The Absentee (22 page)

'It does not look like the hand of a gentleman, indeed,' said Lord
Colambre.

'It has Lord Clonbrony's own signature, let it be what it will,' said
Mr. Burke, looking closely at it; 'Lord Clonbrony's own writing the
signature is, I am clear of that.'

Lord Clonbrony's son was clear of it also; but he took care not to give
any opinion on that point.

'Oh, pray, read it, sir, read it,' said Mrs. Burke, pleased by his tone
of indignation; 'read it, pray; a gentleman may write a bad hand, but no
GENTLEMAN could write such a letter as that to Mr. Burke—pray read it,
sir; you who have seen something of what Mr. Burke has done for the town
of Colambre, and what he has made of the tenantry and the estate of Lord
Clonbrony.'

Lord Colambre read, and was convinced that his father had never written
or read the letter, but had signed it, trusting to Sir Terence O'Fay's
having expressed his sentiments properly.

SIR, As I have no further occasion for your services, you will take
notice, that I hereby request you will forthwith hand over, on or before
the 1st of November next, your accounts, with the balance due of the
HANGING-GALE (which, I understand, is more than ought to be at this
season) to Nicholas O'Garraghty, Esq., College Green, Dublin, who in
future will act as agent, and shall get, by post, immediately, a power
of attorney for the same, entitling him to receive and manage the
Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate, for, Sir, your obedient humble
servant, CLONBRONY.

'GROSVENOR SQUARE.'

Though misrepresentation, caprice, or interest, might have induced Lord
Clonbrony to desire to change his agent, yet Lord Colambre knew that his
father never could have announced his wishes in such a style; and, as he
returned the letter to Mrs. Burke, he repeated, he was convinced that it
was impossible that any nobleman could have written such a letter; that
it must have been written by some inferior person; and that his lordship
had signed it without reading it.

'My dear, I'm sorry you showed that letter to Mr. Evans,' said Mr.
Burke; 'I don't like to expose Lord Clonbrony; he is a well-meaning
gentleman, misled by ignorant or designing people; at all events, it is
not for us to expose him.'

'He has exposed himself,' said Mrs. Burke; 'and the world should know
it.'

'He was very kind to me when I was a young man,' said Mr. Burke; 'we
must not forget that now, because we are angry, my love.'

'Why, no, my love, to be sure we should not; but who could have
recollected it just at this minute but yourself?—And now, sir,' turning
to Lord Colambre, 'you see what kind of a man this is: now is it not
difficult for me to bear patiently to see him ill-treated?'

'Not only difficult, but impossible, I should think, madam,' said Lord
Colambre; 'I know, even I, who am a stranger, cannot help feeling for
both of you, as you must see I do.'

'And half the world, who don't know him,' continued Mrs. Burke, 'when
they hear that Lord Clonbrony's agency is taken from him, will think,
perhaps, that he is to blame.'

'No, madam,' said Lord Colambre; 'that you need not fear; Mr. Burke may
safely trust to his character; from what I have within these two days
seen and heard, I am convinced that such is the respect he has deserved
and acquired, that no blame can touch him.'

'Sir, I thank you,' said Mrs. Burke, the tears coming into her eyes;
'you can judge—you do him justice; but there are so many who don't know
him, and who will decide without knowing any of the facts.'

'That, my dear, happens about everything to everybody,' said Mr. Burke;
'but we must have patience; time sets all judgments right, sooner or
later.'

'But the sooner the better,' said Mrs. Burke. 'Mr. Evans, I hope you
will be so kind, if ever you hear this business talked of—'

'Mr. Evans lives in Wales, my dear.'

But he is travelling through Ireland, my dear, and he said he should
return to Dublin, and, you know, there he certainly will hear it talked
of; and I hope he will do me the favour to state what he has seen and
knows to be the truth.'

'Be assured that I will do Mr. Burke justice—as far as it is in my
power,' said Lord Colambre, restraining himself much, that he might not
say more than became his assumed character. He took leave of this worthy
family that night, and, early the next morning, departed.

'Ah!' thought he, as he drove away from this well-regulated and
flourishing place, 'how happy I might be, settled here with such a wife
as—her of whom I must think no more.'

He pursued his way to Clonbrony, his father's other estate, which was at
a considerable distance from Colambre; he was resolved to know what
kind of agent Mr. Nicholas Garraghty might be, who was to supersede Mr.
Burke, and by power of attorney to be immediately entitled to receive
and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate.

Towards the evening of the second day's journey, the driver of Lord
Colambre's hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on
which he had been seated, exclaimed—

'We're come to the bad step, now. The bad road's beginning upon us,
please your honour.'

'Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine
roads as you have in Ireland.'

'That's true; and God bless your honour, that's sensible of that same,
for it's not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to
notice. God bless your honour! I heard you're a Welshman, but whether or
no, I am sure you are a gentleman, anyway, Welsh or other.'

