Part 13 (1/2)
”'Sure, 'tis to balance it,' says Barney, mighty surprised an' laffin widin himself at the Englishman's ignorance. 'Sure,' says Barney, 'ye wouldn't have a c.o.c.k-eyed load on the baste, all swingin' on one side, like a pig wid one ear, would ye?' says he.
”But this Englishman was one of thim stiff sort that doesn't know whin he's bate, an' he went on arguin'. Says he--
”'But couldn't you put the half of the fish in one pannier, and the other half in the other pannier, instead of putting all the fish in one, and filling up the other with stones?' says he. 'Wouldn't that balance the load?' says he. 'And wouldn't that be only half the load for the poor baste?' says he. An' Barney sthruggled a bit till he got a fair grip iv it, d'ye see, but by the sivin pipers that played before Moses, he couldn't see the way to answer this big word of the Englishman; so he says, says he, 'Musha, 'twas me father's way, rest his sowl,' says he. 'An' would I be settin' meself up to be bettherin'
his larnin'?' says he. 'Not one o' me would show him sich impidence and disrespect,' says he. 'An' I'll carry the rocks till I die, glory be to G.o.d,' says he.
”Now what could ye do with the like iv _him_?”
Mr. Armour, who lived five years near Sligo, said:--”The Connaught folks have no idea of preparing for to-morrow. They are almost entirely dest.i.tute of self-reliance. So long as they can carry on from one day to another they are quite content. The bit of ground they live on is not half cultivated. In the summer time you may see two or even three crops growing up together. If they had potatoes on last, they got them up in the most slovenly way, leaving half the crop in the ground. They just hoak out with a stick or a bit of board what they require for that day's food, picking the large ones and leaving the small ones in the ground. Oats or something else will be seen half-choked with weeds and the growth from the potatoes so left. The slovenliness of these people is most exasperating. Of course they are all Home Rulers in effect, though not in theory. By that I mean that they have no politics, except to produce politicians by their votes.
They know no more of Home Rule than they know of Heidsieck's champagne, or Christmas strawberries, or soap and water, or any other unknown commodity. They are precisely where their ancestors were, except for the crop of potatoes, which enables them to exist in greater luxury and with less trouble. Their way is to plant the potatoes, dig them as required, and live on them either with the aid of a cow or with the b.u.t.ter-milk of a neighbour who has a cow. No provision for the future is attempted, because the relatives are sure to provide for the worn-out and sickly. That shows their goodheartedness, but it does away with self-dependence. There are some things so deeply ingrained in the Irish character that nothing and n.o.body can touch them. The very priests themselves cannot move them.
Although these people believe that the priests could set them on fire from head to heel, or strike them paralytic, or refuse them entrance into heaven, yet the force of habit is so great, and the dread of public opinion is so powerful, that the people, so long as they remain in Ireland, will never depart a hair's-breadth from the old ways.”
A woman who washed and tidied her children would be a mark for every bitter tongue in the parish. A striking case came under my own observation. A woman of the place was speaking most bitterly of another, and she finished up with,--
”She's the lady all out, niver fear. Shure, she washes and dhresses the childer ivery mornin', and turns out the girls wid hats on their heads an' shoes on their feet. Divil a less would sarve her turn! She has a brick flure to her house, an' she washes it--divil a lie I tell ye--she washes it--wid wather--an' wid soap an' wather, ivery Sattherday in the week! The saints betune us an' harm, but all she wants now is to turn Protestant altogether!”
Four miles away is the village of Carnaun, and there I met Philip Fahy, with his son Michael, and another young fellow, all three returning from field work, wearily toiling along the rocky road which runs through the estate of Major Lobdell. The party stopped and sat down to smoke with me. The senior took the lead, not with a brogue but with an accent, translating from the Irish vernacular as he went on.
