Part 7

On the morning of the 19th, Peter was astonished by a visit from his tenantry in a body. His first impression was that they had come to pay up arrears, and he chuckled at a success which he had scarcely expected so soon. On entering the room into which his housekeeper had invited the farmers, he changed his opinion. They hadn’t altogether the look of men who had come in either a penitent or a suppliant mood. Most of them retained their head-gear, and one or two were actually smoking. To say that Peter was amazed at this lack of respect for his presence would be a weak description of his feelings. He was shocked, startled, indignant, and, indeed, a little frightened, into the bargain. Recovering himself, he asked in a voice that sounded as if some of his own soap had got round his tongue, “Well, you’ve come to settle, I suppose?”

“Yes,” replied a sturdy, frieze-coated peasant, advancing from the rest without removing his caubeen. “You’re right; we want a settlement.”

“Ah, I thought I would bring you to your senses,” said Peter with an ill-disguised sneer.

Frieze-coat flushed and retorted, “It seems to me that you’ve got the wrong bull by the tail this time,” at which a broad smile lit up the twenty-odd faces, and there were one or two audible guffaws.

“Wrong bull? Who’s talking about bulls? What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re here to bring _you_ to _your_ senses; not to show that we’ve parted with our own.”

“I--I--” stammered Peter. “Upon my soul, my deah fellah, I don’t understand you.”

“Well, thin, I’ll try to insinse you. You’ve sint us notes askin’ for arrears that we don’t mane to pay. Yer ould father’s been thryin’ to raise rints on us that’s too high as it is. We ped the ould rint as long as we cud, but bad saysons an’ poor crops have med even the ould rint too heavy; so we’ve detarmined, every man, to offer you a fair rint for this gale, Griffith’s valuation, divil a ha’penny more, an’ if you don’t like to take that, troth you may whistle for your rints, for bad luck to the shilling you’ll get, at all, at all.”

Peter turned blue, red, yellow, white, and mottled by turns, and was nearly ten minutes searching for his voice before he found it. When he did get hold of it, he hardly recognized the tones as his own. “This is mo--mo--monstrous,” he ejaculated. “Begone! I shall have bailiffs in every cabin in the parish before the month’s out. I’ll evict--I’ll-I’ll--by Jove! I’ll--I’ll--Look here, go to Hong-Kong out of this!”

“Oh, we’re goin’,” responded the spokesman; “but, before we go, I’d like to give you a little bit of advice. We med you a fair offer, an’ ye’ve only returned abuse. Did you ever hear of Captain Boycott? Well, begorra, before this day-week you’ll think Captain Boycott a happy man to what you’ll be. We’re going to do the most complete, out-an’-out, thunderin’ boycottin’ on you that ever shook a man out of his breeches. Good day, an’ good luck to you. I hope your education in the fine arts of washin’ and cookin’, diggin’ yer own praties an’ lightin’ yer own fires, blackin’ yer own boots, an’ starchin’ yer own shirts, wasn’t neglected in yer youth, for ye’ll need it all, I assure you, on the word of a Sullivan. Come along, boys. Three cheers for the Land League!” A thundering hurrah shook the oaken rafters again and again, as the deputation filed slowly out of the room, and Peter sank into the nearest chair with a dim conviction surging through his brain that there was something wrong somewhere in the terrestrial system, and that Bow Lane, Limehouse, was a far more desirable location for his active genius than Ballymurphy, County Cork.

After half an hour’s diversified meditation, Peter decided that things were not so gloomy, after all. He would see his lawyer, and get out the decrees at once. As for the threat of boycotting, what did he care about that? He had no desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the tenantry, so how the deuce could he suffer by their refusal to speak or deal with him? Ha! ha! by Jove, it was absurd, ridiculously absurd. In his revived spirits Peter actually commenced an original fandango, but was interrupted in his terpsichorean evolutions by the entrance of his man Jones, over whose flabby countenance a facial eclipse had fallen, which at once arrested his master’s attention and his quickstep.

“Eh? Well? What’s up now?” queried Philipson.

