Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/536

29, 1864.] scattered over there, so black and dirty: they are a disgrace to any landlord.”

We were now very near to the objectionable locale; and as we approached the dwellings I observed that the few men visible in the vicinity bad a dogged, downcast air. Some touched their bats sulkily as we passed, others kept digging pertinaciously at their patches of ground without lifting their heads. As we came near a cottage rather cleaner than the rest, with a few china roses and some woodbine clustering round its walls, a tall, dark-haired young man, apparently about twenty-five, with a handsome face and figure, came forth to meet us, and, looking my companion full in the face, he touched his straw hat slightly as he observed—“And so, Sir Denis, you’ve determined that we’re to give up possession of our holdings hereabouts at once?”

“Yes; you knew that long ago, Ryan. I hope you are making preparations to give up your house. There is only a month or six weeks to delay now,” replied Barnett.

“And do you call that justice, or humanity, Sir Denis?” inquired the young man, still looking full at his landlord. “Do you expect that luck or grace can attend the man, high or low, that takes the old roof tree from his neighbour’s head? That spot of ground, and the cottage on it, have been in my father’s family for upwards of seventy years, and it’s mine now; and I’d rather stop inside its walls than live in another place three times as good, Nothing will make up to me for its loss, Sir Denis. If I have to leave Cappamoyne I’ll leave Ireland altogether. I’ll never take up with any other spot in Tipperary.”

“You are standing in the way of your own interests, Ryan,” said Barnett. “All those who give up their holdings quietly will preserve my favour; but those who occasion trouble cannot expect the same consideration. Every house on this land must be vacated by the end of July, or else the law will have to interfere.

You know I have been a kind landlord through the last five years. I have never made an ejectment of any tenant in all that time; and have forgiven the payment of many arrears, and scarcely ever pressed for rent at an inconvenient time. Mr. Doheny has received orders from me to act in every instance with kindness and forbearance.”

Ryan muttered something that sounded to my ears very like “He daren’t do anything else;” but Barnett did not seem to hear the scarcely-audible comment.

“There’s more than me unwilling to quit Cappamoyne,” continued Ryan aloud. “I’m the only firebrand among the tenants on the land. I honour the family you belong to, Sir Denis. My father and grandfather served the Barnetts faithfully, and gloried in the prosperity of Knockgriffin; but there’s such a thing as being roused up to forget the past, and think only of present wrong. Believe me, Sir Denis, I’d as lief be dead as cast out of my father’s holding at Cappamoyne!”

The man looked unflinchingly as he spoke both at my companion and myself, his dark eye gleaming with a bandit light that seemed to express more than his words did. His countenance was agitated, and his earnestness made me pity him from my heart; though, of course, I felt a natural distrust of him, on my friend’s account.

“Come, come, Ryan,” said Barnett gaily. “Never mind about leaving that poor cabin yonder. I’ll give you a cottage at Carrickfinn, where you and Mary will live as happily as the day is long. You are going to marry our pretty Moll Killery at once I hear?”

“It’s not settled yet, sir,” replied the young man, for once assuming an abashed air. “You see, one can’t think of such things when they don’t know whether they may be here or a thousand miles off, or may be worse, before three or four months are gone by. Suppose now, your honour, you were to be deprived of Knockgriffin, and the mansion, and all your ancestor’s property, I’ll engage you’d think a while before you’d settle about marrying.”

“I would not hesitate long if I was to get a much finer estate in place of the old one,” replied Sir Denis, good humouredly. “You know, Ryan, you will be able to bring your wife to a much better cottage at Carrickfinn than this house at Cappamoyne.”

“I’ll never bring her to Carrickfinn, Sir Denis,” said the young man, gloomily.

“You can do as you please about that,” resumed Barnett, relapsing into dignified gravity; “but, remember, that Mr. Doheny has received directions to take up the lands and houses of Cappamoyne before August.” And with these words my friend walked away from his discomfited tenant.

“We passed over the devoted ground; and Barnett called in at almost every cabin to give his last personal orders respecting their evacuation at the end of a few weeks. There were tears on the part of the women of the families; remonstrances, and, in many instances, sharp words on the part of the men.

One most beautiful young woman in particular was very earnest in her appeals to the humanity of Sir Denis. This was pretty Mary Killery, Ryan’s sweetheart; and I certainly never saw a lovelier specimen of Irish beauty than she was, with her rich brunette complexion, dark glossy hair, flashing black eyes, and exquisitely