LITMIR.BIZ

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of cross-questioning or badgering could convert him into an informer.

      “And the little I saw,” said Owen, “they knocked out of my memory with this;” and he pointed to the half-healed gash on his forehead.

      “But you know something of how the row begun?”

      “No, yer honor, I was at the other side of the fair.”

      “Was young Mr. Leslie in fault – did you hear that?”

      “I never heerd that he did any thing – unagreeable,” said Owen, after hesitating for a few seconds in his choice of a word.

      “So then, I’m not likely to obtain any information from either of you.”

      They made no reply, but their looks gave as palpable a concurrence to this speech, as though they swore to its truth.

      “Well, I have another question to ask. It was you saved this young gentleman, I understand; what was your motive for doing so? when, as by your own confession, you were at a distance when the fight begun.”

      “He was my landlord’s son,” said Owen, half roughly; “I hope there is no law agin that.”

      “I sincerely trust not,” ejaculated the gentleman; “have you been long on the estate?”

      “Three generations of us now, yer honor,” said the old man.

      “And what rent do you pay?”

      “Oh, musha, we pay enough! we pay fifteen shillings an acre for the bit of callows below, near the lake, and we give ten pounds a year for the mountain – and bad luck to it for a mountain – it’s breaking my heart, trying to make something out of it.”

      “Then I suppose you’d be well pleased to exchange your farm, and take one in a better and more profitable part of the country?”

      Another suspicion here shot across the old man’s mind; and turning to Owen he said in Irish: “He wants to get the mountain for sporting over; but I’ll not lave it.”

      The gentleman repeated his question.

      “Troth, no then, yer honor; we’ve lived here so long we’ll just stay our time in it.”

      “But the rent is heavy, you say.”

      “Well, we’ll pay it, plaze God.”

      “And I’m sure it’s a strange wild place in winter.”

      “Its wholesome, any how,” was the short reply.

      “I believe I must go back again as wise as I came,” muttered the gentleman. “Come, my good old man, – and you, Owen; I want to know how I can best serve you, for what you’ve done for me: it was my son you rescued in the fair – ”

      “Are you the landlord – is yer honor Mr. Leslie?” exclaimed both as they rose from their seats, as horrified as if they had taken such a liberty before Royalty.

      “Yes, Owen; and I grieve to say, that I should cause so much surprise to any tenant, at seeing me. I ought to be better known on my property; and I hope to become so: but it grows late, and I must reach the valley before night. Tell me, are you really attached to this farm, or have I any other, out of lease at this time, you like better?”

      “I would not leave the ould spot, with yer honor’s permission, to get a demesne and a brick house; nor Owen neither.”

      “Well, then, be it so; I can only say, if you ever change your mind, you’ll find me both ready and willing to serve you; meanwhile you must pay no more rent, here.”

      “No more rent!”

      “Not a farthing; I’m sorry the favour is so slight a one, for indeed the mountain seems a bleak and profitless tract.”

      “There is not its equal for mutton – ”

      “I’m glad of it, Owen; and it only remains for me to make the shepherd something more comfortable; – well, take this; and when I next come up here, which I intend to do, to fish the lake, I hope to find you in a better house;” and he pressed a pocket-book into the old man’s hand as he said this, and left the cabin: while both Owen and his father were barely able to mutter a blessing upon him, so overwhelming and unexpected was the whole occurrence.

      SECOND ERA

      From no man’s life, perhaps, is hope more rigidly excluded than from that of the Irish peasant of a poor district. The shipwrecked mariner upon his raft, the convict in his cell, the lingering sufferer on a sick hed, may hope; but he must not.

      Daily labour, barely sufficient to produce the commonest necessaries of life, points to no period of rest or repose; year succeeds year in the same dull routine of toil and privation; nor can he look around him and see one who has risen from that life of misery, to a position of even comparative comfort.

      The whole study of his existence, the whole philosophy of his life, is, how to endure; to struggle on under poverty and sickness; in seasons of famine, in times of national calamity, to hoard up the little pittance for his landlord and the payment for his Priest; and he has nothing more to seek for. Were it our object here, it would not be difficult to pursue this theme further, and examine, if much of the imputed slothfulness and indolence of the people was not in reality due to that very hopelessness. How little energy would be left to life, if you took away its ambitions; how few would enter upon the race, if there were no goal before them! Our present aim, however, is rather with the fortunes of those we have so lately left. To these poor men, now, a new existence opened. Not the sun of spring could more suddenly illumine the landscape where winter so late had thrown its shadows, than did prosperity fall brightly on their hearts, endowing life with pleasures and enjoyments, of which they had not dared to dream before.

      In preferring this mountain-tract to some rich lowland farm, they were rather guided by that spirit of attachment to the home of their fathers – so characteristic a trait in the Irish peasant – than by the promptings of self-interest. The mountain was indeed a wild and bleak expanse, scarce affording herbage for a few sheep and goats; the callows at its foot, deeply flooded in winter, and even by the rains of autumn, made tillage precarious and uncertain; yet the fact that these were rent-free, that of its labour and its fruits all was now their own, inspired hope and sweetened toil. They no longer felt the dreary monotony of daily exertion, by which hour was linked to hour, and year to year, in one unbroken succession; – no; they now could look forward, they could lift up their hearts and strain their eyes to a future, where honest industry had laid up its store for the decline of life; they could already fancy the enjoyments of the summer season, when they should look down upon their own crops and herds, or think of the winter nights, and the howling of the storm without, reminding them of the blessings of a home.

      How little to the mind teeming with its bright and ambitious aspirings would seem the history of their humble hopes! how insignificant and how narrow might appear the little plans and plots they laid for that new road in life, in which they were now to travel! The great man might scoff at these, the moralist might frown at their worldliness; but there is nothing sordid or mean in the spirit of manly independence; and they who know the Irish people, will never accuse them of receiving worldly benefits with any forgetfulness of their true and only source. And now to our story.

      The little cabin upon the mountain was speedily added to, and fashioned into a comfortable-looking farmhouse of the humbler class. Both father and son would willingly have left it as it was; but the landlord’s wish had laid a command upon them, and they felt it would have been a misapplication of his bounty, had they not done as he had desired. So closely, indeed, did they adhere to his injunctions, that a little room was added specially for his use and accommodation, whenever he came on that promised excursion he hinted at. Every detail of this little chamber interested them deeply; and many a night, as they sat over their fire, did they eagerly discuss the habits and tastes of the “quality,” anxious to be wanting in nothing which should make it suitable for one like him.

      Sufficient money remained above all this expenditure to purchase some sheep, and even a cow; and already their changed fortunes had excited the interest and curiosity of the little world in which they lived.

      There

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