“Hup! Heverythinks hup. Missus Moore, she’s hup and ’ooked it. The cook, she’s bin and gone and flued, also, likewise. The coachman and the ’ossler they’ve sloped, an’ the ’osses is a ’avin’ a jubilee on the front lawn. The kitchen fire, it’s gone out, and I do verily believe there ain’t a mossel of coal in the ’ouse. The butcher, ’e’s a bloomer, ’e is. Blow me if that ’ere butcher didn’t turn back with the legs o’ mutton, an’ the rounds o’ beef, an’ the shoulders o’ lamb as was a hordered for the lay-out to-morrow; and the fowl man, ’e did ditto with the turkeys an’ chickens, an’ the grocer, ’e’s another ditto, an’ I’ve come to give my notice. When I engaged to love, ’onor, an’ obey--I mean to brush your clothes an’ do all the other cetrys of a wally de sham--I didn’t bargain, not by no manner of means, for starvation. You may be as much Robinson Keruso as you like, but you don’t lug John Thomas in for Man Friday. Adoo. Fare you well. I’m going back to the roast beef of hold Hengland and Mary Ann Timmons, which, if she could see her faithful Jones a wearin’ to a skeleton she would break her ’art. Good-by, sir.”

Before Peter could gather in the full drift of his servitor’s disjointed sentences, that injured retainer was away, speeding to the nearest railway station with a firm conviction that his life depended on the distance he could place before nightfall between himself and Ballymurphy.

A hasty exploration of the premises convinced his master that he had spoken only too truly. There was not a servant in the house. The fires were all out; the larder was very nearly empty; the nearest provision store was four miles off; if he knew how to harness a horse to the gig he couldn’t do it, for, rejoicing in their unexpected freedom, his equine possessions were gaily gambolling in distant pastures; and Peter groaned as he pictured to himself the visit on the morrow of his invited guests, Captain Devereux and Lieutenant Talbot of the Lancers, the Rev. Jabez Wilkins, with his portly wife and buxom daughters, the neighboring squires from half a dozen estates--a goodly company of fifteen or sixteen in all, with not so much as a scullery maid to attend to their wants, and only three bottles of porter, a box of cigars, and a couple of loaves to feast their appetites!

It was awful. Marius amidst the ruins of Carthage, Casabianca on the burning deck, a Chinese mandarin in a Kearney convention, a fat alderman in a narrow lane with a Texan steer charging on his rear, Jonah in the whale’s belly, or a shipwrecked Mormon missionary contemplating burial in the digestive recesses of a tribe of cannibals may afford striking examples of perturbation of spirits, but Peter felt that day as if he would gladly change lots with any or all of them. What should he do? Would he tie black crape to the front knocker, with a card announcing his premature decease? Would he fly to other and fairer climes, where boycotting was unknown, and butchers, poulterers, grocers, cooks, and housekeepers had feeling hearts within their tender bosoms? Would he poison, hang, shoot, drown, or smother himself?

He didn’t do any of these things. He sought out Frieze-coat Sullivan. With tears in his eyes he besought that red-haired Cork-man to remove the edict which had brought desolation to his hearth and affliction to his soul. Sullivan was as merciful as he was mighty. He relented. He restored to Peter his satellite of the saucepan, his janitor of the stable, his legs of mutton, his groceries, and his peace of mind. The party came off, after all. Peter preserved his credit as a host, but it was at the sacrifice of his laurels as a land-agent.

If any reader desires now to ascertain the stormy depths of a soap-boiler’s soul, he has only do drop into the counting-house of Philipson Brothers, in the East end of London, and ask the manager his candid opinion of the Irish land question. He will probably be consigned to the nearest vat of boiling grease; but he will, at any rate, be firmly convinced that Philipson, Jr., entertains very strong ideas on the subject.

THE FELONS OF OUR LAND.

Fill up once more, we’ll drink a toast To comrades far away; No nation on the earth can boast Of braver hearts than they. And though they sleep in dungeons deep, Or flee, outlawed and banned, We love them yet, we ne’er forget The felons of our land!

In boyhood’s bloom and manhood’s pride, Foredoomed by alien laws, Some on the scaffold proudly died For holy Ireland’s cause. And brothers, say, shall we to-day Unmoved like cowards stand, While traitors shame and foes defame The felons of our land?

