CHAPTER VII.
THE FAMINE YEAR.
They who were in the south of Ireland during the winter of 1846-47will not readily forget the agony of that period. For many, manyyears preceding and up to that time, the increasing swarms of thecountry had been fed upon the potato, and upon the potato only; andnow all at once the potato failed them, and the greater part of eightmillion human beings were left without food.
The destruction of the potato was the work of God; and it was naturalto attribute the sufferings which at once overwhelmed the unfortunatecountry to God's anger--to his wrath for the misdeeds of whichthat country had been guilty. For myself, I do not believe in suchexhibitions of God's anger. When wars come, and pestilence, andfamine; when the people of a land are worse than decimated, and theliving hardly able to bury the dead, I cannot coincide with those whowould deprecate God's wrath by prayers. I do not believe that our Godstalks darkly along the clouds, laying thousands low with the arrowsof death, and those thousands the most ignorant, because men who arenot ignorant have displeased Him. Nor, if in his wisdom He did do so,can I think that men's prayers would hinder that which his wisdom hadseen to be good and right.
But though I do not believe in exhibitions of God's anger, I dobelieve in exhibitions of his mercy. When men by their folly and bythe shortness of their vision have brought upon themselves penaltieswhich seem to be overwhelming, to which no end can be seen, whichwould be overwhelming were no aid coming to us but our own, then Godraises his hand, not in anger, but in mercy, and by his wisdom doesfor us that for which our own wisdom has been insufficient.
But on no Christian basis can I understand the justice or acknowledgethe propriety of asking our Lord to abate his wrath in detail, or toalter his settled purpose. If He be wise, would we change his wisdom?If He be merciful, would we limit his mercy? There comes upon us somestrange disease, and we bid Him to stay his hand. But the disease,when it has passed by, has taught us lessons of cleanliness, whichno master less stern would have made acceptable. A famine strikes us,and we again beg that that hand may be stayed;--beg as the Greekswere said to beg when they thought that the anger of Phoebus washot against them because his priest had been dishonoured. We so beg,thinking that God's anger is hot also against us. But, lo! the faminepasses by, and a land that had been brought to the dust by man'sfolly is once more prosperous and happy.
If this was ever so in the world's history, it was so in Irelandat the time of which I am speaking. The country, especially in thesouth and west, had been brought to a terrible pass;--not as somany said and do say, by the idolatry of popery, or by the seditionof demagogues, or even mainly by the idleness of the people. Theidolatry of popery, to my way of thinking, is bad; though not so badin Ireland as in most other Papist countries that I have visited.Sedition also is bad; but in Ireland, in late years, it has not beendeep-seated--as may have been noted at Ballingarry and other places,where endeavour was made to bring sedition to its proof. And as forthe idleness of Ireland's people, I am inclined to think they willwork under the same compulsion and same persuasion which produce workin other countries.
The fault had been the lowness of education and consequent want ofprinciple among the middle classes; and this fault had been found asstrongly marked among the Protestants as it had been among the RomanCatholics. Young men were brought up to do nothing. Property wasregarded as having no duties attached to it. Men became rapacious,and determined to extract the uttermost farthing out of the landwithin their power, let the consequences to the people on that landbe what they might.
We used to hear much of absentees. It was not the absence of theabsentees that did the damage, but the presence of those they leftbehind them on the soil. The scourge of Ireland was the existenceof a class who looked to be gentlemen living on their property,but who should have earned their bread by the work of their brain,or, failing that, by the sweat of their brow. There were men to befound in shoals through the country speaking of their properties andboasting of their places, but who owned no properties and had noplaces when the matter came to be properly sifted.
Most Englishmen have heard of profit-rent. In Ireland the term isso common that no man cannot have heard of it. It may, of course,designate a very becoming sort of income. A man may, for instance,take a plot of land for one hundred pounds a year, improve and buildon it till it be fairly worth one thousand pounds a year, and thusenjoy a profit-rent of nine hundred pounds. Nothing can be better orfairer. But in Ireland the management was very different. Men thereheld tracts of ground, very often at their full value, paying forthem such proportion of rent as a farmer could afford to pay inEngland and live. But the Irish tenant would by no means consent tobe a farmer. It was needful to him that he should be a gentleman, andthat his sons should be taught to live and amuse themselves as thesons of gentlemen--barring any such small trifle as education. Theydid live in this way; and to enable them to do so, they underlettheir land in small patches, and at an amount of rent to collectwhich took the whole labour of their tenants, and the whole produceof the small patch, over and above the quantity of potatoesabsolutely necessary to keep that tenant's body and soul together.
