Oh! French landowners, unlucky brethren! Who amongst you, on consulting his lease, will not find, one after the other, all these clauses? When you discuss them with your tenants, does conscience warn you that you are committing an infamous act? I am a little reassured on the point, because for the last three or four years, the Government, which is the very essence of morality, since it is Republican, sends us every summer agricultural professors, who recommend us to transform all our lands into meadows.
After the meeting, Fathers McCarthy and McSheehy probably went home with Mr. O’Sullivan, and, whilst taking a glass of something on this honourable merchant’s counter, the three orators mutually congratulated themselves on their success. They had reason to do so in some respects. As rhetorical amplifications their speeches were pretty good. Only when they assert that they have nothing in common with the Socialists, is it wise to tell two or three thousand peasants, all more or less doing badly in money matters, that their poverty is the result of Mr. Thompson and others detaining for such a long time the land that ought to be given to them?
I have only to continue reading the bundle to ascertain the effect produced. The newspaper cuttings are arranged in chronological order; unfortunately, they are not all dated. I cannot, therefore, give the dates quite precisely, but evidently very little time had elapsed between this meeting and the facts stated here.
This is what first happened at New Pallas. There is a farm about half a mile from the railway station, from which a man named Bourke had been sent away. The landlord could not find a new tenant; but since, every night, men ravaged his land, he demanded protection from the police. The authorities decided that they would erect a block-house, plated with sheet-iron, in which they could place a permanent garrison of five constables. The farm buildings were not sufficiently strong for their security.
The sheet-iron arrived at the station, but it was impossible to get it carried to the farm; no one in the country would undertake to do it. It was decided to obtain an artillery waggon from Dublin, and the accounts which reached the authorities denoted so much popular excitement that it appeared necessary to send an escort also. Half a battery of artillery started for the estate; a squadron of the 7th Hussars, one hundred and fifty men of the 9th Foot, and a detachment of constables, brought the effective total to five hundred men. They all met at the station after a convergent movement, which did great credit to the military skill of the chief of the expedition, and succeeded in transporting an iron hut, that filled one cart, five-eighths of a mile! The Government newspapers loudly congratulated themselves on the success of the operation.
During this time a permanent garrison was established at Mr. Thompson’s. It at first consisted of seventy-five men, but after some time the numbers were reduced. They were not too much bored, for they had plenty to do. Every morning, four men and one corporal, all well armed, were ordered on duty to escort the milkmaid when she went to milk the cows. The detachment which proceeded to the station for letters and parcels, was commanded by a sergeant, and flanked the whole way. It was exactly like a besieged town. Still, the Land League sentinels never left the gate, and on their side watched with the greatest vigilance. Nevertheless, once or twice the blockade was run. A reporter of the Daily News, who came expressly from England to keep the readers of his paper well informed about the operations of the siege, thus describes it:—
“December 25th, Christmas Day.—Yesterday evening, great excitement. Darkness had fallen upon us, when the dogs commenced to bark, and suddenly we saw a woman mysteriously issue from a clump of trees and approach the door, marching so softly that one might have fancied her a ghost! She carried hidden beneath her shawl an enormous Christmas cake, still hot, which a kind neighbour had sent us, but, naturally, I must not mention his name. We had obtained this windfall through his noticing, as he passed the gate, that the sentinels’ watch was not nearly so keen as usual thanks, probably, to the numerous libations they had indulged in whilst celebrating the festival. He at once took advantage of the fact to entrust this brave little woman with the commission she so skilfully executed. I hope she was not seen during her retreat, for neither she nor her husband would then be able to remain in the country.”
It was on Christmas Day, 1880, that the Daily News reporter wrote this letter. From the 13th July, 1886 the Land League has ceased placing sentinels at Mr. Thompson’s gate, but the boycotting is still strong enough to prevent Miss McCarthy from selling him a leg of mutton. There is an improvement, but the improvement progresses very slowly.
I do not only find newspaper cuttings in the bundle. It also contains a file of letters; they are all signed “Captain Moonlight.” But this is a generic name, for the letters evidently come from different people. The Irish revolutionists are not revolutionists like ours. With us every generation insists on working in its own way. In Ireland, on the contrary, they are careful to conform exactly to the old customs. The stock-in-trade of accessories of every conspiracy that respects itself still includes the mask, the dagger, and the blunderbuss which are completely out of fashion amongst us since the time of the Carbonari of the Restoration. Anonymous letters are one of their dearest traditions. Landowners are continually receiving them. They invariably enumerate the different measures which will be adopted to hasten the unfortunate recipient’s departure from this life. It is imperative that a little explanatory drawing should accompany the text, because they must guard against the possibility of the victim being illiterate. This necessity, imposed by custom, is evidently embarrassing even to the conspirators. It is a stumbling-block to those Captains “Moonlight” who have no talent for drawing. One of Mr. Thompson’s correspondents had, however, found an ingenious method of evading the difficulty. Here is a description of one of these documents. I am looking at it while I write:
At the head of the sheet of paper there is a drawing belonging to that naïve school which amongst us is especially reserved for illustrating Latin dictionaries with pierrot pendu (hanging clowns). However, we can easily distinguish that the first drawing represents a gun, with its bayonet. But below there is a combination of strokes and blots which it is absolutely impossible to make anything of. Happily the artist, obeying a sentiment of praiseworthy modesty, and understanding the deficiency of his talent, has put an explanatory note at the side of each vignette. By the side of the first there is in parentheses “gun;” at the right of the second, “bombshell.” The text at least, in default of other merit, had that of conciseness. It only consisted of two lines—