Some in the convict’s dreary cell Have found a living tomb, And some unseen, unfriended, fell Within its silent gloom. Yet what care we, although it be Trod by a ruffian band, God bless the clay where rest to-day The felons of our land!

Let cowards sneer and tyrants frown, Oh, little do we care, A felon’s cap’s the noblest crown An Irish head can wear! And every Gael in Innisfail Who scorns the serf’s vile brand, From Lee to Boyne would gladly join The felons of our land!

AN OFFICIAL VALUATION.

The wearied Sub-Commissioner was waiting for his car, In the hospitable shelter of a Connemara bar; And as he contemplated the interminable rain, On the farm he had to visit he reflected with much pain, For the roads were very dirty, and the distance very far.

The atmosphere was chilly, and the footway was a swamp, And the spirits of the barrister (just like the morning) damp, As he thought of bronchial attacks, Pneumatic pains, rheumatic racks, And the other consequences of his valuating tramp.

The lawyers had departed from the village with their spoil, The landlord, and the agent, and the tenant shirked the toil Of plodding ’mid the mist and fog, O’er slimy clay and treacherous bog, And had left him single-handed to investigate the soil.

His tumbler he replenished and he took another sip, And as the grateful Jameson was moistening his lip, His gloomy face relaxed,--indeed, he actually laughed; He had drawn an inspiration in addition to the draught That pointed an escape from his anticipated trip.

He whispered to the jarvey--“You remember Murphy’s land; Do you think that you could manage in my shoes for once to stand? That is, could you perambulate Around that gentleman’s estate In a pair of boots I’ll lend you to accomplish my demand?

“You needn’t spend a week or so, you needn’t spend a day, But just long enough to gather up some samples of the clay, Return the muddy boots to me Unbrushed, because I wish to be Acquainted with the profits that that soil is fit to pay.”

That carman took instructions, but they say he took no more, He didn’t take a dozen steps outside the tavern door, He simply mopped the boots around The dirtiest adjacent ground, And returned them to the owner when an hour or so was o’er.

And that smart agriculturist a brief five minutes spent Examining the Bluchers, and, officially content, Proceeded the next morning to adjudicate the rent, Remarking he was satisfied, convinced, and more than sure That the soil of Mr. Murphy was so miserably poor, That he must give reductions of some thirty-three per cent.

A BEWILDERED BOYCOTTER.

I’m diminted,--this is awful; so it is My spirit’s in low water, an’ no wonder; ’Tis worse than whin the price of butter riz The time I lost my churning through the thunder. Mickey Flanagan has been an’ paid his rint, An’ the Laygue that rules this part of Tipperary-- Curse of Cromwell on their bitther hearts of flint!-- Have resolved to boycott him an’ little Mary.

I wouldn’t mind the ould man,--not a jot; I always looked upon him as a blaggard, Since his language was so disperately hot, Once he caught me kissin’ Mary in the haggard. They might pass their resolutions by the score About him, and I would niver prove contrary, But my feelin’s are distracted, sad, an’ sore Whin I’m called upon to boycott little Mary.

Sure, it’s mostly for her sake I go to mass, Half a dozen miles across the fields, on Sunday; An’ if I have to schorn her whin I pass, Troth I’ll be a ravin’ lunatic on Monday. Her beseechin’ eyes will follow me all day; They’ll haunt me in the byre and in the dairy, An’ I’ll waken in the mornin’, bald or gray,-- Black misfortune! if I boycott little Mary.

If they wanted me to bate a peeler blue, Ram writs down half a dozen bailiffs’ throttles, Or immigrate to far-off Timbuctoo, An’ live on impty oyster shells an’ bottles, I would do my best endayvors to obey; But to tear from out my heart that winnin’ fairy Is beyant me; so I’ll meet my friends an’ say,-- Divil sweep me if I’ll boycott little Mary!

A COMPLAINT OF COERCION.

O Peggy, darlin’, listen to my sorrowful lamint, And help me to recover from my state of discontint; There’s an end to fun an’ sportin’ in these black and bitther days, And we’ll have to drop our coortin’ by the moon’s enchanting rays. For there isn’t a dacent gossoon, By the light of that same silver moon, Found out of his bed, But will straightway be led To a cushion of plank, That of feathers is blank, An’ he won’t fall in love with too soon.

