book_id
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| title
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listlengths 1
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|---|---|---|---|
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do you feel, Leon?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where are we?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're on our way home."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To America?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, to the _douzième_. We'll be there before long."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How are we going?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're in the monoplane,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where's Jacques?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's right here."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But the Germans?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Those that attacked us aren't going to bother us any more. Don't let the thought of them worry you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I don't understand, Leon persisted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What happened?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When we rushed out from the woods, said Earl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So did I, agreed Leon; ruefully passing his hand over his sore and bruised throat."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell me though; how did you pry him off?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well we had a terrible time. Jacques finally cracked him over the head with the butt of his revolver; that finished old Mr. Boche."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Did it kill him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, exclaimed Earl,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How did you manage it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why we just dumped you into the monoplane here and then got aboard ourselves and off we went."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Before the reënforcements arrived I suppose?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just before. As we left the ground and began to rise a whole troop of cavalry came racing into the clearing. They fired at us all right but they didn't touch us and here we are."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It seems queer to me, said Leon,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's what I told Jacques, exclaimed Earl,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not with this paint on it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, but it wouldn't take much trouble to put the distinguishing mark of the German machines on it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I guess we got after them just in time,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We surely did, agreed Earl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We've been pretty lucky so far."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do you feel, Leon?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Only fair, admitted Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My head buzzes some."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've got a bullet wound in your left arm too,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know it. It stings a little but it isn't bad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I guess not, said Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As soon as we get back you can have it attended to and it'll soon heal."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, agreed Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want it cleaned for I can tell you I have no desire to get blood poisoning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No danger of that if you have it looked after soon enough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose they think we're lost back at headquarters,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder if they do, mused Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We've been away quite a while, haven't we?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It seems like months to me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The moon has set."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Has it? I can't see anything from here. How about helping me back into my seat?"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are we still behind the German lines?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Leon wants to know if we are still behind the German lines,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are, said Jacques,"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What is it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rockets, I guess,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What is it, Jacques?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A train."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A German train?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes. Can't you see the sparks from the smoke stack?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I couldn't make out what it is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's a train all right and it is undoubtedly carrying either troops or ammunition."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To be used against our men? exclaimed Earl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If we could only stop it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We can and we will."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But how?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Haven't we bombs with us?"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Get your bombs ready and make 'em sure, he directed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm going down pretty low and we won't be able to waste any time."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yell when you want us to drop the bombs, Jacques,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the best plan I think, said Leon to his brother."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jacques can see better than we can and is able to tell just when we ought to let them go."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If we could only blow up that train,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Perhaps we can."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Get ready,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Whenever you say,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let 'em go!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Two more now,"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look at that!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should say so! shouted Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A perfect hit!"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now for home,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I think we've done a night's work all right,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That bomb certainly landed in the right spot,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What was on that train?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Munitions, said Jacques quickly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Listen to that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is that the train?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It certainly is, exclaimed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess the most of the shells on that train will never do the Allies much harm."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Think what those fellows down below are going through now,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't envy them,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nor I, agreed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We've all been through that though and I suppose we will soon again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Perhaps to-morrow even, exclaimed Earl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder where the _douzième_ is now."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Probably in the thick of that fight,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They are if they have anything to say about it,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What a crowd they are,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Think how many are gone,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And how many are going to go too,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Perhaps we three right here,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Perhaps so, agreed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For me there could be no finer death though than to die with my face to the enemy; to die for my country, fighting for France."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let's hope you may live for France,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She has lost so many of her young men, said Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She needs all she has and she'll need them after the war too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's true, agreed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have you noticed lately that the regiments are made up of older men than they were before? The soldiers now are mostly between thirty and forty, where they used to be between twenty and thirty."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The young armies are gone, said Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Armies of little wooden crosses everywhere along the battle-line show where they have gone, too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We're going down now, announced Jacques suddenly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That is our hangar below there."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How can you see? demanded Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never can see anything at night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have always been very good in the dark, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Here we go."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well done, Jacques, exclaimed Earl warmly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're a wonder."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And I'm stiff and cold,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And so am I,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're wounded,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Scratched you mean,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At any rate you must be attended to at once."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We must make our report first, said Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Isn't that right, Jacques?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is, but I don't think it is necessary for you to be there."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I want to be."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right then, we'll all go together."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Major Villier won't be awake at this time of night I'm afraid,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, yes, he will, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He'll be just as anxious for our report as we are to give it."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We have a man here who is slightly wounded, remarked Jacques to one of the men."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is there any one around here now who can look after him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Right this way, spoke up a soldier quickly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I will care for him."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm all right, Leon maintained stoutly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't know what made me stumble; I guess I must be stiff."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're weak, Leon, said his brother."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you need is rest."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess that's so; a little sleep and I'll be all right again."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come with me, urged the soldier."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will fix your wound."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't report without me, will you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll stop for you surely, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hurry along now."
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That certainly feels better, sighed Leon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am very much obliged to you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is nothing,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is a great deal to me, said Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wonder where the others are."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You had better sit down, said the soldier as Leon tried to rise from his seat."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are tired and your two comrades said they would call for you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know it, exclaimed Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm all right though,"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What happened?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nothing, laughed Earl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How about our report?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That was made just about fifteen hours ago; just after you went to sleep."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But you said you'd stop for me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We did, smiled Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We stopped for you all right, but you'd gone and fainted and then you went to sleep and we thought we'd better not wait."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Did you make your report?"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We certainly did, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Major Villier seemed very much pleased with what we had done and he said he would see to it that we were mentioned at headquarters."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Were they worried about us at all?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They were a little; they had expected us back sooner than we actually did arrive."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What did the major think of our blowing up that train?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It seemed to please him greatly, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In fact he was almost as pleased about that as he was about our having delivered the dispatches safely at Flambeau."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should think he'd been more glad about the train than the dispatches,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We don't know what they were, Jacques reminded him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Evidently they were even more important than blowing up a munition-train."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At any rate I'm glad Major Villier approved of what we did."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He said we got into too many scrapes, laughed Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He said that unless we were careful we might get hurt."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He was joking, wasn't he?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course he was; as though we went around looking for trouble."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want to get up, exclaimed Leon suddenly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want something to eat, too, and I want it quick and I want an awful lot of it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Whew! whistled Jacques smilingly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You must be feeling better."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I never felt so well in my life, cried Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I feel like a king."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I wouldn't care to feel that way, laughed Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As far as I can see there aren't very many kings who are very well off these days."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, then I feel the way kings used to feel, said Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have it any way you want, but give me something to eat."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How would you like to go automobiling after you eat? inquired Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Earl and I are going."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've got to run an ambulance up to the front and we are to start in about fifteen minutes. I need two helpers and if you feel strong enough you may come along."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course I'll go, exclaimed Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What are they doing with you anyway, Jacques? It seems to me you have a new job about every day."