The turfed and terraced walks among those conservatories are indescribably lovely, and the whole place to-day was vocal with innumerable birds. Picturesque little cottages and arbours are to be found in unexpected nooks all through the woodlands, each commanding some green vista of forest aisles, or some wide view of hill and champaign, enlivened by the winding river. From one of those to-day we looked out over a landscape to which Turner alone or Claude could have done justice, the river, spanned by a fine bridge, in the middle distance, and all the region wooded as in the days of which Edmund Spenser sings, when Ireland
“Flourished in fame,
Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest
Of all that bears the British Islands’ name.”
Over the whole place broods an indefinable charm. You feel that this was the home at once and the work of a refined and thoughtful spirit. And so indeed it was. Here for the greater part of the current century the owner lived, making the development of the estate and of this demesne his constant care and chief pleasure. And here still lives his widow, with whom we took tea in a stately quiet drawing-room. Lady Louisa Tighe was in Brussels with her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, on the eve of Waterloo. She was a child then of ten years old, and her mother bade them bring her down into the historic ball-room before the Duke of Wellington left it. The duke took up his sword. “Let Louisa buckle it for you,” said her mother, and when the little girl had girded it on, the great captain stooped, took her up in his arms, and kissed her. “One never knows what may happen, child,” he said good-naturedly; and taking his small gold watch out of his fob, he bade her keep it for him.
She keeps it still. For more than sixty years it has measured out in this beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works and gracious usefulness. To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in the people and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, this charming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years in her carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minute and most interesting accounts of the local industries which flourish here mainly through her sympathetic and intelligent supervision. We seemed to be in another world from the Ireland of Chicago or Westminster!
Mr. Seigne drove me back here by a most picturesque road leading along the banks of the Nore, quite overhung with trees, which in places dip their branches almost into the swift deep stream. “This is the favourite drive of all the lovers hereabouts,” he said, “and there is a spice of danger in it which makes it more romantic. Once, not very long ago, a couple of young people, too absorbed in their love-making to watch their horse, drove off the bank. Luckily for them they fell into the branches of one of these overhanging trees, while the horse and car went plunging into the water. There they swung, holding each other hand in hand, making a pretty and pathetic tableau, till their cries brought some anglers in a boat on the river to the rescue.”
We spoke of Lady Louisa, and of the watch of Waterloo. “That watch had a wonderful escape a few years ago,” said Mr. Seigne.
Lady Louisa, it seems, had a confidential butler whom she most implicitly trusted. One day it was found that a burglary had apparently been committed at Woodstock, and that with a quantity of jewelry the priceless watch had vanished. The butler was very active about the matter, and as no trace could be found leading out of the house, he intimated a suspicion that the affair might possibly have some connection with a guest not long before at the house. This angered Lady Louisa, who thereupon consulted the agent, who employed a capable detective from Dublin. The detective came down to Inistiogue as a commercial traveller, wandered about, made the acquaintance of Lady Louisa’s maid, of the butler, and of other people about the house, and formed his own conclusions. Two or three days after his arrival he walked into the shop of a small jeweller in a neighbouring town, and affecting a confidential manner, told the jeweller he wanted to buy “some of those things from Woodstock.” The man was taken by surprise, and going into a backshop produced one very fine diamond, and a number of pieces of silver plate, of the disappearance of which the butler had said nothing to his mistress. This led to the arrest of the butler, and to the discovery that for a long time he had been purloining property from the house and selling it. Many cases of excellent claret had found their way in this fashion to a public-house which had acquired quite a reputation for its Bordeaux with the officers quartered in its neighbourhood. The wine-bins at Woodstock were found full of bottles of water. Much of the capital port left by Colonel Tighe had gone—but the hock was untouched. “Probably the butler didn’t care for hock,” said Mr. Seigne. The Waterloo watch was recovered from a very decent fellow, a travelling dealer, to whom it had been sold: and many pieces of jewelry were traced up to London. But Lady Louisa could not be induced to go up to London to identify them or testify.
DUBLIN, Tuesday, March 6.—It is a curious fact, which I learned to-day from the Registrar-General, that the deposits in the Post-office Savings Banks have never diminished in Ireland since these banks were established.[21] These deposits are chiefly made, I understand, by the small tenants, who are less represented by the deposits in the General Savings Banks than are the shopkeepers and the cattle-drovers. In the General Savings Banks the deposit line fluctuates more; though on the whole there has been a steady increase in these deposits also throughout Ireland.
Of the details of the dealings of the private banks it is very hard to get an accurate account. One gentleman, the manager of a branch of one important bank, tells me that a great deal of money is made by usurers out of the tenants, by backing their small bills. This practice goes back to the first establishment of banks in Ireland. Formerly it was not an uncommon thing for a landlord to offer his tenants a reduction, say, of twenty per cent., on condition of their paying the rent when it fell due. Such were the relations then between landlord and tenants, and so little was punctuality expected in such payments that this might be regarded as a sort of discount arrangement. The tenant who wished to avail himself of such an offer would go to some friendly local usurer and ask for a loan that he might avail himself of it. “One of these usurers, whom I knew very well,” said the manager, “told me long ago that he found these operations very profitable. His method of procedure was to agree to advance the rent to the tenant at ten per cent., payable at a near and certain date. This would reduce the landlord’s reduction at once, of course, for the tenant, to ten per cent., but that was not to be disdained; and so the bargain would be struck. If the money was repaid at the fixed date, it was not a bad thing for the usurer. But it was almost never so repaid; and with repeated renewals the usurer, by his own showing, used to receive eventually twenty, fifty, and, in some cases, nearly a hundred per cent, for his loan.”
It is the opinion of this gentleman that, under the “Plan of Campaign,” a good deal of money-making is done in a quiet way by some of the “trustees,” who turn over at good interest, with the help of friendly financiers, the funds lodged with them, being held to account to the tenants only for the principal. “Of course,” he said, “all this is doubtless at least as legitimate as any other part of the ‘Plan,’ and I daresay it all goes for ‘the good of the cause.’ But neither the tenants nor the landlords get much by it!”