all the little cares and perplexities that chequered the peaceful
neighborhood in which they lived, they were ever the first to console,
or, if necessary, to support a distressed neighbor with the means which
God had placed in their possession; for, being industrious, they were
seldom poor. Their words were few, but sincere, and generally promised
less than the honest hearts that dictated them intended to perform.
There is in some persons a hereditary feeling of just principle, the
result neither of education nor of a clear moral sense, but rather a
kind of instinctive honesty which descends, like a constitutional
bias, from father to son, pervading every member of the family. It is
difficult to define this, or to assign its due position in the scale
of human virtues. It exists in the midst of the grossest ignorance, and
influences the character in the absence of better principles. Such was
the impress which marked so strongly the family of which I speak. No one
would ever think of imputing a dishonest act to the M'Carthys; nor would
any person acquainted with them, hesitate for a moment to consider their
word as good as the bond of another. I do not mean to say, however, that
their motives of action were not higher than this instinctive honesty;
far from it: but I say, that they possessed it in addition to a strong
feeling of family pride, and a correct knowledge of their moral duties.

     * Such is the superstition; and, as I can tell,
     faithfully is it believed.

I can only take up Owen M'Carthy at that part of the past to which my
memory extends. He was then a tall, fine-looking young man; silent, but
kind. One of the earliest events within my recollection is his wedding;
after that the glimpse of his state and circumstances are imperfect; but
as I grew up, they became more connected, and I am able to remember him
the father of four children; an industrious, inoffensive small farmer,
beloved, respected, and honored. No man could rise, be it ever so early,
who would not find Owen up before him; no man could anticipate him in an
early crop, and if a widow or a sick acquaintance were unable to get in
their harvest, Owen was certain to collect the neighbors to assist them;
to be the first there himself, with quiet benevolence, encouraging
them to a zealous performance of the friendly task in which they were
engaged.

It was, I believe, soon after his marriage, that the lease of the farm
held by him expired. Until that time he had been able to live with
perfect independence; but even the enormous rise of one pound per acre,
though it deprived him in a great degree of his usual comforts, did not
sink him below the bare necessaries of life. For some years after that
he could still serve a deserving neighbor; and never was the hand of
Owen M'Carthy held back from the wants and distresses of those whom he
knew to be honest.

I remember once an occasion upon which a widow Murray applied to him for
a loan of five pounds, to prevent her two cows from being auctioned
for a half year's rent, of which she only wanted that sum. Owen sat at
dinner with his family when she entered the house in tears, and, as well
as her agitation of mind permitted, gave him a detailed account of her
embarrassment.

“The blessin' o' God be upon all here,” said she, on entering.

“The double o' that to you, Rosha,” replied Owen's wife: “won't you sit
in an' be atin'?--here's a sate beside Nanny; come over, Rosha.”

Owen only nodded to her, and continued to eat his dinner, as if he felt
no interest in her distress. Rosha sat down at a distance, and with the
corner of a red handkerchief to her eyes, shed tears in that bitterness
of feeling which marks the helplessness of honest industry under the
pressure of calamity.

“In the name o' goodness, Rosha,” said Mrs. M'Carthy, “what ails you,
asthore? Sure Jimmy--God spare him to you--wouldn't be dead?”

“Glory be to God! no, avourneen machree. Och, och! but it 'ud be the
black sight, an' the black day, that 'ud see my brave, boy, the staff
of our support, an' the bread of our mouth, taken away from us!--No, no,
Kathleen dear, it's not that bad wid me yet. I hope we'll never live to
see his manly head laid down before us. 'Twas his own manliness, indeed,
brought it an him--backin' the sack when he was bringin' home our last
_meldhre_ * from the mill; for you see he should do it, the crathur, to
show his strinth, an' the sack, when he got it an was too heavy for him,
an' hurted the small of his back; for his bones, you see, are too young,
an' hadn't time to fill up yet. No, avourneen. Glory be to God! he's
gettin' betther wid me!” and the poor creature's eyes glistened with
delight through her tears and the darkness of her affliction.

Without saying a word, Owen, when she finished the eulogium on her
son, rose, and taking her forcibly by the shoulder, set her down at the
table, on which a large potful of potatoes had been spread out, with
a circle in the middle for a dish of rashers and eggs, into which dish
every right hand of those about it was thrust, with a quickness that
clearly illustrated the principle of competition as a stimulus to
action.

“Spare your breath,” said Owen, placing her rather roughly upon the
seat, “an' take share of what's goin': when all's cleared off we'll hear
you, but the sorra word till then.”

“Musha, Owen,” said the poor woman, “you're the same man still; sure
we all know your ways; I'll strive, avourneen, to ate--I'll strive,
asthore--to plase you, an' the Lord bless you an' yours, an' may you
never be as I an' my fatherless childhre are this sorrowful day!” and
she accompanied her words by a flood of tears.

     * Meldhre--whatever quantity of grain is brought to the
     mill to be ground on one occasion.

Owen, without evincing the slightest sympathy, withdrew himself from the
table. Not a muscle of his face was moved; but as the cat came about his
feet at the time, he put his foot under her, and flung her as easily as
possible to the lower end of the kitchen.

“Arrah, what harm did the crathur do,” asked his wife, “that you'd kick
her for, that way? an' why but you ate out your dinner?”

“I'm done,” he replied, “but that's no rason that Rosha, an' you, an'
thim boys that has the work afore them, shouldn't finish your male's
mate.”

Poor Rosha thought that by his withdrawing he had already suspected
the object of her visit, and of course concluded that her chance of
succeeding was very slender.

The wife, who guessed what she wanted, as well as the nature of her
suspicion, being herself as affectionate and obliging as Owen, reverted
to the subject, in order to give her an opportunity of proceeding.

“Somethin' bitther an' out o' the common coorse, is a throuble to you,
Rosha,” said she, “or you wouldn't be in the state you're in. The Lord
look down on you this day, you poor crathur--widout the father of your
childhre to stand up for you, an' your only other depindance laid on the
broad of his back, all as one as a cripple; but no matther, Rosha; trust
to Him that can be a husband to you an' a father to your orphans--trust
to Him, an' his blessed mother in heaven, this day, an' never fear but
they'll rise up a frind for you. Musha, Owen, ate your dinner as you
ought to do, wid your capers! How can you take a spade in your hand upon
that morsel?”

“Finish your own,” said her husband, “an' never heed me; jist let me
alone. Don't you see that if I wanted it, I'd ate it, an' what more
would you have about!”

“Well, acushla, it's your own loss, sure, of a sartinty. An' Rosha,
whisper, ahagur, what can Owen or I do for you? Throth, it would be a
bad day we'd see you at a _deshort_ * for a friend, for you never wor
nothin' else nor a civil, oblagin' neighbor yourself; an' him that's
gone before--the Lord make his bed in heaven this day--was as good a
warrant as ever broke bread, to sarve a friend, if it was at the hour of
midnight.”

     * That is at a loss; or more properly speaking, taken
     short, which it means.

“Ah! when I had him!” exclaimed the distracted widow, “I never had
occasion to trouble aither friend or neighbor; but he s gone an' now
it's otherwise wid me--glory be to God for all his mercies--a wurrah
dheelish! Why, thin, since I must spake, an' has no other frind to go
to--but somehow I doubt Owen looks dark upon me--sure I'd put my hand to
a stamp, if my word wouldn't do for it, an' sign the blessed crass that
saved us, for the payment of it; or I'd give it to him in oats, for I
hear you want some, Owen--Phatie oates it is, an' a betther shouldhered
or fuller-lookin' grain never went undher a harrow--indeed it's it
that's the beauty, all out, if it's good seed you want.”

“What is it for, woman alive?” inquired Owen, as he kicked a
three-legged stool out of his way.”

“What is it for, is it? Och, Owen darlin', sure my two brave cows is
lavin' me. Owen M'Murt, the driver, is over wid me beyant, an' has them
ready to set off wid. I reared them both, the two of them, wid my own
hands; _Cheehoney_, that knows my voice, an' would come to me from the
fardest corner o' the field, an' nothin' will we have--nothin' will my
poor sick boy have--but the black wather, or the dhry salt; besides the
butther of them being lost to us for rent, or a small taste of it, of an
odd time, for poor Jimmy. Owen, next to God, I have no friend to depind
upon but yourself!”

“Me!” said Owen, as if astonished. “Phoo, that's quare enough! Now do
you think, Rosha,--hut, hut, woman alive! Come, boys, you're all done;
out wid you to your spades, an' finish that _meerin_ (* a marsh ditch, a
boundary) before night. Me!--hut, tut!”

“I have it all but five pounds, Owen, an' for the sake of him that's in
his grave--an' that, maybe, is able to put up his prayer for you”--

“An' what would you want me to do, Rosha? Fitther for you to sit down
an' finish your dinner, when it's before you. I'm goin' to get an ould
glove that's somewhere about this chist, for I must weed out that bit
of oats before night, wid a blessin',” and, as he spoke he passed into
another room, as if he had altogether forgotten her solicitation, and in
a few minutes returned.

“Owen, avick!--an' the blessin' of the fatherless be upon you, sure, an'
many a one o' them you have, any how, Owen!”

“Well, Rosha--well?”

“Och, och, Owen, it's low days wid me to be depindin' upon the
sthranger? little thim that reared me ever thought it 'ud come to this.
You know I'm a dacent father's child, an' I have stooped to you, Owen
M'Carthy--what I'd scorn to do to any other but yourself--poor an'
friendless as I stand here before you. Let them take the cows, thin,
from my childhre; but the father of the fatherless will support thim an'
me. Och, but it's well for the O'Donohoes that their landlord lives at
home among themselves, for may the heavens look down on me, I wouldn't
know where to find mine, if one sight of him 'ud save me an' my childre
from the grave! The Agent even, he lives in Dublin, an' how could I lave
my sick boy, an' small girshas by themselves, to go a hundre miles, an'
maybe not see him afther all. Little hopes I'd have from him, even if I
did; he's paid for gatherin' in his rents; but it's well known he wants
the touch of nathur for the sufferins of the poor, an' of them that's
honest in their intintions.”

“I'll go over wid you, Rosha, if that will be of any use,” replied Owen,
composedly; “come, I'll go an' spake to Frank M'Murt.''

“The sorra blame I blame him, Owen,” replied Rosha, “his bread's
depindin' upon the likes of sich doins, an' he can't get over it; but a
word from you, Owen, will save me, for who ever refused to take the word
of a M'Carthy?”

When Owen and the widow arrived at the house of the latter, they found
the situation of the bailiff laughable in the extreme. Her eldest son,
who had been confined to his bed by a hurt received in his back, was
up, and had got the unfortunate driver, who was rather old, wedged in
between the dresser and the wall, where his cracked voice--for he was
asthmatic--was raised to the highest pitch, calling for assistance.
Beside him was a large tub half-filled with water, into which the little
ones were emptying small jugs, carried at the top of their speed from
a puddle before the door. In the meantime, Jemmy was tugging at the
bailiff with all his strength--fortunately for that personage, it was
but little--with the most sincere intention of inverting him into the
tub which contained as much muddy water as would have been sufficient to
make him a subject for the deliberation of a coroner and twelve honest
men. Nothing could be more conscientiously attempted than the task
which Jemmy had proposed to execute: every tug brought out his utmost
strength, and when he failed in pulling down the bailiff, he compensated
himself for his want of success by cuffing his ribs, and peeling his
shins by hard kicks; whilst from those open points which the driver's
grapple with his man naturally exposed, were inflicted on him by the
rejoicing urchins numberless punches of tongs, potato-washers, and
sticks whose points were from time to time hastily thrust into the
coals, that they might more effectually either blind or disable him in
some other manner.

As one of the little ones ran out to fill his jug, he spied his mother
and Owen approaching, on which, with the empty vessel in his hand, he
flew towards them, his little features distorted by glee and ferocity,
wildly mixed up together.

“Oh mudher, mudher--ha, ha, ha!--don't come in yet; don't come in, Owen,
till Jimmy un' huz, an' the Denisses, gets the bailie drownded. We'll
soon have the _bot_ (* tub) full; but Paddy an' Jack Denis have the
eyes a'most pucked out of him; an' Katty's takin' the rapin' hook from,
behind the _cuppet_, to get it about his neck.”

Owen and the widow entered with all haste, precisely at the moment when
Frank's head was dipped, for the first time, into the vessel.

“Is it goin' to murdher him ye are?” said Owen, as he seized Jemmy with
a grasp that transferred him to the opposite end of the house; “hould
back ye pack of young divils, an' let the man up. What did he come to
do but his duty? I tell you, Jimmy, if you wor at yourself, an' in full
strinth, that you'd have the man's blood on you where you stand, and
would suffer as you ought to do for it.”

“There, let me,” replied the lad, his eyes glowing and his veins
swollen with passion; “I don't care if I did. It would be no sin, an' no
disgrace, to hang for the like of him; dacenter to do that, than stale a
creel of turf, or a wisp of straw, 'tanny rate.”

In the meantime the bailiff had raised his head out of the water, and
presented a visage which it was impossible to view with gravity. The
widow's anxiety prevented her from seeing it in a ludicrous light; but
Owen's severe face assumed a grave smile, as the man shook himself and
attempted to comprehend the nature of his situation. The young urchins,
who had fallen back at the appearance of Owen and the widow, now burst
into a peal of mirth, in which, however, Jemmy, whose fiercer passions
had been roused, did not join.

“Frank M'Murt,” said the widow, “I take the mother of heaven to witness,
that it vexes my heart to see you get sich thratement in my place; an'
I wouldn't for the best cow I have that sich a _brieuliagh_ (* squabble)
happened. _Dher charp agusmanim_, (** by my soul and body) Jimmy, but
I'll make you suffer for drawin' down this upon my head, and me had
enough over it afore.”

