“An' that's more, maybe, than you know,” replied Jemmy. “Maybe God's only punishing them, bekaise he loves them. It's good to have our suffering in this world.”
“Afther all,” said the pedlar, “I'm afeard myself, too, that the wrath o' the Almighty has marked them out. Indeed, I'm sure of it.”
“An' maybe that's not the only lie you're sure of,” replied Jemmy. “It's a subject, any way, you don't undherstand. No,” he proceeded, “by all accounts, Charley, it would wring any one's heart to see him taken away in his ould age from his miserable family and childre, and then he's so humble, too, and so resigned to the will an' way o' God. He's lyin' ill in the gaol. I seen him yestherday—I went to see him an' to say whatever I could to comfort him. God pity his gray hairs! an'—hem—have compassion on him and his this day!”
The poor fellow's heart could stand the sudden contemplation of Dalton's sorrow no longer—and on uttering the last words he fairly wept.
“If I had known what it was about,” he proceeded; “but that ould scoundrel of a Prophet—ay, an' that other ould scoundrel of a masther o' mine—hem ay—whish—but—what am I sayin'?—but if I had known it, 'ud go hard but I'd give him a lift—so that he might get out o' the way, at any rate.”
“Ay,” said the pedlar, “at any rate, indeed—faith, you may well say it; but I say, that at any rate he'll be hanged as sure as he murdhered Sullivan, and as sure as he did, that he may swing, I pray this day!”
“I'll hould no more discoorse wid that circulatin' vagabone,” replied Jemmy; “I'm a Christian man—a peaceable man; an' I know what my religion ordhers me to do when I meet the likes of him—and that is when he houlds the one cheek towardst me to give him a sound Christian rap upon the other. So to the divil I pitch, you, you villain, sowl and body, an' that's the worst I wish you. If you choose to be unchristian, be so; but, be my sowl, I'll not set you the example. Charley,” he proceeded, addressing Hanlon, “I was sent for you in a hurry. Masther Dick wants you, and so does Red Rody—the villain! and I tell you to take care of him, for, like that vagabone, Judas, he'd kiss you this minute and betray you the next.”
“I believe you're purty near the truth,” replied Jemmy, “but I was near forgettin'—it seems the Crowner of the country is sick, an' there can't be an inquest held till he recovers; if he ever does recover, an' if it 'ud sarve poor ould Dalton, that he never may, I pray God this day!—come away, you'll be killed for stayin'.”
Just then young Henderson himself called Hanlon forth, who, after some conversation with him, turned towards the garden, where he held a second conference with Red Rody, who, on leaving him appeared in excellent spirits, and kept winking and nodding, with a kind of burlesque good humor, at every one whom he knew, until he reached home.
In this state stood the incidents of our narrative, suspended for some time by the illness of the coroner, when Mr. Travers, himself a magistrate, came to the head inn of the county town in which he always put up, and where he held his office. He had for several days previously gone over the greater portion of the estate, and inspected the actual condition of the tenantry on it. It is unnecessary to say that he was grieved at the painful consequences of the middleman system, and of sub-letting in general. Wherever he went, he found the soil in many places covered with hordes of pauper occupants, one holding under another in a series that diminished from bad to worse in everything but numbers, until he arrived at a state of destitution that was absolutely! disgraceful to humanity. And what rendered this state of things doubly painful and anomalous was the fact, that while these starving wretches lived upon his employer's property, they had no claim on him as a landlord, nor could he recognize them as tenants. It is true that these miserable creatures, located upon small patches of land, were obliged to pay their rents to the little tyrant who was over them, and he again, probably to a still more important little tyrant, and so on; but whenever it happened that the direct tenant, or any one of the series, neglected to pay his or their rent, of course the landlord had no other remedy than to levy it from off the soil, thus rendering it by no means an unfrequent case that the small occupiers who owed nothing to him or those above them were forced to see their property applied to the payment of the head rent, in consequence of the inability, neglect, or dishonesty of the middleman, or some other subordinate individual from whom, they held. This was a state of things which Mr. Travers wished to abolish, but to do so, without inflicting injury, however unintentional, or occasioning harshness to the people, was a matter not merely difficult but impossible. As we are not, however, writing a treatise upon the management of property, we shall confine ourselves simply to the circumstances only of such of the tenants as have enacted a part in our narrative.