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He's general utility man, laughed Earl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It looks so, Leon agreed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "At any rate I don't mind it. I'm rather fond of variety."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you hear about the _douzième_?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell me what has happened to them, demanded Leon quickly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where are they?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There are not many of them left, said Jacques soberly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you remember that bombardment we saw as we flew over the firing line last night?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I do. I remember we wondered if our regiment was in it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well they were all right, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They bore the brunt of the whole attack and if it hadn't been for them I don't know what would have happened."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell me about it,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Boches launched a terrible bombardment on that portion of the line held by the _douzième_, continued Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then they turned loose one of those massed infantry attacks on our trenches and though the _douzième_ was outnumbered nearly four to one they held fast. Not without paying the price though and half of our comrades were either killed or wounded so that they are out of it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Did the Germans take the trench?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They reached it at some points and even entered it; just as things looked blackest, reënforcements arrived and drove them out and saved the trench."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good! cried Leon heartily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It must have been splendid!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "More bloody than splendid I guess, said Earl grimly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think we were pretty lucky to have missed it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So do I, agreed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Still I hate to be absent when the rest of our regiment is fighting."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Weren't you fighting all that time?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, yes, but somehow I feel so much safer up in the air than I do in the trenches."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There aren't many safe spots left in Europe now anyway, I guess,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nor any other place in the world, for that matter, added Leon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just stop a minute and think where there have been battles fought in this war."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Pretty nearly every place you can think of,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know it; in France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Austria, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, China--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What was in China?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Kiao Chau. Don't you know that port the Japanese and English took from the Germans?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's right. Then there is or has been fighting in Armenia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Africa, the Marshall Islands and all those islands down around Australia; Zeppelins have raided England."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, exclaimed Leon,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's awful, isn't it? said Earl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And right at home in America the Germans have been blowing up factories that were making arms for the Allies; they've also been putting bombs on ships."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why doesn't your country stop that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't ask me, exclaimed Earl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish they would; if they'd deal with some of those plotters the way any European government would, I think all that trouble would end. We're too good to people in the United States."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's right, agreed Leon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We offer them our hospitality and give them a chance to earn a good living and then they turn on us."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Some day the people of the United States will turn on them,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's just what will happen, exclaimed Earl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They will stand for a lot over there and they don't get angry easily; people like that are the worst kind when they do lose their tempers. One of these days they'll all get mad and those trouble makers will wake up to find that they've been playing with fire."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There's our ambulance, said Jacques suddenly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come along."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A gas attack,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Boches using gas again? exclaimed Jacques."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's bad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That means work for the ambulances and hospitals, remarked Leon soberly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the worst death of all."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But we all have masks,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thank goodness we have! muttered Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All ready?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Go ahead,"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I suppose we'll be busy for a long while now,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, there'll be plenty who'll need attention after, this attack,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're safe for a while anyway, remarked Leon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder why they sent us to do this instead of making us fight?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The _douzième_ will have to be reorganized now, said Jacques."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The men remaining will need rest and a chance to recover; that is probably why we were detailed to this ambulance."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're comparatively safe here anyway, said Leon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That is some consolation, though I'd just about as soon be fighting."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're safe unless a shell happens to--"
}
] |
20995
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you comfortable?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, said Earl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You and your brother and your friend were in an ambulance and ran into a shell hole. You were all thrown out and your leg was broken."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is my brother here? demanded Earl eagerly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where is he?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "In this next bed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That fellow with the bandages all around his head? he exclaimed in alarm."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What is the matter with him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He has concussion of the brain; his head is also cut."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it dangerous?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think not now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thank goodness! said Earl fervently."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How about Jacques?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is only badly bruised, smiled the nurse."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He is asleep now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you think of us? demanded Earl disgustedly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We fight in the first line trenches for months, in the biggest war in the history of the world, and we go up in monoplanes and fight battles in the air. In fact we do about everything dangerous there is to do and no harm comes to us at all. Then we go out in an automobile and get all smashed up; that's a fine way to be wounded in war. It makes me sick!"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "DAILY NEWS."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "BOYCOTTING"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "BOYCOTTED"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that prevailing in Dublin. In the capital--outside of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "where moderate counsels prevail--the alarmists appear to have it all their own way. I was told gravely that there was no longer any security for life or property in the West; that county Mayo was like Tipperary in the old time,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and that if I would go lurking about Lough Mask and Lough Corrib it was impossible to prevent me; but that the chances of return were, to say the least, remote. It was in vain that I pointed out that every stone wall did not hide an assassin, and that strangers and others not connected either directly or indirectly with the land were probably as safe, if not safer, on a high road in Mayo than in Sackville-street, Dublin. It was admitted that, theoretically, I was quite in the right; but that like many other theorists I might find my theory break down in practice. I was entertained with a full account of the way in which assassinations are conducted in the livelier counties of Ireland, and great stress was laid upon the fact that the assassins were always well primed with"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that is to say whisky, of similar quality to that known in New York as"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jersey lightning, or"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "was hard at work, and that, before proceeding to coercive measures, Mr. Forster was getting together all the trustworthy evidence that could be obtained as to the state of the country. As an instance of the absurd rumours flying about, I may mention that I was in the presence of two Irish peers solemnly assured that a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "was imminent, and not only imminent, but fixed for the 31st October. Now, who has not heard at any time within the memory of man of this expected"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "? It is the _spectre rouge_, or, to be more accurate as to local colour, the _spectre vert_ of the Irish alarmist, and a poor, ragged, out-at-elbows spectre it is, altogether very much the worse for wear. Flesh and blood could not bear the mention of this shabby, worn-out old ghost with calmness, and I conveyed to the gentlemen who volunteered the information my opinion that the _spectre vert_ was, in American language,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will it be believed that I was the only person present who ridiculed the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "? I soon perceived that my scornful remarks were not at all in accordance with the feeling of the company, who did not see anything impossible in a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and refused to laugh at the Saxon's remark that things did not"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "was not an unusual occurrence, but that the queer townlet was a genuine centre of business activity. We sat up as late as the stench of paraffin from the lamps--for there is no gas--would allow us. Lizzie, literally a maid of all work, but dressed in a gown tied violently back, brought up armful after armful of peat, and built and rebuilt the fire over and over again. There was in the corner of the room a huge receptacle, like half a hogshead, fastened to the wall for holding peat--or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as it is called here--but it never occurred apparently to anybody to fill this bin and save the trouble of eternal journeys up and down stairs. It may be also mentioned, not out of any squeamishness, but purely as a matter of fact, that in the intervals of bringing in"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lizzie folded tablecloths for newcomers so as to hide the coffee-stains as much as possible, and then proceeded to set their tea for them, after which she went back to building the fire again. In the work of waiting she was at uncertain intervals assisted by Joe, a shock-headed, black-haired Celt, who, when a Sybarite asked at breakfast for toast, repeated"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Toast!"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Divil the bad answer ye'll iver get, Sorr, said he."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We just say, 'I will, Sorr,' and thin go away, and another gintleman says something, and ye're forgotten. Dy'e see, now? And away he went, and forgot everything. Being at Claremorris, I tried to see a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "that is, a landowner and agent on the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was obliged to make inquiries concerning his whereabouts, and this investigation soon convinced me that there was something wrong in Mayo after all; not the _spectre vert_ exactly, but yet an unpleasant impalpability. All was well at Claremorris. Trade was good"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "potatoes were good and cheap, poverty was not advancing arm-in-arm with winter. It was cold, for snow was already on the Nephin; but turf had been stored during the long, fine, warm summer, and nobody was afraid of the frost. But the instant I mentioned the name of the gentleman I wanted to find not a soul knew anything about him. Farming several hundred acres of land on his own account, a resident on Lough Mask for seven years, and agent to Lord Erne, he seemed to be a man concerning whose movements the country side would probably be well informed. But nobody knew anything at all about him. He might be at the Curragh, or he might be in Dublin, and then would, one informant thought, slip over to England and get out of the trouble, if he were wise. In one of the larger stores I saw that the mention of his name drew every eye upon me, and that the bystanders were greatly exercised as to my identity and my business. In this part of the country everybody knows everybody, and a stranger asking for a proscribed man excited native curiosity to a maddening pitch. Presently I was taken aside, led round a corner, and there told that most assuredly the man I sought had not come home from Dublin _viâ_ Claremorris. Having a map of the county with me, I naturally suggested that he might have reached Lough Mask by way of Tuam, and, moreover, that, having a shrewd notion he would be shot at when occasion served, he would most likely try to get home by an unusual route on which he would hardly be looked for."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it alone ye think he'd be going, Sorr? asked my informant in astonishment."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Divil a fut does he stir widout an escort. This was news indeed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He came here, sure, Sorr, wid two constables on the kyar and two mounted men following him."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "it for himself. There remains in the ground at least five hundred pounds worth of potatoes and other root crops, and the owner has no possible means of doing anything with them. Nor, I am assured on trustworthy authority, would any human being buy them at any price; nor, if any such person were found, would he be able to find any labourer to touch any manner of work on the spot under the ban. By an impalpable and invisible power it is decreed that Mr. Boycott shall be"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hence either Mr. Boycott, with an escort armed to the teeth, or his wife without an escort--for the people would not harm her--must go to Ballinrobe after putting a horse in the shafts themselves, buy what they can, and bring it home. Everybody advises them to leave the country; but the answer of the besieged agent is simply this:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I can hardly desert Lord Erne, and, moreover, my own property is sunk in this place."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My landlord has processed me for the last four or five years; but he hasn't processed me this year, and the divil thank him for that same."