“I don't care,” replied Jemmy; “whoever comes to take our property from
us, an' us willin' to work will suffer for it. Do you think I'd see thim
crathurs at their dhry phatie, an' our cows standin' in a pound for no
rason? No; high hangin' to me, but I'll split to the skull the first man
that takes them; an' all I'm sorry for is, that it's not the vagabone
Landlord himself that's near me. That's our thanks for paying many
a good pound, in honesty and dacency, to him an' his; lavin' us to a
schamin' agent, an' not even to that same, but to his undher-strap-pers,
that's robbin' us on both sides between them. May hard fortune attind
him, for a landlord! You may tell him this, Frank,--that his wisest plan
is to keep clear of the counthry. Sure, it's a gambler he is, they say;
an' we must be harrished an' racked to support his villany! But wait a
bit; maybe there's a good time comin', when we'll pay our money to thim
that won't be too proud to hear our complaints wid their own ears,
an' who won't turn us over to a divil's limb of an agent. He had need,
anyhow, to get his coffin sooner nor he thinks. What signifies hangin'
in a good cause?” said he, as the tears of keen indignation burst from
his glowing eyes. “It's a dacent death, an' a happy death, when it's
for the right,” he added--for his mind was evidently fixed upon the
contemplation of those means of redress, which the habits of the
country, and the prejudices of the people, present to them in the first
moments of passion.

“It's well that Frank's one of ourselves,” replied Owen, coolly,
“otherwise, Jemmy, you said words that would lay you up by the heels.
As for you, Frank, you must look over this. The boy's the son of dacent
poor parents, an' it's a new thing for him to see the cows druv from the
place. The poor fellow's vexed, too, that he has been so long laid up
wid a sore back; an' so you see one thing or another has put him through
other. Jimmy is warm-hearted afther all, an' will be sorry for it when
he cools, an' renumbers that you wor only doin' your duty.”

“But what am I to do about the cows? Sure, I can't go back widout either
thim or the rint?” said Frank, with a look of fear and trembling at
Jemmy.

“The cows!” said another of the widow's sons who then came in; “why, you
dirty spalpeen of a rip, you may whistle on the wrong side o' your mouth
for them. I druv them off of the estate; an' now take them, if you dar!
It's conthrairy to law,” said the urchin; “an' if you'd touch them, I'd
make my mudher sarve you wid a _lattitat_ or _fiery-flashes_.”

This was a triumph to the youngsters, who, began to shake their little
fists at him, and to exclaim in a chorus--“Ha, you dirty rip! wait till
we get you out o' the house, an' if we don't put you from ever drivin'!
Why, but you work like another!--ha, you'll get it!”--and every little
fist was shook in vengeance at him.

“Whist wid ye,” said Jemmy to the little ones; “let him alone, he got
enough. There's the cows for you; an keen may the curse o' the widow
an' orphans light upon you, and upon them that sent you, from first to
last!--an' that's the best we wish you!”

“Frank,” said Owen to the bailiff, “is there any one in the town below
that will take the rint, an' give a resate for it? Do you think, man,
that the neighbors of an honest, industrious woman 'ud see the cattle
taken out of her byre for a thrifle? Hut tut! no, man alive--no sich
thing! There's not a man in the parish, wid manes to do it, would see
them taken away to be canted, at only about a fourth part of their
value. Hut, tut,--no!”

As the sterling fellow spoke, the cheeks of the widow were suffused with
tears, and her son Jemmy's hollow eyes once more kindled, but with a far
different expression from that which but a few minutes before flashed
from them.

“Owen,” said he, and utterance nearly failed him: “Owen, if I was well
it wouldn't be as it is wid us; but--no, indeed it would not; but--may
God bless you for this! Owen, never fear but you'll be paid; may God
bless you, Owen!”

As he spoke the hand of his humble benefactor was warmly grasped in his.
A tear fell upon it: for with one of those quick and fervid transitions
of feeling so peculiar to the people, he now felt a strong, generous
emotion of gratitude, mingled, perhaps, with a sense of wounded pride,
on finding the poverty of their little family so openly exposed.

“Hut, tut, Jimmy, avick,” said Owen, who understood his feelings; “phoo,
man alive! hut--hem!--why, sure it's nothin' at all, at all; anybody
would do it--only a bare five an' twenty shillins [it was five pound]:
any neighbor--Mick Cassidy, Jack Moran, or Pether M'Cullagh, would do
it.--Come, Frank, step out; the money's to the fore. Rosha, put
your cloak about you, and let us go down to the agint, or clerk, or
whatsomever he is--sure, that makes no maxin anyhow;--I suppose he
has power to give a resate. Jemmy, go to bed again, you're pale, poor
bouchal; and, childhre, ye crathurs ye, the cows won't be taken from
ye this bout.--Come, in the name of God, let us go, and see-everything
rightified at once--hut, tut--come.”

Many similar details of Owen M'Carthy's useful life could be given, in
which he bore an equally benevolent and Christian part. Poor fellow! he
was, ere long, brought low; but, to the credit of our peasantry, much
as is said about their barbarity, he was treated, when helpless, with
gratitude, pity, and kindness.

Until the peace of 1814, Owen's regular and systematic industry
enabled him to struggle successfully against a weighty rent and sudden
depression in the price of agricultural produce; that is, he was able,
by the unremitting toil of a man remarkable alike for an unbending
spirit and a vigorous frame of body, to pay his rent with tolerable
regularity. It is true, a change began to be visible in his personal
appearance, in his farm, in the dress of his children, and in the
economy of his household. Improvements, which adequate capital would
have enabled, him to effect, were left either altogether unattempted,
or in an imperfect state, resembling neglect, though, in reality, the
result of poverty. His dress at mass, and in fairs and markets, had,
by degrees, lost that air of comfort and warmth which bespeak the
independent farmer. The evidences of embarrassment began to disclose
themselves in many small points--inconsiderable, it is true, but not
the less significant. His house, in the progress of his declining
circumstances,ceased to be annually ornamented by a new coat of
whitewash; it soon assumed a faded and yellowish hue, and sparkled not
in the setting sun as in the days of Owen's prosperity. It had, in fact,
a wasted, unthriving look, like its master. The thatch became black
and rotten upon its roof; the chimneys sloped to opposite points; the
windows were less neat, and ultimately, when broken, were patched with a
couple of leaves from the children's blotted copy-books. His out-houses
also began to fail. The neatness of his little farm-yard, and the
cleanliness which marked so conspicuously the space fronting his
dwelling-house, disappeared in the course of time. Filth began to
accumulate where no filth had been; his garden was not now planted so
early, nor with such taste and neatness as before; his crops were later,
and less abundant; his haggarts neither so full nor so trim as they were
wont to be, nor his ditches and enclosures kept in such good repair. His
cars, ploughs, and other farming implements, instead of being put under
cover, were left exposed to the influence of wind and weather, where
they soon became crazy and useless.

Such, however, were only the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle
against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests
were, year after year, so unhappily sinking.

Had the tendency to general distress among the class to which he
belonged become stationary, Owen would have continued by toil and
incessant exertion to maintain his ground; but, unfortunately, there was
no point at which the national depression could then stop. Year after
year produced deeper, more extensive, and more complicated misery; and
when he hoped that every succeeding season would bring an improvement
in the market, he was destined to experience not merely a fresh
disappointment, but an unexpected depreciation in the price of his corn,
butter, and other disposable commodities.

When a nation is reduced to such a state, no eye but that of God himself
can see the appalling wretchedness to which a year of disease and
scarcity strikes down the poor and working classes.

Owen, after a long and noble contest for nearly three years, sank, at
length, under the united calamities of disease and scarcity. The father
of the family was laid low upon the bed of sickness, and those of his
little ones who escaped it were almost consumed by famine. This two-fold
shock sealed his ruin; his honest heart was crushed--his hardy frame
shorn of its strength, and he to whom every neighbor fled as to a
friend, now required friendship at a moment when the widespread poverty
of the country rendered its assistance hopeless.

On rising from his bed of sickness, the prospect before him required his
utmost fortitude to bear. He was now wasted in energy both of mind and
body, reduced to utter poverty, with a large family of children, too
young to assist him, without means of retrieving his circumstances, his
wife and himself gaunt skeletons, his farm neglected, his house wrecked,
and his offices falling to ruin, yet every day bringing the half-year's
term nearer! Oh, ye who riot on the miseries of such men--ye who roll
round the easy circle of fashionable life, think upon this picture! To
vile and heartless landlords, who see not, hear not, know not those to
whose heart-breaking toil ye owe the only merit ye possess--that of
rank in society--come and contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended,
unassisted, and uncheered by those who are bound by a strong moral duty
to protect and aid him, he looks shuddering into the dark, cheerless
future! Is it to be wondered at that he, and such as he, should, in the
misery of his despair, join the nightly meetings, be lured to associate
himself with the incendiary, or seduced to grasp, in the stupid apathy
of wretchedness, the weapon of the murderer? By neglecting the people;
by draining them, with merciless rapacity, of the means of life; by
goading them on under a cruel system of rack rents, ye become not their
natural benefactors, but curses and scourges, nearly as much in reality
as ye are in their opinion.

When Owen rose, he was driven by hunger, direct and immediate, to sell
his best cow; and having purchased some oatmeal at an enormous price,
from a well-known devotee in the parish, who hoarded up this commodity
for a “dear summer,” he laid his plans for the future, with as much
judgment as any man could display. One morning after breakfast he
addressed his wife as follows:

“Kathleen, mavourneen, I want to consult wid you about what we ought to
do; things are low wid us, asthore; and except our heavenly Father puts
it into the heart of them I'm goin' to mention, I don't know what well
do, nor what'll become of these poor crathurs that's naked and hungry
about us. God pity them, they don't know--and maybe that same's some
comfort--the hardships that's before them. Poor crathurs! see how quiet
and sorrowful they sit about their little play, passin' the time for
themselves as well as they can! Alley, acushla machree, come over to
me. Your hair is bright and fair, Alley, and curls so purtily that the
finest lady in the land might envy it; but, acushla, your color's gone,
your little hands are wasted away, too; that sickness was hard and sore
upon you, a _colleen machree_ (* girl of my heart) and he that 'ud spend
his heart's blood for you, darlin', can do nothin' to help you!”

He looked at the child as he spoke, and a slight motion in the muscles
of his face was barely preceptible, but it passed away; and, after
kissing her, he proceeded:

“Ay, ye crathurs--you and I, Kathleen, could earn our bread for
ourselves yet, but these can't do it. This last stroke, darlin', has
laid us at the door of both poverty and sickness, but blessed be the
mother of heaven for it, they are all left wid us; and sure that's a
blessin' we've to be thankful for--glory be to God!”

“Ay, poor things, it's well to have them spared, Owen dear; sure I'd
rather a thousand times beg from door to door, and have my childher to
look at, than be in comfort widout them.”

“Beg: that 'ud go hard wid me, Kathleen. I'd work--I'd live on next to
nothing all the year round; but to see the crathurs that wor dacently
bred up brought to that, I couldn't bear it, Kathleen--'twould break
the heart widin in me. Poor as they are, they have the blood of kings
in their veins; and besides, to see a M'Carthy beggin' his bread in the
country where his name was once great--The M'Carthy More, that was their
title-no, acushla, I love them as I do the blood in my own veins; but
I'd rather see them in the arms of God in heaven, laid down dacently
with their little sorrowful faces washed, and their little bodies
stretched out purtily before my eyes--I would--in the grave-yard there
beyant, where all belonging to me lie, than have it cast up to them, or
have it said, that ever a M'Carthy was seen beggin' on the highway.”

“But, Owen, can you strike out no plan for us that 'ud put us in the way
of comin' round agin? These poor ones, if we could hould out for two or
three year, would soon be able to help us.”

“They would--they would. I'm thinkin' this day or two of a plan: but I'm
doubtful whether it 'ud come to anything.”

“What is it, acushla? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, any way.”

“I'm goin' to go to Dublin. I'm tould that the landlord's come home from
France, and that he's there now; and if I didn't see him, sure I could
see the agent. Now, Kathleen, my intintion 'ud be to lay our case before
the head landlord himself, in hopes he might hould back his hand, and
spare us for a while. If I had a line from the agent, or a scrape of a
pen, that I could show at home to some of the nabors, who knows but I
could borry what 'ud set us up agin! I think many of them 'ud be sorry
to see me turned out; eh, Kathleen?”

The Irish are an imaginative people; indeed, too much so for either
their individual or national happiness. And it is this and superstition,
which also depends much upon imagination, that makes them so easily
influenced by those extravagant dreams that are held out to them by
persons who understand their character.

When Kathleen heard the plan on which Owen founded his expectations of
assistance, her dark melancholy eye flashed with a portion of its former
fire; a transient vivacity lit up her sickly features, and she turned a
smile of hope and affection upon her children, then upon Owen.

“Arrah, thin, who knows, indeed!--who knows but he might do something
for us? And maybe we might be as well as ever yet! May the Lord put it
into his heart, this day! I declare, ay!--maybe it was God put it into
your heart, Owen!”

“I'll set off,” replied her husband, who was a man of decision; “I'll
set off on other morrow mornin'; and as nobody knows anything about it,
so let there not be a word said upon the subject, good or bad. If I have
success, well and good; but if not, why, nobody need be the wiser.”

The heart-broken wife evinced, for the remainder of the day, a lightness
of spirits which she had not felt for many a month before. Even Owen
was less depressed than usual, and employed himself in making
such arrangements as he knew would occasion his family to feel the
inconvenience of his absence less acutely. But as the hour of his
departure drew nigh, a sorrowful feeling of affection rising into
greater strength and tenderness threw a melancholy gloom around his
hearth. According to their simple view of distance, a journey to Dublin
was a serious undertaking, and to them it was such. Owen was in weak
health, just risen out of illness, and what was more trying than any
other consideration was, that since their marriage they had never been
separated before.