And thus a state of things was engendered in Ireland whichdiscouraged labour, which discouraged improvements in farming,which discouraged any produce from the land except the potato crop;which maintained one class of men in what they considered to be thegentility of idleness, and another class, the people of the country,in the abjectness of poverty.
It is with thorough rejoicing, almost with triumph, that I declarethat the idle, genteel class has been cut up root and branch, hasbeen driven forth out of its holding into the wide world, and hasbeen punished with the penalty of extermination. The poor cottersuffered sorely under the famine, and under the pestilence whichfollowed the famine; but he, as a class, has risen from his bed ofsuffering a better man. He is thriving as a labourer either in hisown country or in some newer--for him better--land to which he hasemigrated. He, even in Ireland, can now get eight and nine shillingsa week easier and with more constancy than he could get four somefifteen years since. But the other man has gone, and his place isleft happily vacant.
There are an infinite number of smaller bearings in which thisquestion of the famine, and of agricultural distress in Ireland, maybe regarded, and should be regarded by those who wish to understandit. The manner in which the Poor Law was first rejected and thenaccepted, and then, if one may say so, swallowed whole by the people;the way in which emigration has affected them; the difference in thesystem of labour there from that here, which in former days was sostrong that an agricultural labourer living on his wages and buyingfood with them, was a person hardly to be found: all these thingsmust be regarded by one who would understand the matter. But seeingthat this book of mine is a novel, I have perhaps already writtenmore on a dry subject than many will read.
Such having been the state of the country, such its wretchedness,a merciful God sent the remedy which might avail to arrest it; andwe--we deprecated his wrath. But all this will soon be known andacknowledged; acknowledged as it is acknowledged that new citiesrise up in splendour from the ashes into which old cities have beenconsumed by fire. If this beneficent agency did not from time to timedisencumber our crowded places, we should ever be living in narrowalleys with stinking gutters, and supply of water at the minimum.
But very frightful are the flames as they rush through the chambersof the poor, and very frightful was the course of that violent remedywhich brought Ireland out of its misfortunes. Those who saw itscourse, and watched its victims, will not readily forget what theysaw.
Slowly, gradually, and with a voice that was for a long timediscredited, the news spread itself through the country that the foodof the people was gone. That his own crop was rotten and useless eachcotter quickly knew, and realized the idea that he must work forwages if he could get them, or else go to the poorhouse. That thecrop of his parish or district was gone became evident to the priest,and the parson, and the squire; and th
ey realized the idea that theymust fall on other parishes or other districts for support. But itwas long before the fact made itself known that there was no food inany parish, in any district.
When this was understood, men certainly did put their shoulders tothe wheel with a great effort. Much abuse at the time was thrown uponthe government; and they who took upon themselves the management ofthe relief of the poor in the south-west were taken most severelyto task. I was in the country, travelling always through it, duringthe whole period, and I have to say--as I did say at the time with avoice that was not very audible--that in my opinion the measures ofthe government were prompt, wise, and beneficent; and I have to sayalso that the efforts of those who managed the poor were, as a rule,unremitting, honest, impartial, and successful.
The feeding of four million starving people with food, to be broughtfrom foreign lands, is not an easy job. No government could bring thefood itself; but by striving to do so it might effectually preventsuch bringing on the part of others. Nor when the food was there,on the quays, was it easy to put it, in due proportions, into thefour million mouths. Some mouths, and they, alas! the weaker ones,would remain unfed. But the opportunity was a good one for slashingphilanthropical censure; and then the business of the slashing,censorious philanthropist is so easy, so exciting, and so pleasant!
I think that no portion of Ireland suffered more severely duringthe famine than the counties Cork and Kerry. The poorest partswere perhaps the parishes lying back from the sea and near to themountains; and in the midst of such a district Desmond Court wassituated. The region immediately round Castle Richmond was perhapsbetter. The tenants there had more means at their disposal, and didnot depend so absolutely on the potato crop; but even round CastleRichmond the distress was very severe.
