deeds of the Cootes in the past; all I know of them is that the present incumbent is a very old man, of somewhat clerical exterior, who, like "A fine old Irish gentleman, one of the olden time," lives in London, requests his agent to enforce the law against his tenants without delay, and, in order to encourage him to do his duty, sends down to Spa-hill the very best repeating rifles that money can buy.

The upshot of the matter is that Mr. Townsend has been so threatened that he has yielded to the entreaties of his family and left Kilfinane for a week or two, at any rate. He is, however, like most of his profession, a very determined man, and declared that he would come home and eat his Christmas dinner in his own house, "despite of foes;" but Mrs. Townsend, who, like the lady to whom I referred in a previous letter, has borne up nobly under her severe trial, was so scared at the thought of her husband's coming among a population banded together against him that she set off on Saturday and joined him, as the only way of averting some terrible disaster; for there is little doubt that the law will be put in force against Murphy now that his six months for "redemption" have expired; and nobody can tell what will happen at Lisheen any more than at Ennistymon if writs are issued against the tenants on the Macnamara estate, or on Mr. Stacpoole's property, if he perseveres in his resolution to "Dublin writ" the people with whom he has to deal.

So the family at Spa-hill is broken up this Christmas; father and mother are both away—where I should hardly divulge, but assuredly where their Christmastide will be passed peacefully, if not joyfully.

Another gentleman of these parts is being severely "Boycotted," to wit Mr. T. Sanders, of Sanders Park, Charleville, county Cork, just over the border from county Limerick; the Mr. Sanders, in fact, whom I saw the Palladians roaring and yelling at on the occasion of my first visit to the classic battlefield of the "three and four year olds." On that occasion he had been vainly trying to get in rents for the charitable bequest known as Erasmus Smith's Schools, and Pallas was full of noisy and more or less drunken Palladians, who dealt with Mr. Sanders in such wise that the police were obliged to see him into a railway carriage, and stand by the door till the train moved on. I would fain have called upon Mr. Sanders as I drove to Charleville, but the civil and obliging landlord of Lincoln's Hotel at that place, who supplied me with an excellent carriage and horses, politely apologised for his inability to drive me thither. He could not possibly enter Sanders Park, nor would any of his men go near that abhorred spot. No orders concerning Spa-hill had been issued by the "Real Government" in the absence of the hated head of the house, and I might be driven there and welcome; but Sanders Park was another matter. I might walk out of the town, and across the park if I liked, and my informant would ensure that I went and returned in safety, as for that matter I knew very well; but not being fond of walking against time through the mud, I preferred going whither I could be driven in comfort. Moreover, the novelty of the thing is wearing off, and "Boycotting" is now only interesting when ingeniously evaded or boldly defied.

So long as a railway station is near him, the "Boycottee," if he have only two or three servants to stand firm, can practically bring the Boycotters to their wits' end. The railway companies being, I take it, common carriers, dare not refuse, like the cowardly shippers of Cork, to take the "Boycottee's" beef and plum pudding, wine and whisky, to the most convenient railway station, whence he, if well-armed and provided with an escort of constabulary, can bring in his supplies under the very nose of the infuriated peasants who stand scowling around the station gate and roar and "boo" their disgust at being foiled. There is not the slightest fear of the "Boycotters" running their heads against Winchester rifles and army revolvers, and the convoy need apprehend nothing hotter or harder than curses and groans, which, "like the idle wind, hurt not the mariner ashore."

This last quotation had the misfortune to displease one of my young hosts, who opined that he thought, on the contrary, we were all at sea in Ireland just now, and breakers were ahead. Perhaps he is over much of an alarmist, but his present situation is hardly calculated to inspire confidence in anything but conical bullets and cold steel. As we stand together on the doorstep, he remarks that it will be long before Christmas a la Boycott is forgotten in Ireland, and then he wishes me the compliments of the season. "Good bye," and "Safe home"—hateful valediction! I wish him and his a happier new year than the old one has been; but it would be a sorry jest to wish a merry Christmas to one whose greatest happiness and consolation are that at this time of gathered kindred, at the feast which comes but once a year for the re-knitting of the ties of domestic affection, the kindly voice of the house-mother is not heard beneath her own roof tree; that the chair of the house-father stands empty at the Christmas board.