Notwithstanding the shabby greatcoat, the shrewd postillion perceived,
by our hero's language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at
the horses' heads, and pushing and lifting, the carriage was got over
what the postillion said was the worst part of THE BAD STEP; but as
the road 'was not yet to say good,' he continued walking beside the
carriage.

'It's only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,' said he, 'on
account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only
a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out
of the roads, and of everything else in life. I, Larry Brady, that
am telling your honour, have a good right to know, for myself, and my
father, and my brother. Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm
under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast
out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in
some coachmaker's yard, in London; banished he is!—and here am I,
forced to be what I am—and now that I'm reduced to drive a hack, the
agent's a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and
wheels and a shame to the country, which I think more of—Bad luck to
him!'

'I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long Acre, in
London.'

'Oh, God bless you for that!'

They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty
men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones,
on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which
they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw
the carriage. The chaise passed between these batteries, the stones
flying on all sides.

'How are you, Jem?—How are you, Phil?' said Larry. 'But hold your hand,
can't ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses' FEET. So
you're making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?'

'Whoosh!' said one of the pounders, coming close to the postillion, and
pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. 'Who have you in it?'

'Oh, you need not scruple, he's a very honest man; he's only a man from
North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that's sent over to
travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in
it.'

'How do you know, Larry?'

'Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I SEEN him tax
the man of the King's Head, with a copper half-crown, at first sight,
which was only lead to look at, you'd think, to them that was not
skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linch-pin out of the
hedge, for this one won't go far.'

Whilst Larry was making the linch-pin, all scruple being removed, his
question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered.

'Ay, it's the rint, sure enough, we're pounding out for him; for he
sent the driver round last-night-was-eight days, to warn us old Nick
would be down a'-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there's only six
clear days, Saturday night, before the assizes, sure; so we must see
and get it finished anyway, to clear the presentment again' the swearing
day, for he and Paddy Hart is the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to
swear to it.'

'St. Dennis, is it? Then you've one great comfort and security—that he
won't be PARTICULAR about the swearing; for since ever he had his head
on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis's throat, more than
in his own brother, old Nick's.'

'His head upon his shoulders!' repeated Lord Colambre. 'Pray, did you
ever hear that St. Dennis's head was off his shoulders?'

'It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.'

'Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head
in his hand?' said Colambre.

'The RAEL saint!' said the postillion, suddenly changing his tone, and
looking shocked. 'Oh, don't be talking that way of the saints, plase
your honour.'

'Then of what St, Dennis were you talking just now?—Whom do you mean by
St. Dennis, and whom do you call old Nick?'

'Old Nick,' answered the postillion, coming close to the side of the
carriage, and whispering—'Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname
for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College Green, Dublin, and St.
Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is old Nick's brother in all things,
and would fain be a saint, only he is a sinner. He lives just by
here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as old Nick is
upper-agent—it's only a joke among the people, that are not fond of
them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was
not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and everything to the
likes of them.'

Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but
the postillion having now made his linch-pin of wood, and FIXED HIMSELF;
he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked
at the road-makers—

'Poor CRATURES! They couldn't keep their cattle out of pound, or
themselves out of jail, but by making this road.'

'Is road-making, then, a very profitable business?—Have road-makers
higher wages than other men in this part of the country?'

'It is, and it is not—they have, and they have not—plase your honour.'

'I don't understand you.'

'No, becaase you're an Englishman—that is, a Welshman—I beg your
honour's pardon. But I'll tell you how that is, and I'll go slow
over these broken stones for I can't go fast: it is where there's no
jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and
when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords,
to poor cratures at a rack-rent, that they can't live and pay the rent,
they say—'

'Who says?'

'Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all—but SOME,
like Dennis, says, says he, "I'll get you a road to make up the rent:"
that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so
many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would
make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by
contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by
the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for
the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour SENSIBLE?'
(Do I make you
understand?)

'You make me much more sensible than I ever was before,' said Lord
Colambre; 'but is not this cheating the county?'

'Well, and suppose,' replied Larry, 'is not it all for my good, and
yours too, plase your honour?' said Larry, looking very shrewdly.

'My good!' said Lord Colambre, startled. 'What have I to do with it?'

'Haven't you to do with the roads as well as me, when you're travelling
upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they'd never be got made at all,
if they weren't made this ways; and it's the best way in the wide world,
and the finest roads we have. And when the RAEL jantlemen's resident in
the country, there's no jobbing can be, because they're then the leading
men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in
order, and all's right.'

Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry's knowledge of the manner in
which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense:
he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in
Ireland.

Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side
at the desolation of the prospect.

'So this is Lord Clonbrony's estate, is it?'

'Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord
Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was
paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next?—Why,
what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left
o' purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And
next, the cattle was let in trespassing, and winked at, till the land
was all poached; and then the land was waste, and cried down; and St.
Dennis wrote up to Dublin to old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how
none would take it, or bid anything at all for it; so then it fell to
him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows 'em, if I don't?'

Presently, Lord Colambre's attention was roused again, by seeing a man
running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside; he leaped
over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled
at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postillion,
Larry nodded, and he smiled and said—