“We then turned towards the mountains; and as we went along, the desolate impresses of the evil agent began here and there to become visible. On the road-side there were the humble traces of two or three cabins, whose little hearths had been extinguished, and whose walls were levelled to the earth. The black fungus, the burdock, the nettle, and all those offensive weeds that follow in the train of oppression and ruin were here; and as the dreary wind stirred them into sluggish motion, and piped its melancholy wail through these desolate little mounds, I could not help asking myself—if those who do these things ever think that there is a reckoning in after life, where power, and insolence, and wealth misapplied, and rancor, and pride, and rapacity, and persecution, and revenge, and sensuality, and gluttony, will be placed face to face with those humble beings, on whose rights and privileges of simple existence they have trampled with such a selfish and exterminating tread. A host of thoughts and reflections began to crowd upon my mind; but the subject was too painful—and after avoiding it as well as I could, we proceeded on our little tour of observation.
“How easy it is for the commonest observer to mark even the striking characters that are impressed on the physical features of an estate which is managed by care and kindness—where general happiness and principles of active industry are diffused through the people? And, on the other hand, do not all the depressing symbols of neglect and mismanagement present equally obvious exponents of their operation, upon properties like this of Castle Cumber? On this property, it is not every tenant that is allowed to have an interest in the soil at all, since the accession of M'Clutchy. He has succeeded in inducing the head landlord to decline granting leases to any but those who are his political supporters—that is, who will vote for him or his nominee at an election; or, in other words, who will enable him to sell both their political privileges and his own, to gratify his cupidity or ambition, without conferring a single advantage upon themselves. From those, therefore, who have too much honesty to prostitute their votes to his corrupt and selfish negotiations with power, leases are withheld, in order that they may, with more becoming and plausible oppression, be removed from the property, and the staunch political supporter brought in in their stead. This may be all very good policy, but it is certainly bad humanity, and worse religion, In fact, it is the practice of that cruel dogma, which prompts us to sacrifice the principles of others to our own, and to deprive them of the very privilege which we ourselves claim—that of acting according to our conscientious impressions. 'Do unto others,' says Mr. M'Clutchy and his class, as you would not wish that others should do unto you.' How beautifully here is the practice of the loud and headlong supporter of the Protestant Church, and its political ascendancy, made to harmonize with the principles of that neglected thing called the Gospel? In fact as we went along, it was easy to mark, on the houses and farmsteads about us, the injustice of making this heartless distinction. The man who felt himself secure and fixed by a vested right in the possession of his tenement, had heart and motive to work and improve it, undepressed by the consciousness that his improvements to-day might be trafficked on by a wicked and unjust agent tomorrow. He knows, that in developing all the advantages and good qualities of the soil, he is not only discharging an important duty to himself and his landlord, but also to his children's children after him; and the result is, that the comfort, contentment, and self-respect which he gains by the consciousness of his security, are evident at a glance upon himself, his house, and his holding. On the other hand, reverse this picture, and what is the consequence? Just what is here visible. There is a man who may be sent adrift on the shortest notice, unless he is base enough to trade upon his principles and vote against his conscience. What interest has he in the soil, or in the prosperity of his landlord? If he make improvements this year, he may see the landlord derive all the advantages of them the next; or, what is quite as likely, he may know that some Valentine M'Clutchy may put them in his own pocket, and keep the landlord in the dark regarding the whole transaction. What a bounty on dishonesty and knavery in an agent is this? How unjust to the interest of the tenant, in the first place—in the next to that of the landlord—and, finally, how destructive to the very nature and properties of the soil itself, which rapidly degenerates by bad and negligent culture, and. consequently becomes impoverished and diminished in value. All this was evident as we went along. Here was warmth, and wealth, and independence staring us in the face; there was negligence, desponding struggle, and decline, conscious, as it were, of their unseemly appearance, and anxious, one would think, to shrink away from the searching eye of observation.
“'But here again, Raymond; what have we here? There is a fine looking farmhouse, evidently untenanted. How is that?'
“'Ha, ha,' replied Raymond with a bitter smile, 'ha, ha! Let them take it, and see what Captain Whiteboy will do? He has the possession—ha, ha—an' who'll get him to give it up? Who dare take that, or any of Captain Whiteboy's farms? But sure it's not, much—only a coal, a rushlight, and a prod of a pike or a baynet—but I know who ought to have them.'