XVIII.

CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE.

ENNIS, Monday.

In a picture exhibited a few years ago, and since engraved, was powerfully and pathetically portrayed a scene of the early life of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England. It was winter time, and the day was Sunday. Clad in raiment of quaint severity, the head of the house led his Puritan family and servants across the snow-clad fields to worship. Living in the midst of a hostile population, the little band of worshippers was armed to the teeth. The father carried his "plain falling band" and steeple-crowned hat with a stiff air, and also carried lethal weapons. His prim wife and daughters bare Bibles, and his serving men, muskets. "Like a servant of the Lord, With his Bible and his sword," the unflinching old soldier of the Commonwealth strode manfully from his homestead to his religious duties, not unprepared to deal with any foes who might turn up by the way.

As a glimpse of the remote past, as well as a work of art, this picture struck me as valuable; but it certainly did not occur to me that a similar sight would be seen within a short space in the kingdom of Ireland. Nevertheless, it may be witnessed on any Sunday in county Clare. Near Tulla, a spot of evil repute just now as the theatre of a recent attack upon magistrates returning from doing their duty, Colonel O'Callaghan, his wife and son, may be seen on any Sunday morning going to church armed with rifle and revolver, and protected by an escort of constabulary. The church is a long walk from Lismeehan (Anglice, Maryfort), and the way is not safe either for Colonel O'Callaghan himself, his wife, his child, or anything that is his.

I will not pretend for what are called "sensational" purposes that the stranger who ventures within the gates of Maryfort is in any danger so long as he remains within them, or that any weightier missiles than groans and hisses are launched at him as he goes to and from the house under "taboo." It is well known that an attack on Lismeehan would not be bloodless, and that the defence would be far fiercer and more deadly than that made at the Clare-street Police Barrack at Limerick. The little garrison is perfectly armed, and small as it is, would work mischief on any attacking mob; but the experience at Tulla the other day proves that safety is only purchased at the trouble and inconvenience of going everywhere armed to the teeth.

After my experience in the matter of Mr. Sanders, of Sanders Park, Charleville, I did not think it worth while to go to a posting-house for a carriage and horses to reach Maryfort; but being fortunate enough to obtain the loan of a friend's victoria and servant I got a horse "sharpened" as to his shoes at Ennis; and drove over the frost-bound road to Colonel O'Callaghan's house yesterday afternoon. It was a long drive to the most severely "Boycotted" house in Clare. It was also a drive of surpassing dreariness. The sun, which had made the hoar frost to sparkle on Christmas Day, barely pierced through the clouds on the afternoon of St. Stephen's. Leaving trim lawns, a forest of box-trees, budding roses and peonies, well-grown early brocoli and York cabbages behind, we drove through a country of eternal little fields and grey stone walls.

It is needless to say that Maryfort is a long way from Ennis. Every place is a long way from everywhere in this western part of Ireland—a fact, by the way, not unfrequently forgotten by critics of the much-criticised constabulary. Where gentlemen's houses and considerable villages are as much as fifteen miles apart, the area of country to be watched becomes quite unmanageable. Only those who have incurred the fearful loss of time in getting from place to place in Connaught can form an adequate idea of it. Despite the discouraging remarks of its critics, this well-drilled, well-grown corps of Royal Irish Constabulary remains as staunch and loyal as of old, but it is absurd to expect impossibilities. Galway to a person sitting comfortably in his own library appears to be overwhelmed with constables. I believe that there is, in fact, one constable to every fifty adult males in that county—an enormous proportion judged statistically, but yet slight enough when the vast area of the county and the miles of actual desert which separate one partially civilised spot from another are considered.

A large percentage of the constabulary is also deflected from general to special service in affording downright personal protection, and that modified protection known as "looking after" individuals. A hundred and twenty persons in Ireland are now receiving "personal protection," amounting to the constant attendance of never less than two constables, frequently to the residence of four or more on the premises or the property. At least eight hundred persons are being "looked after;" so that it is no exaggeration to state that twelve or thirteen hundred men are detached from the regular force on particular duty of the most harassing and vexatious kind. Wherever the person under protection chooses to go, at whatever hour, or in whatever weather, his "escort" must accompany him; for their orders are "not to lose sight of him" outside of his own door. This is a troublesome duty, sometimes greatly aggravated by the conduct of the protected persons, who take sudden fits and starts, and fly hither and thither in the oddest kind of way. The constables get no rest; they are perpetually harassed and exposed, and they are quite superior to the consolation of a "tip."