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tiernaur, Sorr, is on the way to Claggan Mountain, where they shot at Smith last year, and--if I don't disremember--is just where they shot Hunter last August eleven years. Ye'll mind the cross-roads before ye come to the chapel. It was there they shot him from behind a sod-bank. This was the reply I received in answer to my question as to the whereabouts of a public meeting to be held yesterday morning, with the patriotic object of striking terror into the hearts of landlords and agents. It was delivered without appearance of excitement or emotion of any kind, the demeanour of the speaker being quite as simple as that of Wessex Hodge when he recommends one to go straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay towards Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more than the mere transient interest attaching to the place of an open-air meeting, for it is the centre of a district subject to chronic disturbance, and is just now the scene of serious trouble, or what would appear serious trouble in any less turbulent part of the country. It is necessary to be exact in describing what occurs here, as a phrase may easily be construed to imply much more than is intended. When it is said that the country between Westport and Ballycroy is disturbed, and that law and order are set at defiance, it must not be imagined that the roads are unsafe for travellers, or that any ordinary person is liable to be shot at, beaten, robbed, or insulted. I have no hesitation in stating that a stranger may go anywhere in the county, at any hour of the day or night, alone and unarmed, and that even in country inns he need take no precautions against robbery. Mayo people do not steal, and if they shot a stranger, it would only be by mistake for a Scotch farmer or an English agent. And I am sure that the accident would be sincerely deplored by the warm-hearted natives. I have thought it well to master all the details of the Tiernaur difficulty, because it is a perfect type of the agrarian troubles which agitate the West. In the first place the reader will clearly understand that English and Scotch landlords, agents, and farmers, are as a rule abhorred by the Irish population. It is perhaps hardly my province to decide who is to blame. Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong--logically or illogically arrived at. The evictions of the last third of a century and the depopulation of large tracts of country have filled the hearts of the people with revenge, and, rightly or wrongly, they not only blame the landlord but the occupier of the land. If, they argue, there had been no Englishmen and Scotchmen to take large farms, the small holders would not have been swept away, and"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "rights or local customs. Accordingly he demanded payment from the people, who objected that they had always cut turf and pulled sedge on the mountain; that they could not live without turf for fuel and sedge to serve first as winter bedding for their cattle and afterwards as manure; that except on Mr. Hunter's mountain neither turf nor sedge could be got within any reasonable distance; and, finally, that they had always enjoyed such right. And so forth. As this was, as already intimated, not in the bond, Mr. Hunter, not very unnaturally, insisted that if the people would not pay him his landlord must, and asked Mr. Gibbings to allow him ten pounds a year off his rent. The latter offered him, as I am informed, five pounds. The matter was referred to an umpire, who awarded Mr. Hunter twelve pounds, an assessment which Mr. Gibbings declined to take into consideration at all. After some further discussion Mr. Hunter warned the people off his farm and declared their supposed"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "as it is called, in the manner usual during Irish disturbances--that is, four men and a sergeant of the constabulary were stationed at her house. In course of time, however, Mrs. Hunter felt comparatively safe, and the constables removed to a hut about two miles on the Newport road, opposite to some very good grouse-shooting. There the five men dwell in their little iron-clad house, pierced with loopholes in case of attack--a very improbable event. At the moment of writing, four constables are also stationed at Mr. Stoney's residence, Rossturk Castle, although it is not quite certain what the owner has done to provoke the anger of the people. This being the situation, a very short time since Mrs. Hunter elected to give up the farm and leave this part of the country. The property is therefore on the hands of the landlord, and is"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How bright the prospect of getting a tenant is may be estimated by the remark made to me by a very well-instructed person living close by--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If the landlord were to give me that farm for nothing, stock it for me, and give me a cash balance to go on with, I would gratefully but firmly decline the generous gift. No consideration on earth would induce me to occupy Hunter's farm."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not very far off lies Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I was assured by the car-driver that the noxious animals vanished into the earth at the touch of the Saint's bell."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He just, said this veracious informant,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Be this as it may, the line of country towards Newport is delightfully picturesque. The great brown cone of Croagh Patrick soars above all, and to right and left rise the snow-covered Nephin and Hest. Evidences of careful cultivation are frequent on every side. Fairly large potato-fields occur at short intervals, and mangolds and turnips are grown for feeding stock. Cabbages also are grown for winter feed, and the character of the country is infinitely more cheerful than on the opposite side of Westport. Inquiring of my driver as to the safety of the country, I received the following extraordinary reply,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ye might lie down and sleep anywhere, and divil a soul would molest ye, barring the lizards in summer time; and they are dreadful, are lizards. They don't bite ye like snakes, or spit at ye like toads; but if ye sleep wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down ye'r throat into ye'r stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their bodies, and can't get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at your innards till ye die."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but one of the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There is the semblance of a port without ships, and warehouses without goods, and quays overgrown with grass. Beyond Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation, and behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass--or sedge, as it is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. Wilder and wilder grows the scenery as we approach Grace O'Malley's Castle, a small tenement for a Queen of Connaught. It is a lone tower like a border"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but on the very edge of the sea. The country folk show the window through which passed the cable of a mighty war ship to be tied round Grace O'Malley's bedpost, whom one concludes to have been, in a small way, a kind of pirate queen. As we approach Tiernaur the road becomes lively with country folk going to and from chapel, and stopping to exchange a jest--always in the tongue of the country--by the way. In this part of the wild road the Saxon feels himself, indeed, a stranger--in race, in creed, and in language. Now and then he sees the Irishman of the stage, clad in the short swallow-tailed coat with pocket-flaps, the corduroy breeches, the blue worsted stockings and misshapen caubeen, made familiar by a thousand novels and plays. These articles of attire are becoming day by day as rare as the red petticoats formerly worn by the peasant women. On the latter, however, may still be seen, now and then, the great blue cloth cloaks which once formed a distinctive article of costume, and a very necessary one in this severe climate. Presently jog by a few men on horseback, very ill-mounted on sorry beasts, and riding in unison with the quality of their animals. Men, women and children are in their Sunday best, and to all outward appearance scrupulously clean. I am constrained to believe that among the very lowest class--that which comes under prison regulations--the preliminary washing is counted as the severest part of the punishment; but the evidence of my own eyesight is in favour of the strict personal cleanliness of Sunday folk in this part of the country. Near Tiernaur I find bands of men marching to the gathering, which is a purely local affair, not regularly organized by the Land League. But the men themselves appear to be very strictly organized, to march well, and to obey their bugler promptly. They are all in Sunday clothes, wear green scarves, and carry green banners. The latter are inscribed with various mottoes proper to the occasion. On the Kilmeena banner appears,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No prison cell nor tyrant's claim Can keep us from our glorious aim. The Glendahurk men proclaim on another green banner, bearing the harp without the crown, that"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Those who toil Must own the soil; and the Mulrawny contingent call upon the people to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hold the Mountain, to cry"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Down with the Land Grabbers, and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God save Ireland."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as they call him in Northern England, to mount the stage and make a speech, which elicits loud shouts of laughter. Taking little heed of the pelting shower the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who wears a red bandanna like a shawl, and waves a formidable shillelagh, makes a harangue which, so far as I can understand it, has neither head nor tail. Delivered with much violent gesticulation, the speech is evidently to the taste of the audience, who cheer and applaud more or less ironically. At last the rain is over, and the serious business of the day commences. The chair is taken by the parish priest of Tiernaur, whose initial oration is peculiar in its character. The tone and manner of speaking are excellent, but alack for the matter! A more wandering, blundering piece of dreary repetition never bemused an audience. In fairness to the priest, however, it must be admitted that a Government reporter is on the platform, and that the presence of that official may perhaps exercise a blighting influence on the budding flowers of rhetoric. All that the speaker--a handsome man, with a very fine voice--said, amounted to a statement, repeated over and over again with slight variations, that the people of Tiernaur were placed by the Almighty on the spot intended for them to live upon; that they were between the mountains and the sea; that all that the landlords could take from them they had taken;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This was all the speaker had to say, and he said it over and over again. He was succeeded by his curate, who insisted with like iteration on the duty of supporting the people imposed upon the land. Out of the fatness thereof they should, would, and must be maintained. Other sources of profit there were, according to this rev. gentleman, absolutely none. The land belonged to the people"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "to the landlords."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Down wid 'em!"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Benjamin's mess against time; and when the feat is being performed by several persons the effect thereof is the reverse of appetising. But I would rather be driven seventy miles--Irish miles--on a car, and compelled to sit down to roast goose commingled with boiled beef and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "than I would listen to a political speech from the curate of Tiernaur. By degrees I felt an utter weariness and loathing of life creeping over me, and I turned my face towards the sun, setting in golden glory behind Clare Island, and lighting up the rich ruddy brown of the mountain, behind which lay the invaded pastures of Knockdahurk. By the way this invasion of what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom, after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was appealing to the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--and here some wicked prompter suggested"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nature, a suggestion adopted by the unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this lame and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash, richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality into the proceedings by declaring that the only creature on God's earth worse than a landlord was the despicable wretch who presumed to take a farm at an advanced rent. This remark was distinctly to the point, and was applauded accordingly. It was indeed a significant, but in this part of the country quite unnecessary, intimation that safer, if not better, holdings might be found than"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hunter's Farm. As most of the persons present had come from a long distance, some as much as fifteen or twenty Irish miles, the subsequent proceedings, such as the passing of resolutions concerning fixity of tenure and so forth, were got through rapidly, and the meeting dispersed as quietly as it assembled. The organized bodies marched off the ground in good order, without the slightest sign of riot or even of enthusiasm. Men and women, the latter especially, were almost sad and gloomy--for Irish people. I certainly heard one merry laugh as I was making for my car, and it was at my own expense. A raw-boned, black-haired woman,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "insisted that I should buy some singularly ill-favoured apples of her. As I declined for the last time she fired a parting shot,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' why won't ye buy me apples? Sure they're big and round and plump like yerself, aghra --a sally vastly to the taste of the bystanders. It struck me, however, that the people generally seemed rather tired than excited by the proceedings of the day--the most contented man of all being, I take it, Mike Gibbons, who had been driving a brisk trade at his"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of either, any more than did stout William of Deloraine. His statements, however, are strictly of that class of travellers' tales told by car-drivers, and must be taken with more than the proverbial grain of seasoning. I find him as a rule very quiet until I have administered to him a dose of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and then he mourns over the desolation of the land and the ravages of the so-called"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as if they were things of yesterday. Whether the local Press reflects the opinion of the peasants of Mayo, or the peasants only echo the opinion of the Press as reproduced to them by native orators, I am at present hardly prepared to decide. One thing, however, is certain. Not only that professional"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "are bitterly regretting their ill-judged promptitude. A large farm between this and Achill, or near Ballina on the north, or in the country extending from the spot where Lord Mountmorres was shot, towards Ballinrobe, Hollymount, Claremorris, or Castlebar, could hardly be let now at any price, even where the neighbours have not actually taken possession, as at Knockdahurk. Landlords have apparently the three proverbial courses open to them. They cannot sell their land, it is true; but they can let it lie waste, they can farm it themselves"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as a trustworthy informant said to me just now,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or they can let it directly, as of old, to small tenants, who will come in at once and perhaps pay what they consider a fair rent in good years. It is folly to expect them to pay at all when crops are bad. And then there is the inevitable delay and uncertainty at all times which has led to the system of"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "a great deal of misconception concerning the condition of the people of the West and their attitude towards their landlords will be got rid of by substituting it for the word"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This protection is always granted when asked for, but many landlords have an almost invincible repugnance to go everywhere attended by armed police. Lord Ardilaun, I hear, has organised a little bodyguard of his own people, in preference to being followed about by the tall dark figures now frequent everywhere in county Mayo from Achill to Newport, from Ballina to Ballinrobe, and from Claremorris to Westport. Still, anything like a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "he is now embroiled with a portion at least of the Castlebar people, who think, rightly or wrongly, that the lord of the soil and collector of tolls and dues has something to do with providing the town with a market-place. Into the merits of the question it is hardly necessary to enter. Suffice it to say that the local Press has taken advantage of the occasion to renew the popular outcry against"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Perhaps it does not hurt anybody very much to be called an"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "especially when the extermination referred to occurred thirty years ago. The instance is merely worth citing as showing the undying hatred felt in this part of the country towards those who, acting wisely or unwisely, after the famine, determined to get rid of a population which the soil had shown itself unequal to support. There is no doubt that Lord Lucan brought"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and made a solitude around Castlebar."