Early in the year relief committees were formed, on one of whichyoung Herbert Fitzgerald agreed to act. His father promised, and wasprepared to give his best assistance, both by money and countenance;but he pleaded that the state of his health hindered him from activeexertion, and therefore his son came forward in his stead on thisoccasion, as it appeared probable that he would do on all othershaving reference to the family property.
This work brought people together who would hardly have met but forsuch necessity. The priest and the parson of a parish, men who hadhitherto never been in a room together, and between whom neither hadknown anything of the other but the errors of his doctrine, foundthemselves fighting for the same object at the same board, and eachfor the moment laid aside his religious ferocity. Gentlemen, whoseancestors had come over with Strongbow, or maybe even with Milesius,sat cheek by jowl with retired haberdashers, concerting new soupkitchens, and learning on what smallest modicum of pudding madefrom Indian corn a family of seven might be kept alive, and in suchcondition that the father at least might be able to stand upright.
The town of Kanturk was the head-quarters of that circle to whichHerbert Fitzgerald was attached, in which also would have beenincluded the owner of Desmond Court, had there been an ownerof an age to undertake such work. But the young earl was stillunder sixteen, and the property was represented, as far as anyrepresentation was made, by the countess.
But even in such a work as this, a work which so strongly brought outwhat there was of good among the upper classes, there was food forjealousy and ill will. The name of Owen Fitzgerald at this time didnot stand high in the locality of which we are speaking. Men hadpresumed to talk both to him and of him, and he replied to theircensures by scorn. He would not change his mode of living for them,or allow them to believe that their interference could in any wayoperate upon his conduct. He had therefore affected a worse characterfor morals than he had perhaps truly deserved, and had thus thrownoff from him all intimacy with many of the families among whom helived.
When, therefore, he had come forward as others had done, offering tojoin his brother-magistrates and the clergyman of the district intheir efforts, they had, or he had thought that they had, lookedcoldly on him. His property was half way between Kanturk and Mallow;and when this occurred he turned his shoulder upon the former place,and professed to act with those whose meetings were held at thelatter town. Thus he became altogether divided from that CastleRichmond neighbourhood to which he was naturally attached by oldintimacies and family ties.
It was a hard time this for the poor countess. I have endeavoured toexplain that the position in which she had been left with regard tomoney was not at any time a very easy one. She possessed high rankand the name of a countess, but very little of that wealth whichusually constitutes the chief advantage of such rank and name. Butnow such means as had been at her disposal were terribly crippled.There was no poorer district than that immediately around her, andnone, therefore, in which the poor rates rose to a more fearfulproportion of the rent. The country was, and for that matter stillis, divided, for purposes of poor-law rating, into electoraldistricts. In ordinary times a man, or at any rate a lady, may liveand die in his or her own house without much noticing the limits orpeculiarities of each district. In one the rate may be one and apenny in the pound, in another only a shilling. But the differenceis not large enough to create inquiry. It is divided between thelandlord and the tenant, and neither perhaps thinks much about it.But when the demand made rises to seventeen or eighteen shillings inthe pound--as was the case in some districts in those days,--when outof every pound of rent that he paid the tenant claimed to deduct nineshillings for poor rates, that is, half the amount levied--then alandlord becomes anxious enough as to the peculiarities of his ownelectoral division.
In the case of Protestant clergymen, the whole rate had to be paidby the incumbent. A gentleman whose half-yearly rent-charge amountedto perhaps two hundred pounds might have nine tenths of that sumdeducted from him for poor rates. I have known a case in which theproportion has been higher than this.
And then the tenants in such districts began to decline to pay anyrent at all--in very many cases could pay no rent at all. They, too,depended on the potatoes which were gone; they, too, had been subjectto those dreadful demands for poor rates; and thus a landlord whoseproperty was in any way embarrassed had but a bad time of it. Theproperty from which Lady Desmond drew her income had been very muchembarrassed; and for her the times were very bad.
In such periods of misfortune, a woman has always some friend. Lether be who she may, some pair of broad shoulders is forthcoming onwhich may be laid so much of the burden as is by herself unbearable.It is the great privilege of womanhood, that which compensates themfor the want of those other privileges which belong exclusively tomanhood--sitting in Parliament, for instance, preaching sermons, andgoing on 'Change.