I say this deliberately, for on three several occasions I tried to give a drenched and half-frozen constable a reward for service rendered, not for information to be given, and on each and every occasion I met with a dignified refusal, accompanied by one man with a friendly caution not to attempt that sort of thing, as some of the men might be rough. I say that I did not ask for information, because I generally knew more than the constables, for the excellent reason that I had wider and better sources to draw upon. From the country folk it is absolutely impossible to glean any scrap of information. A question immediately shapes their countenances into a look of hopeless simplicity and guilelessness bordering upon idiocy. Persons in quest of information in the remote parts of Ireland put me in mind of the hunter of the Rocky Mountains, who, while he was trying to stalk some antelope, became aware that a grizzly bear was stalking him. The people find out all about the person seeking for knowledge, but he discovers nothing.

After this it is needless to say that the constabulary must of necessity be the last people to learn anything from the country folk, and that a London detective would be as much out of his element as "a salmon on a gravel walk."

Between Ennis and Maryfort we only met two brace of constables on the road, but we knew there were others with Mr. Hall, of Cluny, at Tulla, and other places within ten miles of Colonel O'Callaghan's house. There was a little gathering of people near the chapel at Bearfield, but in other respects the road was empty till we neared our destination, when a little crowd set up an Irish howl against us, followed by a shout of "Long live Parnell." Presently we came to Lismeehan gates, opened after a good steady look at us by an ancient retainer, in a grey frieze coat. I was told civilly enough that "the masther" was at home. Beyond a pretty park, full of well-bred cattle, lay the "Boycotted" house, tall and grey and grim, in the waning light. There was no sign of life in it. Under a handsome portico was the grand entrance, bolted and barred up, with shutters closed. There was nothing for it but to tug vigorously at the bell. Nobody came to the door, but around each corner of the house stepped an armed constable. A moment later a narrow slip of the shutter was moved, and we became aware first of a fur cap and then of a youthful face, which ultimately proved to be that of Colonel O'Callaghan's eldest son, home for the holidays from a great English school, and undergoing the "hardening" process of spending Christmas in a state of siege.

Presently came a maidservant, neat and trim, and after some wrestling with bolts the outer door was opened a little way, and our names and business demanded, after which we entered a great hall, apparently used as a refectory. Huge logs blazed on the hearth, and the room looked comfortable enough. We were next ushered into the drawing-room of Colonel O'Callaghan, who had just come in from herding his cattle and sheep, and was still girt with a brace of full-sized revolvers.

No whit dismayed by the attack made on him at Tulla, and holding his foes in very slight estimation, Colonel O'Callaghan is yet subjected to inconvenience and oppression of an extraordinary kind. The proximate cause of his being "Boycotted" was his action is serving four processes himself, because neither love nor money nor threats would induce a process-server to do his work. The country folk know quite well the difference between Land League law and the phantom which remains of the law of the land. The former is instantly enforced, the latter cannot be carried into effect at all, a fact which is telling upon its officers with discouraging effect.

Finding his writs could be served by nobody but himself, Colonel O'Callaghan started early one morning, attended by his escort, served the four writs himself, and then prepared to hold his own. Pigs were killed, barrels of flour and other stores were brought in, and the house provisioned to stand a siege. Recollection of old days in the Crimea, when Colonel O'Callaghan was in the 62nd Regiment, were revived under the provisioning process, which was by no means complete when he was formally "Boycotted," and left with 300 cattle and sheep upon his hands, with only one man to help him to look after them. Thirty odd herds, labourers, and other dependents have left Maryfort. Only three maid-servants, the old man at the gate, and another man now remain, and even the housemaid, who is Irish and a Roman Catholic, must be guarded to and from mass, amid the yells of the natives. It must be remembered that Maryfort is a lonely place, three miles from a post-office, and three times that distance from a railway station; that it is no light matter to send in and out for letters and parcels; and the emissary would, if unarmed, assuredly be stopped, if not maltreated. This difficulty of getting letters and fresh joints has been met in the latter case by falling back upon patriarchal customs. As Colonel O'Callaghan can neither sell his sheep nor buy mutton, he has taken to consuming his flock, albeit a sheep is a large animal to kill in a small family, and but for the winter weather the loss would be very great.

