Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Having nothing to conceal in his character, opinions, or circumstances, Mr. Burke was perfectly open and unreserved in his manner and conversation; freely answered all the traveller’s inquiries, and took pains to show him every thing he desired to see. Lord Colambre said he had thoughts of settling in Ireland; and declared, with truth, that he had not seen any part of the country he should like better to live in than this neighbourhood. He went over most of the estate with Mr. Burke, and had ample opportunities of convincing himself that this gentleman was indeed, as the innkeeper had described him, “a right good gentleman, and a right good agent.”

  He paid Mr. Burke some just compliments on the state of the tenantry, and the neat and flourishing appearance of the town of Colambre.

  “What pleasure it will give the proprietor when he sees all you have done!” said Lord Colambre.

  “Oh, sir, don’t speak of it! — that breaks my heart; he never has shown the least interest in any thing I have done: he is quite dissatisfied with me, because I have not ruined his tenantry, by forcing them to pay more than the land is worth; because I have not squeezed money from them, by fining down rents; and — but all this, as an Englishman, sir, must be unintelligible to you. The end of the matter is, that, attached as I am to this place and the people about me, and, as I hope, the tenantry are to me, — I fear I shall he obliged to give up the agency.

  “Give up the agency! How so? you must not,” cried Lord Colambre, and, for the moment, he forgot himself; but Mr. Burke took this only for an expression of good-will.

  “I must, I am afraid,” continued he. “My employer, Lord Clonbrony, is displeased with me — continual calls for money come upon me from England, and complaints of my slow remittances.”

  “Perhaps Lord Clonbrony is in embarrassed circumstances,” said Lord Colambre.

  “I never speak of my employer’s affairs, sir,” replied Mr. Burke; now for the first time assuming an air of reserve.

  “I beg pardon, sir — I seem to have asked an indiscreet question.” Mr. Burke was silent.

  “Lest my reserve should give you a false impression, I will add, sir,” resumed Mr. Burke, “that I really am not acquainted with the state of his lordship’s affairs in general. I know only what belongs to the estate under my own management. The principal part of his lordship’s property, the Clonbrony estate, is under another agent, Mr. Garraghty.”

  “Garraghty!” repeated Lord Colambre; “what sort of a person is he? But I may take it for granted, that it cannot fall to the lot of one and the same absentee to have two such agents as Mr. Burke.”

  Mr. Burke bowed, and seemed pleased with the compliment, which he knew he deserved — but not a word did he say of Mr. Garraghty; and Lord Colambre, afraid of betraying himself by some other indiscreet question, changed the conversation.

  The next night the post brought a letter to Mr. Burke, from Lord Clonbrony, which he gave to his wife as soon as he had read it, saying, “See the reward of all my services!”

  Mrs. Burke glanced her eye over the letter, and being extremely fond of her husband, and sensible of his deserving far different treatment, burst into indignant exclamations—”See the reward of all your services, indeed! — What an unreasonable, ungrateful man! — So, this is the thanks for all you have done for Lord Clonbrony!”

  “He does not know what I have done, my dear. He never has seen what I have done.”

  “More shame for him!”

  “He never, I suppose, looks over his accounts, or understands them.”

  “More shame for him!”

  “He listens to foolish reports, or misrepresentations, perhaps. He is at a distance, and cannot find out the truth.”

  “More shame for him!”

  “Take it quietly, my dear; we have the comfort of a good conscience. The agency may be taken from me by this lord; but the sense of having done my duty, no lord or man upon earth can give or take away.”

  “Such a letter!” said Mrs. Burke, taking it up again. “Not even the civility to write with his own hand! — only his signature to the scrawl — looks as if it was written by a drunken man, does not it, Mr. Evans?” said she, showing the letter to Lord Colambre, who immediately recognized the writing of Sir Terence O’Fay.

  “It does not look like the hand of a gentleman, indeed,” said Lord Colambre.

  “It has Lord Clonbrony’s own signature, let it be what it will,” said Mr. Burke, looking closely at it; “Lord Clonbrony’s own writing the signature is, I am clear of that.”

  Lord Clonbrony’s son was clear of it, also; but he took care not to give any opinion on that point.

  “Oh, pray read it, sir, read it,” said Mrs. Burke; “read it, pray; a gentleman may write a bad hand, but no gentleman could write such a letter as that to Mr. Burke — pray read it, sir; you who have seen something of what he has done for the town of Colambre, and what he has made of the tenantry and the estate of Lord Clonbrony.”

  Lord Colambre read, and was convinced that his father had never written or read the letter, but had signed it, trusting to Sir Terence O’Fay’s having expressed his sentiments properly.