On the morning of his departure, he was up before daybreak, and so were
his wife and children, for the latter had heard the conversation already
detailed between them, and, with their simple-minded parents, enjoyed
the gleam of hope which it presented; but this soon changed--when he was
preparing to go, an indefinite sense of fear, and a more vivid clinging
of affection marked their feelings. He himself partook of this, and
was silent, depressed, and less ardent than when the speculation first
presented itself to his mind. His resolution, however, was taken, and,
should he fail, no blame at a future time could be attached to himself.
It was the last effort; and to neglect it, he thought, would have been
to neglect his duty. When breakfast was ready, they all sat down in
silence; the hour was yet early, and a rushlight was placed in a wooden
candlestick that stood beside them to afford light. There was something
solemn and touching in the group as they sat in dim relief, every face
marked by the traces of sickness, want, sorrow, and affection. The
father attempted to eat, but could not; Kathleen sat at the meal, but
could taste nothing; the children ate, for hunger at the moment was
predominant over every other sensation. At length it was over, and Owen
rose to depart; he stood for a minute on the floor, and seemed to take a
survey of his cold, cheerless house, and then of his family; he cleared
his throat several times, but did not speak.

“Kathleen,” said he, at length, “in the name of God I'll go; and may his
blessin' be about you, asthore machree, and guard you and these darlins
till I come back to yez.”

Kathleen's faithful heart could bear no more; she laid herself on his
bosom--clung to his neck, and, as the parting kiss was given, she wept
aloud, and Owen's tears fell silently down his worn cheeks. The children
crowded about them in loud wailings, and the grief of this virtuous and
afflicted family was of that profound description, which is ever the
companion, in such scenes, of pure and genuine love.

“Owen!” she exclaimed; “Owen, _a-suilish mahuil agus machree!_ (* light
of my eyes and of my heart) I doubt we wor wrong in thinkin' of this
journey. How can you, mavourneen, walk all the way to Dublin, and you so
worn and weakly with that sickness, and the bad feedin' both before and
since? Och, give it up, achree, and stay wid us, let what will happen.
You're not able for sich a journey, indeed you're not. Stay wid me
and the childher, Owen; sure we'd be so lonesome widout you--will you,
agrah? and the Lord will do for us some other way, maybe.”

Owen pressed his faithful wife to his heart, and kissed her chaste lips
with a tenderness which the heartless votaries of fashionable life can
never know.

“Kathleen, asthore,” he replied, in those terms of endearment which flow
so tenderly through the language of the people; “sure whin I remimber
your fair young face--your yellow hair, and the light that was in your
eyes, acushla machree--but that's gone long ago--och, don't ax me to
stop. Isn't your lightsome laugh, whin you wor young, in my ears? and
your step that 'ud not bend the flower of the field--Kathleen, I can't,
indeed I can't, bear to think of what you wor, nor of what you are now,
when in the coorse of age and natur, but a small change ought to be upon
you! Sure I ought to make every struggle to take you and these sorrowful
crathurs out of the state you're in.”

The children flocked about them, and joined their entreaties to those of
their mother. “Father, don't lave us--we'll be lonesome if you go, and
if my mother 'ud get unwell, who'd be to take care of her? Father, don't
lave your own 'weeny crathurs' (a pet name he had for them)--maybe
the meal 'ud be eat out before you'd come back; or maybe something 'ud
happen you in that strange place.”

“Indeed, there's truth in what they say, Owen,” said, the wife; “do
be said by your own Kathleen for this time, and don't take sich a long
journey upon you. Afther all, maybe, you wouldn't see him--sure the
nabors will help us, if you could only humble yourself to ax them!”

“Kathleen,” said Owen, “when this is past you'll be glad I went--indeed
you will; sure it's only the tindher feelin' of your hearts, darlins.
Who knows what the landlord may do when I see himself, and show him
these resates--every penny paid him by our own family. Let me go,
acushla; it does cut me to the heart to lave yez the way yez are in,
even for a while; but it's far worse to see your poor wasted faces,
widout havin' it in my power to do anything for yez.”

He then kissed them again, one by one; and pressing the affectionate
partner of his sorrows to his breaking heart, he bade God bless them,
and set out in the twilight of a bitter March morning. He had not gone
many yards from the door when little Alley ran after him in tears; he
felt her hand upon the skirts of his coat, which, she plucked with a
smile of affection that neither tears nor sorrow could repress. “Father,
kiss me again,” said she. He stooped down, and kissed her tenderly. The
child then ascended a green ditch, and Owen, as he looked back, saw her
standing upon it; her fair tresses were tossed by the blast about her
face, as with straining eyes she watched him receding from her view.
Kathleen and the other children stood at the door, and also with deep
sorrow watched his form, until the angle of the bridle-road rendered him
no longer visible; after which they returned slowly to the fire and wept
bitterly.

We believe no men are capable of bearing greater toil or privation than
the Irish. Owen's viaticum was only two or three oaten cakes tied in a
little handkerchief, and a few shillings in silver to pay for his bed.
With this small stock of food and money, an oaken stick in his hand, and
his wife's kerchief tied about his waist, he undertook a journey of one
hundred and ten miles, in quest of a landlord who, so far from being
acquainted with the distresses of his tenantry, scarcely knew even their
names, and not one of them in person.

Our scene now changes to the metropolis. One evening, about half past
six o'clock, a toil-worn man turned his steps to a splendid! mansion in
Mountjoy Square; his appearance was drooping, fatigued, and feeble. As
he went along, he examined the numbers on the respective doors, until
he reached a certain one--before which he stopped for a moment; he
then stepped out upon the street, and looked through the windows, as if
willing to ascertain whether there was any chance of his object being
attained. Whilst in this situation a carriage rolled rapidly up, and
stopped with a sudden check that nearly threw back the horses on their
haunches. In an instant the thundering knock of the servant intimated
the arrival of some person of rank; the hall door was opened, and Owen,
availing himself of that opportunity, entered the hall. Such a visitor,
however, was too remarkable to escape notice. The hand of the menial
was rudely placed against his breast; and, as the usual impertinent
interrogatories were put to him, the pampered ruffian kept pushing him
back, until the afflicted man stood upon the upper step leading to the
door.

“For the sake of God, let me spake but two words to him. I'm his tenant;
and I know he's too much of a jintleman to turn away a man that has
lived upon his honor's estate, father and son, for upwards of three
hundred years. My name's Owen ------”

“You can't see him, my good fellow, at this hour. Go to Mr. M------,
his Agent: we have company to dinner. He never speaks to a tenant on
business; his Agent manages all that. Please, leave the way, here's more
company.”

As he uttered the last word, he pushed Owen back; who, forgetting that
the stairs were behind him, fell,--received a severe cut, and was so
completely stunned, that he lay senseless and bleeding. Another carriage
drove up, as the fellow now much alarmed, attempted to raise him from
the steps; and, by order of the gentleman who came in it, he was brought
into the hall. The circumstance now made some noise. It was whispered
about, that one of Mr. S------'s tenants, a drunken fellow from the
country, wanted to break in forcibly to see him; but then it was also
asserted, that his skull was broken, and that he lay dead in the hall.
Several of the gentlemen above stairs, on hearing that a man had
been killed, immediately assembled about him, and, by the means of
restoratives, he soon recovered, though the blood streamed copiously
from the wound in the back of his head.

“Who are you, my good man?” said Mr. S------.

Owen looked about him rather vacantly; but soon collected himself,
and implied in a mournful and touching tone of voice--“I'm one of
your honor's tenants from Tubber Derg; my name is Owen M'Carthy, your
honor--that is, if you be Mr. S------.”

“And pray, what brought you to town, M'Carthy?”

“I wanted to make an humble appale to your honor's feelins, in regard to
my bit of farm. I, and my poor family, your honor, have been broken down
by hard times and the sickness of the sason--God knows how they axe.”

“If you wish to speak to me about that, my good man, you must know I
refer all these matters to my Agent. Go to him--he knows them best;
and whatever is right and proper to be done for you, he will do it.
Sinclair, give him a crown, and send him to the ------ Dispensary, to
get his head dressed, I say, Carthy, go to my Agent; he knows whether
your claim is just or not, and will attend to it accordingly.”

“Plase, your honor, I've been wid him, and he says he can do nothin'
whatsomever for me. I went two or three times, and couldn't see him,
he was so busy; and, when I did get a word or two wid him, he tould me
there was more offered for my land than I'm payin'; and that if I did
not pay up, I must be put out, God help me!”

“But I tell you, Carthy, I never interfere between him and my tenants.”

“Och, indeed! and it would be well, both for your honor's tenants and
yourself, if you did, sir. Your honor ought to know, sir, more about
us, and how we're thrated. I'm an honest man, sir, and I tell you so for
your good.”

“And pray, sir,” said the Agent, stepping forward, for he had arrived
a few minutes before, and heard the last observation of M'Carthy--“pray
how are they treated, you that know so well, and are so honest a
man?--As for honesty, you might have referred to me for that, I think,”
 he added.

“Mr. M------,” said Owen, “we're thrated very badly. Sir, you needn't
look at me, for I'm not afeerd to spake the thruth; no bullyin', sir,
will make me say anything in your favor that you don't desarve. You've
broken the half of them by severity; you've turned the tenants aginst
yourself and his honor here; and I tell you now, though you're to the
fore, that, in the coorse of a short time, there'll be bad work upon the
estate, except his honor, here, looks into his own affairs, and hears
the complaints of the people. Look at these resates, your honor; they'll
show you, sir,--”

“Carthy, I can hear no such language against the gentleman to whom I
entrust the management of my property; of course, I refer the matter
solely to him. I can do nothing in it.”

“Kathleen, avourneen!” claimed the poor man, as he looked up
despairingly to heaven; “and ye, poor darlins of my heart! is this the
news I'm to have for yez whin I go home?--As you hope for mercy, sir,
don't turn away your ear from my petition, that I'd humbly make to
yourself. Cowld, and hunger, and hardship, are at home before me, yer
honor. If you'd be plased to look at these resates, you'd see that I
always paid my rint; and 'twas sickness and the hard times--”

“And your own honesty, industry, and good conduct,” said the Agent,
giving a dark and malignant sneer at him. “Carthy, it shall be my
business to see that you do not spread a bad spirit through the tenantry
much longer.--Sir, you have heard the fellow's admission. It is an
implied threat he will give us much serious trouble. There is not such
another incendiary on your property--not one, upon my honor.”

“Sir,” said a servant, “dinner is on the table.”

“Sinclair,” said his landlord, “give him another crown, and tell him
to trouble me no more.” Saying; which, he and the Agent went up to
the drawing-room, and, in a moment, Owen saw a large party sweep
down stairs, full of glee and vivacity, by whom both himself and his
distresses were as completely forgotten as if they had never existed.

He now slowly departed, and knew not whether the house-steward had given
him money or not until he felt it in his hand. A cold, sorrowful weight
lay upon his heart; the din of the town deadened his affliction into
a stupor; but an overwhelming sense of his disappointment, and a
conviction of the Agent's diabolical falsehood, entered like barbed
arrows into his heart.

On leaving the steps, he looked up to heaven in the distraction of
his agonizing thoughts; the clouds were black and lowering--the wind
stormy--and, as it carried them on its dark wing along the sky, he
wished, if it were the will of God, that his head lay in the quiet
grave-yard where the ashes of his forefathers reposed in peace. But he
again remembered his Kathleen and their children; and the large tears of
anguish, deep and bitter, rolled slowly down his cheeks.

We will not trace him into an hospital, whither the wound on his head
occasioned him to be sent, but simply state, that, on the second week
after this, a man, with his head bound in a handkerchief, lame, bent,
and evidently laboring under a severe illness or great affliction,
might be seen toiling slowly up the little hill that commanded a view of
Tubber Derg. On reaching the top he sat down to rest for a few minutes,
but his eye was eagerly turned to the house which contained all that was
dear to him on this earth. The sun was setting, and shone, with half his
disk visible, in that dim and cheerless splendor which produces almost
in every temperament a feeling of melancholy. His house which, in
happier days, formed so beautiful and conspicuous an object in the
view, was now, from the darkness of its walls, scarcely discernible.
The position of the sun, too, rendered it more difficult to be seen; and
Owen, for it was he, shaded his eyes with his hand, to survey it more
distinctly. Many a harrowing thought and remembrance passed through his
mind, as his eye traced its dim outline in the fading-light'. He had
done his duty--he had gone to the fountain-head, with a hope that his
simple story of affliction might be heard; but all was fruitless: the
only gleam, of hope that opened upon their misery had now passed into
darkness and despair for ever. He pressed his aching forehead with
distraction as he thought of this; then clasped his hands bitterly, and
groaned aloud.

At length he rose, and proceeded with great difficulty, for the short
rest had stiffened his weak and fatigued joints. As he approached home
his heart sank; and as he ascended the blood-red stream which covered
the bridle-way that led to his house, what with fatigue and affliction,
his agitation weakened him so much that, he stopped, and leaned on his
staff several times, that he might take breath.

“It's too dark, maybe, for them to see me, or poor Kathleen would send
the darlins to give me the _she dha veha_ (* the welcome). Kathleen,
avourneen machree! how my heart beats wid longin' to see you, asthore,
and to see the weeny crathurs--glory be to Him that has left them to
me--praise and glory to His name!”

He was now within a few perches of thy door; but a sudden misgiving shot
across his heart when he saw it shut, and no appearance of smoke from
the chimney, nor of stir or life about the house. He advanced--

“Mother of glory, what's this!--But, wait, let me rap agin. Kathleen,
Kathleen!--are you widin, avourneen? Owen--Alley--arn't ye widin,
childhre? Alley, sure I'm come back to you all!” and he rapped more
loudly than before. A dark breeze swept through the bushes as he spoke,
but no voice nor sound proceeded from the house;--all was still as death
within. “Alley!” he called once more to his little favorite; “I'm come
home wid something for you, asthore! I didn't forget you, alanna!--I
brought it from Dublin, all the way. Alley!” but the gloomy murmur of
the blast was the only reply.