There is another annoyance—the risk of valuable cattle being houghed or otherwise mutilated; a risk calling for incessant watchfulness. That it is not of an imaginary nature is demonstrated by the fact that the tails were cut off of two of Mrs. Westropp's cows a few nights since, and a threatening letter, savagely coarse and brutal in its wording, was sent to that lady. There is no doubt about this, for I have seen the letter, in which reference is made to the cows and brutal treatment promised to Mrs. Westropp, a widow of small property.

The difficulty concerning letters, which it seems the postmaster at Callaghan's Mills is not compelled to deliver at Maryfort, is got over in another way. As we are discussing the question of supply, there enters to us a lady dressed in walking costume of studied simplicity. This is the terrible Mrs. O'Callaghan, of whom I had heard wonderful stories in Clare and Limerick; "And begorra," said one informant, "it's herself that's a divil of a lady entoirely, and she shoots rabbuts wid a rifle at three hundred yards and niver misses, and she tould 'um at the village that she'd as soon shoot one of 'um as a rabbut, and she is the sisther of Misthress Dick Stacpoole, of Edenvale. They was the Miss Westropps, your honour, out of county Limerick, and it is thim as makes their husbands the tyrants that they are." This account made me wonder at two things—firstly, at the astounding power of lying and exaggeration displayed by my interlocutor; and secondly, where the old Irish gallantry towards the fair sex has gone to. It seems to have gone very far, for one hears now of ladies being shot at. But, although not impressed with the truth of the information vouchsafed to me, I expected to see at least an Irish version of Lady Macbeth, instead of the graceful, well-dressed, thorough-bred Irish gentlewoman who had just come from a long walk to the post-office and back. Since the boy who used to carry the letter bag was frightened away, Mrs. O'Callaghan has taken up his duties, and, armed with rifle and revolver, performs them daily.

With the case of Miss Ellard, and other ladies, before my eyes, I cannot blame Mrs. O'Callaghan for going about armed, and maintaining a defiant attitude towards the people, who really go in bodily fear of her. There is, as I have observed, nothing to terrify in the look or voice of Mrs. O'Callaghan, but I gradually gather from her conversation that it is not all romance about her wonderful shooting. If not at three hundred, yet at thirty yards she can hit a rabbit cleverly enough, and actually does go out rabbit shooting "for the pot" to relieve the monotony of everlasting pig and sheep. Mrs. O'Callaghan is also nearly as good a shot with the revolver as her husband, and would certainly not hesitate to use that weapon in self-defence.

Such is the present personnel of Maryfort at this moment, affording a sketch of manners reminding one rather of a Huguenot family in southern France just after receiving the news of St. Bartholomew, than of any social condition extant in modern Europe.

As we drive out into the darkness and heavily-falling snow there is some debate touching the lighting of the carriage lamps. It is thought better not to light up, and to keep firearms handy until we get some miles from Maryfort.

A howl pierces through the darkness as we pass a clump of houses, and I remark that my friend's coachman drives very fast by any house on the road; but nothing occurs till we stop at a "shebeen" to light both cigars and lamps, for the snowstorm is increasing. Not desiring refreshment, I give the woman of the house a shilling for a drink for a man who is sitting by the fire. I explain the nature of the transaction to him, and wish him a happy new year. The sulky brute answers me never a word. Probably he knows or suspects where I have been, and if so would let me lie on the ground under a kicking horse till an end was made of me rather than stretch forth a hand. He will not speak now, and I observe that the woman, who has kept a tight hold on the shilling, has not poured out any whisky, although she has had the decency to ask me if I wished for any. It is a strange sight, this sullen silent savage sitting scowling over the fire; but on se fait a tout in Disturbed Ireland.



LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

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THE END