“The house in question was considerably dilapidated. Its doors were not visible, and its windows had all been shivered. Its smokeless chimneys, its cold and desolate appearance, together with the still more ruinous condition of the outhouses, added to the utter silence which prevailed about it, and the absence of every symptom of life and motion—all told a tale which has left many a bloody moral to the country. The slaps, gates, and enclosures were down—the hedges broken or cut away—the fences trampled on and levelled to the earth—and nothing seemed to thrive—for the garden was overrun with them—but the rank weeds already alluded to, as those which love to trace the footsteps of ruin and desolation, in order to show, as it were, what they leave behind them. As we advanced, other and more startling proofs of M'Clutchy came in our way—proofs which did not consist of ruined houses, desolate villages, or roofless-cottages—but of those unfortunate persons, whose simple circle of domestic life—whose little cares, and struggles, and sorrows, and affections, formed the whole round of their humble existence, and its enjoyments, as given them by Almighty God himself. All these, however, like the feelings and affections of the manacled slave, were as completely overlooked by those who turned them adrift, as if in possessing such feelings, they had invaded a right which belonged only to their betters, and which,the same betters, by the way, seldom exercise either in such strength or purity as those whom they despise and oppress. Aged men we met, bent, with years, and weighed down still more by that houseless sorrow, which is found accompanying them along the highways of life:—through its rugged solitudes and its dreariest paths—in the storm and in the tempest—wherever they go—in want, nakedness, and destitution—still at their side is that houseless sorrow—pouring into their memories and their hearts the conviction, which is most terrible to old age, that it has no home here but the grave—no pillow on which to forget its cares but the dust. The sight of these wretched old men, turned out from, the little holdings that sheltered their helplessness, to beg a morsel, through utter charity, in the decrepitude of life, was enough to make a man wish that he had never been born to witness such a wanton abuse of that power which was entrusted to man for the purpose of diffusing happiness instead of misery. All these were known to Raymond, who, as far as he could, gave me their brief and unfortunate history. That which showed us, however, the heartless evils of the-clearance system in its immediate operation upon the poorer classes, was the groups of squalid females who traversed the country, accompanied by their pale and sickly looking children, all in a state of mendicancy, and wofully destitute of clothing. The system in this case being to deny their husbands employment upon the property, in order to drive them, by the strong scourge of necessity, off it, the poor men were compelled to seek it elsewhere, whilst their sorrowing and heart-broken families were fain to remain and beg a morsel from those who were best acquainted with the history of their expulsion, and who, consequently, could yield to them and their little ones a more cordial and liberal sympathy. After thus witnessing the consequences of bad management, and worse feeling, in the shape of houses desolate, villages levelled, farms waste, old age homeless, and feeble mothers tottering under their weaker children—after witnessing, I say, all this, we came to the village called Drum Dhu, being one of those out of which these unhappy creatures were so mercilessly driven.
“A village of this description is, to say the least of it, no credit to the landed proprietors of any country. It is the necessary result of a bad system. But we know that if the landlord paid the attention which he ought to pay, to both the rights and duties of his property, a bad system could never be established upon it. I am far from saying, indeed, my dear Spinageberd, there are not cases in which the landlord finds himself in circumstances of great difficulty. Bad, unprincipled, vindictive, and idle tenants enough there are in this country—as I am given to understand from those who know it best—plotting scoundrels, who, like tainted sheep, are not only corrupt themselves, but infect others, whom they bring along with themselves to their proper destination, the gallows. Enough and too many of these there are to be found, who are cruel without cause, and treacherous without provocation; and this is evident, by the criminal records of the country, from which it is clear that it is not in general the aggrieved man who takes justice in his own hands, but the idle profligate I speak of now. Many indeed of all these, it is an act due to public peace and tranquility to dislodge from any and from every estate; but at the same time, it is not just that the many innocent should suffer as well as the guilty few. To return, however, to the landlord. It often happens, that when portions of his property fall out of lease, he finds it over-stocked with a swarm of paupers, who are not his tenants at all and never were—but who in consequence of the vices of sub-letting, have multiplied in proportion to the rapacity and extortion of middle-men, and third-men, and fourth-men—and though last, not least, of the political exigencies of the landlord himself, to serve whose purposes they were laboriously subdivided off into tattered legions of fraud, corruption, and perjury. Having, therefore, either connived at, or encouraged the creation of thess creatures upon his property for corrupt purposes, is he justified, when such a change in the elective franchise has occurred as renders them of no political importance to him, in turning them out of their little holdings, without aid or provision of some sort, and without reflecting besides, that they are in this, the moment of their sorest distress, nothing else than the neglected tools and forgotten victims of his own ambition. Or can he be surprised, after hardening them into the iniquity of half a dozen elections, that he finds fellows in their number who would feel no more scruples in putting a bullet into him from behind a hedge, than they would into a dog? Verily, my dear Simon Spinageberd, the more I look into the political and civil education which the people of Ireland have received, I am only surprised that property in this country rests upon so firm and secure a basis as I find it does.
“On arriving at Drum Dhu, the spectacle which presented itself to us was marked, not merely by the vestiges of inhumanity and bad policy, but by the wanton insolence of sectarian spirit and bitter party feeling. On some of the doors had been written with chalk or charcoal, “Clear off—to hell or Connaught!” “Down with Popery!” “M'Clutchy's cavalry and Ballyhack wreckers for ever!” In accordance with these offensive principles most of all the smaller cottages and cabins had been literally wrecked and left uninhabitable, in the violence of this bad impulse, although at the present moment they are about to be re-erected, to bear out the hollow promises that will be necessary for the forthcoming election. The village was indeed a miserable and frightful scene. There it stood, between thirty and forty small and humble habitations, from which, with the exception of about five or six, all the inmates had been dispossessed, without any consideration for age, sex, poverty, or sickness. Nay, I am assured that a young man was carried out during the agonies of death, and expired in the street, under the fury of a stormy and tempestuous day. Of those who remained, four who are Protestants, and two whom are Catholics, have promised to vote with M'Clutchy, who is here the great representative of Lord Cumber and his property. If, indeed, you were now to look upon these two miserable lines of silent and tenantless walls, most of them unroofed, and tumbled into heaps of green ruin, that are fast melting out of shape, for they were mostly composed of mere peat—you would surely say, as the Eastern Vizier said in the apologue. 'God prosper Mr. Valentine M'Clutchy!—for so long as Lord Cumber has him for an agent, he will never want plenty of ruined villages!' My companion muttered many things to himself, but said nothing intelligible, until he came to one of the ruins pretty near the centre:—
“'Ay,' said he, 'here is the place they said he died—here before the door—and in there is where he lay during his long sickness. The wet thatch and the sods is lying there now. Many a time I was with him. Poor Torley!'
“'Of whom do you speak now, Raymond?' I asked.
“'Come away,' he said, not noticing my question,—'come till I show you the other place that the neighbors built privately when he was dying—the father I mean—ay, and the other wid the white head, him that wouldn't waken—come.'