I had scarcely finished my pretty little speech, when everything in the house was reversed. First the mother, then the father, jumped from their chairs to offer them to me.
“Ah, your honour,” said the woman, “how can you say I look young? I am three years older than my husband, blessed be the saints! I have seven children, your honour. Pat, finish there, are you going to give his honour a light for his cigar?”
After that, nothing was refused to me. I went over the whole house. It was ten yards long by six wide. To the right two partitions, which were placed at right angles to each other, formed two rooms, each containing one bed; the parents and daughters slept in one, the boys in the other; the large room was used as a kitchen. Mr. Parnell’s portrait hung on the wall. My hosts were unacquainted with Latin, or they should have written below it: Deus nobis hæc otia fecit. But still this does not prevent them from enjoying their position. The husband explained that the Treasurer of the Land League passes every Saturday, and gives them 2l. Besides this, he sometimes earns a shilling a day by working. Through the window he showed me his old farm on the opposite hill; it is one of those now turned into a garrison, but he appears quite resigned to his condition. I think that, at least so far as he is concerned, this display of military force is quite unnecessary, for I believe that he would be quite dismayed if he were told he would be reinstated in his old home.
I asked him whether he had ever thought of emigration. “Emigration!” said he, with extraordinary energy. “Never; I would rather die of hunger!”
These words confirmed the statements made by the heads of the Land League at Dublin. I thought that the Irish peasant, unlike the French of the same class, was easily persuaded to emigrate; but this is not so. Every one whom I have asked in my walk this morning has made the same answer. However, they tell me that the young men have different ideas and that, on the contrary, most of them were going to seek their fortunes in America and Australia.
When I had inspected the first house, I asked if I could see the second, and since they had now made my acquaintance, I was received there cordially at once. This one is rather larger; it is occupied by a man about sixty years old, named Patrick Hogan. He lives there with eight women—his wife, and seven daughters or granddaughters. They were all bare-footed and very dirty, and in the last respect the house rivalled them, although it bore signs of great comfort. Three or four fine sides of bacon hung from the roof. To the right of the door stood a large sideboard, on which a dozen blue earthenware plates were displayed, representing a Chinese landscape, with a pagoda to the right and a bird to the left. I recognised it as the garden of Puntin-qua, at Canton. Many years ago some English china manufacturers made a drawing of it, and inundated the world with pseudo-Chinese productions of their own workmanship. On the wall Mr. Gladstone’s portrait hung between those of Mgr. Croke and Mgr. Walsh. There were also a few religious pictures.
Mr. Patrick Hogan is evidently in a superior position to that of his neighbour. He told me his own history in well-chosen words. He also receives 2l. per week. The rent of his farm was 40l., and when he was evicted he would willingly have signed a new lease at 36l.; but now farming is so bad that he would not agree to more than 30l. He also told me that he was two or three years’ rent in arrear.
I asked him if Lord Cloncurry had not seized his cattle.
“Oh, no,” said he with a cunning look; “I took care to get them all away on the eve of the eviction. One of my neighbours is keeping them for me.”
I told him that this trick was not altogether unknown amongst us; adding that I had even seen it carried out so skilfully, that one farmer managed to “get away” forty or fifty oxen and cows in one night. This anecdote seemed to interest him immensely, and to confirm his high opinion of France.