”Long ye may live! We're glad we met ye, thanks be to G.o.d. Yer honner's glory is the foinest, splindidist man I seen this twinty year. May G.o.d protect ye! 'Tis weary work we does. That foine, big boy ye see foreninst ye, has eighteenpence a day, nine s.h.i.+llin' a week.
'Tis not enough to support him properly. I have a son in England, the cliverist lad ye seen this many a day. Sich a scholar, 'twould be no discredit to have the Queen for his aunt, no it wouldn't. No, he's only just gone, an' I didn't hear from him yet. I didn't tell ye where he'd be, for I wouldn't know meself. But me other boys is goin', for they tell me things will be afther getting worse. G.o.d help us, an'
stand betune us an harm! Did ye hear of the Home Rule Bill? What does it mane at all, at all? Not one of us knows, more than that lump of stone ye sit on. Will it give us the land for nothin'? for that's all we hear. We'd be obliged av ye could axplain it a thrifle, for sorra a one but's bad off, an' Father O'Baithers.h.i.+n says, Howld yer whist, says he, till ye see what'll happen, says he. Will we get the bit o'
ground without rint, yer honner's glory?”
Philip was dressed for agricultural work in the following style, which is clearly considered the correct thing in Galway. One tall ”top-hat,”
with a long fur like that of a mangy rabbit, waving to the jocund zephyrs of Carnaun; one cut-away coat of very thick homespun cloth, having five bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on each breast; breeches and leggings and stout boots completed the outfit, which fitted like a sentry-box, and bore a curiously caricatured resemblance to the Court suit of a Cabinet Minister in full war-paint. The spades with which the labourers till the ground are strange to the English eye, and seem calculated to get through the smallest amount of work with the greatest amount of labour. That they were spades at all was more than I could make out. ”What are those implements?” I asked, to which the answer came, ”Have ye no shpades in England thin!”
The business end is about two feet long and not more than three inches broad, with a sort of shoulder for the foot. The handles are about six feet long and end like a mop-stick, without any crossbar. A slight alteration would turn these tools into pikes, a much more likely operation than the beating of swords into plough-shares and spears into pruning-hooks. Meanwhile the length of the handle keeps the worker from too dangerous proximity to his work. There is a broader pattern of blade, but the handle is always of the same sanitary length. The children of the soil turn it over at a wholesome distance.
They keep six feet of pole between the earth and their n.o.bility. Small blame to them for that same! Shure the wuruld will be afther thim.
Shure there's no sinse at all, at all, in workin' life out to kape life in.
”Ah, no,” said Misther Fahy. ”That tobacky has no strinth in it. We get no satisfaction out iv it. We shmoked a pipe iv it to make frinds, but we'd not shmoke another. 'Tis like chopped hay or tay-leaves, it is. Will we walk back wid yer honner's glory? 'Tis only four miles, it is. No, we bur-rn no powdher here. But on the other side, above Athenry, 'tis there ye'll see the foin shootin'. Thims the boys for powdher an' shot! 'Tis more than nine they shot, aye, and more than tin it was. An' sarve thim right, if they must turn the people out, an' have their own way. May the Lord protect ye! May angels make yer bed this night! Long may ye live, an' yer sowl to glory!”
I had written so far, when glancing through the window, I saw a familiar form, a rosy, healthy, florid gentleman parading on the lawn which fronts the Railway Hotel, puffing a cigarette, briskly turning and returning with something of the motion of a captive lion. I knew that pinky cheek, I knew that bright blue eye; yet here, in the wilds of Galway who could it be? He plays with two sportive spaniels, and cries ”Down, Sir, down.” Thy voice bewrayeth thee, member for North Galway! The Parnellitic Colonel Nolan, thou, _in propria persona_.
What makes he here? When the great Bill impends, why flee the festive scene? I'll speak a little with this learned Theban. I board him, as the French say. For a moment he regards me with suspicion--with a kind of vade-in-retro-Satanas air--but presently he goes ahead. A fair at Tuam, which he never misses. Has paired with somebody, Pierpoint he thinks is the name. His vote will therefore not be lost to his side.
