THIRD ERA
From that day, the pestilence began to abate in violence. The cases ofdisease became fewer and less fatal; and at last, like a spent bolt, themalady ceased to work its mischief. Men were slow enough to recognisethis bettered aspect of their fortune. Calamity had weighed too heavilyon them to make them rally at once. They still walked like those whofelt the shadow of death upon them, and were fearful lest any imprudentact or word might bring back the plague among them.
With time, however, these features passed off: people gradually resumedtheir wonted habits; and, except where the work of death had been morethan ordinarily destructive, the malady was now treated as "a thing thathad been."
If Owen Connor had not escaped the common misfortune of the land,he could at least date one happy event from that sad period--hisreconciliation with Phil Joyce. This was no passing friendship. Thedreadful scenes he had witnessed about him had made Phil an alteredcharacter. The devotion of Owen--his manly indifference to personalrisk whenever his services were wanted by another--his unsparingbenevolence,--all these traits, the mention of which at first onlyirritated and vexed his soul, were now remembered in the day ofreconciliation; and none felt prouder to acknowledge his friendship thanhis former enemy.
Notwithstanding all this, Owen did not dare to found a hope upon hischange of fortune; for Mary was even more distant and cold to him thanever, as though to shew that, whatever expectations he might conceivefrom her brother's friendship, he should not reckon too confidently onher feelings. Owen knew not how far he had himself to blame for this; hewas not aware that his own constrained manner, his over-acted reserve,had offended Mary to the quick; and thus, both mutually retreated inmisconception and distrust. The game of love is the same, whether theplayers be clad in velvet or in hodden grey. Beneath the gilded ceilingsof a palace, or the lowly rafters of a cabin, there are the same hopesand fears, the same jealousies, and distrusts, and despondings; thewiles and stratagems are all alike; for, after all, the stake is humanhappiness, whether he who risks it be a peer or a peasant! While Owenvacillated between hope and fear, now, resolving to hazard an avowalof his love and take his stand on the result, now, deeming it better totrust to time and longer intimacy, other events were happening around,which could not fail to interest him deeply. The new agent had commencedhis campaign with an activity before unknown. Arrears of rent weredemanded to be peremptorily paid up; leases, whose exact conditions hadnot been fulfilled, were declared void; tenants occupying sub-letland were noticed to quit; and all the threatening signs of that rigidmanagement displayed, by which an estate is assumed to be "admirablyregulated," and the agent's duty most creditably discharged.
Many of the arrears were concessions made by the landlord in seasons ofhardship and distress, but were unrecorded as such in the rent-roll orthe tenant's receipt. There had been no intention of ever redemandingthem; and both parties had lost sight of the transaction until the sharpglance of a "new agent" discovered their existence. So of the leases:covenants to build, or plant, or drain, were inserted rather ascontingencies, which prosperity might empower, than as actual conditionsessential to be fulfilled; and as for sub-letting, it was simply the actby which a son or a daughter was portioned in the world, and enabled tocommence the work of self-maintenance.
This slovenly system inflicted many evils. The demand of an extravagantrent rendered an abatement not a boon, but an act of imperativenecessity; and while the overhanging debt supplied the landlord with ameans of tyranny, it deprived the tenant of all desire to improve hiscondition. "Why should I labour," said he, "when the benefit never canbe mine?" The landlord then declaimed against ingratitude, at the timethat the peasant spoke against oppression. Could they both be right? Theimpossibility of ever becoming independent soon suggested that doggedindifference, too often confounded with indolent habits. Sustenance wasenough for him, who, if he earned more, should surrender it; hence thepoor man became chained to his poverty. It was a weight which grew withhis strength; privations might as well be incurred with little labour aswith great; and he sunk down to the condition of a mere drudge, carelessand despondent. "He can only take all I have!" was the cottier'sphilosophy; and the maxim suggested a corollary, that the "all" shouldbe as little as might be.