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "On the ruins of many a once happy homestead, continues the local scribe,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is also urged as an additional grievance that the sheep, cattle, and pigs raised by"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "are sent from the railway station"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thus Lord Lucan and in a minor degree John Bull are shown up as the destroyers of the Irish peasant and devourers of that produce which should have gone to support him in that happiness and plenty which he enjoyed--at some probably apocryphal period. Be this, however, as it may, the personal hatred of the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "any tradesmen who have dared to run counter to the current of present opinion. When a baker is told he must not do a certain thing he obeys at once, and, with a certain quickness and suppleness of intellect, casts about to see how he can best represent himself as a martyr."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pay rint, Sorr, said a well-to-do shopkeeper to me two days ago;"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--that the till might be filled if the agent's book remained empty. As I have previously explained, everybody owes to somebody, or is owed by somebody, in this island of weeping skies and smiling faces. The peasant owes his landlord, who owes the mortgagee or the agent. And the peasant has another creditor--the little trader who works on the credit extended to him from Dublin or Belfast. Beyond a certain limit the little shopkeeper cannot go. So he likes to be threatened, to be made"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "to be a martyr, and then presses the tenants who have paid no rent to the landlord to pay him"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This advice of Mr. Parnell's is keenly relished by many, and has gained him, from a poet, whose Hibernian extraction speaks in his every line, the incomprehensible title of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Young Lion of the Fold."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mayhap this is what the indigenous"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Castlebar Races. Ballina is a town of about six thousand inhabitants, situate on the river Moy--an excellent salmon stream which debouches into Killala Bay, the most important inlet of the sea between Westport and Sligo. Perhaps Ballina is the principal town in county Mayo; certainly it seems to be the most improving one. It is, however, a considerable distance from the sea. Just now it is the seat of a species of internecine war between landlord and tenant, waged under conditions which lend it extraordinary interest. Exacting"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and recalcitrant"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the sub-sheriff, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and her tenants. She is doubtless a resolute and determined woman, and possessed by a vigorous idea of the rights of property. If not descended from the celebrated Grace O'Malley, Queen of Connaught, she has at least equally autocratic ideas with that celebrated ruler of the West. For years past Miss Gardiner has been famous as a raiser of stock, equine and bovine, but unfortunately she has been most frequently before the public as the strong assertor of territorial rights. She dwells far beyond Killala, near the village of Kilcun, at a house called Farmhill. From Westport to Farmhill the country is as picturesque as any in the West of Ireland. The snow-clad hills of Nephin and Nephin Beg are in sight all the way from Manulla Junction--the chief railway centre hereabouts, and the line past Loughs Cullen and Conn to Ballina, and the car-drive beyond Ballina, reveal a series of magnificent views. There is, however, something very"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "to the Saxon eye about Farmhill. The first object which comes in sight is a police barrack, with a high wall surrounding a sort of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the whole being obviously constructed with a view to resisting a possible attack. This stiff staring assertion of the power of the law stands out gaunt and grim in the midst of a landscape of great beauty. Autumn hues gild the trees, the wide pastures are of brilliant green, and on the rough land the reddening bent-grass glows richly in the declining sun, which throws its glory alike over snowy hills and rosy clouds. The only blot, if a white edifice can be thus designated, is the stern, angular police barrack. In the front inclosure the sergeant is drilling his men; and those not under drill are watching the domain immediately opposite, to the end that no unauthorised person may approach it. Like most of the dwellings in a country otherwise sparsely supplied with trees, Farmhill is nestled in a grove. But the surroundings of the house are not those associated in the ordinary mind with a home. The outer gate is locked hard and fast, and the little sulky-looking porter's lodge is untenanted. Its windows are barred, and all communication with the house itself is cut off, except to adventurous persons prepared to climb a stone wall. From the lodge onward the private road passes through a poor kind of park, and subsides every now and then into a quagmire. It is vile walking in this park of Farmhill, and as the house is approached there is a barking of dogs. Oxen are seen grazing, and peacocks as well as turkeys heave in sight. The house itself is barred and barricaded in a remarkable manner. The front door is so strongly fastened that it is said not to have been opened for years. Massive bars of iron protect the windows, and the solitary servant visible is a species of shepherd or odd man, who comes slinking round the corner. No stranger gentlewoman's dwelling could be found in the three kingdoms. The spot reeks with a dungeon-like atmosphere. It is, according to the present state of life in Mayo, simply a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "a tyrant striving to make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her estate."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr, cried one of her tenants to me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Och, she's a divil of a woman, entoirely. All she wants is to hunt the poor off the face of the wor-r-rold. There are, however, to this question, as to every Irish question, two sides--if not more. If Miss Gardiner"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "justly or unjustly so called, and that the traditions of the family have been heartily carried out by his heiress. There is perhaps very little doubt that Miss Gardiner, like Lord Lucan and the Marquis of Sligo, prefers large farmers as tenants to a crowd of miserable peasants striving to extract a living for an entire family from a paltry patch of five acres of poor land; but whatever her wish may be she has undoubtedly a large number of small tenants on her estate at the present moment. It is therefore probable that she is somewhat less of an exterminatrix than the exasperated people represent her to be. In their eyes, however, she is guilty of the unpardonable crime of insisting upon her rent being paid. Her formula is simple,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Give me my rent, or give me my land. In England and in some other countries such a demand would be looked upon as perfectly reasonable; but"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is in this part of Ireland looked upon as the option of an exterminator. Miss Gardiner merely asks for her own, and judged by an English standard would appear to be a strange kind of Lady Bountiful if she allowed her tenants to go on quietly living on her property without making any show of payment. But this is very much what landlords are expected to do in county Mayo, except in very good seasons. The majority of the people in the islands of Clew Bay have given up the idea of paying rent as a bad job altogether, and these advanced spirits have many imitators on the mainland. To the request,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Give me my rent, or give me my land, is made one eternal answer,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And how can I pay the rent when the corn is washed away and the pitaties rot in the ground? And if I give ye the land, hwhere am I to go, and my wife and my eight childher? This answer, long used as an _argumentum ad misericordiam_, is now defended by popular orators. No longer ago than yesterday I heard it averred that the failure of the crop by the visitation of God absolved the tenant from the payment of rent. The assumption of the speaker was that landlord and tenant were in a manner partners, and that if the joint business venture produced nothing the working partner could pay over no share of profit to the sleeping partner. Such doctrine is naturally acceptable to the tenant. It signifies that in bad years the landlord gets nothing; in good years, what the tenant pleases to give him, after buying manure and paying up arrears of debt all round. It is, however, hardly surprising that the landlords see the question through a differently tinted medium. They entertain an idea that the land is their property, and, like any other commodity, should be let or sold to a person who can pay for it. Strict and downright"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as it is called, as if it were a disease like"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daltonism,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who, owing £24 for three years' rent, would part neither with a single shilling nor with the land. I thought this champion of the irreconcilables must be worth a visit, and foregoing the diversion of a call on Tom Molloy, a noted character in the Ballina district, I drove out in the direction of Cloontakilla. On the way to that dismal spot by a diabolical road I passed a homestead, so neat and trim, standing on the hillside clear of trees, that I at once asked if it were not owned by a Scotchman, and was answered that Mr. Petrie was indeed a Scot and a considerable tenant farmer. On one side of his farm was a knot of dismantled houses, telling their story plainly and pathetically enough, and on the further side stood a row of hovels, only one of which was uninhabited. The locked-up cabin had a brace of bullet-holes in the door, those which caused a great deal of trouble some time since. A Mr. Joynt it seems, in a wild freak, fired his gun through the door of the cabin occupied by Mistress Murphy, who with her children is now about to join her husband in America. Instead of being frightened the courageous matron opened the door, issued therefrom armed with a fire-shovel and administered to the delinquent"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "my informant had ever heard of. Afterwards the law was invoked against Mr. Joynt, who was esteemed very lucky in escaping punishment on account of his ill-health. A little further on, still to the right of the road, branched off suddenly a narrow bridle-path, or"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "as it is called in this part of the country. It was my car-driver, a teetotaller, opined on this"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that the irreconcilable tenant, one Thomas Browne, dwelt. There were doubts in his mind; but, nevertheless, we turned on to the wretched track, and tried to get the car over the stones and mud-lakes which formed it. It could not be strictly called a road of any kind, but was rather a space left between two deep ditches of black peat-oozings from the bog. Finding progress almost impossible, we at last forsook the car. I can quite imagine an impatient reader asking why we did not get out and walk at first; but the option was hardly a simple one. By walking the horse and letting the car swing and jolt along one experienced the combined agonies of sea-sickness and rheumatism, with the additional chance of being shot headlong into the inky ditch on either side. By taking to what the driver called"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "we accepted an ankle-deep plod through filth indescribable and treacherous boulders, which turned over when trust and sixteen stone were reposed on them. It was at this part of the journey that I saw for the first time the Mountain Sylph. Some women and children, who looked very frightened, cleared away towards their wretched dwellings, and the place would presently have been deserted had not my driver roared at the top of his voice,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hullo, the gyurl! Presently, out of the crowd of frightened people sprang a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of about twelve years, as thinly and scantily clad as is consistent with that decency and modesty for which Irishwomen of the poorer classes are so justly celebrated. Her legs and feet were bare, as a matter of course; a faded red petticoat, or rather kilt, and a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of some indescribable hue, in which dirt largely predominated, formed all her visible raiment and adornment, except a mass of fair hair, which fluttered wildly in the cutting wind. Skipping from stone to stone she neared us swiftly, and stood still at last perched on a huge boulder--an artist's study of native grace and beauty--with every rag instinct with"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An inquiry whether"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Misther Browne was at home was met by the polite answer that he was from home"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "almost instantly supplemented by"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oi know hwhere he is, and will fetch him to ye, sorr. And away went the Sylph dancing from spot to spot like the will-o'-the-wisp of her native bog. She had also indicated the dwelling of Thomas Browne, and I pushed on in that direction through a maze of mud. At last I came to a turning into a path several degrees worse in quality than the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "in a state of denudation, as my scientific friends would call it. It is not necessary to go far from the site of Whitechapel Church to find dwellings unutterably wretched. Two years ago I saw people reduced to one"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "pair of boots in Sheffield, and without food, or fire to cook it with if they had had it; and I have seen a Cornish woman making turnip pie. But for general misery I think the home of the Browne family at Cloontakilla equals, and more than equals anything I have seen during a long experience of painful sights. The road to it as already described, is a quagmire, and the dwelling, when arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares. Part of the stone wall has fallen in, and the two rooms which remain have the ground for a carpet and miserable starved-looking thatch for a roof. The horses and cattle of every gentleman in England, and especially Mr. Tankerville Chamberlayne's Berkshire pigs, are a thousand times better lodged than the family of the irreconcilable Browne. The chimney, if ever there were one, has long since"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "no living beast on the five-acre farm belongs to the tenant. The turkeys belong to a neighbour, as do the geese, and there is neither hen nor egg left on the premises."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And where is everything?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And the neighbours is good to me, sorr, and they reaped my oats for me in a day, and carried 'um in a night. And my pitaties they dug for me, and carried all clane away before the sheriff could come. And when Mr. MacDonnell did come my wife was sick in bed, and the house was full of people, and all he could do was to consult the doctor and go away."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "rights restricted, and every kind of privilege reduced. But it has been said by a great literary and social authority that there are such things as limits. Now this man, Browne, feeling that he had an execution hanging over him, contrived to temporise until his grain and potatoes were secured, and then, aided by the accident of a sick wife, defied the law. The house was full of people, a doctor said that the woman could not be removed, and the sub-sheriff, backed by fifty policemen, could make nothing of the business without incurring the odium of tearing a sick woman from her bed. He offered the irreconcilable Browne the offer of accepting the ejectment and remaining in the house as"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the way to serve the landlords. This ebullition was followed by shouts of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Down wid 'em!"