At this time Lady Desmond would doubtless have chosen the shouldersof Owen Fitzgerald for the bearing of her burden, had he not turnedagainst her, as he had done. But now there was no hope of that. Thosebroad shoulders had burdens of their own to bear of another sort, andit was at any rate impossible that he should come to share those ofDesmond Court.
But a champion was forthcoming; one, indeed, whose shoulders wereless broad; on looking at whose head and brow Lady Desmond could notforget her years as she had done while Owen Fitzgerald had been nearher;--but a champion, nevertheless, whom she greatly prized. This wasOwen's cousin, Herbert Fitzgerald.
"Mamma," her daughter said to her one evening, as they were sittingtogether in the only room which they now inhabited. "Herbert wants usto go to that place near Kilcommon to-morrow, and says he will sendthe car at two. I suppose I can go?"
There were two things that Lady Desmond noticed in this: first, thather daughter should have called young Mr. Fitzgerald by his Christianname; and secondly, that it should have come to that with them, thata Fitzgerald should send a vehicle for a Desmond, seeing that theDesmond could no longer provide a vehicle for herself.
"You could have had the pony-chair, my dear."
"Oh, no, mamma; I would not do that." The pony was now the onlyquadruped kept for the countess's own behoof; and the young earl'shunter wa
s the only other horse in the Desmond Court stables. "Iwouldn't do that, mamma; Mary and Emmeline will not mind cominground."
"But they will have to come round again to bring you back."
"Yes, mamma. Herbert said they wouldn't mind it. We want to see howthey are managing at the new soup kitchen they have there. That oneat Clady is very bad. The boiler won't boil at all."
"Very well, my dear; only mind you wrap yourself up."
"Oh, yes; I always do."
"But, Clara--" and Lady Desmond put on her sweetest, smoothest smileas she spoke to her daughter.
"Yes, mamma."
"How long have you taken to call young Mr. Fitzgerald by hisChristian name?"
"Oh, I never do, mamma," said Clara, with a blush all over her face;"not to himself, I mean. You see, Mary and Emmeline are alwaystalking about him."
"And therefore you mean always to talk about him also."
"No, mamma. But one can't help talking about him; he is doing so muchfor these poor people. I don't think he ever thinks about anythingelse from morning to night. Emmeline says he always goes to it againafter dinner. Don't you think he is very good about it, mamma?"
"Yes, my dear; very good indeed; almost good enough to be calledHerbert."
"But I don't call him so; you know I don't," protested Clara, veryenergetically.
"He is very good," continued the countess; "very good indeed. I don'tknow what on earth we should do without him. If he were my own son,he could hardly be more attentive to me."
"Then I may go with the girls to that place? I always forget thename."
"Gortnaclough, you mean."
"Yes, mamma. It is all Sir Thomas's property there; and they have gota regular kitchen, beautifully built, Her--Mr. Fitzgerald says, witha regular cook. I do wish we could have one at Clady."
"Mr. Fitzgerald will be here to-morrow morning, and I will talk tohim about it. I fear we have not sufficient funds there."
"No; that's just it. I do wish I had some money now. You won't mindif I am not home quite early? We all mean to dine there at thekitchen. The girls will bring something, and then we can stay out thewhole afternoon."
"It won't do for you to be out after nightfall, Clara."
"No, I won't, mamma. They did want me to go home with them to CastleRichmond for to-morrow night; but I declined that," and Clara uttereda slight sigh, as though she had declined something that would havebeen very pleasant to her.
"And why did you decline it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I didn't know whether you would like it; andbesides--"
"Besides what?"
"You'd be here all alone, mamma."
The countess got up from her chair and coming over to the place whereher daughter was sitting, kissed her on her forehead. "In such amatter as that, I don't want you to think of me, my dear. I wouldrather you went out. I must remain here in this horrid, dull,wretched place; but that is no reason why you should be buried alive.I would much rather that you went out sometimes."
"No, mamma; I will remain with you."
"It will be quite right that you should go to Castle Richmondto-morrow. If they send their carriage round here for you--"
"It'll only be the car."
"Well, the car; and if the girls come all that way out of their roadin the morning to pick you up, it will be only civil that you shouldgo back by Castle Richmond, and you would enjoy an evening there withthe girls very much."