But there were other grievances flowing from this source. The extent ofthese abatements usually depended on the representation of the tenantsthemselves, and such evidences as they could produce of their povertyand destitution. Hence a whole world of falsehood and dissimulation wasfostered. Cabins were suffered to stand half-roofed; children left toshiver in rags and nakedness; age and infirmity exhibited in attitudesof afflicting privation; habits of mendicity encouraged;--all, thatthey might impose upon the proprietor, and make him believe that anysum wrung from such as these must be an act of cruelty. If these schemeswere sometimes successful, so in their failure they fell as heavypenalties upon the really destitute, for whose privations no pity wasfelt. Their misery, confounded in the general mass of dissimulation, wasneglected; and for one who prospered in his falsehood, many were visitedin their affliction.
That men in such circumstances as these should listen with greedyears to any representation which reflected heavily on their wealthierneighbours, is little to be wondered at. The triumph of knavery andfalsehood is a bad lesson for any people; but the fruitlessness ofhonest industry is, if possible, a worse one. Both were well taught bythis system. And these things took place, not, be it observed, when thelandlord or his agent were cruel and exacting--very far from it.They were the instances so popularly expatiated on by newspapers andjournals; they were the cases headed--"Example for Landlords!" "TimelyBenevolence!" and paragraphed thus:--"We learn, with the greatestpleasure, that Mr. Muldrennin, of Kilbally-drennin, has, inconsideration of the failure of the potato-crop, and the severe pressureof the season, kindly abated five per cent of all his rents. Let thisadmirable example be generally followed, and we shall once more see,"&c. &c. There was no explanatory note to state the actual condition ofthat tenantry, or the amount of that rent from which the deduction wasmade. Mr. Muldrennin was then free to run his career of active pufferythroughout the kingdom, and his tenantry to starve on as before.
Of all worldly judgments there is one that never fails. No man wasever instrumental, either actively or through neglect, to another'sdemoralisation, that he was not made to feel the recoil of his conducton himself. Such had been palpably the result here. The confidence ofthe people lost, they had taken to themselves the only advisers in theirpower, and taught themselves to suppose that relief can only be effectedby legislative enactments, or their own efforts. This lesson oncelearned, and they were politicians for life. The consequence hasbeen, isolation from him to whom once all respect and attachment wererendered; distrust and dislike follow--would that the catalogue went nofurther!
And again to our story. Owen was at last reminded, by the conversationof those about, that he too had received a summons from the new agent toattend at his office in Galway--a visit which, somehow or other, he hadat first totally neglected; and, as the summons was not repeated,he finally supposed had been withdrawn by the agent, on learning thecondition of his holding. As September drew to a close, however, heaccompanied Phil Joyce on his way to Galway, prepared, if need be, topay the half-year's rent, but ardently hoping the while it might neverbe demanded. It was a happy morning for poor Owen--the happiest ofhis whole life. He had gone over early to breakfast at Joyce's, and onreaching the house found Mary alone, getting ready the meal. Their usualdistance in manner continued for some time; each talked of what theirthoughts were least occupied on; and at last, after many a look from thewindow to see if Phil was coming, and wondering why he did not arrive,Owen drew a heavy sigh and said, "It's no use, Mary; divil a longer Ican be suffering this way; take me or refuse me you must this morning!I know well enough you don't care for me; but if ye don't like any oneelse better, who knows but in time, and with God's blessin', but ye'llbe as fond of me, as I am of you?"
"An
d who told ye I didn't like some one else?" said Mary, with a slyglance; and her handsome features brightened up with a more than commonbrilliancy.
"The heavens make him good enough to desarve ye, I pray this day!" saidOwen, with a trembling lip. "I'll go now! that's enough!"
"Won't ye wait for yer breakfast, Owen Connor? Won't ye stay a bit formy brother?"
"No, thank ye, ma'am. I'll not go into Galway to-day."
"Well, but don't go without your breakfast. Take a cup of tay anyhow,Owen dear!"
"Owen dear! O Mary, jewel! don't say them words, and I laving you forever."
The young girl blushed deeply and turned away her head, but hercrimsoned neck shewed that her shame was not departed. At the moment,Phil burst