“I lived at North Brookfield in Massachusetts, a year or two,” he replied, “with Governor Amasa Walker. Did you know him? He was a good man; he was fond of the people, but he thought too much of the nagurs.”
“Yes,” I answered; “I know all about him, and he was, as you say, a very good man, even if he was an abolitionist. But why didn’t you stay in North Brookfield?”
“Oh, it was a poor country indeed! A blast of wind would blow all the ground away there was! It does no good to the people, going to America,” he said; “they come back worse than they went!”
He is at work now in some quarries here.
“The quarrymen get six shillings a week,” he said, “with bread and tea and butter and meat three times a week. With nine shillings a week and board, a man’ll make himself bigger than * * *!”
“Was the country quiet now?”
“This country here? Oh! it’s very quiet; with potatoes at 3s. 6d. a barrel, it’s a good year for the people. They’re a very quiet people,”—in corroboration apparently of which statement he told me a story of a coroner’s jury called to sit on the body of a man found on the highway shot through the head, which returned an unanimous verdict of “Died by the visitation of God.”
This country is dominated by the Rocky Hills climbing up to Cullenagh, which divides the Barrow valley from the Nore. We drove this afternoon to * a most lovely place. The mansion there is now shut up and dismantled, but the park and the grounds are very beautiful, with a beauty rather enhanced than diminished by the somewhat unkempt luxuriance of the vegetation. We passed a now well-grown tree planted by the Prince of Wales * * * * * * and drove over many miles of excellent road made by * * * * * * * * employs * * * * * * * * regularly, * * * men as labourers, cartmen and masons, to whom he pays out annually the sum of * * Mr. * * who, by the way, rather resented my asking him if he came of one of the Cromwellian English families so numerous here, and informed me that his people came over with Strongbow—assures me that but for these works of * * * * these men under him would be literally without occupation. In addition to these there are about a dozen more men employed * * as gamekeepers and plantation-men. At the * * places belonging to * * * * * * * * * * above eighty men find constant employment, and receive regular wages amounting to over £4000. Were * * * * dispossessed or driven out of Ireland, all this outlay would come to an end, and with what result to these working-men? As things now are, while * * * working-men receive a regular wage of five shillings, the same men, as farmers’ labourers, would receive, now and then, five shillings a week, and that without food! I saw enough in the course of our afternoon’s drive to satisfy me that my informant of the morning had probably not overstated matters when he told me that for at least seventy per cent. of the work done by the labourers here, from November to May, they have to look to the landlords. On the property of * * as well as on the neighbouring properties * * * * * * * the houses have been generally put up by the landlords. We called in the course of the afternoon upon a labouring man who lives with his wife in a very neat, cozy, and quite new house, built recently for him by * *. These good people have been living on this property for now nearly half a century. Their new house having been built for them, * * has had an agreement prepared, under which it may be secured to them. The terms have all been discussed and found satisfactory, but the old labourer now hesitates about signing the agreement. He gives, and can be got to give, no reason for this; but when we drove up he came out to greet us in the most friendly manner. We went in and found his wife, a shrewd, sharp-eyed, little old dame, with whom * * * * fell into a confabulation, while I went into the next room with the labourer himself. The house was neatly furnished—with little ornaments and photographs on the mantel-shelf, and nothing of the happy-go-lucky look so common about the houses of the working people in Ireland, as well as about the houses of the lesser squires.
I paid him a compliment on the appearance of his house and grounds. “Yes, sir!” he answered: “it’s a very good place it is, and * * * * has built it just to please us.”
“But I am told you want to leave it?”