"But I said decidedly that I would not go."
"Tell them to-morrow as decidedly that you have changed yourmind, and will be delighted to accept their invitation. They willunderstand that it is because you have spoken to me."
"But, mamma--"
"You will like going; will you not?"
"Yes; I shall like it."
And so that matter was settled. On the whole, Lady Desmond wasinclined to admit within her own heart that her daughter had behavedvery well in that matter of the banishment of Owen Fitzgerald. Sheknew that Clara had never seen him, and had refused to open hisletters. Very little had been said upon the subject between themother and daughter. Once or twice Owen's name had been mentioned;and once, when it had been mentioned, with heavy blame on account ofhis alleged sins, Clara had ventured to take his part.
"People delight to say ill-natured things," she had said; "but one isnot obliged to believe them all."
From that time Lady Desmond had never mentioned his name, rightlyjudging that Clara would be more likely to condemn him in her ownheart if she did not hear him condemned by others: and so the motherand daughter had gone on, as though the former had lost no friend,and the latter had lost no lover.
For some time after the love adventure, Clara had been pale anddrooping, and the countess had been frightened about her; butlatterly she had got over this. The misfortune which had fallen soheavily upon them all seemed to have done her good. She had devotedherself from the first to do her little quota of work towardslessening the suffering around her, and the effort had been salutaryto her.
Whether or no in her heart of hearts she did still think of OwenFitzgerald, her mother was unable to surmise. From the fire whichhad flashed from her eyes on that day when she accused the world ofsaying ill-natured things of him, Lady Desmond had been sure thatsuch was the case. But she had never ventured to probe her child'sheart. She had given very little confidence to Clara, and could not,therefore, and did not expect confidence in return.
Nor was Clara a girl likely in such a matter to bestow confidence onany one. She was one who could hold her heart full, and yet not speakof her heart's fulness. Her mother had called her a child, and insome respects she then was so; but this childishness had been caused,not by lack of mental power, but want of that conversation withothers which is customary to girls of her age. This want had in somerespects made her childish; for it hindered her from expressingherself in firm tones, and caused her to blush and hesitate when shespoke. But in some respects it had the opposite effect, and made herolder than her age, for she was thoughtful, silent, and patient ofendurance.
Latterly, since this dreary famine-time had come upon them, anintimacy had sprung up between Clara and the Castle Richmond girls,and in a measure, too, between Clara and Herbert Fitzgerald. LadyDesmond had seen this with great pleasure. Though she had objectedto Owen Fitzgerald for her daughter, she had no objection to theFitzgerald name. Herbert was his father's only son, and heir to thefinest property in the county--at any rate, to the property which atpresent was the best circumstanced. Owen Fitzgerald could never bemore than a little squire, but Herbert would be a baronet. Owen'sutmost ambition would be to live at Hap House all his life, anddie the oracle of the Duhallow hunt; but Herbert would be a memberof Parliament, with a house in London. A daughter of the house ofDesmond might marry the heir of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, and be thoughtto have done well; whereas, she would disgrace herself by becomingthe mistress of Hap House. Lady Desmond, therefore, had beendelighted to see this intimacy.
It had been in no spirit of fault-finding that she had remarked toher daughter as to her use of that Christian name. What would bebetter than that they should be to each other as Herbert and Clara?But the cautious mother had known how easy it would be to frightenher timid fawn-like child. It was no time, no time as yet, toquestion her heart about this second lover--if lover he might be. Thecountess was much too subtle in her way to frighten her child's heartback to its old passion. That passion doubtless would die from wantof food. Let it be starved and die; and then this other new passionmight spring up.
The Countess of Desmond had no idea that her daughter, with severeself-questioning, had taken her own heart to task about this formerlover; had argued with herself that the man who could so sin, couldlive such a life, and so live in these fearful times, was unworthy ofher love, and must be torn out of her heart, let the cost be what itmight. Of such high resolves on her daughter's part, nay, on the partof any young girl, Lady Desmond had no knowledge.
Clara Desmond had determined, slowly determined,
to give up the manwhom she had owned to love. She had determined that duty and femaledignity required her to do so. And in this manner it had been done;not by the childlike forgetfulness which her mother attributed toher.
And so it was arranged that she should stay the following night atCastle Richmond.
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