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and every kind of reprisal was hinted at in the event of Mr. Parnell being arrested. If he were seized, not a landlord in Ireland would be safe except in Dublin Castle. This kind of thing, accompanied by shouts of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Down wid 'em! at every mention of the abhorred landlords, became very tedious, especially in a high wind and drifting rain. The meeting gradually became thinner and thinner, and finally faded out altogether. It is quite true that such gatherings may have a powerful effect upon the vivacious Celt, but if so, it is quite beneath the surface, for the people seemed to take little interest in the proceedings. To all outward show the oratory at Sheehane produced no more serious impression than that at Tiernaur on the preceding Sunday. Yet there is something in the air, for the first thing I heard on returning to Westport was that Mr. Barbour's herdsman, who lives at Erriff Bridge, had been warned to leave his master's service. The"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "(as he is called here, as well as on the Scottish border) is in great alarm. He cannot afford to leave his place, for it is his sole means of subsistence, and if turned out in the world the poor fellow might starve. Now it is a disagreeable thing to think you will starve if you leave, and be shot if you remain at your work; but I hear that the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "a famous mountain of this country, the sheep are seen feeding almost on the same level as the haunt of the golden eagles who breed here regularly. I believe that the valley of the Erriff was once well populated, but that after the famine the people were cleared off nearly 20 square miles of land to make way for the great grazing farm now divided between two occupants. As I have stated in previous letters, the resentment of the surrounding inhabitants at this depopulation of a vast tract of country is ineradicable. In the wretched huts which appear at wide intervals on the sea-shore the miserable people sit over the fire and talk of the old times when they might go from Clifden to Westport and find friends nearly everywhere on the road, while now from the last-named place to this--a distance of 18 Irish miles--the country is simply wild mountain, moor, and bog, bating the little Ulster Protestant village, not far from Westport (a curious relic of '98), a few herds-men's huts, and the police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts along past"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hag's Valley, a dozen curlews take wing, and a little further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and then a hare will start among the bent-grass, while aloft the falcon rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has no inhabitants. What little was once cultivated has reverted to rough pasture, covered with bent or sedge and a little grass, or to bog impassable to man or any creature heavier than the light-footed fox, who attains among these mountains to extraordinary size and beauty. But hares and grouse, and even stray pheasants from Mr. Mitchell Henry's woods at Kylemore, will not convince the fragment of population around the great grazing farms that things are better now than of yore; and there is some reason for believing that disturbance is to be apprehended in this part of the country. The warning to Mr. Barbour's unfortunate herd can hardly be a separate and solitary act of intimidation and oppression. The work of one herd is of no great matter. But the distinct warning given to the poor man at Erriff Bridge to give up his livelihood on the first instant is possibly part of a settled scheme to reduce great grazing farmers to the same condition as landlords. They are to be frightened away, in order that squatters may pasture their cattle on"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "other landlords must try to do the same. To prevent misconception, I will aver, even at the risk that I may seem to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that this argument is not thrust upon me by the Land League, but by persons who are proprietors themselves. It is held ridiculous, in this section of the country, that enormous expense should be thrown upon the county in order that the rents of certain landlords may be collected. There is, it must be admitted, a rational indisposition in the West to ascribe any particularly sacred character to rent as distinguished from any other debt. This is an agreeable feature in the Irish character. In some other countries there prevails a preposterous notion that rent must be paid above and before all things, as a species of solemn obligation. Until the other day there prevailed in Scotland the almost insane law of hypothec, which allowed a landlord to pursue his tenant's goods even into the hands of an"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To Hamilton C. Smith three separate awards were made--28l. for four head of cattle driven or carried out to sea and drowned; 21l. for fourteen sheep maliciously driven off and removed; and again 17l. 10s. for fourteen sheep similarly treated. Houses and boats have been burned, and even turf-ricks destroyed. The object in all cases seems to have been to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "the injured persons out of the country in order that the neighbours might turn their cattle on to his grazing land, as has been done in Mayo. In one conspicuous case these tactics have proved successful. Michael O'Neil was awarded 120l."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This sum is levied off the fourteen adjacent townlands, among which is the unlucky Lettermore, just quoted as paying an enormous addition to the county cess. Michael O'Neil, who appears to have been a respectable man, not otherwise objectionable than as the tenant of more grazing land than was considered his share by his neighbours, has received his 120l., and is so far reimbursed; but he thought it better to obey the popular will than to attempt to stand against it, and gave up his farm accordingly. Such deeds as the frightening of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "out of Connemara by maiming cattle and burning houses, which must be paid for by the offending districts, speak more distinctly than any words could do of the ignorance of this part of the wild West. So wild is it that although the Roman Catholic clergy of Connemara adhere to the elsewhere-obsolete practice of holding"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for confession, there are many dwellers on the mountain who have never received any religious instruction. Chapels are few and remote from each other, and even the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "cattle, sheep, or horses. I was citing to a Mayo-man this defect of the so-called farmer, and was at once met by a prompt reply. The tendency to graze cattle, which is not hard work, and to"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "about to cattle fairs, which are esteemed the greatest diversion the country affords, is an indication of the distinct superiority of the quick-witted Celt to the dull Saxon hind. An Irish peasant cultivator is a being of greater faculty of expansion than Wessex Hodge. He is profoundly ignorant and absurdly superstitious, but he is naturally keen-witted, and his innate gifts are brightened by contact with his fellow man. He is not a ploughman, for he often cultivates with the spade alone, and he has, besides his oats, his potatoes, his cabbages, and mayhap a few turnips, and a variety of animals, all of which he understands--or misunderstands. If a holder of twenty or thirty, or, still better, forty acres, he will have a horse, a cow, a beast or two, a few sheep, and some turkeys and geese. It is possible to have all these on fifteen acres or less of fairly good land, and then the Western peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and selling stock--that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "than the career of an Essex or Wessex ploughman or carter. But what is peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing. According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well received."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bastes had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is called upon to support nearly seven hundred souls. A glance at the picturesque outline of the island will tell of the proportion of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that is moor and bog, upon it, and it is at once seen that unless there is either good fishing or some other source of supply the land cannot keep the people. No better proof can be given than that of the greatest tenant, who pays 55l. a year for some five hundred acres. In Innisbofin and Innishark are at least 1,500 individuals, nearly all very small tenants, either on the brink of starvation or pretending to be so. It is nearly as impossible to extract any rent from them as from the twenty-three families on Innisturk, an island belonging to Lord Lucan, whose rents are farmed, so far as Innisturk is concerned, by Mr. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff, who is said to have a bad bargain. Lord Lucan, of course, receives his 150l. yearly from his"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who is left to fight it out with the people, and get 230l., the price at which the land is let, out of them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation is becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150l. a year out of them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "profit, whereupon he offered to take the exact amount he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether; but this proposition, after being received with some amusement, was not declined exactly, but, in American language,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr. Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and in many cases the very names of the former tenants. He is a man of one idea--that the country was once prosperous and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he meant Land. When he applauded Disestablishment and Denominational Schools he meant Land, Land, nothing but Land. At last his dominant feeling is candidly expressed when he cries out against landlords,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Down wid 'em!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Like all such sayings, it is true as far as it goes. Despite dramatists, novelists and humorists, Ireland is singularly barren of diversion. In a former letter I pointed out that the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There are no amusements at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence of the inhabitants. When by rare good luck a peasant secures road-work or other employment from a proprietor at once sufficiently solvent and public-spirited to undertake any enterprise for the improvement of the country, he will walk for a couple or three hours to his work and then go on with it till dinner-time. But it is painfully significant that the word"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is never used in this connection. The foreman does not say that the dinner hour has arrived, but"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, boys, it is time to eat your bit o' bread."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry. Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the property. To pay the interest and secure this"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "for themselves there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges, and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "appears to have been the old Irish analogue of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "has been taken from the people and let to graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains it is mapped out as a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for a certain townland, and is greatly prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands. Landlords were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought, for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "as one of my informants phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain, which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time immemorial. The first act of the new management was to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in one"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "to Ballynahinch, there is visible at ordinary times very little but mountain, bog, and sky. Of stones and water, and of air marvellously bright and pure, there is no lack, and some of the scenery is of surpassing grandeur, especially on a day like yesterday, so fair and still that mountain and cloud alike were mirrored on the surface of a legion of lakes. It was only when one reached the clump of trees which in these wild districts denotes the presence of a house of the better sort that any symptoms of disturbance were seen. All was calm and bright on Glendalough itself, but no sooner had I entered the grounds of the hotel than I became aware of the presence of an armed escort. Presently Mr. Robinson, the agent for Mr. Berridge, the purchaser of the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Martin property from the Law Life Insurance Company, came out, jumped on his car with his driver, and was immediately followed by the usual escort of two men armed with double-barrelled carbines. A few minutes later I heard that Mr. Thompson's"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "over at Moyrus, near the sea-coast, had been badly beaten on Sunday night, or rather early yesterday morning; and there were disquieting rumours of trouble impending at Lough Mask. If the Moyrus story be true, it is noteworthy as marking a new line of departure in Connemara. Hitherto actual outrages have been confined to property; persons have only been threatened, and few but agents go in downright bodily fear. I have not heard why Mr. Thompson is unpopular; but can easily understand that Mr. Robinson has become so. The management of 180,000 acres of poor country, in some parts utterly desolate, in others afflicted with congested population, can hardly be carried on without making some enemies. Moreover, I have no reason to believe that the vast"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Law Life property has, since it passed out of the hands of its ancient insolvent owners, been either more wisely or liberally administered than in the wild, wicked days when the Martins"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "at Ballynahinch, and boasted that the King's writs did not run"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "because it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place, once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally--if a country with four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful persons be spoken of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What I say of the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally. They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are fearfully addicted to lying--the vice of slaves. Their prevarication and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "seed given to them at the various distributions of that precious boon?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Was it champions thin? was the reply."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The woman who said this in my hearing only confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground the yield of this quantity should have been twelvefold, or about 5 cwt. of potatoes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Taken only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was not till after a stern allocution that the fact was elicited that much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting--a habit acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The saddened man who said, in his wrath, all men are liars, would have found ample justification for his stern judgment on the Connemara sea-coast at the present moment; but the Roman centurion immortalised in Holy Writ would make a novel experience. He might say"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go, but he would have to wait a while before the man went, and if he cried"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "as others ascribe every evil to the middleman; but others again hold that the old proprietors, who remain on the land, fighting against encumbrances, are the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and that the whips of cupidity cannot compare with the scorpions of poverty. Be this as it may, the present holder of Rinvyle is by no means personally unpopular, and has helped the district lately in getting subscriptions and a Government grant for building a pier, extremely useful both as a protection to fisher-folk, and as providing labour for the still poorer people. It is also only fair to state that much of the local congestion of inhabitants at Rinvyle is due to the kelp-manufacture. The kelp-trade was at one time very prosperous, and employed a large number of people in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. At that period it was the object of proprietors on the seaboard to attract population to their domains, on account of the royalty levied on kelp, which exceeded by far the rent asked for a little holding. While some proprietors were wiping off the map great villages, containing hundreds of families, like that of Aughadrinagh, near Castlebar, the holders of the sea-coast encouraged people to settle on their estates. No reasonable person can blame them for doing so. The proprietor was poor, and saw that a large accession to his means might be secured by attracting kelp-burners. He made a good thing of it. The people paid about 3l. or a little more a year for their cottage and little, very little, paddock, not bigger than a garden; about 11s. a year for the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and one-third of the proceeds of the kelp they made as"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "to the landlord. It should be added that the owners of Rinvyle were not themselves dealers in kelp, like some middlemen along the coast, and that their"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--save the mark!