The Highland Lady In Ireland. Elizabeth Grant
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himself. Unfortunate creature, after so many warnings, but go he must, he is unfit to be trusted with any plants of value, and it would be wrong to others to forgive him.
SATURDAY AUGUST 1. A very beautiful day, delightful for hay-making, excellent for ripening the crops which are very heavy. I in the garden with John Kearns who must do for the present at least, till we are more settled whether to go abroad or to stay. Hal and I looking over accounts and calculating what saving we could effect by breaking up our establishment, what expenses we must leave behind us, how we should arrange our plans. Paid Paddy the gardener in full, sending him off between ready money and savings book with £13. He who came here ragged and starving, there will be little remaining this day week.
8. The heat so oppressive there is no stirring out till after seven in the evening, yet the Colonel will go out to look at his hay and in consequence is feeling his side. It is very odd, but I never yet knew any man who had the least sense in his conduct with regard to himself, their knowledge that certain things are hurtful to them does not seem to make the least difference—they appear to have no power of control over themselves. I am sure I hope dear Hal you will read this and think of it and without getting angry just consider whether it is likely we should have you long well in a French climate with French fruits without a horse.
10. Johnny was out in the morning and in such extravagant spirits in the afternoon he appeared as crazy as Prince Louis Napoleon22 who tried to get up a little revolution in Boulogne with five men and ten horses out of a steam boat and an edict ready drawn up proclaiming M. Thiers his prime minister, it was all over in a couple of hours, and they were all half drowned trying to escape.
18. Poor Law Commission sat again, Hal sent John Darker not being able to move himself. On the whole it all seems to be fairly done, a very just value laid on lands and houses too, generally speaking and a very fair attention paid to such corrections as persons of superiour local knowledge propose. And Riley the Colonel’s opponent! An admirable guardian, one of the best of them. Wide awake, shrewd, intelligent, and quite acquainted with the value of property. We got our house lowered and some of the bad land planted on the top of the hill. The tax will by no means fall heavy, it is not known, but the Commissioner supposes about three per cent. The landlord besides his own rate for his own house and grounds etc. will pay for each tenant the half of what his farm and tenements are rated at. We expect to have to pay about £20 yearly, not so much as we spend now by many a good pound, doing but little either towards lessening the evils of poverty, which to say the truth are principally brought on the people by their own vices, for a more improvident, idle set of human beings never were collected in a plentiful land. And then being taught by their priests to believe that the more they suffer here the less they will have to endure in purgatory, they are deprived of any stimulus to exertion.
Lord Milltown and John Hornidge unfortunately came to very high words yesterday at the meeting which is a pity, Lord Milltown was quite wrong in an observation he made regarding some valuation he was inconsiderate enough to call unfair and John Hornidge retorted in a passion instead of gravely. How invaluable in every relation of life, private and public, is a perfect command of temper; remember this, my own dear boy, in case I do not live to help you. A country gentleman, which we look forward to your making yourself, ought more particularly to be very guarded on this count, so many little irritating accidents are apt to happen to him both in the management of his own affairs and in his intercourse with his neighbours, they are a class very apt to fall out without care about their roads and their assessments and their different jobs, and to do good a man must have influence, and to have influence he must have temper, it would be all in good order always with all of us if our hearts were rightly with God.
29. Hal drew up the minutes for his will which he wishes to make before leaving home. Neither he nor I having any foolish superstitions about these things but both of us liking to have all our affairs so arranged that in case of accident all may be found in good order, properly settled that there may be neither trouble nor perplexity left behind us. He read the rough draft over to me and it appears to me to be extremely just, very proper in every respect, and very, very kind to me, proving that he really has confidence both in my affection and in my prudence. Still woman is but woman and in matters of business even where the good of her own children is concerned she requires the counsel of a sterner mind, so we agreed that he should ask Richard Hornidge to undertake a joint charge.
If it be my lot to survive you, my dear, kind Hal, I will endeavour to the utmost to fulfil every wish of yours, to do as I think you would like to have done, and you may depend upon my paying to the few relations you value the same respect and the same attention as I believe you have always seen me show to them. And I sometimes wish that it may be my lot for you would be very wretched without me, encumbered with business and frightened about the children and lonely, and if you were ill how wretched you would be without her who for so many years has been your anxious attendant.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 2. Hal wrote his Will over fair on one of the printed papers and signed it in presence of the Doctor, and Tom Darker, who subscribed it as Witnesses. He leaves all his property to Johnny, and with a portion of £2,500 each to the dear little girls.
5. We consider that the sale of our horses and our carriages will take us over to France and give us a good sum besides to have by us for accidents and that the pay—£320—will keep us there well. The gross rent of the property here is about £380—head rents, cess23, pensions, wages, &c., all the necessary expenses that must be left upon it, allowing for bad rents, etc., £350—leaving John £630 to lay up annually, besides the profits of the farm, which must at least be another £100. And then, if we are so lucky as to let the house, we might allow ourselves the rent of it, as John would certainly have £600 a year, maybe more, to pay our little debt of a £1,000 with. So that if we tire of the Continent in two years we can come home rather more than free, and if we can stay a third year, we shall have near £1,000 in our pockets. So Hal is right, and the scheme is a good one when looked fairly in the face, and all set down in black and white figures arithmetically. Yet all my heart is in Baltiboys, rain and all I wish to live and die here.
7. Took a long walk: went to school and was much pleased. Called in by Tom Kelly to see his new haggard. His whole range of offices is very complete, well laid out, well built and most creditable to him. He is in despair at the Colonel going away. So are they all, poor people. Old Mrs. Tyrrell came to give up her land looking wretchedly ill. She has made some arrangement with Mick Tyrrell, which the Colonel seems to approve of, and which I hope may be agreed on, as the poor old woman would have her cabin and garden for life and a little turf, and be rid of her ill-tilled field, which keeps her in poverty and pays us no rent, and thus another patch would be got quit of, which fits in very well to little Tyrrell’s good farm.
9. Miserable night of asthma—in consequence of taking a tumbler of negus at night, eating meat at dinner and taking no exercise. Medicine won’t do alone—he must abstain from wine and meat till the stomach come round again; he was still suffering so much at six o’clock that he sent to tell the Doctor he should not go this day; but he got better, and the day was fine with the wind in his favour, and the Doctor came and revived his spirits; so they started at one o’clock. He never looked up once after turning from the hall door, and we—how desolate we were—for of later years I have been spoiled, he has never left us, and this month that we are to be alone seems to me as if it would be endless. Frank came back by nine o’clock, his master was off in good spirits.
10. Began the round of visits I intend to make before leaving the Country, and took the Burgage side first. The Redmonds seem pretty comfortable; the eldest married daughter in a good place, paying the Mother for caring her fine child, and though receiving neither money nor kindness from her husband, able to maintain herself perfectly without him. The second daughter married too rather in a hurry we think, and so well—to a woollen draper’s shopman, quite a lift in the world—but when it happened and how she and her baby came so unexpectedly upon the scene so immediately after the announcement of