Now it’s inconvanient, Peggy, to be spoonin’ in the day, With all your male relations or your neighbors in the way; Your boy’s poor heart, in lonesomeness, must palpitate and pant Beneath the cowld inspection of your mother or your aunt; An’ he’ll have to repress his ould taste For resting his arm round your waist, An’ except for a sigh, Or a glance of your eye, Or an odd little squeeze That there’s nobody sees, His comfort will be of the laste.

Do you mind last winter, Peggy, when the snow was on the ground, Every night all stiff an’ frozen in the boreen I’d be found? I didn’t care for painful demonstrations in my toes, I didn’t feel the icicles that beautified my nose; I despised my five miles of a thramp In the dark, widout moon, star, or lamp, For I knew at its ind I could always dipind That some one I’d find Who had sootherings kind, To rescue my sperits from damp.

But now, bad fortune, Peggy, if I venture out at all, The peelers will be afther me with buckshot an’ with ball; And if I keep purshuing my perambulatin’ course, I shall find myself a target for the County Kerry force. An’ some night I’ll be brought in my gore, Stritched out on an ould cabin door, With six ounces of lead Settled inside my head, An’ my bosom, that’s true As the saints unto you, Disarranged by an ounce or two more.

Or I might be taken, Peggy, an’ before a magisthrate, Be called upon the rayson of my wanderin’s to state; And it wouldn’t suit your character for me to tell the truth, That my heart was thirsty, and I sought my girl to quinch its drooth; So I’d have to tell thunderin’ lies, And the law has such far-seeing eyes, ’Twould find thim all out, And there isn’t a doubt Introduced I would be, By some dirty J. P., To a suit of the Government frieze.

O’NEILL’S ADDRESS.

BENBURB: JUNE 6, 1646.

Gallant sons of Innisfail, Ye whose stout hearts never quail, Though no glittering coats of mail Their proud throbbings hide: Hark! yon distant sullen hum! ’Tis the rolling of the drum. See! our Saxon foemen come In their wrath and pride.

Meet them, comrades, face to face, Meet them as becomes our race, Let no shadow of disgrace Dim our spotless name. Front to front, unshrinking, stand, Fire each heart and nerve each hand, Strike for God and fatherland, Liberty and fame!

Kinsmen, they are still the same As when, centuries past, they came To our shores, and blood and flame Followed in their track; By the still uncancelled debt We were cowards to forget, By the wrongs we suffer yet, Drive them headlong back!

As when angry billows leap, Like proud chargers from the deep, Heaven’s more mighty tempests sweep All their wrath to spray, So their glinting waves of steel Erin’s whirlwind charge shall feel Till their serried columns reel, Scattered in dismay.

Strike, that Ireland’s sons may be Still unconquered, proud, and free; Strike, and fear not,--victory Waits on every blow; Strike, that we may never roam Exiles o’er the ocean’s foam; Strike together, and strike home, Vengeance on the foe!

THE FENIAN’S DREAM.

CHRISTMAS, 1867.

Through London’s dull and murky air The merry Christmas bells Flung out, in cadence rich and rare, Their sonorous throbs and swells. To the half-slumbering town they spoke Of peace and God’s good-will, And seemed to chase with pealing stroke The fiends of hate and ill; But, ah, how cruelly they broke Around dark Pentonville!

There, ’twixt the bars, the pale moonbeams, Half timid, forced their way, And fell in slender, silvery streams, Down where the convict lay. They glanced a moment round the place, Cold, comfortless, and bare, Then, in a pitying embrace, Like angel spirits there, Caressed the careworn, pallid face, So wan, and yet so fair.

They seemed to whisper softly while Around his head they strayed, For o’er the pale, thin lips a smile, Half joy, half anguish, played; As if the tender moonbeams sought Bright tales of hope to tell, And the day memories, bitter, wrought Such fancies to dispel; And so his two dream guardians fought Within his lonely cell.