  “SIR,

  “As I have no farther occasion for your services, you will take notice, that I hereby request you will forthwith hand over, on or before the 1st of November next, your accounts, with the balance due of the hanging-gale (which, I understand, is more than ought to be at this season) to Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., College-green, Dublin, who, in future, will act as agent, and shall get, by post, immediately, a power of attorney for the same, entitling him to receive and manage the Colambre, as well as the Clonbrony estate, for,

  “Sir, your obedient humble servant,

  “CLONBRONY.

  “Grosvenor-square.”

  Though misrepresentation, caprice, or interest, might have induced Lord Clonbrony to desire to change his agent, yet Lord Colambre knew that his father never could have announced his wishes in such a style; and, as he returned the letter to Mrs. Burke, he repeated, he was convinced that it was impossible that any nobleman could have written such a letter; that it must have been written by some inferior person; and that his lordship had signed it without reading it.

  “My dear, I’m sorry you showed that letter to Mr. Evans,” said Mr. Burke; “I don’t like to expose Lord Clonbrony; he is a well-meaning gentleman, misled by ignorant or designing people; at all events, it is not for us to expose him.”

  “He has exposed himself,” said Mrs. Burke; “and the world should know it.”

  “He was very kind to me when I was a young man,” said Mr. Burke; “we must not forget that now, because we are angry, my love.”

  “Why, no, my love, to be sure we should not; but who could have recollected it just at this minute but yourself? And now, sir,” turning to Lord Colambre, “you see what kind of a man this is: now is it not difficult for me to bear patiently to see him ill-treated?”

  “Not only difficult, but impossible, I should think, madam,” said Lord Colambre; “I know even I, who am a stranger, cannot help feeling for both of you, as you must see I do.”

  “But half the world, who don’t know him,” continued Mrs. Burke, “when they hear that Lord Clonbrony’s agency is taken from him, will think perhaps that he is to blame.”

  “No, madam,” said Lord Colambre, “that you need not fear; Mr. Burke may safely trust to his character: from what I have within these two days seen and heard, I am convinced that such is the respect he has deserved and acquired, that no blame can touch him.”

  “Sir, I thank you,” said Mrs. Burke, the tears coming into her eyes: “you can judge — you do him justice; but there are so many who don’t know him, and who will decide without knowing any of the facts.”

  “That, my dear, happens about every thing to every body,” said Mr. Burke; “but we must have patience; time sets all judgments right, sooner or later.”

  “But the sooner the better,” said Mrs. Burke. “Mr. Evans, I hope you will be so kind, if ever yo
u hear this business talked of—”

  “Mr. Evans lives in Wales, my dear.”

  “But he is travelling through Ireland, my dear, and he said he should return to Dublin, and, you know, there he certainly will hear it talked of; and I hope he will do me the favour to state what he has seen and knows to be the truth.”

  “Be assured that I will do Mr. Burke justice — as far as it is in my power,” said Lord Colambre, restraining himself much, that he might not say more than became his assumed character. He took leave of this worthy family that night, and, early the next morning, departed.

  “Ah!” thought he, as he drove away from this well-regulated and flourishing place, “how happy I might be, settled here with such a wife as — her of whom I must think no more.”

  He pursued his way to Clonbrony, his father’s other estate, which was at a considerable distance from Colambre: he was resolved to know what kind of agent Mr. Nicholas Garraghty might be, who was to supersede Mr. Burke, and, by power of attorney, to be immediately entitled to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate.

  CHAPTER X.

  Towards the evening of the second day’s journey, the driver of Lord Colambre’s hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on which he had been seated, exclaimed, “We’re come to the bad step, now. The bad road’s beginning upon us, please your honour.”

  “Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine roads as you have in Ireland.”

  “That’s true; and God bless your honour, that’s sensible of that same, for it’s not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to notice. God bless your honour! I heard you’re a Welshman, but whether or no, I am sure you are a jantleman, any way, Welsh or other.”

  Notwithstanding the shabby great coat, the shrewd postilion perceived, by our hero’s language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at the horses’ heads, and pushing and lifting, the carriage was got over what the postilion said was the worst part of the bad step; but as the road “was not yet to say good,” he continued walking beside the carriage.

  “It’s only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,” said he, “on account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out of the roads, and every thing else in life. I, Larry Brady, that am telling your honour, have a good right to know; for myself, and my father, and my brother, Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker’s yard, in London; banished he is! — and here am I, forced to be what I am — and now that I’m reduced to drive a hack, the agent’s a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels — and a shame to the country, which I think more of — Bad luck to him!”