Perhaps the most intense of all that he knew as misery was that which
he then felt; but this state of suspense was soon terminated by the
appearance of a neighbor who was passing.

“Why, thin, Owen, but yer welcome home agin, my poor fellow; and I'm
sorry that I haven't betther news for you, and so are all of us.”

He whom he addressed had almost lost the power of speech.

“Frank,” said he, and he wrung his hand, “What--what? was death among
them? For the sake of heaven, spake!”

The severe pressure which he received in return ran like a shoot, of
paralysis to his heart.

“Owen, you must be a man; every one pities yez, and may the Almighty
pity and support yez! She is, indeed, Owen, gone; the weeny fair-haired
child, your favorite Alley, is gone. Yestherday she was berrid; and
dacently the nabors attinded the place, and sent in, as far as they
had it, both mate and dhrink to Kathleen and the other ones. Now, Owen,
you've heard it; trust in God, an' be a man.”

A deep and convulsive throe shook him to the heart. “Gone!--the
fair-haired one!--Alley!--Alley!--the pride of both our hearts; the
sweet, the quiet, and the sorrowful child, that seldom played wid the
rest, but kept wid mys--! Oh, my darlin', my darlin'! gone from my eyes
for ever!--God of glory; won't you support me this night of sorrow and
misery!”

With a sudden yet profound sense of humility, he dropped on his knees
at the threshold, and, as the tears rolled down his convulsed cheeks,
exclaimed, in a burst of sublime piety, not at all uncommon among our
peasantry--“I thank you, O my God! I thank you, an' I put myself an' my
weeny ones, my _pastchee boght_ (* my poor children) into your hands. I
thank you, O God, for what has happened! Keep me up and support me--och,
I want it! You loved the weeny one, and you took her; she was the light
of my eyes, and the pulse of my broken heart, but you took her, blessed
Father of heaven! an' we can't be angry wid you for so doin'! Still if
you had spared her--if--if--O, blessed Father, my heart was in the very
one you took--but I thank you, O God! May she rest in pace, now and for
ever, Amin!”

He then rose up, and slowly wiping the tears from his eyes, departed.

“Let me hould your arm, Frank, dear,” said he, “I'm weak and tired wid
a long journey. Och, an' can it be that she's gone--the fair-haired
colleen! When I was lavin' home, an' had kissed them all--'twas the
first time we ever parted, Kathleen and I, since our marriage--the
blessed child came over an' held up her mouth, sayin', 'Kiss me agin,
father;' an' this was afther herself an' all of them had kissed me
afore. But, och! oh! blessed Mother! Frank, where's my Kathleen and the
rest?--and why are they out of their own poor place?”

“Owen, I tould you awhile agone, that you must be a man. I gave you the
worst news first, an' what's to come doesn't signify much. It was too
dear; for if any man could live upon it you could:--you have neither
house nor home, Owen, nor land. An ordher came from the Agint; your last
cow was taken, so was all you had in the world--hem--barrin' a thrifle.
No,--bad manners to it! no,--you're not widout a home anyway. The
family's in my barn, brave and comfortable, compared to what your own
house was, that let in the wather through the roof like a sieve; and,
while the same barn's to the fore, never say you want a home.”

“God bless you, Frank, for that goodness to them and me; if you're not
rewarded for it here you will in a betther place. Och, I long to see
Kathleen and the childher! But I'm fairly broken down, Frank, and hardly
able to mark the ground; and, indeed, no wondher, if you knew but all:
still, let God's will be done! Poor Kathleen, I must bear up afore her,
or she'll break her heart; for I know how she loved the golden-haired
darlin' that's gone from us. Och, and how did she go, Frank, for I left
her betther?”

“Why, the poor girsha took a relapse, and wasn't strong enough to bear
up aginst the last attack; but it's one comfort that you know she's
happy.”

Owen stood for a moment, and, looking solemnly in his neighbor's face,
exclaimed, in a deep and exhausted voice, “Frank!”

“What are you goin' to say, Owen?”

“The heart widin me's broke--broke!”

The large tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks, and he proceeded
in silence to the house of his friend. There was, however, a feeling
of sorrow in his words and manner which Frank could not withstand. He
grasped Owen's hand, and, in a low and broken voice, simply said--“Keep
your spirits up--keep them up.”

When they came to the barn in which his helpless family had taken up
their temporary residence, Owen stood for a moment to collect himself;
but he was nervous, and trembled with repressed emotion. They then
entered; and Kathleen, on seeing her beloved and affectionate husband,
threw herself on his bosom, and for some time felt neither joy nor
sorrow--she had swooned. The poor man embraced her with a tenderness
at once mournful and deep. The children, on seeing their father safely
returned, forgot their recent grief, and clung about him with gladness
and delight. In the meantime Kathleen recovered, and Owen for many
minutes could not check the loud and clamorous grief, now revived by
the presence of her husband, with which the heart-broken and emaciated
mother deplored her departed child; and Owen himself, on once more
looking among the little ones, on seeing her little frock hanging up,
and her stool vacant by the fire--on missing her voice and her blue
laughing eyes--and remembering the affectionate manner in which, as with
a presentiment of death, she held up her little mouth and offered him
the last kiss--he slowly pulled the toys and cakes he had purchased for
her out of his pocket, surveyed them for a moment, and then, putting
his hands on his face, bent his head upon his bosom, and wept with the
vehement outpouring of a father's sorrow.

The reader perceives that he was a meek man; that his passions were not
dark nor violent; he bore no revenge to those who neglected or injured
him, and in this he differed from too many of his countrymen. No; his
spirit was broken down with sorrow, and had not room for the fiercer and
more destructive passions. His case excited general pity. Whatever his
neighbors could, do to soothe him and alleviate his affliction was done.
His farm was not taken; for fearful threats were held out against those
who might venture to occupy it. In these threats he had nothing to do;
on the contrary, he strongly deprecated them. Their existence, however,
was deemed by the Agent sufficient to justify him in his callous and
malignant severity towards him.

We did not write this story for effect. Our object was to relate facts
that occurred. In Ireland, there is much blame justly attached to
landlords, for their neglect and severity, in such depressed times,
towards their tenants: there is also much that is not only indefensible
but atrocious on the part of the tenants. But can the landed proprietors
of Ireland plead ignorance or want of education for their neglect and
rapacity, whilst the crimes of the tenants, on the contrary, may in
general be ascribed to both? He who lives--as, perhaps, his forefathers
have done--upon any man's property, and fails from unavoidable calamity,
has as just and clear a light to assistance from the landlord as if the
amount of that aid were a bonded debt. Common policy, common sense, and
common justice, should induce the Irish landlords to lower their rents
according to the market for agricultural produce, otherwise poverty,
famine, crime, and vague political speculations, founded upon idle hopes
of a general transfer of property, will spread over and convulse the
kingdom. Any man who looks into our poverty may see that our landlords
ought to reduce their rents to a standard suitable to the times and to
the ability of the tenant.

But to return. Owen, for another year, struggled on for his family,
without success; his firm spirit was broken; employment he could not
get, and even had it been regular, he would have found it impracticable
to support his helpless wife and children by his labor. The next year
unhappily was also one of sickness and of want; the country was not only
a wide waste of poverty, but overspread with typhus fever. One Saturday
night he and the family found themselves without food; they had not
tasted a morsel for twenty-four hours. There were murmuring and
tears and, finally, a low conversation among them, as if they held
a conference upon some subject which filled them with both grief and
satisfaction. In this alternation of feeling did they pass the time
until the sharp gnawing of hunger was relieved by sleep. A keen December
wind blew with a bitter blast on the following morning; the rain was
borne along upon it with violence, and the cold was chill and piercing.
Owen, his wife, and their six children, issued at day-break out of the
barn in which, ever since their removal from Tubber Derg, they had lived
until then; their miserable fragments of bed-clothes were tied in a
bundle to keep them dry; their pace was slow, need we say sorrowful; all
were in tears. Owen and Kathleen went first, with a child upon the
back, and another in the hand, of each. Their route lay by their former
dwelling, the door of which was open, for it had not been inhabited. On
passing it they stood a moment; then with a simultaneous impulse both
approached--entered--and took one last look of a spot to which their
hearts clung with enduring attachment. They then returned; and as they
passed, Owen put forth his hand, picked a few small pebbles out of the
wall, and put them in his pocket.

“Farewell!” said he, “and may the blessing of God rest upon you! We
now lave you for ever! We're goin' at last to beg our bread through the
world wide, where none will know the happy days we passed widin your
walls! We must lave you; but glory be to the Almighty, we are goin'
wid a clear conscience; we took no revenge into our own hands, but left
everything to God above us. We are poor, but there is neither blood, nor
murder, nor dishonesty upon our heads. Don't cry, Kathleen--don't cry,
childher; there is still a good god above who can and may do something
for us yet, glory be to his holy name!”

He then passed on with his family, which, including himself, made in
all, eight paupers, being an additional burden upon the country, which
might easily have been avoided. His land was about two years waste,
and when it was ultimately taken, the house was a ruin, and the money
allowed by the landlord for building a new one, together with the
loss of two years' rent, would if humanely directed, have enabled Owen
M'Carthy to remain a solvent tenant.

When an Irish peasant is reduced to pauperism, he seldom commences the
melancholy task of soliciting alms in his native place. The trial is
always a severe one, and he is anxious to hide his shame and misery from
the eyes of those who know him. This is one reason why some system
of poor laws should be introduced into the country. Paupers of this
description become a burden upon strangers, whilst those who are capable
of entering with friendly sympathy into their misfortunes have no
opportunity of assisting them. Indeed this shame of seeking alms from
those who have known the mendicant in better days, is a proof that
the absence of poor laws takes away from the poorer classes one of the
strongest incitements to industry; for instance, if every Pauper in
Ireland were confined to his own parish, and compelled to beg from his
acquaintances, the sense of shame alone would, by stirring them up to
greater industry, reduce the number of mendicants one-half. There is a
strong spirit of family pride in Ireland, which would be sufficient to
make many poor, of both sexes, exert themselves to the uttermost rather
than cast a stain upon their name, or bring a blush to the face of their
relations. But now it is not so: the mendicant sets out to beg, and in
most instances commences his new mode of life in some distant part of
the country, where his name and family are not known.

Indeed, it is astonishing how any man can, for a moment, hesitate to
form his opinion upon the subject of poor laws. The English and Scotch
gentry know something about the middle and lower classes of their
respective countries, and of course they have a fixed system of
provision for the poor in each. The ignorance of the Irish gentry, upon
almost every subject connected with the real good of the people, is only
in keeping with their ignorance of the people themselves. It is to be
feared, however, that their disinclination to introduce poor laws arises
less from actual ignorance, than from an illiberal selfishness. The
facts of the case are these: In Ireland the whole support of the
inconceivable multitude of paupers, who swarm like locusts over the
surface of the country, rests upon the middle and lower classes, or
rather upon the latter, for there is scarcely such a thing in this
unhappy country as a middle class. In not one out of a thousand
instances do the gentry contribute to the mendicant poor. In the first
place, a vast proportion of our landlords are absentees, who squander
upon their own pleasures or vices, in the theatres, saloons, or
gaming-houses of France, or in the softer profligacies of Italy, that
which ought to return in some shape to stand in the place of duties
so shamefully neglected. These persons contribute nothing to the poor,
except the various evils which their absence entails upon them.

On the other hand, the resident gentry never in any case assist a
beggar, even in the remote parts of the country, where there are no
Mendicity Institutions. Nor do the beggars ever think of applying to
them. They know that his honor's dogs would be slipped at them; or that
the whip might be laid, perhaps, to the shoulders of a broken-hearted
father, with his brood of helpless children wanting food; perhaps, upon
the emaciated person of a miserable widow, who begs for her orphans,
only because the hands that supported, and would have defended both her
and them, are mouldered into dust.

Upon the middle and lower classes, therefore, comes directly the heavy
burden of supporting the great mass of pauperism that presses upon
Ireland. It is certain that the Irish landlords know this, and that they
are reluctant to see any law enacted which might make the performance of
their duties to the poor compulsory. This, indeed, is natural in men who
have so inhumanly neglected them.

But what must the state of a country be where those who are on the way
to pauperism themselves are exclusively burdened with the support of
the vagrant poor? It is like putting additional weight on a man already
sinking under the burden he bears. The landlords suppose, that because
the maintenance of the idle who are able, and of the aged and infirm who
are not able to work, comes upon the renters of land, they themselves
are exempted from their support. This, if true, is as bitter a stigma
upon their humanity as upon their sense of justice: but it is not true.
Though the cost of supporting such an incredible number of the idle
and helpless does, in the first place, fall upon the tenant, yet, by
diminishing his means, and by often compelling him to purchase, towards
the end of the season, a portion of food equal to that which he has
given away in charity, it certainly becomes ultimately a clear deduction
from the landlord's rent. In either case it is a deduction, but in
the latter it is often doubly so; inasmuch as the poor tenants must
frequently pay, at the close of a season, double, perhaps treble, the
price which provision brought at the beginning of it.

Any person conversant with the Irish people must frequently have heard
such dialogues as the following, during the application of a beggar for
alms:--

Mendicant.--“We're axin your charity for God's sake!”

Poor Tenant.--“Why thin for His sake you would get it, poor crathur, if
we had it; but it's not for you widin the four corners of the house. It
'ud be well for us if we had now all we gave away in charity durin' the
Whole year; we wouldn't have to be buyin' for ourselves at three prices.
Why don't you go up to the Big House? They're rich and can afford it.”

Mendicant, with a shrug, which sets all his coats and bags in
motion--“Och! och! The Big House, inagh! Musha, do you want me an' the
childhre here, to be torn to pieces wid the dogs? or lashed wid a whip
by one o' the sarvints? No, no, avourneen!” (with a hopeless shake of
the head.) “That 'ud be a blue look-up, like a clear evenin'.”