His dream was of the loved old land He never could forget-- The dungeon’s gloom, the convict’s brand, Had not subdued it yet; The land of legend and of lay, Of mountain, stream, and lake, Of blossomed heath and sheltering bay, Of forest, glen, and brake, Where highland sprite and lowland fay A home forever make.

The land whose children toil and bleed, And drudge and starve in vain, For where the peasant sows the seed, A stranger reaps the grain. The Isle of Saints--where knaves and spies Flourish and thrive apace; Where fortune must be wooed by lies, Dishonor, and disgrace; The true man from such saintdom flies, And cattle take his place.

Land of the green, and of the gray! For workhouse, tomb, and jail Are landmarks on thy soil to-day, And answer, Innisfail, Tell us which tint thou seest most, The old one or the new? The green of which our poets boast, Or the more sombre hue? Few wear the green: a countless host Have donned the gray for you.

Island of verdure, glorious land! So rich in fertile plains, Where Nature gives with bounteous hand, Yet famine ever reigns; Where through the mellow ripening corn The balmiest zephyrs sigh, Where brighter seems each glowing morn, More radiant each sky; Where ’tis misfortune to be born, And happiness to die.

Poor dreaming boy! he softly smiled To think he played once more, A happy, bright, and thoughtless child, Beside the cabin door-- The dear old straw-thatched cabin, where, Upon his mother’s knee, He first had learned to lisp a prayer For Ireland’s liberty, And ever pregnant seemed the air With joyous melody.

His fancy changed: the youthful face In sternness now was set, His woes had left no coward trace Upon his spirit yet; His cold, thin lips were tightly press’d, His cheeks were all aglow; Expanded seemed the hollow chest, His brows contract, as though Disturbed and broken was his rest By some nocturnal foe.

He dreamt that in his native land, Away from this bleak jail, He stood within a meadow grand, A shamrock-spangled vale. Above the scene the sun-rays bright In glittering grandeur beamed, Around him in their golden light Ten thousand bayonets beamed, And o’er his head, oh, glorious sight! Green Erin’s banner streamed.

From town and village, hill and glen, With clamorous fife and drum, From mountain brake and lowland fen The mustering legions come; The war-worn soldier, bronzed and brown, Has brought his dinted blade; While quickly from the neighboring town Flock in the sons of trade; The farmer flings his good spade down, And joins the dense brigade.

The fiery Northmen, in whose veins Still flows the blood of those Who on a hundred battle-plains Have conquered Erin’s foes-- The brave descendants of O’Neill, A stern and fearless band, A living wall of sparkling steel Beneath the old flag stand, And many a Saxon foe shall feel Tyrconnell’s vengeful hand.

With Ulster’s columns, side by side, Are Munster’s squadrons massed, Like tigers into line they glide, So noiselessly and fast; Ah! crimsoned soon will be the green They bear into the fray, Through England’s host their sabres keen Shall carve a corse-strewn way, And Limerick and Skibbereen Be well avenged to-day.

Proud Leinster, all your chivalry To arms electric spring; High ’mid the battle’s revelry Your stirring shout shall ring; And many a foe this day shall rue Your fierce, impetuous might; The scenes that gallant Wexford knew Shall be reversed ere night; The epitaph to Emmet due Your gleaming swords shall write.

O’Connor’s soul, grim Connaught, lives Within your ranks this hour; Before the strength your hatred gives Well may the despot cower. Think of your long, black night of tears, And say, can you forget The tyrant’s scorn, his jibes and jeers-- That huge, uncancelled debt, The wrongs of thrice two hundred years That scourge your province yet?

Hark to that distant rumbling sound! See, yonder come the foe; Now be our arms with victory crowned, The foreign scum laid low. The stillness and the calm are o’er, And many a sulphurous cloud, Betinged with flame and dripping gore, Shall form a battle-shroud For those whose tongues may swell no more The nation’s slogan loud.

Like hostile torrents armies clash, And steel now crosses steel, The lurid flames incessant flash, And volleyed thunders peal; But backward reel the alien ranks, With one exultant cry, Sweep, Irish heroes, on their flanks, Not vainly will ye die; Oh, mighty God of battles, thanks, The craven red-coats fly!