Fardorougha, The Miser. William Carleton
former. This class of persons will also take a joint bond, or joint promissory note, or, in fact, any collateral security they know to be valid, and if the contract be not fulfilled, they immediately pounce upon the guarantee. They will, in fact, as a mark of their anxiety to assist a neighbor in distress, receive a pig from a widow, or a cow from a struggling small farmer, at thirty or forty per cent, beneath its value, and claim the merit of being a friend into the bargain. Such men are bitter enemies to paper money, especially to notes issued by private bankers, which they never take in payment. It is amusing, if a person could forget the distress which occasions the scene, to observe one of these men producing an old stocking, or a long black leathern purse—or a calf-skin pocket-book with the hair on, and counting down, as if he gave out his heart's blood drop by drop, the specific sum, uttering, at the same time, a most lugubrious history of his own poverty, and assuring the poor wretch he is fleecing, that if he (the miser) gives way to his good nature, he must ultimately become the victim of his own benevolence. In no case, however, do they ever put more in the purse or stocking than is just then wanted, and sometimes they will be short a guinea or ten shillings, which they borrow from a neighbor, or remit to the unfortunate dupe in the course of the day. This they do in order to enhance the obligation, and give a distinct proof of their poverty. Let not, therefore, the gentlemen of the Minories, nor our P———s and our M———s nearer home, imagine for a moment that they engross the spirit of rapacity and extortion to themselves. To the credit of the class, however, to which they belong, such persons are not so numerous as formerly, and to the still greater honor of the peasantry be it said, the devil himself is not hated with half the detestation which is borne them. In order that the reader may understand our motive for introducing such a description as that we have now given, it will be necessary for us to request him to accompany a stout, well-set young man, named Bartle Flanagan, along a green ditch, which, planted with osiers, leads to a small meadow belonging to Fardorougha Donovan. In this meadow, his son Connor is now making hay, and on seeing Flanagan approach, he rests upon the top of his rake, and exclaims in a soliloquy:—
“God help you and yours, Bartle! If it was in my power, I take God to witness, I'd make up wid a willin' heart for all the hardship and misfortune my father brought upon you all.”
He then resumed his labor, in order that the meeting between him and Bartle might take place with less embarrassment, for he saw at once that the former was about to speak to him.
“Isn't the weather too hot, Connor, to work bareheaded? I think you ought to keep on your hat.”
“Bartle, how are you?—off or on, it's the same thing; hat or no hat, it's broilin' weather, the Lord be praised! What news, Bartle?”
“Not much, Connor, but what you know—a family that was strugglin', but honest, brought to dissolation. We're broken up; my father and mother's both livin' in a cabin they tuck from Billy Nuthy; Mary and Alick's gone to sarvice, and myself's just on my way to hire wid the last man I ought to go to—your father, that is, supposin' we can agree.”
“As heaven's above me, Bartle, there's not a man in the county this day sorrier for what has happened than myself! But the truth is, that when my father heard of Tom Grehan, that was your security, havin' gone to America, he thought every day a month till the note was due. My mother an' I did all we could, but you know his temper; 'twas no use. God knows, as I said before, I'm heart sorry for it.”
“Every one knows, Connor, that if your mother an' you had your way an' will, your father wouldn't be sich a screw as he is.”
“In the meantime, don't forget that he is my father, Bartle, an' above all things, remimber that I'll allow no man to speak disparagingly of him in my presence.”
“I believe you'll allow, Connor, that he was a scourge an' a curse to us, an' that none of us ought to like a bone in his skin.”
“It couldn't be expected you would, Bartle; but you must grant, after all, that he was only recoverin' his own. Still, when you know what my feeling is upon the business, I don't think it's generous in you to bring it up between us.”
“I could bear his harrishin' us out of house an' home,” proceeded the other, “only for one thought that still crasses in an me.”
“What is that, Bartle?—God knows I can't help feelin' for you,” he added, smote with the desolation which his father had brought upon the family.
“He lent us forty pounds,” proceeded the young man; “and when he found that Tom Grehan, our security, went to America, he came down upon us the minute the note was due, canted all we had at half price, and turned us to starve upon the world; now, I could bear that, but there's one thing——”
“That's twice you spoke about that one thing,” said Connor, somewhat sharply, for he felt hurt at the obstinacy of the other, in continuing a subject so distressing to him; “but,” he continued, in a milder tone, “tell me, Bartle, for goodness' sake, what it is, an' let us put an' end to the discoorse. I'm sure it must be unpleasant to both of us.”
“It doesn't signify,” replied the young man, in a desponding voice—“she's gone; it's all over wid me there; I'm a beggar—I'm a beggar!”
“Bartle,” said Connor, taking his hand, “you're too much downhearted; come to us, but first go to my father; I know you'll find it hard to deal with him. Never mind that; whatever he offers you, close wid him, an' take my word for it that my mother and I between us will make you up dacent wages; an' sorry I am that it's come to this wid you, poor fellow!”
Bartle's cheek grew pale as ashes; he wrung Connor's hand with all his force, and fixed an unshrinking eye on him as he replied—
“Thank you Connor, now—but I hope I'll live to thank you better yet, and if I do, you needn't thank me for any return I may make you or yours. I will close wid your father, an' take whatsomever he'll order me; for, Connor,” and he wrung his hand again—“Connor O'Donovan, I haven't a house or home this day, nor a place under God's canopy where to lay my head, except upon the damp floor of my father's naked cabin. Think of that, Connor, an' think if I can forget it; still,” he added, “you'll see, Connor—Connor, you'll see how I'll forgive it.”
“It's a credit to yourself to spake as you do,” replied Connor; “call this way, an' let me know what's done, an' I hope, Bartle, you an' I will have some pleasant days together.”
“Ay, an' pleasant nights, too, I hope,” replied the other: “to be sure I'll call; but if you take my advice, you'd tie a handkerchy about your head; it's mad hot, an' enough to give one a fever bareheaded.”
Having made this last observation, he loaped across a small drain that bounded the meadow, and proceeded up the fields to Fardorougha's house.
Bartle Flanagan was a young man, about five feet six in height, but of a remarkably compact and athletic form. His complexion was dark, but his countenance open, and his features well set and regular. Indeed his whole appearance might be termed bland and prepossessing. If he ever appeared to disadvantage it was whilst under the influence of resentment, during which his face became pale as death, nay, almost livid; and, as his brows were strong and black, the contrast between them and his complexion changed the whole expression of his countenance into that of a person whose enmity a prudent man would avoid. He was not quarrelsome, however, nor subject to any impetuous bursts of passion; his resentments, if he retained any, were either dead or silent, or, at all events, so well regulated that his acquaintances looked upon him as a young fellow of a good-humored and friendly disposition. It is true, a hint had gone abroad that on one or two occasions he was found deficient in courage; but, as the circumstances referred to were rather unimportant, his conduct by many was attributed rather to good sense and a disinclination to quarrel on frivolous grounds, than to positive cowardice. Such he was, and such he is, now that he has entered upon the humble drama of our story.
On arriving at Fardorougha's house, he found that worthy man at dinner, upon a cold bone of bacon and potatoes. He had only a few moments before returned from the residence of the County Treasurer, with whom he went to lodge, among other sums, that which was so iniquitously wrung from