Poor Tenant.--“Then, indeed, we haven't it to help you, now, poor man.
We're buyin' ourselves.”

Mendicant.--“Thin, throth, that's lucky, so it is! I've as purty a grain
o' male here, as you'd wish to thicken wather wid, that I sthruv to get
together, in hopes to be able to buy a quarther o' tobaccy, along wid a
pair o' new bades an' scapular for myself. I'm suspicious that there's
about a stone ov it, altogether. You can have it anunder the market
price, for I'm frettin' at not havin' the scapular an me. Sure the Lord
will sind me an' the childhre a bit an' sup some way else--glory to his
name!--beside a lock of praties in the corner o' the bag here, that'll
do us for this day, any way.”

The bargain is immediately struck, and the poor tenant is glad to
purchase, even from a beggar, his stone of meal, in consequence of
getting it a few pence under market price. Such scenes as this, which
are of frequent occurrence in the country parts of Ireland, need no
comment.

This, certainly, is not a state of things which should be permitted to
exist. Every man ought to be compelled to support the poor of his
native parish according to his means. It is an indelible disgrace to the
legislature so long to have neglected the paupers of Ireland. Is it to
bo thought of with common patience that a person rolling in wealth shall
feed upon his turtle, his venison, and his costly luxuries of
every description, for which he will not scruple to pay the highest
price--that this heartless and selfish man, whether he reside at home or
abroad, shall thus unconscionably pamper himself with viands purchased
by the toil of the people, and yet not contribute to assist them, when
poverty, sickness, or age, throws them upon the scanty support of casual
charity?

Shall this man be permitted to batten in luxury in a foreign land, or at
home; to whip our paupers from his carriage; or hunt them, like beasts
of prey, from his grounds, whilst the lower classes--the gradually
decaying poor--are compelled to groan under the burden of their support,
in addition to their other burdens? Surely it is not a question which
admits of argument. This subject has been darkened and made difficult by
fine-spun and unintelligible theories, when the only knowledge necessary
to understand it may be gained by spending a few weeks in some poor
village in the interior of the country. As for Parliamentary Committees
upon this or any other subject, they are, with reverence be it spoken,
thoroughly contemptible. They will summon and examine witnesses who, for
the most part, know little about the habits or distresses of the poor;
public money will be wasted in defraying their expenses and in printing
reports; resolutions will be passed; something will be said about it
in the House of Commons; and, in a few weeks, after resolving and
re-resolving, it is as little thought of, as if it had never been the
subject of investigation. In the meantime the evil proceeds--becomes
more inveterate--eats into the already declining prosperity of the
country--whilst those who suffer under it have the consolation of
knowing that a Parliamentary Committee sat longer upon it than so many
geese upon their eggs, but hatched nothing. Two circumstances, connected
with pauperism in Ireland, are worthy of notice. The first is this--the
Roman Catholics, who certainly constitute the bulk of the population,
feel themselves called upon, from the peculiar tenets of their religion,
to exercise indiscriminate charity largely to the begging poor. They act
under the impression that eleemosynary good works possess the power of
cancelling sin to an extent almost incredible. Many of their religious
legends are founded upon this view of the case; and the reader will find
an appropriate one in the Priest's sermon, as given in our tale of the
“Poor Scholar.” That legend is one which the author has many a time
heard from the lips of the people, by whom it was implicitly believed.
A man who may have committed a murder overnight, will the next day
endeavor to wipe away his guilt by alms given for the purpose of getting
the benefit of “the poor man's prayer.” The principle of assisting our
distressed fellow-creatures, when rationally exercised, is one of the
best in society; but here it becomes entangled with error, superstition,
and even with crime--acts as a bounty upon imposture, and in some degree
predisposes to guilt, from an erroneous belief that sin may be cancelled
by alms and the prayers of mendicant impostors. The second point, in
connection with pauperism, is the immoral influence that I proceeds
from the relation in which the begging poor in Ireland stand towards the
class by whom they are supported. These, as we have already said,
are the poorest, least educated, and consequently the most ignorant
description of the people. They are also the most numerous. There have
been for centuries, probably since the Reformation itself, certain
opinions floating among the lower classes in Ireland, all tending to
prepare them for some great change in their favor, arising from
the discomfiture of heresy, the overthrow of their enemies, and the
exaltation of themselves and their religion.

Scarcely had the public mind subsided after the Rebellion of
Ninety-eight, when the success of Buonaparte directed the eyes and the
hopes of the Irish people towards him, as the person designed to be
their deliverer. Many a fine fiction has the author of this work heard
about that great man's escapes, concerning the bullets that conveniently
turned aside from his person, and the sabres that civilly declined to
cut him down. Many prophecies too were related, in which the glory of
this country under his reign was touched off in the happiest colors.
Pastorini also gave such notions an impulse. Eighteen twenty-five was
to be the year of their deliverance: George the Fourth was never to fill
the British throne; and the mill of Lowth was to be turned three times
with human blood. “The miller with the two thumbs was then living,”
 said the mendicants, for they were the principal propagators of these
opinions, and the great expounders of their own prophecies; so that of
course there could be no further doubt upon the subject. Several of them
had seen him, a red-haired man with broad shoulders, stout legs, exactly
such as a miller ought to have, and two thumbs on his right hand; all
precisely as the prophecy had stated. Then there was _Beal-derg_, and
several others of the fierce old Milesian chiefs, who along with their
armies lay in an enchanted sleep, all ready to awake and take a part in
the delivery of the country. “Sure such a man,” and they would name one
in the time of the mendicant's grandfather, “was once going to a fair to
sell a horse--well and good; the time was the dawn of morning, a little
before daylight: he met a man who undertook to purchase his horse; they
agreed upon the price, and the seller of him followed the buyer into
a Bath, where he found a range of horses, each with an armed soldier
asleep by his side, ready to spring upon him if awoke. The purchaser
cautioned the owner of the horse as they were about to enter the
subterraneous dwelling, against touching either horse or man; but the
countryman happening to stumble, inadvertently laid his hand, upon a
sleeping soldier, who immediately leaped up, drew his sword, and asked,
'Wuil anam inh?' 'Is the time in it? Is the time arrived?' To which the
horse-dealer of the Bath replied, '_Ha niel. Gho dhee collhow areesht_.'
'No: go to sleep again.' Upon this the soldier immediately sank down in
his former position, and unbroken sleep reigned throughout the cave.”
 The influence on the warm imaginations of an ignorant people, of such
fictions concocted by vagrant mendicants, is very pernicious. They fill
their minds with the most palpable absurdities, and, what is worse, with
opinions, which, besides being injurious to those who receive them, in
every instance insure for those who propagate them a cordial and kind
reception.

These mendicants consequently pander, for their own selfish ends, to the
prejudices of the ignorant, which they nourish and draw out in a
manner that has in no slight degree been subversive of the peace of the
country. Scarcely any political circumstance occurs which they do not
immediately seize upon and twist to their own purposes, or, in other
words, to the opinions of those from whom they derive their support.
When our present police first appeared in their uniforms and black
belts, another prophecy, forsooth, was fulfilled. Immediately before the
downfall of heresy, a body of “Black Militia” was to appear; the police,
then, are the black militia, and the people consider themselves another
step nearer the consummation of their vague speculations.

In the year Ninety-eight, the Irish mendicants were active agents,
clever spies, and expert messengers on the part of the people; and to
this day they carry falsehood, and the materials of outrage in its worst
shape, into the bosom of peaceable families, who would, otherwise, never
become connected with a system which is calculated to bring ruin and
destruction upon those who permit themselves to join it.

This evil, and it is no trifling one, would, by the introduction of
poor-laws, be utterly abolished, the people would not only be more
easily improved, but education, when received, would not be corrupted
by the infusion into it of such ingredients as the above. In many other
points of view, the confirmed and hackneyed mendicants of Ireland are a
great evil to the morals of the people. We could easily detail them, but
such not being our object at present, we will now dismiss the subject of
poor-laws, and resume our narrative.

Far--far different from this description of impostors, were Owen
M'Carthy and his family. Their misfortunes were not the consequences
of negligence or misconduct on their own part. They struggled long but
unavailingly against high rents and low markets; against neglect on the
part of the landlord and his agent; against sickness, famine, and death.
They had no alternative but to beg or starve. Owen was willing to
work, but he could not procure employment: and provided he could, the
miserable sum of sixpence a day, when food was scarce and dear, would
not support him, his wife, and six little ones. He became a pauper,
therefore, only to avoid starvation.

Heavy and black was his heart, to use the strong expression of the
people, on the bitter morning when he set out to encounter the dismal
task of seeking alms, in order to keep life in himself and his family.
The plan was devised on the preceding night, but to no mortal, except
his wife, was it communicated. The honest pride of a man whose mind was
above committing a mean action, would not permit him to reveal what he
considered the first stain that ever was known to rest upon the name of
M'Carthy; he therefore sallied out under the beating of the storm,
and proceeded, without caring much whither he went, until he got
considerably beyond the bounds of his own parish.

In the meantime hunger pressed deeply upon him and them. The day had
no appearance of clearing up; the heavy rain and sleet beat into their
thin, worn garments, and the clamor of his children for food began to
grow more and more importunate. They came to the shelter of a hedge
which inclosed on one side a remote and broken road, along which,
in order to avoid the risk of being recognized, they had preferred
travelling. Owen stood here for a few minutes to consult with his wife,
as to where and when they should “make a beginning;” but on looking
round, he found her in tears.

“Kathleen, asthore,” said he, “I can't bid you not to cry; bear up,
acushla machree; bear up: sure, as I said when we came out this mornin',
there's a good God above us, that can still turn over the good lafe for
us, if we put our hopes in him.”

“Owen,” said his sinking wife, “it's not altogether bekase we're brought
to this that I'm cryin'; no, indeed.”

“Thin what ails you, Kathleen darlin'?”

The wife hesitated, and evaded the question for some time; but at
length, upon his pressing her for an answer, with a fresh gush of
sorrow, she replied,

“Owen, since you must know--och, may God pity us!--since you must know,
it's wid hunger--wid hunger! I kept, unknownst, a little bit of bread
to give the childhre this mornin', and that was part of it I gave you
yesterday early--I'm near two days fastin'.”

“Kathleen! Kathleen! Och! sure I know your worth, avillish. You were too
good a wife, an' too good a mother, a'most! God forgive me, Kathleen! I
fretted about beginnin', dear; but as my Heavenly Father's above me, I'm
now happier to beg wid you by my side, nor if I war in the best house
of the province widout you! Hould up, avour-neen, for a while. Come on,
childhre, darlins, an' the first house we meet we'll ax their char--,
their assistance. Come on, darlins, and all of yees. Why my heart's
asier, so it is. Sure we have your mother, childhre, safe wid us, an'
what signifies anything so long as she's left to us?”

He then raised his wife tenderly, for she had been compelled to sit from
weakness, and they bent their steps to a decent farmhouse that stood a
few perches off the road, about a quarter of a mile before them.

As they approached the door, the husband hesitated a moment; his face
got paler than usual, and his lip quivered, as he said--“Kathleen--”

“I know what you're goin' to say, Owen. No, acushla, you won't; I'll ax
it myself.”

“Do,” said Owen, with difficulty; “I can't do it; but I'll overcome my
pride afore long, I hope. It's thryin' to me, Kathleen, an' you know it
is--for you know how little I ever expected to be brought to this.”

“Husht, avillish! We'll thry, then, in the name o' God.”

As she spoke, the children, herself, and her husband entered, to beg,
for the first time in their lives, a morsel of food. Yes! timidly--with
a blush, of shame, red even to crimson, upon the pallid features
of Kathleen--with grief acute and piercing--they entered the house
together.

For some minutes they stood and spoke not. The unhappy woman,
unaccustomed to the language of supplication, scarcely knew in what
terms to crave assistance. Owen himself stood back, uncovered, his
fine, but much changed features overcast with an expression of
deep affliction. Kathleen cast a single glance, at him, as if for
encouragement. Their eyes met; she saw the upright man--the last remnant
of the M'Carthy--himself once the friend of the poor, of the unhappy, of
the afflicted--standing crushed and broken down by misfortunes which he
had not deserved, waiting with patience for a morsel of charity. Owen,
too, had his remembrances. He recollected the days when he sought and
gained the pure and fond affections of his Kathleen: when beauty, and
youth, and innocence encircled her with their light and their grace, as
she spoke or moved; he saw her a happy wife and mother in her own
home, kind and benevolent to all who required her good word or her good
office, and remembered the sweetness of her light-hearted song; but now
she was homeless. He remembered, too, how she used to plead with himself
for the afflicted. It was but a moment; yet when their eyes met, that
moment was crowded by recollections that flashed across their minds with
a keen, sense of a lot so bitter and wretched as theirs. Kathleen could
not speak, although she tried; her sobs denied her utterance; and Owen
involuntarily sat upon a chair, and covered his face with his hand.

To an observing eye it is never difficult to detect the cant of
imposture, or to perceive distress when it is real. The good woman of
the house, as is usual in Ireland, was in the act of approaching them,
unsolicited, with a double handful of meal--that is what the Scotch and
northern Irish call a goivpen, or as much as both hands locked together
can contain--when, noticing their distress, she paused a moment, eyed
them more closely, and exclaimed--

“What's this? Why there's something wrong wid you, good people! But
first an' foremost take this, in the name an' honor of God.”

“May the blessin' of the same _Man_* rest upon yees!” replied Kathleen.
“This is a sorrowful thrial to us; for it's our first day to be upon the
world; an' this is the first help of the kind we ever axed for, or ever
got; an' indeed now I find we haven't even a place to carry it in. I've
no--b--b--cloth, or anything to hould it.”