--could sell to whom they pleased, but the lords of the seashore took their third of the proceeds. Within comparatively recent times kelp has been worth 6l. and 7l. per ton. Putting the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "rather like a whale than a weasel, and includes some good rough mountain pasture, as well as green fields near its base. As one approaches it a ring of villages is seen delightfully situated, high for the most part above the sea and the green fields, and lying back against the huge mountain. It is natural to suppose that here resides a race of marine mountaineers seeking their living on the deep while their flocks and herds pasture on the hill. But no supposition could be wider of the actual fact. Neither the fields beneath nor the mountain above belong in any way to the villages which form a belt of pain and sorrow half-way up its side, drooping at Derryinver to the sea. One of these villages, Coshleen, surely as wretched a place as any in the world, is unapproachable by a wheeled vehicle. The pasture land in front is walled off, and, together with the mountain behind, down almost to the roof of the cabins, is reserved to the use of a great grazier living far away. Below, near the sea, stands Rinvyle Castle--whence the name Coshleen, the village by the castle--the ruined stronghold of the O'Flahertys who ruled this country long ago, either better or worse than the Blakes, who have held it for some generations, and under whose care it has become a reproach to the empire. There is a little arable land farther down Lettermore Hill, which, being also called Rinvyle Mountain, might well receive the third name of Mount Misery. This bit of arable land is let to the surrounding tenants on the conacre principle--that is, the holders are not even yearly tenants, but have the land let to them for the crop, the season while their potatoes or oats are on the ground. By letting this conacre land in little patches, a high rent is secured, which the tenants have no option but to promise to pay. Apparently it is these wretched people who, maddened by the sight of a stranger's flocks and herds pasturing above and below them, have risen at times and driven his animals into the sea. All the notice he has taken of the matter is to make the county pay his loss, and leave the county to get the amount out of the offending townlands if it can. He is not to be scared, for he lives far away, and apparently his herds are not much afraid either--at present, that is. How any compensation money is to be got from the hundreds of miserable people who inhabit Coshleen and Derryinver I cannot conceive. They have, it is true, potatoes to eat just now, and may have enough till February; but their pale cheeks, high cheek-bones, and hollow eyes tell a sorry tale, not of sudden want but of a long course of insufficient food, varied by occasional fever. With the full breath of the Atlantic blowing upon them, they look as sickly as if they had just come out of a slum in St. Giles's. There is something strangely appalling in the pallid looks of people who live mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "or very little pig, quietly made up to me and began to eat the upper-leather of my boot, doubtless because he could find nothing else to eat, poor little beast. Besides the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who looked very thin, the property of the entire family consisted of a dozen fowls and ducks, some potatoes, a little stack of poor oats, not much taller than a man, and a still smaller stack of rough hay. An experienced hand in such matters, who accompanied me, valued the stacks at 2l. 15s. together. This was all they had at John Connolly's to face the winter withal, and I was curious to know what rent they paid for their little cabin and the field attached. An acre was quite as much as they appeared to have, and for this they were"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as it is called here, at 3l. per annum, and, in addition, were charged 2s. 6d. for the privilege of cutting turf, and 5s. 6d. for the seaweed. This toll for cutting seaweed is a regular impost in these parts, sometimes rising for"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but would leave the peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or surface drains about twenty inches deep and twenty inches wide at top, narrowing to six inches at the bottom. This process may be called"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "which begins to shrink visibly. The puffy rounded surface gradually sinks as the water runs off, and the earth gains in solidity. When this process is sufficiently advanced the drains are cleared and deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain, which is thus made without tiles or other costly material. Then the surface is dressed with lime, which, as the people say,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and other systems."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure I was sick, your honour, and the farrum was gettin' desthroyed; or,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was too poor to buy seed for the whole of it, and let some at conacre to Thady O'Flaherty, that's a good man, your honour, as any in Galway! or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wad ye have me tur-r-r-n my own childther out like geese on the mountain?"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "received me with high good humour."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To Ballinrobe, your honour? he said, and drove off like a true son of Nimshi. As soon as he was fairly on the way, I said that I should like to drive to Ballinrobe by Lough Mask House."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's not on our way, your honour, was the first and civil objection. I then observed that I wished to go that way in order to call on Mr. Boycott."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure it's a different way altogether, your honour, was the answer."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A long way round, your honour. Then I said, after the brutal Saxon fashion,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go that way, nevertheless. No answer, but the speed of the car relaxed until two other cars came up. Then a particularly wild Irish conversation was kept up among the drivers, and I observed a pleasant commercial gentleman who was bound for the village, as distinguished from the landing-place of Cong, laughing consumedly as his car branched off and left me to pursue my way in the twilight. Then my car-driver, evidently backed by a brother car-driver, put his case plainly. He had been engaged to drive a gentleman from Cong to Ballinrobe, and would do what he had engaged to do cheerfully, but he had not engaged himself to go to Lough Mask House. It was not, as a notorious claimant said,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "would he stir towards the accursed spot. He was good enough to say that he would not interfere with me. If I liked to walk, I was welcome to do it. Now a walk of seven Irish miles at sundown in a steady rain, over a line of road watched at every turn by disaffected peasants, was not attractive; so I made a last appeal to my car-driver's personal courage--Was he afraid?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Begorra, he was not afraid of anything, but would my honour want to set the whole country against him?"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did your honour wish to set the country on me?"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Two dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary occupy the front-door step, and others of the same keep watch and ward over stables and ground. Nearly three weeks of painful excitement had made but slight change in Mr. Boycott's family. His wife and daughter live under circumstances which would drive many people mad, and the combative land-agent and farmer himself maintains a belligerent attitude, the grey head and slight spare figure bowed, but by no means in submission. On the contrary, never was Mr. Boycott's attitude more defiant. It is only by skilful subterfuge that he can get a shirt washed for his outer, or a loaf of bread made for his inner man. The underground routes which existed a fortnight ago are closed. In fact"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and the hunted man is driven to the open. Not a soul will sell him sixpence-worth of anything. He cannot even get a glass for his watch, for the watch-maker no more than anybody else dare serve him. Every feature of his extraordinary situation depicted in my first letter on"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Disturbed Ireland"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Kilmore. Nov. 10, 1880. C.C. Boycott, Esq. Sir,--In accordance with the decision made in Lord Erne's last letter to us, we want you to appoint a day to receive the rents.--THE TENANTS. A reply requested."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The tenants request an answer to the following before they pay you the rent:--1st. Don't you wish you may get it? 2nd. When do you expect the Orangemen, and how are they to come? 3rd. When are you going to hook it? Let us know, so that we may see you off. 4th. Are you any way comfortable? Don't be uneasy in your mind: we'll take care of you. Down with the landlords and agents. God save Ireland. Such communications as this are agreeable and amusing enough when addressed to a distant friend, but are hardly so diverting when directed to one's self. It is also disquieting to hear people say, as one passes,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He will not hear the birds sing in spring."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ulsterior"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "were terribly knocked up by their walk of about thirteen miles from Claremorris, a fact which hardly speaks well for their thews and sinews, but in fairness it must be admitted that they were obliged to undertake their march after a long and fatiguing railway journey, at sundown, on a muddy road, and in alternate light and heavy rain. They were also poorly fed, for their carts and implements generally only came in here this afternoon, escorted by the Royal Dragoons, under Captain Tomkinson, during part of the distance, and for the remainder by a troop of the 19th Hussars; wherefore the Ulster"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "hardly appeared to advantage this morning until breakfast had been supplied them in the infantry barracks. Then they straightened their backs and stood squarely enough to make a very old soldier exclaim with delight,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Foine men, sorr, they'd be with me to dhrill 'um for a couple o' weeks."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "to the fore, but it is not clever to send them to Ballinrobe or elsewhere without tents, baggage, or food. That furious Ulster Tories,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of Mr. Maxwell's, and several full-sized revolvers. This honest fellow confessed that digging potatoes and pulling mangolds were not his regular occupations, but that he had come"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and to show them there were still"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wad ye dig auld Boycott's pitaties, thin? There was no wit or humour racy of the soil, no flashes of bitter sarcasm, no pungent observations: everybody felt that the thing was going off like a damp firework, and that, bating the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dead March"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who hailed from Cavan insisted that they would foregather only with Cavan men, while the men of Monaghan were equally indisposed to give a Cavan man"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In the language of those who dwell habitually on the banks of the river the wish is epigrammatically expressed,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "May the Robe be their winding-sheet."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tiny threshing-machine, threshing Mr. Boycott's oats with all the seriousness and solemn purpose befitting their task. Nothing could have been more dreary and wretched than the entire proceedings. Mr. Boycott himself had discarded his martial array of yesterday, and appeared in a herdsman's overcoat of venerable age, and, as he grasped a crook instead of a double-barrelled gun, looked every inch a patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of the population. When Captain Tomkinson went over to Claremorris yesterday with dragoons to convey the carts and other impediments of the Ulster division, it happened that one of the cart-horses lost a shoe. Will it be believed that it was necessary to delude the only blacksmith who could be captured with a story that the animal belonged to the Army Service Corps? Simple and artless, the Claremorris blacksmith made the shoe: but before he could put it on he was"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thim that is snug, your honour, is slower in payin' than thim that is poor,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "in her circumstances. She has a farm or two, part of which is underlet of course. This is another peculiarity of Irish life very remarkable to the stranger. Everybody seems to do work by deputy. A proprietor of a landed estate, not worth a thousand pounds a year when interest is paid on the various mortgages, would never think of being his own agent--that is doing his own work on his own estate. Not at all. He employs an agent who, thinking him rather small fry, neglects him or hands him over to the bailiff, who again transfers him to his"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--that is, a locality from which the peat had been cut away down to its rocky bed. For some distance nothing was visible but stones, on which the rain came plashing down like a cataract. But the aspect and situation of Omey Island are such as to suggest to the speculative mind another and better Scheveningen without anything between it and Labrador. The island is not, however, purely sandbank, as Scheveningen appears to be, for it has a nucleus of rock, the sand being a later accumulation, every year increasing in volume, after the manner observed in Donegal, or as stones are amassed at Dungeness. I had heard wild stories of Omey Island, of troglodytes, hungry dwellers in rocky seaside caves, and rabbit-people burrowing in the sand. As Maundeville observes,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Verilie I have not seen them,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your honour, the wind blows the sand away and leaves your pitaties bare. And, begorra, there are nights when the pitaties thimselves 'ud be blown away."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Half of the island is rented by a considerable farmer, for these parts. He pays a hundred pounds a year for his farm at Omey, and a hundred and fifty for another cattle farm up on the hills. When I said he"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am not at all sure whether he has paid up this year or not, but he has flocks and herds, and of course is a responsible tenant. Yet he lives with his family in but a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is a deadly reproach in this part of the country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of the real"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag was, so"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of feudalism in the shape of what is called"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Something analogous to the _corvée_ existed, I believe, in Hungary till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent. Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser island of Turk such work has been insisted on and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Duty work, so far as I can gather, is, or was--for no such work will be done again in Ireland--a modified, form of the _corvée_. Here and there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs and poultry, a certain number of days in the year were the property of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of sixpence. If the tenant refuse"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is an improper mode of levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all the evil features of the _corvée_ are brought into prominence. The island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "cut off the rocks and used for kelp; the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not at all; I take care of that, and out of the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but the representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add, till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who for twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending at least 3,000l. a year in household expenses alone; but he never leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he would"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--a phrase which requires some explanation. I had, with an eye becoming practised in such matters, scanned the house and its approaches as I drove up to the door, and had discussed with the friend who introduced me to its master the chances of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "that gentleman on his own ground. Trees and brushwood grew more closely to the house than a military engineer would have permitted, and I hazarded the opinion that it would be easy to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as it is called. But on talking to Mr. Stacpoole I quickly discover that the real reason why he is now alive is that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his enemies are as afraid of him as the Glenveagh folk up in Donegal are of Mr. J.G. Adair. Brave and resolute to a fault, he has openly declared his dislike for what is called"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, he observes, quietly and simply,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I always carry my large-bore revolver, and I never walk alone, even across the path to look down at the lake. Whenever I go out, and wherever I go, I have a trustworthy man with me carrying a double-barrelled gun. His orders are distinct. If anybody fires at me he is not to look at me, but let me lie, and kill the man who fired the shot. And I am not sure that if he saw an armed man near me in a suspicious attitude that he wouldn't shoot first. I most certainly will myself. If I catch any of them armed and lurking about here near my house, I will kill them, and they know it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but perhaps he is a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "in blocks, but remained in awkward patches, so that each man was obliged to cross the other's land, and perpetual squabbling occurred. So when the question of a new lease arose, Mr. Stacpoole sent a surveyor to divide the holding into three equal shares as justly and conveniently as might be with reference to the tenants' houses. This was done, the land was re-valued at 12s. 6d. per acre, the tenants preferring to hold it without a lease. Thus two were pleased and one displeased by the new arrangement, and the displeased one, Welsh, or Walsh, was finally evicted a short while since, and his house pulled down. Only the other day a mob assembled, rebuilt Welsh's house, and reinstated his wife and family, who occupy it at this moment. Welsh himself is not with them for the reason that Mr. Stacpoole has an attachment out against him. However, the family remains, and no process-server would show his face at the rebuilt house for fifty pounds. Mr. Stacpoole could, of course, go and turn the people out as trespassers, but does not think it worth while until he joins issue with all the recalcitrant tenants under his control. Some forty of these will neither pay up nor surrender their holdings, and Mr. Stacpoole declares that he will get Dublin writs against the whole of them, and that if they do not yield he will evict them all and compel the authorities to support him. There is no concealment about all this, and it is quite certain that if Mr. Adair's action in the Derryveagh matter is imitated it will only be by aid of the military. The landlord declares he will"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and the tenants talk ominously of the"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O'Connell's statue, said to have held thirty thousand people on a space which would not contain a fifth of that number, for its numerous banks, for its fine salmon river, the Fergus, for its police barrack, once the mansion of the Crowe family, and for its long since closed Turkish bath, the ruined proprietor whereof is now in the lunatic asylum on the road to Ballyalla. Ennis is also proud of its County Club, of its handsome drapery stores, of its brand-new waterworks, of its hundred and odd whisky-shops, and of its patriots. Of the latter by far the most eminent is a certain man named in newspaper reports M.G. Considine, Esq., but better known to his fellow-citizens as"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dirty Mick."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Whin he dies, may the heaven be his bed, and his statue should be beside O'Connell's in Ennis."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the foremen and workmen from holding any converse with Mr. Charles George Mahon, whom he addressed personally as"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and otherwise held up to scorn and derision. Perched on his crutches, the cripple defied him, and poured out a torrent of eloquence on"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and other direful creatures, including landlords, which would have set at defiance Canon Dwyer's"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The scene afforded, at least to many there present, as much amusement as astonishment. That a nephew of a county member should be publicly attacked before a large number of people and be compelled to hear them"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "has been"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I went to see it. When I started the moon was shining so brightly that it would have been impossible to miss a landlord at forty yards. The sky was as blue and clear as that of Como or Lugano; but the wind which swept over Ballyala's sapphire lake was of a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "we strolled through the town in contemplative mood. Not a shop was open. Not a blind was drawn. Not a soul was stirring excepting the blacksmith, who had been knocked up comparatively early by the market folk. There was ample time and space to inspect the fierce but sleepy-headed town. In the main street I observed six grog-shops, side by side, actually shoulder to shoulder, cheek by jowl. Another street appeared to be all grog-shops but for the ominous exception of an undertaker. About nine o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness. Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and preparing to renew the battle with"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "John Jamieson."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of Ennis. The river Fergus flows through Ennis, but it is broader and deeper at Clare Castle, a village of ordinary Connaught hovels. There is, however, a quay here, a relic of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in famine time, and affording"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for vessels of considerable size. Below the bridge and alongside the quay lies a large steam-tug, and lower down the stream is moored a similar vessel. A large number of rafts are being laden with stone to be presently towed down to the reclamation works. As we steam down the Fergus towards its junction with the Shannon at"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Beeves"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "will be easy to drain, and it is tolerably certain that within twelve months the first instalment will be ready for cropping. It is a sight to make a Dutchman's mouth water--a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of surpassing excellence, but it is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters, who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and reclamation as the visible work of the devil. I do not think they need be alarmed for some time to come, for, without exaggeration, I have seen so many duck on the Fergus and the lower Shannon that I hesitate to speak of figures and incur the fate of Messer Marco Polo, who, when he spoke of the vast population of China, was nick-named by his incredulous countrymen"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Marco Millione."
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "as Mr. Parnell suggests, so much the better, especially since it has become manifest by the example of the Marquis of Conyngham's estate that purchasers, other than tenants, are hardly to be found for Irish property. And--as the agent of a great absentee landholder observed to me--of what avail would it be to proceed to ulterior measures against the tenants? Granted that all the weary delays of the local courts were got rid of by a Dublin writ, what would be the consequence? The tenant would, unless he chose to spend his own ready money to defend his case in Dublin, be swiftly ejected--that is, if sufficient police were requisitioned to make any attempt at resistance absurd. The landlord would get his own after a fashion; but unless he chose to keep a force of police on his farms the dispossessed tenants would be reinstated and their houses rebuilt by the mob; and nothing would be got in the shape of rent. As no person in the possession of his senses would take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted, the landlord would have only one course to pursue. He must farm his land himself, and then he would be"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "or"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Boycotted."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and whose oats no man dare buy, and the similar case of a draper who had sold some material to a man working on the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Boycotted farm, and was compelled to take it back."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There is nothing now, added another informant,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "which inclines the lesser landlord to get the rent out of his tenant, but his own need, which drives him to extreme measures. In bitterness of spirit he bewails his dulness in not following the example of some of his peers in getting rid of their tenantry and farming their land themselves, like Colonel Barnard in King's County. He also envies the lot of Mr."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tom Crowe, of Dromore, who, without acquiring the name of an"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "has succeeded in shaking off the load of teeming population and the abomination of"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, said a small landholder to me,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am sorry for this gentleman, for I know that he is what is called in commerce a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or one who can afford neither to conduct his business with a firm hand nor to throw it aside till better times. He must go on, for he has mortgages and settlements on his estates; and, admitted that his tenants would go away to-morrow without any trouble, he could not spare what they owe him, and assuredly would not find new tenants for his farms. He of course is for the immediate suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and declares that to be the most merciful solution of the immediate difficulty. To him the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Three F's appear altogether diabolical, and he proposes the substitution of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Three D's"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good-bye or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good-night, but"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Safe home."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "or a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "not only of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Parliament and pot, or"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "John Jamieson and illicit"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "but of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the costly training schools of the Sacré Coeur, his lads are studying law in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either by sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not quite such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their houses, that is the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "rooms, are solidly if tastelessly furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed, I will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be tempted to call a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Three and Four Year Olds, the tradition whereof hath a rich and racy savour. Readers of the _Daily News_ will hardly need to be reminded that this historic vendetta commenced with a dispute concerning the age of a bull, one disputant maintaining that the animal was four, while the other insisted he was but three years old. The matter was settled, or was rather put on the footing of a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "by a desperate fight, wherein one of the combatants was either slain or grievously maimed, whereupon his cause was taken up by his family and friends, and a feud inaugurated which lasted many years, and led to the death of a considerable number of persons, besides continual"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "in the way of faction fights. Pallas is in the midst of the Golden Vale, a deliciously pastoral country, admirably fitted on such a glorious spring-like morning as that of yesterday for the sports of shepherds and shepherdesses as Watteau and Lancret loved to limn. But the first object which catches the eye in Pallas is not a bower of ribbons and roses, but a stiff-looking police barrack. Close at hand is the railway station, another unlovely edifice, and lounging about in groups are seventy or eighty of the gloomiest and most sullen-looking people I have seen in this country. The very little cheerfulness there is in Connaught is quite absent from Munster, or at least the Tipperary border of county Limerick. I learn that the occasion of this general loafing is a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "or rather an attempt to gather rent, and that Mr. Sanders, the agent for the Erasmus Smith School Trusts, is sitting, but not in receipt of custom. There has been the usual talk of Griffith's valuation and the usual result of not a shilling being paid; the present fear on the part of landlords of fixity of tenure being established being so great that nobody will accept payment according to Griffith lest his receipt should be taken as permanently settling the value of his land for ever. No money passes, as a matter of course, and the tenants mutter among themselves,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "One neck-or-nothing friend of the people assures me that Griffith and rent and the rest of it is all"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and that Pallas folk are going to"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "on the part of the police,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "against them and refuse to supply them with food or forage. Pursuing the road past Castlegard I meet another crowd of tenants and learn that they also have been to a rent gathering, and have been offered acceptance of Griffith's valuation if the balance between that and the rent be considered as a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "without prejudice to further arrangements, and without fixing a standard of value. This proposition remains under consideration, and is favourably viewed by the tenants. It seems, however, that everybody is afraid, or pretends to be afraid, to act without the sanction of the Land League. I am vastly inclined to think that in many parts of the country farmers pretend to be more scared than they really are, but around Castlegard they have evidently some cause for alarm. I called upon a farmer who has committed the unpardonable crime of failing to be, as Ouidà would say,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "not at issue with each other, but united like brothers against the common enemy. Fearful howls arise from the railway bridge and the railway station, both covered with Palladians, male and female. A thoroughly good Irish yell of execration acts differently on different persons. The blood of those unaccustomed to it is apt to turn cold at the savage sound; but, with a little practice,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and a good howl acts as a stimulant on the spirits of many landlords and agents. All the screeching at Pallas is brought about by the departure of Mr. Sanders, who, escorted by the police till he is safely off, rentless, but undismayed, slips away in the train, leaving the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Threes and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Fours to talk the matter over, not unaided by the presence, in the spirit, of all-powerful"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "John Jamieson."