It stands very well on one high bank of the river, a residence of the Earl of Wicklow occupying the other bank. My jarvey called my attention to the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort has spent “a deal of money,” as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle. The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourers very intelligent and willing both to learn and to work. Evidently here is another centre of useful and civilising influences, not managed by an “absentee.”[23]
CHAPTER XIV.
DUBLIN, Friday, March 9th.—At 7.40 this morning I took the train for Athy to visit the Luggacurren estates of Lord Lansdowne. Mr. Lynch, a resident magistrate here, some time ago kindly offered to show me over the place, but I thought it as well to take my chance with the people of Athy who are reported to have been very hot over the whole matter here, and so wrote to Mr. Lynch that I would find him at the Lodge, which is the headquarters of the property.
Athy is a neat, well-built little town, famous of old as a frontier fortress of Kildare. An embattled tower, flanked by small square turrets, guards a picturesque old bridge here over the Barrow, the bridge being known in the country as “Crom-a-boo,” from the old war-cry of the Fitz-Geralds. It is a busy place now; and there was quite a bustle at the very pretty little station. I asked a friendly old porter which was the best hotel in the town. “The best? Ah! there’s only one, and it’s not the best—but there are worse—and it’s Kavanagh’s.” I found it easily enough, and was ushered by a civil man, who emerged from the shop which occupies part of it, into a sort of reading-room with a green table. A rather slatternly but very active girl soon converted this into a neat breakfast-table, and gave me an excellent breakfast. The landlord found me a good car, and off I set for the residence of Father Maher, the curate of whom I had heard as one of the most fiery and intractable of the National League priests in this part of Ireland.
My jarvey was rather taciturn at first, but turned out to be something of a politician. He wanted Home Rule, one of his reasons being that then they “wouldn’t let the Americans come and ruin them altogether, driving out the grain from the markets.” About this he was very clear and positive. “Oh, it doesn’t matter now whether the land is good or bad, America has just ruined the farmers entirely.”
I told him I had always heard this achievement attributed to England. “Oh! that was quite a mistake! What the English did was to punish the men that stood up for Ireland. There was Mr. O’Brien. But for him there wasn’t a man of Lord Lansdowne’s people would have had the heart to stand up. He did it all; and now, what were they doing to him? They were putting him on a cold plank-bed on a stone floor in a damp cell!”
“But the English put all their prisoners in those cells, don’t they?” I asked.
“And what of it, sir?” he retorted. “They’re good enough for most of them, but not for a gentleman like Mr. O’Brien, that would spill the last drop of his heart’s blood for Ireland!”
“But,” I said, “they’re doing just the same thing with Mr. Gilhooly, I hear.”
“And who is Mr. Gilhooly, now? And it’s not for the likes of him to complain and be putting on airs as if he was Mr. O’Brien!”