     * God is sometimes thus termed in Ireland. By “Man”
      here is meant person or being. He is also called the
     “Man above;” although this must have been intended for,
     and often is applied to, Christ only.

“Your first, is it?” said the good woman. “Your first! May the marciful
queen o' heaven look down upon yees, but it's a bitther day yees war
driven out in! Sit down, there, you poor crathur. God pity you, I pray
this day, for you have a heart-broken look! Sit down awhile, near the
fire, you an' the childre! Come over, darlins, an' warm yourselves. Och,
oh! but it's a thousand pities to see sich fine childre--handsome an'
good lookin' even as they are, brought to this! Come over, good man; get
near the fire, for you're wet an' could all of ye. Brian, ludher them
two lazy thieves o' dogs out o' that. _Eiree suas, a wadhee bradagh,
agus go mah a shin!_--be off wid yez, ye lazy divils, that's not worth
your feedin'! Come over, honest man.” Owen and his family were placed
near the fire; the poor man's heart was full, and he sighed heavily.

“May He that is plased to thry us,” he exclaimed, “reward you for this!
We are,” he continued, “a poor an' a sufferin' family; but it's the
will of God that we should be so; an' sure we can't complain widout
committin' sin. All we ax now, is, that it may be plasin' to him that
brought us low, to enable us to bear up undher our thrials. We would
take it to our choice to beg an' be honest, sooner, nor to be wealthy,
an' wicked! We have our failings, an' our sins, God help us; but still
there's nothin' dark or heavy on our consciences. Glory be to the name
o' God for it!”

“Throth, I believe you,” replied the farmer's wife; “there's thruth an'
honesty in your face; one may easily see the remains of dacency about
you all. Musha, throw your little things aside, an' stay where ye are
today: you can't bring out the childre under the teem of rain an' sleet
that's in it. Wurrah dheelish, but it's the bitther day all out! Faix,
Paddy will get a dhrookin, so he will, at that weary fair wid the
stirks, poor bouchal--a son of ours that's gone to Bally-boulteen to
sell some cattle, an' he'll not be worth three hapuns afore he comes
back. I hope he'll have sinse to go into some house, when he's done,
an' dhry himself well, anyhow, besides takin' somethin' to keep out the
could. Put by your things, an' don't, think of goin' out sich a day.”

“We thank you,” replied Owen. “Indeed we're glad to stay undher your
roof; for poor things, they're badly able to thravel sich a day--these
childre.”

“Musha, ye ate no breakfast, maybe?” Owen and his family were silent.
The children looked wistfully at their parents, anxious that they should
confirm what the good woman surmised; the father looked again at his
famished brood and his sinking wife, and nature overcame him.

“Food did not crass our lips this day,” replied Owen; “an' I may say
hardly anything yestherday.”

“Oh, blessed mother! Here, Katty Murray, drop scrubbin' that dresser,
an' put down, the midlin' pot for stirabout. Be livin' _manim an
diouol_, woman alive, handle yourself; you might a had it boilin' by
this. God presarve us!--to be two days widout atin! Be the crass, Katty,
if you're not alive, I'll give you a douse o' the churnstaff that'll
bring the fire to your eyes! Do you hear me?”

“I do hear you, an' did often feel you, too, for fraid hearin' wouldn't
do. You think there's no places in the world but your own, I b'lieve.
Faix, indeed! it's well come up wid us, to be randied about wid no less
a switch than a churnstaff!”

“Is it givin' back talk, you are? Bad end to me, if you look crucked but
I'll lave you a mark to remimber me by. What woman 'ud put up wid you
but myself, you shkamin flipe? It wasn't to give me your bad tongue I
hired you, but to do your business; and be the crass above us, if you
turn your tongue on me agin, I'll give you the weight o' the churnstaff.
Is it bekase they're poor people that it plased God to bring to this,
that you turn up your nose at doin' anything to sarve them? There's not
wather enough there, I say--put in more what signifies all the stirabout
that 'ud make? Put plinty in: it's betther always to have too much than
too little. Faix, I tell you, you'll want a male's meat an' a night's
lodgin' afore you die, if you don't mend your manners.”

“Och, musha, the poor girl is doin' her best,” observed Kathleen; “an'
I'm sure she wouldn't be guilty of usin' pride to the likes of us, or to
any one that the Lord has laid his hand upon.”

“She had betther not, while I'm to the fore,” said her mistress. “What
is she herself? Sure if it was a sin to be poor, God help the world. No;
it's neither a sin nor a shame.”

“Thanks be to God, no,” said Owen: “it's neither the one nor the other.
So long as we keep a fair name, an' a clear conscience, we can't ever
say that our case is hard.”

After some further conversation, a comfortable breakfast was prepared
for them, of which they partook with an appetite sharpened by their long
abstinence from food. Their stay here was particularly fortunate, for as
they were certain of a cordial welcome, and an abundance of that which
they much wanted--wholesome food--the pressure of immediate distress
was removed. They had time to think more accurately upon the little
preparations for misery which were necessary, and, as the day's leisure
was at their disposal, Kathleen's needle and scissors were industriously
plied in mending the tattered clothes of her husband and her children,
in order to meet the inclemency of the weather.

On the following morning, after another abundant breakfast, and
substantial marks of kindness from their entertainers, they prepared
to resume their new and melancholy mode of life. As they were about to
depart, the farmer's wife addressed them in the following terms--the
farmer himself, by the way, being but the shadow of his worthy partner
in life--

Wife--“Now, good people, you're takin' the world on your heads--”

Farmer--“Ay, good people, you're takin' the world on your heads--”

Wife--“Hould your tongue, Brian, an' suck your dhudeen. It's me that's
spakin' to them, so none of your palaver, if you plase, till I'm done,
an' then you may prache till Tib's Eve, an' that's neither before
Christmas nor afther it.”

Farmer--“Sure I'm sayin' nothin', Elveen, barrin' houldin' my tongue, a
shuchar” (* my sugar).

Wife--“Your takin' the world on yez, an' God knows 'tis a heavy load to
carry, poor crathurs.”

Farmer--“A heavy load, poor crathurs! God he knows it's that.”

Wife--“Brian! _Gluntho ma?_--did you hear me? You'll be puttin' in your
gab, an' me spakin'? How-an-iver, as I was sayin', our house was the
first ye came to, an' they say there's a great blessin' to thim that
gives, the first charity to a poor man or woman settin' out to look for
their bit.”

Farmer--“Throgs, ay! Whin they set out; to look for their bit.”

Wife--“By the crass, Brian, you'd vex a saint. What have you to say in
it, you _pittiogue_?* Hould your whisht now, an' suck your dhudeen, I
say; sure I allow you a quarther o' tobaccy a week, an' what right have
you to be puttin' in your gosther when other people's spakin'?”

     * Untranslatable--but means a womanly man a poor,
     effeminate creature.

Farmer--“Go an.”

Wife--“So, you see, the long an' the short of it is that whenever you
happen to be in this side of the counthry, always come to us. You know
the ould sayin'--when the poor man comes he brings a blessin', an' when
he goes he carries away a curse. You have as much, meal as will last yez
a day or two; an' God he sees you're heartily welcome to all ye got?”

Farmer--“God he sees you're heartily welcome--”

Wife--“_Chorp an diouol_, Brian, hould your tongue, Or I'll turn you out
o' the kitchen. One can't hear their own ears for you, you poor squakin'
dhrone. By the crass, I'll--eh? Will you whisht, now?”

Farmer--“Go an. Amn't I dhrawin' my pipe?”

Wife--“Well dhraw it; but don't dhraw me down upon you, barrin--. Do you
hear me? an' the sthrange people to the fore, too! Well, the Lord be wid
yez, an' bless yez! But afore yez go, jist lave your blessin' wid us;
for it's a good thing to have the blessin' of the poor?”

“The Lord bless you, an yours!” said Owen, fervently. “May you and them
never--oh, may you never--never suffer what we've suffered; nor know
what it is to want a male's mate, or a night's lodgin'!”

“Amin!” exclaimed Kathleen; “may the world flow upon you! for your good,
kind heart desarves it.”

Farmer--“An' whisper; I wish you'd offer up a prayer for the rulin' o'
the tongue. The Lord might hear you, but there's no great hopes that
ever he'll hear me; though I've prayed for it almost ever since I was
married, night an' day, winther and summer; but no use, she's as bad as
ever.”

This was said in a kind of friendly insinuating undertone to Owen; who,
on hearing it, simply nodded his head, but made no other reply.

They then recommenced their journey, after having once more blessed,
and been invited by their charitable entertainers, who made them promise
never to pass their house without stopping a night with them.

It is not our intention to trace Owen M'Carthy and his wife through
all the variety which a wandering pauper's life affords. He never could
reconcile himself to the habits of a mendicant. His honest pride and
integrity of heart raised him above it: neither did he sink into the
whine and cant of imposture, nor the slang of knavery. No; there was
a touch of manly sorrow about him, which neither time, nor familiarity
with his degraded mode of life, could take away from him. His usual
observation to his wife, and he never made it without a pang of intense
bitterness, was--“Kathleen, dar-lin', it's thrue we have enough to ate
an' to dhrink; but we have no home--no home!” to a man like him it was a
thought of surpassing bitterness, indeed.

“Ah! Kathleen,” he would observe, “if we had but the poorest shed that
could be built, provided it was our own, wouldn't we be happy? The bread
we ate, avourneen, doesn't do us good. We don't work for it; it's the
bread of shame and idleness: and yet it's Owen M'Carthy that ates it!
But, avourneen, that's past; an' we'll never see our own home, or
our own hearth agin. That's what's cuttin' into my heart, Kathleen.
Never!--never!”

Many a trial, too, of another kind, was his patience called upon to
sustain; particularly from the wealthy and the more elevated in
life, when his inexperiences as a mendicant led him to solicit their
assistance.

“Begone, sirrah, off my grounds!” one would say. “Why don't you work,
you sturdy impostor,” another would exclaim, “rather than stroll about
so lazily, training your brats to the gallows?”

“You should be taken up, fellow, as a vagrant,” a third would observe;
“and if I ever catch you coming up my avenue again, depend upon it, I
will slip my dogs at you and your idle spawn.”

Owen, on these occasions, turned away in silence; he did not curse them;
but the pangs of his honest heart went before Him who will, sooner or
later, visit upon the heads of such men their cruel spurning and neglect
of the poor.

“Kathleen,” he observed to his wife, one day, about a, year or more
after they had begun to beg; “Kathleen, I have been turnin' it in my
mind, that some of these childhre might sthrive to earn their bit an'
sup, an' their little coverin' of clo'es, poor things. We might put them
to herd cows in the summer, an' the girshas to somethin' else in the
farmers' house. What do you think, asthore?”

“For God's sake do, Owen; sure my heart's crushed to see them--my own
childhre, that I could lay down my life for--beggin' from door to door.
Och, do something for them that way, Owen, an' you'll relieve the heart
that loves them. It's a sore sight to a mother's eye, Owen, to see her
childhre beggin' their morsel.”

“It is darlin'--it is; we'll hire out the three eldest--Brian, an' Owen,
an' Pether, to herd cows; an' we may get Peggy into some farmer's
house to do loose jobs an' run of messages. Then we'd have only little
Kathleen an' poor Ned along wid us. I'll try any way, an' if I can get
them places, who knows what may happen? I have a plan in my head that
I'll tell you, thin.”

“Arrah, what is it, Owen, jewel. Sure if I know it, maybe when I'm
sorrowful, that thinkin' of it, an' lookin' forrid to it will make me
happier. An' I'm sure, acushla, you would like that.”

“But maybe, Kathleen, if it wouldn't come to pass, that the
disappointment 'ud be heavy on you?”

“How could it, Owen? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, whatever
happens?”

“Thrue enough, indeed, I forgot that; an' yet we might, Kathleen. Sure
we'd be worse, if we or the childhre had bad health.”

“God forgive me thin, for what I said! We might be worse. Well, but what
is the plan, Owen?”

“Why, when we got the childhre places, I'll sthrive to take a little
house, an' work as a cottar. Then, Kathleen, we'd have a home of our
own. I'd work from light to light; I'd work before hours an' afther
hours; ay, nine days in the week, or we'd be comfortable in our own
little home. We might be poor, Kathleen, I know that, an' hard pressed
too; but then, as I said, we'd have our own home, an' our own hearth;
our morsel, if it 'ud be homely, would be sweet, for it would be the
fruits of our own labor.”

“Now, Owen, do you think you could manage to get that?”

“Wait, acushla, till we get the childhre settled. Then I'll thry the
other plan, for it's good to thry anything that could take us out of
this disgraceful life.”

This humble speculation was a source of great comfort to them. Many
a time have they forgotten their sorrows in contemplating the simple
picture of their happy little cottage. Kathleen, in particular, drew
with all the vivid coloring of a tender mother, and an affectionate
wife, the various sources of comfort and contentment to be found even
in a cabin, whose inmates are blessed with a love of independence,
industry, and mutual affection.

Owen, in pursuance of his intention, did not neglect, when the proper
season arrived, to place out his eldest children among the farmers.
The reader need not be told that there was that about him which gained
respect. He had, therefore, little trouble in obtaining his wishes on
this point, and to his great satisfaction, he saw three of them hired
out to earn their own support.

It was now a matter of some difficulty for him to take a cabin and get
employment. They had not a single article of furniture, and neither bed
nor bedding, with the exception of blankets almost worn past use. He was
resolved, however, to give up, at all risks, the life of a mendicant.
For this purpose, he and the wife agreed to adopt a plan quite usual in
Ireland, under circumstances somewhat different from his: this was,
that Kathleen should continue to beg for their support, until the
first half-year of their children's service should expire; and in the
meantime, that he, if possible, should secure employment for himself.
By this means, his earnings and that of his children might remain
untouched, so that in half a year he calculated upon being able to
furnish a cabin, and proceed, as a cotter, to work for, and support his
young children and his wife, who determined, on her part, not to be idle
any more than her husband. As the plan was a likely one, and as Owen
was bent on earning his bread, rather than be a burthen to others, it
is unnecessary to say that it succeeded. In less than a year he found
himself once more in a home, and the force of what he felt on sitting,
for the first time since his pauperism, at his own hearth, may easily be
conceived by the reader. For some years after this, Owen got on slowly
enough; his wages as a daily laborer being so miserable, that it
required him to exert every nerve to keep the house over their head.
What, however, will not carefulness and a virtuous determination, joined
to indefatigable industry, do?