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Three and Four Year Olds was yesterday so threatening that the authorities decided that the police-hut at Pallas could only be erected in the teeth of the Palladians by dint of an overwhelming display of force. There is no doubt of the wisdom of this policy. A small force, insufficient to overawe the country side, only provokes the resistance it is unable to overcome, but a strong detachment of redcoats thoroughly cows the adventurous spirits of the most mutinous localities. What threatened at one moment to become a civil war in Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence it was decided that a police-hut should be built on the ground lately occupied by Burke, but, as readers of the _Daily News_ are aware, the Palladians actually struck against the police, and proceeded to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Boycott those"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "after the most approved manner. Not only did Pallas refuse to aid in conveying the materials for a police-hut to a short distance from the railway station, but prevented the police from doing their work themselves. Yesterday, the whole border-folk of county Limerick and county Tipperary turned up at Pallas, and the conduct of the crowd was such as to lead persons by no means of an alarmist character to expect an ugly morrow. The authorities had determined that a police-hut should be erected on the spot chosen, and the populace had equally made up their minds that although"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "at a convenient hour, but they are sure to be taken at a disadvantage before nine o'clock. The Palladians rubbed their eyes to find the classic battle-ground of the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Three Year Olds and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Four Year Olds occupied by the matutinal redcoats, and horse, foot, and artillery already in possession. As Pallas woke up about a hundred and fifty or a couple of hundred roughs made up"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but those in command were informed that this poor show of resistance was really a feint, and that no sooner would the materials for the hateful hut be put in motion than a rush would be made by the people collected"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "behind the village, either upon the railway station or upon the convoy in motion. I had no opportunity of getting round behind the village to review the supposed thousands who were to make the ugly rush and overwhelm the redcoats, but I have a strong impression that the Palladian army might have been dubbed the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mrs. Harris brigade. With the respected Mrs. Prigg, I disbelieve in its existence absolutely. Two arguments will destroy it. On the one hand, it is incredible that thousands of persons were out of their beds at ten minutes to nine A.M.; on the other, if they had sat up all night in the hope of a fight with the police they would most certainly have anticipated that diversion by a preliminary"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "them, and not vaguely, after the manner of the police. So the whole affair passed off quietly, and after trebling the ordinary police garrison of Pallas, the military returned to their respective quarters. A beginning has been made of building the hut, and at the moment of writing (9 P.M.) all is quiet at Old and New Pallas, as well as at Pallas Green. Whether the blood of the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Threes and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Fours will endure the sight of the detested hut gradually rising on the farm of the sainted Burke remains to be seen; but it it is doubtful whether the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Boys will attempt a _coup de main_. Should such an attempt be made, the police would be compelled to make a desperate resistance, and serious consequences would certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast between the state of the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Three and Four Year Olds yesterday and to-day--between the bragging of the one and the cowed look of the other. There is also something of amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be built, and law and order maintained"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't understand figures, but my terms are a shilling per pound every month. It is easy to reckon up without going into sums on slates. This poor innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly liberal as compared with those of the _gombeen_ man. Instead of a shilling per month the latter charges a shilling a week for every sovereign advanced, and then"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Begorra, it's only the name of a sovereign,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's, whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging places like Kilrush or Ennistynon--mere hamlets of some two thousand inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon Deuceace to raise his"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "His bill must be well backed by his friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim, who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, but the drapers and milliners of Limerick, Ennis, and Galway, will hold out allurements to those in possession of ready money. To put the case briefly, there is great danger that, without any intentional dishonesty on their part, the cultivators, great and small, of Western and South-Western Ireland will hardly be in as good a position for the discharge of their liabilities six months or a year hence as they are at present. The three"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "F's"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "over the fire, extolling the virtues of the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and comparing him with the new one, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. It is not remarkable that such comparisons should be instituted. The people have very little to do, and do that in a slovenly, slip-shod way, and they have therefore plenty of leisure for gossip. As they are ignorant of everything beyond their own county, it is only natural that the new proprietor or lessee should be discussed at great length, and all his acts and deeds be fully commented upon. And it is not remarkable that the judgment should be adverse to the new man. He is generally North Irish, Scotch, or English. The two former are hated at once, at a venture; but the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "oneself nor the lessee of an"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "; for the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus inhabited, I asked the driver what he and the country-side thought of the new tenant of the old house."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A good man, your honour, was the cold answer; followed by an enthusiastic,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Och, but it was the ould masther that was the good man! Sorra the bite or sup any one wanted while he was to the fore! Now, the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "was, I understand, a worthy gentleman, of good old county family, who lived in the midst of his tenantry for several months every year, and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "like a fine old"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Celticised Norman, as he was. Like the descendants of the early settlers described by Mr. Froude, he and his had retained their popularity by concessions to Celtic habits, not in religion or personal conduct be it understood, but in letting things go on easily, in a happy-go-lucky way, without any superstitions concerning the profuse employment of soap and water by their dependents. Probably no lady of the house had for many generations entered the kitchen, which apparently served as a focus for the country folk. The stone floor was a stranger to hearthstone and to water, except such as might be spilt upon it; and was either slippery or sticky here and there, according to the nature of the most recent deposits. The table and dressers were in such a condition when taken over by the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "that washing was abandoned as hopeless, and scraping and planing were perforce resorted to. But overhead, firmly fixed in the beams of the ceiling, hung many a goodly flitch of bacon, many a plump, well-fed ham. Under the shadow of this appetising display might be found at any time during the day about a score of persons who had no business there whatever, but found it"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "who had left him an annuity of eight shillings per week, and not unmindful of the virtues of the new one, who keeps him on the establishment as an interesting"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and lodges, feeds, and clothes him, in order that he may not be obliged to divert any portion of his income from its natural course towards Mary Molony's shebeen, to the purchase of the prosaic necessaries of life. The Retainer, who was enjoying the occupation of turning some hams and bacon in salt, and inspecting the condition of some pigs' heads in highly spiced pickle, was a singularly good-looking man, with, well--I will not say"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--cut features and a generally healthy look, speaking wonders for the vigour of constitution which had successfully withstood sixty odd winters and an incalculable quantity of the poisonous new whisky of the country. He was interested in the subject of obtaining sundry rounds of salt beef for Christmastide, holding that roast beef is but a vain thing, good enough for Saxons, no doubt, but not to be compared with corned beef or bacon and cabbage. The Retainer spoke kindly of his new master, but at the mention of the old one at once kindled to fever heat."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thim was times, your honour. Niver a week but we killed two sheep, or a month that we didn't kill a baste. And pigs, your honour. If we didn't kill a pig every day, as your honour says, we killed a matther of four score every sayson. And there was lashings and lavings of mate for every one. And the ould masther said, says he, 'As long as it's there,' says he, 'all are welcome to a bite and a sup at my house. As long as it's there,' says he. And he was the good man, your honour."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, your honour, said the Retainer,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The new comer is prepared to deal handsomely with the people, who with all their faults have endearing qualities almost impossible to resist; but the fact is that he does not understand the situation till it is too late. A good Scotch or English housewife going into her kitchen and finding it so inexpressibly dirty that her feet are literally rooted to the ground, is apt to express a very decided opinion, despite the presence of a dozen or more of gossips smoking their pipes round the fire; but her remarks are hardly likely to be taken in good part, and she is classed as a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "person forthwith. And a general misunderstanding can only be averted by timely concessions and the prompt dismissal of English servants who neither can nor will live with their Irish peers. And yet it cannot be fairly said that anybody is to blame. The"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "cannot endure to be kept in bed till late in the morning, and hence easily acquires the reputation of a"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--literally eaten up by hungry retainers and tenants. He mentioned one family in particular, whose income sank from 12,000l. to nothing a year under the ancient system which united almost every possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as the commutation of all dues into cash; but"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "was as strictly exacted on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is to be drawn, and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "land, but to give him at Christmas tide a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "pig and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "geese and fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "whose bailiffs looked sharply after"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of all descriptions, himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described, and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all. The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good old custom of their forefathers in"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The idea of one of the tribe"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "his chief for assault was never dreamt of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of the county by the indignant population. To the Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since he actually recommended a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "on the occasion of a domestic disturbance to"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the Golden Age of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ould Ireland should prove to have been the all-persuasive, all-powerful"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "like a beast, by a notch being cut in that organ. The upper and exterior convolution of his left ear is cut clean off, so that its outline, instead off being rounded at the top, is straight. The wound is of course still fresh and sore, but is already showing signs of healing. The poor man has evidently been not only barbarously mutilated, but nearly frightened to death. With his pale face and half-grown beard, and his head bound up, he is a pitiable object. Obviously he was nearly as much afraid of me as of his midnight assailants, and was far too much bewildered by the harsh tone of"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "to pay 5l. more than either of the others, as having the best farm. The brothers on the outside sections have prospered. One has saved some hundreds of pounds; the other has given good, substantial portions to his three daughters. No objection was made to the manner in which the land was subdivided by the agent, Mr. Hussey, of the firm of Hussey and Townsend, of Cork, Tralee, and other places. The Sullivan who inherited the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as it is called here, of the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Benjamin's mess has not succeeded in life so well as his brothers. At the October sessions of 1878 an ejectment order was obtained against him for one and a half year's rent, equal to 100l. 10s. In January, 1879, possession was taken, and the farmer formally ejected, but immediately reinstated as"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "a convenient practice, when it is borne in mind that in Ireland an ejected tenant has six months allowed him for"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "during which the landlord can only let the farm subject to the risk of the late tenant paying up his rent, less whatever has been taken off the farm in the meanwhile. Sullivan then was re-established in his farm as"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "after the manner of that of the irreconcilable Tom Browne, of Cloontakilla, county Mayo. Hence, Laurence Griffin, a labouring man, with an acre patch of land to his house, was given the job of looking after the hay, and occasionally summoning Sullivan for trespass. It must be understood that Sullivan's family have never been disturbed, and that Griffin lives, not like a man in possession of their holding, but in his own little house hard by with his own family. The supervision exercised was, therefore, of the mildest character, but the summoning for trespass was accounted a dire offence by the popular leaders. Hence Griffin was first"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for the speaker was"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shoot 'um, says they,"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What did we come out for to-night? growled the chief;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Muffled groans followed this appeal, and encouraged the spokesman to add,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shall we go back as we came, boys?"
}
] |
19160
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is one of the most interesting places in the south of Ireland. It is not only the centre of a rich agricultural country and the abode of an improving landlord, Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, but the seat of an important manufacture of woollens, a rare and curious industry in Munster. The Blarney mills make a great"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of tweed, and employ five hundred and fifty men, women, and girls. I had an excellent opportunity of seeing the factory hands, for I went to Blarney on pay-day, and was greatly struck by the difference between their appearance and that of the people engaged in agriculture alone. The number and appearance of the women employed is a good answer to those pessimists who maintain that the curse of the poorer Irish is the filthiness, laziness, and general slatternliness of the women. In dress and general bearing the girls of Blarney would compare favourably with those of many English manufacturing towns; and, inasmuch as Blarney Mills are successful, their work must be well done. One reason of course of the comfortable look of the Blarney folk is that all the family work. Perhaps the husband works at agriculture, and the wife and daughter at the mill. All work, and hence a good income, as at Blackburn and other cotton towns, instead of the starvation which attends a useless woman who, with her string of helpless children, hangs like a millstone round her husband's neck. There are no"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "at Blarney, where everybody helps to maintain the family roof-tree, and to prove that the Irish of the south, like those of Connemara, are susceptible of being taught, if only pains be taken with them. It must be admitted that Blarney Mills are in the second generation, having been founded by Mr. Mahony, the father of the late"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Father Prout"
}
] |
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