”Nothing will now be done before Whitsuntide. Both parties will be on their best behaviour. The Conservatives and obstruction, the Liberals and closure. Strategy to obtain some show of advantage at the recess is now the little game. Knows not what will happen _re_ Home Rule. The English Liberals not now so confident as they were. The Government may be ruined by liquor. 'Tis the fate of Liberal Governments to be ruined by drink. The Government of 1874 and the next Liberal Cabinet went to the dogs on liquor. And if the English people are called upon to give a verdict on a local option bill, the result is rather uncertain.
Chances perhaps against Mr. Gladstone. The Home Rule question is now quite worked up. The English people are now satisfied to have Home Rule, but some intervening question might delay its final settlement.
No, the agitation of the past four or five months had not changed the position one bit. No amount of agitation would now make any difference at all.”
From the probable wrecking of the Gladstonian Cabinet on ”liquor” to the question of Customs, or, as Colonel Nolan preferred to call it, of Excise, was but an easy step. By a simple _adagio_ movement I modulated into the Customs question, mentioning the opinion given to me by Mr. John Jameson himself. The Colonel did not deny, nor admit, that the Irish people were excellent smugglers, but thought the fears of the Unionists exaggerated. He was well aware that smuggling might be carried on--say, on the coast of Connemara and elsewhere, where were roads and bays and natural harbours galore, with a wild and lonely sh.o.r.e far from the centres of Government. Probably at first some money might be lost that way; some little c.h.i.n.ks would doubtless be found; there would be some little leakage. But suppose an initial loss of 100,000 or 200,000, it was not likely that such a state of things would be allowed to continue. As to the argument that the rural police would not then a.s.sist the 1,300 coastguards, who with the police have been sufficient, there was little or no solidity in this a.s.sumption. The Irish Parliament would order the police to a.s.sist, and if they did not execute their orders, or if they allowed themselves to be bribed, and the Irish Parliament did not prosecute them for accepting bribes, then the English Government would step in and put matters right. This is just a typical Home Rule argument, the confidence trick all over. The Colonel thought that after a certain amount of shaking down, everything would work sweetly enough. He said nothing about the Union of Hearts, nor have I yet heard the phrase from an Irishman.
A keen observer resident at the Athenry Hotel says:--”Of those who come here the proportion against Home Rule is not less than twenty to one. Now mark my figures, because they are based on careful notes extending over the last six months. When you have all the money in the country, and all the best brains in the country, against the bill, what good could the bill do if it became law? And while I can see, and all these people can see, no end of risk, disturbance, upset, loss, ruin, and everything that is bad, we cannot see anything at all to compensate for the risk. n.o.body can put his finger on anything and say, 'There, that's the advantage we'll get from the bill.' 'Tis all fancy, pure fancy. Ireland a nation, and a Roman Catholic nation, is the cry. We may get that, but we'll be bankrupt next day. 'Tis like putting a poor man in a grand house without food, furniture, or money, and without credit to raise anything on the building. There now, ye might say, ye have a splendid place that's all your own. But wouldn't the poor man have to leave it, or die of starvation? Of course I wish to respect my clergy, but I think they should not interfere with politics.”
Colonel Nolan said to me: ”The priests wield an immense, an incalculable power. All are on the same path, all hammer away at the one point. It is the persistency, the organisation, that tells. In some cases they have been known to preach for a year and a half at a stretch on political subjects. What is going to stand against that?”
With these golden words I close my letter. The priest holds the sceptre of the British Empire. Circ.u.mstances have placed in his hands an astonis.h.i.+ng opportunity. Nearly every priest in Ireland is using his supernatural credit with one solitary aim. We know their disloyalty, we know they are no friends of England--we know their influence, their organisation, their perseverance, their unscrupulousness, their absolute supremacy in Ireland--and it is high time that England asked herself, in the words of Colonel Nolan--
”What is going to stand against that?”
Athenry (Co. Galway), May 6th.