“He said it joking like. He was always free and pleasant in his way Th’ Airl.”
A simple enough narrative, which no one who heard it doubted the truth of for a moment. A narrative which was recited by many a stump orator of the day, and stirred the hearts of thousands who were or who imagined themselves to be labouring under injustice as great and as irremediable.
Simple as it was, however, no human being could persuade Amos Scott that any of his listeners perfectly understood it. Had even one amongst the number done so, he felt quite satisfied he should hear no more said about his defiance being worse than useless.
“If I could only make yer honour comprehend it,” he said reproachfully, though respectfully, to Lord Ardmorne’s agent, who spite of his having, as he assured Amos over and over again, nothing whatever to do with the Glendares or their tenants, had been seized upon by the farmer for help and sympathy, “you would see it as I see it.”
“Mr. Scott,” answered the agent solemnly, “if I could only make you comprehend it, you would see how hopeless your position is.”
When, however, did argument or assertion convince an obstinate, uneducated man. If such a miracle were ever wrought by earthly means, it was not in the case of the poor misguided farmer who wandered about the country seeking help from this one and that, discoursing about his wrongs in lonely cabins, telling his grievances to chance companions, wasting his slender means in feeing such lawyers as would take his money, and in providing food for such of his family as were still at home.
David had returned Miss Moffat’s loan to that young lady with a characteristic note, in which, after thanking her for her goodness and telling her how troubled in his mind he was to hear of the master’s death, he went on to say how grateful he should be in case she had no need of the money if she would lend it to his next oldest brother, who was mad to join him. And now two of the sons were in America, two of the daughters in service, and Reuben ready to take a schoolmaster’s place when the old people could spare him.
“But I can’t leave them yet, Miss Grace,” he wrote. “I am not much use here, I know; but still I can speak a word to the father when he comes home at night, and the mother is too heartsore to ask him ‘what luck?’ She is keen on now for us to start for America, but the father won’t hear talk of it. David sent her home a pound two months ago, and another last week; a man who went out from these parts twenty years since, and who has never been in Ireland again till now, brought it, and some odds and ends of presents, amongst other things a walking-stick that we often say would have just pleased the master; it is so light, though so big; it is made from the root of the vine, Mr. Moody says, and seems wonderful handy for almost any purpose. He tells us America is the poor man’s country, and it seems like it. He went away with as little as any of us, and he has come home dressed like a gentleman, with gold studs in his shirt, and a gold watch and chain, and not a word of Irish in his tongue. It is just wonderful to hear how like a native-born American he talks. He tried to persuade my father to leave what he calls the ‘rotten old ship’ and make for ‘new diggins,’ but my father bid him not talk about things he has no knowledge of, and the decent man went away, offended like.”
But in this Reuben Scott chanced to be mistaken; Mr. Moody did not cease visiting at the Castle Farm because he was offended with its owner. He only did so as he chanced to remark to an acquaintance, because he never had cared for society where “pistols and bowie knives were lying about, and he guessed there would be one or the other at work before Scott moved away from his clearing.”
Affairs had arrived at this pass when Mr. Brady, finding the law in his own province slow to assist him, decided on going to Dublin and seeking counsel there.