After some time, backed as he was by his wife, and even by his youngest
children, he, found himself beginning to improve. In the mornings and
evenings he cultivated his garden and his rood of potato-ground. He also
collected with a wheelbarrow, which he borrowed, from an acquaintance,
compost from the neighboring road; scoured an old drain before his door;
dug rich earth, and tossed, it into the pool of rotten water beside the
house, and in fact adopted several other modes of collecting manure. By
this means he had, each spring, a large portion of rich stuff on which
to plant his potatoes. His landlord permitted him to spread this for
planting upon his land; and Owen, ere long, instead of a rood, was able
to plant half an acre, and ultimately, an acre of potatoes. The produce
of this, being more than sufficient for the consumption of his family,
he sold the surplus, and with the money gained by the sale was enabled
to sow half an acre of oats, of which, when made into meal, he disposed
of the greater share.

Industry is capital; for even when unaided by capital it creates it;
whereas, idleness with capital produces only poverty and ruin. Owen,
after selling his meal and as much potatoes as he could spare, found
himself able to purchase a cow. Here was the means of making more
manure; he had his cow, and he had also straw enough for her provender
during the winter. The cow by affording milk to his family, enabled them
to live more cheaply; her butter they sold, and this, in addition to his
surplus meal and potatoes every year, soon made him feel that he had a
few guineas to spare. He now bethought him of another mode of helping
himself forward in the world: after buying the best “slip” of a pig he
could find, a sty was built for her, and ere long he saw a fine litter
of young pigs within a snug shed. These he reared until they were about
two months old, when he sold them, and found that he had considerably
gained by the transaction. This, department, however, was under the
management of Kathleen, whose life was one of incessant activity and
employment. Owen's children, during the period of his struggles and
improvements, were, by his advice, multiplying their little capital as
fast as himself. The two boys, who had now shot up into the stature of
young men, were at work as laboring servants in the neighborhood. The
daughters were also engaged as servants with the adjoining farmers. The
boys bought each a pair of two-year old heifers, and the daughter one.
These they sent to graze up in the mountains at a trifling charge, for
the first year or two: when they became springers, they put them to rich
infield grass for a few months, until they got a marketable appearance,
after which their father brought them to the neighboring fairs, where
they usually sold to great advantage, in consequence of the small outlay
required in rearing them.

In fact, the principle of industry ran through the family. There was
none of them idle; none of them a burthen or a check upon the profits
made by the laborer. On the contrary, “they laid their shoulders
together,” as the phrase is, and proved to the world, that when the
proper disposition is followed up by suitable energy and perseverance,
it must generally reward him who possesses it.

It is certainly true that Owen's situation in life now was essentially
different from that which it had been during the latter years of his
struggles an a farmer. It was much more favorable, and far better
calculated to develop successful exertion. If there be a class of men
deserving public sympathy, it is that of the small farmers of Ireland.
Their circumstances are fraught with all that is calculated to depress
and ruin them; rents far above their ability, increasing poverty, and
bad markets. The land which, during the last war, might have enabled the
renter to pay three pounds per acre, and yet still maintain himself with
tolerable comfort, could not now pay more than one pound, or, at the
most, one pound ten; and yet, such is the infatuation of landlords,
that, in most instances, the terms of leases taken out then are
rigorously exacted. Neither can the remission of yearly arrears be said
to strike at the root of the evils under which they suffer. The fact
of the disproportionate rent hanging over them is a disheartening
circumstance, that paralyzes their exertion, and sinks their spirits. If
a landlord remit the rent for one term, he deals more harshly with the
tenant at the next; whatever surplus, if any, his former indulgence
leaves in the tenant's hands, instead of being expended upon his
property as capital, and being permitted to lay the foundation of
hope and prosperity, is drawn from him, at next term, and the poor,
struggling tenant is thrown back into as much distress, embarrassment,
and despondency as ever. There are, I believe, few tenants in Ireland
of the class I allude to, who are not from one gale to three in arrear.
Now, how can it be expected that such men will labor with spirit and
earnestness to raise crops which they may never reap? crops which the
landlord may seize upon to secure as much of his rent as he can.

I have known a case in which the arrears were not only remitted, but the
rent lowered to a reasonable standard, such as, considering the markets,
could be paid. And what was the consequence? The tenant who was looked
upon as a negligent man, from whom scarcely any rent could be got, took
courage, worked his farm with a spirit and success which he had not
evinced before; and ere long was in a capacity to pay his gales to the
very day; so that the judicious and humane landlord was finally a gainer
by his own excellent economy. This was an experiment, and it succeeded
beyond expectation.

Owen M'Carthy did not work with more zeal and ability as an humble
cotter than he did when a farmer; but the tide was against him as a
landholder, and instead of having advanced, he actually lost ground
until he became a pauper. No doubt the peculiarly unfavorable run of two
hard seasons, darkened by sickness and famine, were formidable obstacles
to him; but he must eventually have failed, even had they not occurred.
They accelerated his downfall, but did not cause it.

The Irish people, though poor, are exceedingly anxious to be
independent. Their highest ambition is to hold a farm. So strong is this
principle in them, that they will, without a single penny of capital, or
any visible means to rely on, without consideration or forethought, come
forward and offer a rent which, if they reflected only for a moment,
they must feel to be unreasonably high. This, indeed, is a great evil
in Ireland. But what, in the meantime, must we think of those imprudent
landlords, and their more imprudent agents, who let their land to
such persons, without proper inquiry into their means, knowledge of
agriculture, and general character as moral and industrious men? A farm
of land is to be let; it is advertised through the parish; application
is to be made before such a day, to so and so. The day arrives, the
agent or the land-steward looks over the proposals, and after singling
out the highest, bidder, declares him tenant, as a matter of course.
Now, perhaps, this said tenant does not possess a shilling in the
world, nor a shilling's worth. Most likely he is a new-married man,
with nothing but his wife's bed and bedding, his wedding-suit, and his
blackthorn cudgel, which we may suppose him to keep in reserve for the
bailiff. However, he commences his farm; and then follow the shiftings,
the scramblings, and the fruitless struggles to succeed, where success
is impossible. His farm is not half tilled; his crops are miserable; the
gale-day has already passed; yet, he can pay nothing until he takes it
out of the land. Perhaps he runs away--makes a moonlight flitting--and,
by the aid of his friends, succeeds in bringing the crop with him. The
landlord, or agent, declares he is a knave; forgetting that the man
had no other alternative, and that they were the greater knaves and
fools too, for encouraging him to undertake a task that was beyond his
strength.

In calamity we are anxious to derive support from the sympathy of our
friends; in our success, we are eager to communicate to them the power
of participating in our happiness. When Owen once more found himself
independent and safe, he longed to realize two plans on which he had
for some time before been seriously thinking. The first was to visit his
former neighbors, that they might at length know that Owen McCarthy's
station in the world was such as became his character. The second was,
if possible, to take a farm in his native parish, that he might close
his days among the companions of his youth, and the friends of his
maturer years. He had, also, another motive; there lay the burying-place
of the M'Carthys, in which slept the mouldering dust of his own
“golden-haired” Alley. With them--in his daughter's grave--he intended
to sleep his long sleep. Affection for the dead is the memory of the
heart. In no other graveyard could he reconcile it to himself to be
buried; to it had all his forefathers been gathered; and though
calamity had separated him from the scenes where they had passed through
existence, yet he was resolved that death should not deprive him of its
last melancholy consolation;--that of reposing with all that remained of
the “departed,” who had loved him, and whom he had loved. He believed,
that to neglect this, would be to abandon a sacred duty, and felt sorrow
at the thought of being like an absent guest from the assembly of his
own dead; for there is a principle of undying hope in the heart, that
carries, with bold and beautiful imagery, the realities of life into the
silent recesses of death itself.

Having formed the resolution of visiting his old friends at Tubber Derg,
he communicated it to Kathleen and his family; Ids wife received the
intelligence with undisguised delight.

“Owen,” she replied, “indeed I'm glad you mintioned it. Many a time the
thoughts of our place, an' the people about it, comes over me. I know,
Owen, it'll go to your heart to see it; but still, avourneen, you'd
like, too, to see the ould faces an' the warm hearts of them that pitied
us, an' helped us, as well as they could, whin we war broken down.”

“I would, Kathleen; but I'm not going merely to see thim an' the place.
I intind, if I can, to take a bit of land somewhere near Tubber Derg.
I'm unasy in my mind, for 'fraid I'd not sleep in the grave-yard where
all belongin' to me lie.”

A chord of the mother's heart was touched; and in a moment the memory of
their beloved child brought the tears to her eyes.

“Owen, avourneen, I have one requist to ax of you, an' I'm sure you
won't refuse it to me; if I die afore you, let me be buried wid Alley.
Who has a right to sleep so near her as her own mother?”

“The child's in my heart still,” said Owen, suppressing his emotion;
“thinkin' of the unfortunate mornin' I wint to Dublin, brings her
back to me. I see her standin', wid her fair pale face--pale--oh, my
God!--wid hunger an' sickness--her little thin clo'es, an' her goolden
hair, tossed about by the dark blast--the tears in her eyes, an' the
smile, that she once had, on her face--houldin' up her mouth, an' sayin'
'Kiss me agin, father;' as if she knew, somehow, that I'd never see
her, nor her me, any more. An' whin I looked back, as I was turnin' the
corner, there she stood, strainin' her eyes after her father, that she
was then takin' the last sight of until the judgment-day.”

His voice here became broken, and he sat in silence for a few minutes.

“It's sthrange,” he added, with more firmness, “how she's so often in my
mind!”

“But, Owen, dear,” replied Kathleen, “sure it was the will of God that
she should lave us. She's now a bright angel in heaven, an' I dunna if
it's right--indeed, I doubt it's sinful for us to think so much about
her. Who knows but her innocent spirit is makin' inthercession for us
all, before the blessed Mother o' God! Who knows but it was her that got
us the good fortune that flowed in upon us, an' that made our strugglin'
an' our laborin' turn out so lucky.”

The idea of being lucky or unlucky is, in Ireland, an enemy to industry.
It is certainly better that the people should believe success in life
to be, as it is, the result of virtuous exertion, than of contingent
circumstances, over which they themselves have no control. Still there
was something beautiful in the superstition of Kathleen's affections;
something that touched the heart and its! dearest associations.

“It's very true, Kathleen,” replied her husband; “but God is ever ready
to help them that keeps an honest heart, an' do everything in their
power to live creditably. They may fail for a time, or he may thry them
for awhile, but sooner or later good, intintions and honest labor will
be rewarded. Look at ourselves--blessed be his name!”

“But whin do you mane to go to Tubber Derg, Owen!”

“In the beginnin' of the next week. An', Kathleen, ahagur, if you
remimber the bitther mornin' we came upon the world--but we'll not
be spakin' of that now. I don't like to think of it. Some other time,
maybe, when we're settled among our ould friends, I'll mintion it.”

“Well, the Lord bliss your endayvors, anyhow! Och, Owen, do thry an'
get us a snug farm somewhere near them. But you didn't answer me about
Alley, Owen?”

“Why, you must have your wish, Kathleen, although I intended to keep
that place for myself. Still we can sleep one on aich side of her; an'
that may be aisily done, for our buryin'-ground is large: so set your
mind at rest on that head. I hope God won't call us till we see our
childhre settled dacently in the world. But sure, at all evints, let his
blessed will be done!”

“Amin! amin! It's not right of any one to keep their hearts fixed too
much upon the world; nor even, they say, upon one's own childhre.”

“People may love their childhre as much as they plase, Kathleen, if they
don't let their _grah_ for them spoil the crathurs, by givin' them their
own will, till they become headstrong an' overbearin'. Now, let my linen
be as white as a bone before Monday, plase goodness; I hope, by that
time, that Jack Dogherty will have my new clo'es made; for I intind to
go as dacent as ever they seen me in my best days.”

“An' so you will, too, avillish. Throth, Owen, it's you that'll be the
proud man, steppin' in to them in all your grandeur! Ha, ha, ha! The
spirit o' the M'Carthys is in you still, Owen.”

“Ha, ha, ha! It is, darlin'; it is, indeed; an' I'd be sarry it wasn't.
I long to see poor Widow Murray. I dunna is her son, Jemmy, married.
Who knows, afther all we suffered, but I might be able to help
her yet?--that is, if she stands in need of it. But, I suppose, her
childhre's grown up now, an' able to assist her. Now, Kathleen, mind
Monday next; an' have everything ready. I'll stay away a week or so, at
the most, an' afther that I'll have news for you about all o' them.”

When Monday morning arrived, Owen found himself ready to set out for
Tubber Derg. The tailor had not disappointed him; and Kathleen, to do
her justice, took care that the proofs of her good housewifery should
be apparent in the whiteness of his linen. After breakfast, he dressed
himself in all his finery; and it would be difficult to say whether
the harmless vanity that peeped out occasionally from his simplicity
of character, or the open and undisguised triumph of his faithful wife,
whose eye rested on him with pride and affection, was most calculated to
produce a smile.

“Now, Kathleen,” said he, when preparing for his immediate departure,
“I'm, thinkin' of what they'll say, when they see, me so smooth an'
warm-lookin'. I'll engage they'll be axin' one another, 'Musha, how, did
Owen M'Carthy get an, at all, to be so well to do in the world, as he
appears to be, afther failin' on his ould farm?'”