  “I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long-Acre, in London.”

  “Oh, God bless you for that!”

  They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones, on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw the carriage. The chaise passed between these batteries, the stones flying on all sides.

  “How are you, Jem? — How are you Phil?” said Larry. “But hold your hand, can’t ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses’ feet. So you’re making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?”

  “Whoosh!” said one of the pounders, coming close to the postilion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. “Who have you in it?”

  “Oh, you need not scruple, he’s a very honest man; — he’s only a man from North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that’s sent over to travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in it.”

  “How do you know, Larry?”

  “Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I seen him tax the man of the King’s Head with a copper half-crown at first sight, which was only lead to look at, you’d think, to them that was not skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linchpin out of the hedge, for this one won’t go far.”

  Whilst Larry was making the linchpin, all scruple being removed, his question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered.

  “Ay, it’s the rint, sure enough, we’re pounding out for him; for he sent the driver round last night-was-eight days, to warn us Old Nick would be down a’-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there’s only six clear days, Saturday night, before the assizes, sure: so we must see and get it finished any way, to clear the presentment again’ the swearing day, for he and Paddy Hart is the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to swear to it.”

  “St. Dennis, is it? Then you’ve one great comfort and security — that he won’t be particular about the swearing; for since ever he had his head on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis’s throat, more than in his own brother, Old Nick’s.”

  “His head upon his shoulders!” repeated Lord Colambre. “Pray, did you ever hear that St. Dennis’s head was off his shoulders?”

  “It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.”

  “Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head in his hand?” said Lord Colambre.

  “The rael saint!” said the postilion, suddenly changing his tone, and looking shocked. “Oh, don’t be talking that way of the saints, plase your honour.”

  “Then of what St. Dennis were you talking just now? — Whom do you mean by St. Dennis, and whom do you call Old Nick?”

  “Old Nick,” answered the postilion, coming close to the side of the carriage, and whispering,—”Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College-green, Dublin, and St. Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is Old Nick’s brother in all things, and would fain be a saint, only he’s a sinner. He lives just by here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as Old Nick is upper-agent — it’s only a joke among the people, that are not fond of them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and every thing to the likes of them.”

  Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but the postilion, having now made his linchpin of wood, and fixed himself, he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked at the road-makers, “Poor cratures! They couldn’t keep their cattle out of pound, or themselves out of jail, but by making this road.”

  “Is road-making, then, a very profitable business! — Have road-makers higher wages than other men in this part of the country?”

  “It is, and it is not — they have, and they have not — plase your honour.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “No, beca-ase you’re an Englishman — that is, a Welshman — beg your honour’s pardon. But I’ll tell you how that is, and I’ll go slow over these broken stones — for I can’t go fast: it is where there’s no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rackrent, that they can’t live and pay the rent, they say—”

  “Who says?”

  “Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all — but some, like Dennis, says, says he, ‘I’ll get you a road to make up the rent:’ that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour sensible?”

  [Footnote 1: Do I make you understand?]

  “You make me much more sensible than I ever was befor
e,” said Lord Colambre: “but is not this cheating the county?”

  “Well, and suppose,” replied Larry, “is not it all for my good, and yours too, plase your honour?” said Larry, looking very shrewdly.

  “My good!” said Lord Colambre, startled. “What have I to do with it?”

  “Haven’t you to do with the roads as well as me, when you’re travelling upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they’d never be got made at all, if they wern’t made this ways; and it’s the best way in the wide world, and the finest roads we have. And when the rael jantleman’s resident in the country, there’s no jobbing can be, because they’re then the leading men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in order, and all’s right.”

  Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry’s knowledge of the manner in which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense: he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in Ireland.

  Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side at the desolation of the prospect.

  “So this is Lord Clonbrony’s estate, is it?”

  “Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next? — Why, what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left o’ purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And next, the cattle was let in trespassing, and winked at, till the land was all poached: and then the land was waste, and cried down: and Saint Dennis wrote up to Dublin to Old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how none would take it, or bid any thing at all for it: so then it fell to him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows ‘em, if I don’t?” Presently, Lord Colambre’s attention was roused again, by seeing a man running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside: he leaped over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postilion, Larry nodded, and he smiled and said, “All’s safe!” “Pray, my good friend, may I ask what that is you have on your shoulder?” said Lord Colambre. “Plase your honour, it is only a private still, which I’ve just caught out yonder in the bog; and I’m carrying it in with all speed to the gauger, to make a discovery, that the jantleman may benefit by the reward: I expect he’ll make me a compliment.”