The Highland Lady In Ireland. Elizabeth Grant
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and has a comfortable lodging, and has taken her little sister Margaret to live with her. Biddy, too, is with a laundress, so only the two least girls are at home. Mick always in work, and always dutiful to his Mother, so is her eldest son; her third son little help to her, but able to support himself, and she has a little boy as good as Mick. The house is in good repair, clean and decent, and she is so industrious there is no fear but that the worst days of that family are over. The poor Delanys looked miserable, their house a ruin and the two sick old people seated each side their chimney in patient misery. They have a little crop, straw enough to thatch the house, hay enough for the cow, the two little wee boys beginning to be some help to them, three daughters in good places, two at home—one must stay to mind those old cripples, but the other must get a place. Hal has left some warm clothing for the old man, and I must do something to enable them to get over the winter; it is heart-breaking to think of what will become of the creatures when we are away—it is the good dinner that has kept old Delany alive and free from pain so long. Then to the dear old cottage now almost a ruin, so dirty, so damp, windows overgrown with the creepers we trained so neatly, papers peeling off the walls, damp breaking through the ceilings, garden a wilderness. Mary Fitzpatrick wants what I can’t give her—a contented temper—always fretting for evils she can’t cure, and forgetting her many comforts. She would marry a Widower with three children, but only two of them are thrown upon her, and he is kind to her and a good workman. She has two nice babies of her own, wants nothing from me but a small supply of medicine, for her health is certainly very bad and most likely the principal cause of her fretfulness.
14. We walked up Burgage Lane to pay all remaining visits there, and found a great improvement in its inhabitants since we first remember them. All thriving except old Shannon, suffering from asthma, and Henry Wall’s family, who don’t look so well off as they used to do. The wife is too fond of tea; she has another baby, so I sent her physick. Mary Doolen I will leave a little money for with Tom Darker to be given to her occasionally.
15. The Doctor tells me Lord Milltown could not come home just now, that he can live at Leamington while the £200 he has just won will last, and what he will do after that nobody can tell; he is unable to raise money to pay the renewal fines of some farms on his wife’s property, the leases of which have fallen in, so that her income will be lessened for the future; and he knows the authour of Harry Lorrequer24 a class fellow of his own, a wild, very clever, hare-brained creature, who himself played off many of the tricks he describes, now living at Brussels, I fear not very creditably, since his present employment is fleecing Hugh Henry at Ecartez.
17. Great commotion in the yard, Mary Highland having been seen at the peach trees. I gave it them well at all sides, being very angry and for sundry reasons of my own being very glad of an opportunity publickly to find fault with her. Tom Darker has distrained the three bad Tenants, Kearns, Doyle and Quin.25
25. No letter from Hal by the early post, the second brought me his first from St. Servans. Says if I like he will return to sweet Baltiboys, where perhaps we might economise just as well as anywhere else after all. I will say the word, he may depend upon it, too happy to get him back at this small cost to the place where he is best and happiest, and where he ought to be. And may God grant that this new trial, backed by so many more equally unsuccessful, may cure his restless temper, which I sincerely believe was at the bottom of this whim, though he fancied it resulted from prudence. The dreadful society is worse in my eyes than the ugly, wretched seaport. What could he expect from a set of people among whom Dr. Eckford figured chief. Henry Robertson is so captivated by the scenery and the air here, that he seriously thinks of coming to live in Dublin or near it. His £800 a year, which is a bare maintenance for them in Edinburgh, would enable them to keep a carriage here; he says that if we could gather a little knot of Indians about us, we might laugh at the world.
27. The Doctor came and carried me to Henry Wall’s wife to see whether she would do for Mrs. Cotton, Mary Nowlan having become so intolerable they cannot keep her. The old Irish story: for the first six weeks no one could behave better, but as soon as the good feeding had given her spirits and she had got some clothes and a little money, her senses seem to have deserted her. First she wanted five meals a day, she having never had but two in her cabin, and they only potatoes, with very seldom milk to them; then beer at command, which in her life before she never could have tasted; then angry at getting no presents; then sulky at the English nurse insisting that the baby should be kept cleaner, etc., etc. How can one help these creatures? And Mary Wall, whom we found to-day actually without sufficient clothes to cover her, will be perhaps just as absurd in her turn. Patience, time and care may improve at least the young.
29. John had no difficulty with the poor creatures whose crops he seized. He left them all that they would require for the support of their families, merely took what they would have improperly otherwise disposed of, and before May comes, when they will be dispossessed, we must see to get something done for them. Farm they never will—Quin from vice and Kearns from folly, and Doyle from something between the two. Doctor called to hear about the Colonel, as indeed he has done most days, and to ask me if I wanted money. Took a long walk, gave Mary Wall good advice and something better.
30. Not quite so comfortable a month as many, Hal having given his health another shake, not a very safe thing at his age, and spent money instead of saving it; but if it teach him wisdom we won’t grudge it; his own warm, luxurious, happy home is the place for him at his age with his health, and, when he sees the good train his affairs are now in, I think he will not again be tempted to wander.
THURSDAY OCTOBER 15. A melancholy end to the St. Servans expedition, [the Colonel being bed-ridden with asthma for a fortnight after his return] but one to be expected, for change of air very seldom suits his asthmatick disposition. He has had a great shake, and he is not recovering from it so well as he used to do. A warning to him to take better care of his valuable life, and stay in the home filled with comforts suited to his age.
17. I must get to the garden, now looking as it used to do under Paddy reformed—his temperance medal and the entreaties of himself and friends having softened my hard heart after some weeks of obduracy, for I was very angry with him. We had the Duke of Wellington’s Life here by Maxwell from our club—very badly done, I though—and now Beckford’s Travels, which the Colonel tells me are equally stupid. We ought to have a new round of books ordered, these being out; but our indolent secretary [Ogle Moore] is too busy rocking his babies and fondling his wife to attend to any thing besides—how can we expect him to mind a book society when he neglects his parish?
19. Old Mrs. Grant sent us some periodicals to amuse the Colonel, among them a number of Chambers’ Magazine, with which I am delighted. How is it that the Scotch always get to the top of every thing—do all best—early education of temper and habits, as well as school learning.
24. The Doctor was quite agitated yesterday in telling us of a most shocking piece of negligence—worse—neglect of positive duty in our Vicar and Curate. A girl thirteen years of age, for whom they are receiving an annuity from the County, allowed to live among papists, unacquainted with the nature of an oath, remembered two years ago to have said some prayers, etc. This shocks him and others because it came before them in a Court of Justice, where her testimony could not be received by the magistrates on account of her ignorance; but I could rake up fifty such cases or such like, where the total inattention of our clergy is every day increasing evils that a generation of better care will not eradicate. And people wonder that the reformed religion does not spread here. I wonder it is tolerated—it seems to fail to produce even in gentlemen an idea of their duty. What effect can it have on the poor. Mr. Moore is greatly more culpable than Mr. Foster—he knows his duty, which the other poor creature really does not—poor Ireland!
30. Poor Sarah spent her night in tears. She is fretting herself to death, and I feel for her leaving us after eleven years happy service, and I feel for myself losing such an affectionate and useful creature; and though I do not value James equally, thinking he has some of the cuteness and plenty