If one needed an illustration of the evils of absenteeism, a better could not be found than in the ruinous, damp, discolored building, with its falling roof and broken windows. The wide and spreading lawn, thick grown with thistles; the trees broken or barked by cattle; the gates that hung by a single hinge, or were broken up piecemeal for firing,—all evidenced the sad state of neglectful indifference by which property is wrecked and a country ruined! Nor was the figure then seated on the broken doorstep an unfitting accompaniment to such a scene,—a man somewhat past the middle period of life, whose ragged, tattered dress bespoke great poverty, his worn hat drawn down over his eyes so as partly to conceal a countenance by no means prepossessing; beside him lay a long old-fashioned musket, the stock mended by some rude country hand. This was Tom Keane, the “caretaker,” who, in all the indolent enjoyment of office, sat smoking his “dudeen,” and calmly surveying the process by which a young heifer was cropping the yearling shoots of an ash-tree.
Twice was his name called by a woman's voice from within the house before he took any notice of it.
“Arrah, Tom, are ye asleep?” said she, coming to the door, and showing a figure whose wretchedness was even greater than his own; while a certain delicacy of feature, an expression of a mild and pleasing character, still lingered on a face where want and privation had set many a mark. “Tom, alanah!” said she, in a tone of coaxing softness, “sure it's time to go down to the post-office. Ye know how anxious the ould man is for a letter.”
“Ay, and he has rayson, too,” said Tom, without stirring.
“And Miss Mary herself was up here yesterday evening to bid you go early, and, if there was a letter, to bring it in all haste.”
“And what for need I make haste?” said the man, sulkily. “Is it any matther to me whether he gets one or no? Will I be richer or poorer? Poorer!” added he, with a savage laugh; “be gorra! that wud be hard, anyhow. That's a comfort old Oorrigan hasn't. If they turn him out of the place, then he'll know what it is to be poor!”
“Oh, Tom, acushla! don't say that, and he so good to us, and the young lady that was so kind when the childer had the measles, comin' twice—no, but three times a day, with everything she could think of.”
“Wasn't it to please herself? Who axed her?” said Tom, savagely.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” sighed the woman. “Them's the hard words,—'to please herself!'”
“Ay, just so! When ye know them people as well as me, you 'll say the same. That's what they like,—to make themselves great among the poor; giving a trifle here, and a penny there; making gruel for this one, and tay for that; marchin' in as if they owned the house, and turning up their noses at everything they see. 'Why don't you sweep before the door, Nancy?'—'Has the pig any right to be eating there out of the kish with the childer?'—'Ye ought to send that child to school'—and, 'What's your husband doing?'—That's the cry with them. 'What's your husband doing? Is he getting the wheat in, or is he at the potatoes?' Tear and ages!” cried he, with a wild energy, “what does any one of themselves do from morning till night, that they 're to come spyin' after a poor man, to ax 'Is he workin' like a naygur?' But we 'll teach them something yet,—a lesson they 're long wanting. Listen to this.”