“Well, but Owen, you know how to manage them.”

“Throth, I do that. But there is one thing they'll never get out o' me,
any way.”

“You won't tell that to any o' them, Owen?”

“Kathleen, if I thought they only suspected it, I'd never show my face
in Tubber Derg agin. I think I could bear to be--an' yet it 'ud be a
hard struggle with me too--but I think I could bear to be buried among
black strangers, rather than it should be said, over my grave, among
my own, 'there's where Owen M'Carthy lies--who was the only man, of his
name, that ever begged his morsel on the king's highway. There he lies,
the descendant of the great M'Carthy Mores, an' yet he was a beggar.'
I know, Kathleen achora, it's neither a sin nor a shame to ax one's bit
from our fellow-creatures, whin, fairly brought to it, widout any fault
of our own; but still I feel something in me, that can't bear to think
of it widout shame an' heaviness of heart.”

“Well, it's one comfort, that nobody knows it but ourselves. The poor
childhre, for their own sakes, won't ever breathe it; so that it's
likely the sacret 'll be berrid wid us.”

“I hope so, acushla. Does this coat sit asy atween the shouldhers? I
feel it catch me a little.”

“The sorra nicer. There; it was only your waistcoat that was turned down
in the collar. Here--hould your arm. There now--it wanted to be pulled
down a little at the cuffs. Owen, it's a beauty; an' I think I have good
right to be proud of it, for it's every thread my own spinnin'.”

“How do I look in it, Kathleen? Tell me thruth, now.”

“Throth, you're twenty years younger; the never a day less.”

“I think I needn't be ashamed to go afore my ould friends in it, any
way. Now bring me my staff, from undher the bed above; an', in the name
o' God, I'll set out.”

“Which o' them, Owen? Is it the oak or the blackthorn?”

“The oak, acushla. Oh, no; not the blackthorn. It's it that I brought
to Dublin wid me, the unlucky thief, an' that I had while we wor a
shaughran. Divil a one o' me but 'ud blush in the face, if I brought
it even in my hand afore them. The oak, ahagur; the oak. You'll get it
atween the foot o' the bed an' the wall.”

When Kathleen placed the staff in his hand, he took off his hat and
blessed himself, then put it on, looked at his wife, and said--“Now
darlin', in the name o' God, I'll go. Husht, avillish machree, don't be
cryin'; sure I'll be back to you in a week.”

“Och! I can't help it, Owen. Sure this is the second time you wor ever
away from me more nor a day; an' I'm thinkin' of what happened both
to you an' me, the first time you wint. Owen, acushla, I feel that if
anything happened you, I'd break my heart.”

“Arrah, what 'ud happen me, darlin', wid God to protect me? Now, God
be wid you, Kathleen dheelish, till I come back to you wid good news,
I hope. I'm not goin' in sickness an' misery, as I wint afore, to see a
man that wouldn't hear my appale to him; an' I'm lavin' you comfortable,
agrah, an' wantin' for nothin'. Sure it's only about five-an'-twenty
miles from this--a mere step. The good God bless an' take care of you,
my darlin' wife, till I come home to you!”

He kissed the tears that streamed from her eyes; and, hemming several
times, pressed her hand, his face rather averted, then grasped his
staff, and commenced his journey.

Scenes like this were important events to our humble couple. Life, when
untainted by the crimes and artificial manners which destroy its purity,
is a beautiful thing to contemplate among the virtuous poor; and, where
the current of affection runs deep and smooth, the slightest incident
will agitate it. So it was with Owen M'Carthy and his wife. Simplicity,
truth, and affection, constituted their character. In them there was no
complication of incongruous elements. The order of their virtues was not
broken, nor the purity of their affections violated, by the anomalous
blending together of opposing principles, such as are to be found in
those who are involuntarily contaminated by the corruption of human
society.

Owen had not gone far, when Kathleen called to him: “Owen,
ahagur--stand, darlin'; but don't come back a step, for fraid o' bad
luck.” *

     * When an Irish peasant sets out on a journey, or to
     transact business in fair or market, he will not, if
     possible, turn back. It is considered unlucky: as it is
     also to be crossed by a hare, or met by a red-haired
     woman.

“Did I forget anything, Kathleen?” he inquired. “Let me see; no; sure
I have my beads an' my tobaccy box, an' my two clane shirts an'
handkerchers in the bundle. What is it, acushla?”

“I needn't be axin' you, for I know you wouldn't forget it; but for
'fraid you might--Owen, whin you're at Tubber Derg, go to little Alley's
grave, an' look at it; an' bring me back word how it appears. You might
get it cleaned up, if there's weeds or anything growin' upon it; an'
Owen, would you bring me a bit o' the clay, tied up in your pocket. Whin
you're there, spake to her; tell her it was the lovin' mother that bid
you, an' say anything that you think might keep her asy, an' give her
pleasure. Tell her we're not now as we wor whin she was wid us; that we
don't feel hunger, nor cowld, nor want; an' that nothin' is a throuble
to us, barrin' that we miss her--ay, even yet--_a suillish machree_ (*
light of my heart), that she was--that we miss her fair face an' goolden
hair from among us. Tell her this; an' tell her it was the lovin' mother
that said it, an' that sint the message to her.”

“I'll do it all, Kathleen; I'll do it all--all, An' now go in, darlin',
an' don't be frettin'. Maybe we'll soon be near her, plase God, where we
can see the place she sleeps in, often.”

They then separated again; and Owen, considerably affected by the
maternal tenderness of his wife, proceeded on his journey. He had not,
actually, even at the period of his leaving home, been able to determine
on what particular friend he should first call. That his welcome would
be hospitable, nay, enthusiastically so, he was certain. In the meantime
he vigorously pursued his journey; and partook neither of refreshment
nor rest, until he arrived, a little after dusk, at a turn of the
well-known road, which, had it been daylight, would have opened to him a
view of Tubber Derg. He looked towards the beeches, however, under which
it stood; but to gain a sight of it was impossible. His road now lying
a little to the right, he turned to the house of his sterling friend,
Frank Farrell, who had given him and his family shelter and support,
when he was driven, without remorse, from his own holding. In a
short time he reached Frank's residence, and felt a glow of sincere
satisfaction at finding the same air of comfort and warmth about it
as formerly. Through the kitchen window he saw the strong light of the
blazing fire and heard, ere he presented himself, the loud hearty laugh
of his friend's wife, precisely as light and animated as it had been
fifteen years before.

Owen lifted the latch and entered, with that fluttering of the pulse
which every man feels on meeting with a friend, after an interval of
many years.

“Musha, good people, can ye tell me is Frank Farrell at home?”

“Why, thin, he's not jist widin now, but he'll be here in no time
entirely,” replied one of his daughters. “Won't you sit down, honest
man, an' we'll sind for him.”

“I'm thankful to you,” said Owen. “I'll sit, sure enough, till he comes
in.”

“Why thin!--eh! it must--it can be no other!” exclaimed Farrell's wife,
bringing! over a candle and looking Owen earnestly in the face; “sure
I'd know that voice all the world over! Why, thin, marciful
Father--Owen M'Carthy,--Owen M'Carthy, is it your four quarthers that's
livin' an' well? Queen o' heaven, Owen M'Carthy darlin', you're
welcome!” the word was here interrupted by a hearty kiss from the kind
housewife;--welcome a thousand an' a thousand times! _Vick ne hoiah!_
Owen dear, an' are you livin' at all? An' Kathleen, Owen, an' the
childhre, an' all of yez--an' how are they?”

“Throth, we're livin' an' well, Bridget; never was betther, thanks be to
God an' you, in our lives.”

Owen was now surrounded by such of Farrell's children as were old enough
to remember him; every one of whom he shook hands with, and kissed.

“Why, thin, the Lord save my sowl, Bridget,” said he, “are these the
little bouchaleens an' colleens that were runnin' about my feet whin
I was here afore? Well, to be sure! How they do shoot up! An' is this
Atty?”

“No: but this is Atty, Owen; faix, Brian outgrew him; an' here's Mary,
an' this is Bridget Oge.”

“Well!--well! But where did these two; young shoots come from? this boy
an' the colleen here? They worn't to the fore, in my time, Bridget.”

“This is Owen, called afther yourself,--an' this is Kathleen. I needn't
tell you who she was called afther.”

“_Gutsho, alanna? thurm pogue?_--come here, child, and kiss me,” said
Owen to his little namesake; “an' sure I can't forget the little woman
here; _gutsho, a colleen_, and kiss: me too.”

Owen took her on his knee, and kissed her twice.

“Och, but poor Kathleen,” said he, “will be the proud woman of this,
when she hears it; in throth she will be that.”

“Arrah! what's comin' over me!” said Mrs. Farrell. “Brian, run up to
Micky Lowrie's for your father, An' see, Brian, don't say who's wantin'
him, till we give him a start. Mary, come here, acushla,” she added to
her eldest daughter in a whisper--“take these two bottles an' fly up
to Peggy Finigan's for the full o' them o' whiskey. Now be back before
you're there, or if you don't, that I mightn't, but you'll see what
you'll get. Fly, aroon, an' don't let the grass grow undher your feet.
An' Owen, darlin'--but first sit over to the fire:--here get over to
this side, it's the snuggest;--arrah, Owen--an' sure I dunna what to ax
you first. You're all well? all to the fore?”

“All well, Bridget, an' thanks be to heaven, all to the fore.”

“Glory be to God! Throth it warms my heart to hear it. An' the childre's
all up finely, boys an' girls?”

“Throth, they are, Bridget, as good-lookin' a family o' childre as
you'd wish to see. An' what is betther, they're as good as they're
good-lookin'.”

“Throth, they couldn't but be that, if they tuck at all afther their
father an' mother. Bridget, aroon, rub the pan betther--an' lay the
knife down, I'll cut the bacon myself, but go an' get a dozen o' the
freshest eggs;--an' Kathleen, Owen, how does poor Kathleen look? Does
she stand it as well as yourself?”

“As young as ever you seen her. God help her!--a thousand degrees
betther nor whin you seen her last.”

“An' well to do, Owen?--now tell the truth? Och, musha, I forget who I'm
spakin' to, or I wouldn't disremimber the ould sayin' that's abroad this
many a year:--'who ever knew a M'Carthy of Tubber Derg to tell a lie,
break his word, or refuse to help a friend in distress.' But, Owen,
you're well to do in' the world?”

“We're as well, Bridget, or may be betther, nor you ever knew us,
except, indeed, afore the ould lase was run out wid us.”

“God be praised again? Musha, turn round a little, Owen, for 'fraid
Frank 'ud get too clear a sight of your face at first. Arrah, do you
think he'll know you? Och, to be sure he will; I needn't ax. Your voice
would tell upon you, any day.”

“Know me! Indeed Frank 'ud know my shadow. He'll know me wid half a
look.”

And Owen was right, for quickly did the eye of his old friend recognize
him, despite of the little plot that was laid to try his penetration.
To describe their interview would be to repeat the scene we have already
attempted to depict between Owen and Mrs. Farrell. No sooner were the
rites of hospitality performed, than the tide of conversation began to
flow with greater freedom. Owen ascertained one important fact, which we
will here mention, because it produces, in a great degree, the want
of anything like an independent class of yeomanry in the country. On
inquiring after his old acquaintances, he discovered that a great many
of them, owing to high rents, had emigrated to America. They belonged
to that class of independent farmers, who, after the expiration of
their old leases, finding the little capital they had saved beginning
to diminish, in consequence of rents which they could not pay, deemed it
more prudent, while anything remained in their hands, to seek a country
where capital and industry might be made available. Thus did the
landlords, by their mismanagement and neglect, absolutely drive off
their estates, the only men, who, if properly encouraged, were capable
of becoming the strength and pride of the country. It is this system,
joined to the curse of middlemen and sub-letting, which has left the
country without any third grade of decent, substantial yoemen, who might
stand as a bond of peace between the highest and the lowest classes. It
is this which has split the kingdom into two divisions, constituting
the extreme ends of society--the wealthy and the wretched, If this third
class existed, Ireland would neither be so political nor discontented as
she is; but, on the contrary, more remarkable for peace and industry. At
present, the lower classes, being too poor, are easily excited by those
who promise them a better order of things than that which exists. These
theorists step into the exercise of that legitimate influence which the
landed proprietors have lost by their neglect. There is no middle class
in the country, who can turn round to them and say, “Our circumstances
are easy, we want nothing; carry your promises to the poor, for that
which you hold forth to their hopes, we enjoy in reality.” The poor
soldier, who, because he was wretched, volunteered to go on the
forlorn hope, made a fortune; but when asked if he would go on a second
enterprise of a similar kind, shrewdly replied, “General, I am now an
independent man; send some poor devil on your forlorn hope who wants to
make a fortune.”

Owen now heard anecdotes and narratives of all occurrences, whether
interesting or strange, that had taken place during his abscence. Among
others, was the death of his former landlord, and the removal of the
agent who had driven him to beggary. Tubber Derg, he found, was then the
property of a humane and considerate man, who employed a judicious and
benevolent gentleman to manage it.

“One thing, I can tell you,” said Frank; “it was but a short time in the
new agent's hands, when the dacent farmers stopped goin' to America.”

“But Frank,” said Owen, and he sighed on putting the question, “who is
in Tubber Derg, now?”

“Why, thin, a son of ould Rousin' Redhead's of Tullyvernon--young Con
Roe, or the Ace o' Hearts--for he was called both by the youngsters--if
you remimber him. His head's as red an' double as big, even, as his
father's was, an' you know that no hat would fit ould Con, until he sent
his measure to Jemmy Lamb, the hatter. Dick Nugent put it out on
him, that Jemmy always made Rousin' Red-head's hat, either upon the
half-bushel pot or a five-gallon keg of whiskey. 'Talkin' of the keg,'