第47章

In the neighbourhood of Killpatrickstown, Lady Dashfort said, there were several SQUIREENS, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the BUCKEENS, described by Young and Crumpe.SQUIREENS are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms, possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; TAKE OUT a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know anything of law or justice!

Busy and loud about small matters; JOBBERS AT ASSIZES, combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them.

In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry; except, perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables;or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites, or to propose and CARRYjobs for them on grand juries.At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county.Lady Dashfort hinted to Lord Killpatrick, that her private letters from England spoke of an approaching dissolution of Parliament; she knew that, upon this hint, a round of invitations would be sent to the squireens; and she was morally certain that they would be more disagreeable to Lord Colambre, and give him a worse idea of the country, than any other people who could be produced.Day after day some of these personages made their appearance; and Lady Dashfort took care to draw them out upon the subjects on which she knew that they would show the most self-sufficient ignorance, and the most illiberal spirit.

This succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations.'Lord Colambre! how I pity you, for being compelled to these permanent sittings after dinner!' said Lady Isabel to him one night, when he came late to the ladies from the dining-room.'Lord Killpatrick insisted upon my staying to help him to push about that never-ending, still-beginning electioneering bottle,' said Lord Colambre.'Oh! if that were all; if these gentlemen would only drink;--but their conversation! I don't wonder my mother dreads returning to Clonbrony Castle, if my father must have such company as this.But, surely, it cannot be necessary.

'Oh, indispensable! Positively indispensable!' cried Lady Dashfort; 'no living in Ireland without it.You know, in every country in the world, you must live with the people of the country, or be torn to pieces; for my part, I should prefer being torn to pieces.'

Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel knew how to take advantage of the contrast between their own conversation, and that of the persons by whom Lord Colambre was so justly disgusted; they happily relieved his fatigue with wit, satire, poetry, and sentiment; so that he every day became more exclusively fond of their company;for Lady Killpatrick and the Miss Killpatricks were mere commonplace people.In the mornings, he rode or walked with Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel: Lady Dashfort, by way of fulfilling her promise of showing him the people, used frequently to take him into the cabins, and talk to their inhabitants.Lord and Lady Killpatrick, who had lived always for the fashionable world, had taken little pains to improve the condition of their tenants;the few attempts they had made were injudicious.They had built ornamented, picturesque cottages, within view of their demesne ;and favourite followers of the family, people with half a century's habit of indolence and dirt, were PROMOTED to these fine dwellings.The consequences were such as Lady Dashfort delighted to point out; everything let to go to ruin for the want of a moment's care, or pulled to pieces for the sake of the most trifling surreptitious profit; the people most assisted always appearing proportionally wretched and discontented.No one could, with more ease and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the DISHONOUR of a country.In every cabin that she entered, by the first glance of her eye at the head, kerchiefed in no comely guise, or by the drawn-down corners of the mouth, or by the bit of a broken pipe, which in Ireland never characterises STOUT LABOUR, or by the first sound of the voice, the drawling accent on 'your honour,' or, 'my lady,' she could distinguish the proper objects of her charitable designs, that is to say, those of the old uneducated race, whom no one can help, because they will never help themselves.To these she constantly addressed herself, making them give, in all their despairing tones, a history of their complaints and grievances; then asking them questions, aptly contrived to expose their habits of self-contradiction, their servility and flattery one moment, and their litigious and encroaching spirit the next: thus giving Lord Colambre the most unfavourable idea of the disposition and character of the lower class of the Irish people.

Lady Isabel the while standing by, with the most amiable air of pity, with expressions of the finest moral sensibility, softening all her mother said, finding ever some excuse for the poor creatures, and following with angelic sweetness to heal the wounds her mother inflicted.

When Lady Dashfort thought she had sufficiently worked upon Lord Colambre's mind to weaken his enthusiasm for his native country, and when Lady Isabel had, by the appearance of every virtue, added to a delicate preference, if not partiality, for our hero, ingratiated herself into his good opinion and obtained an interest in his mind, the wily mother ventured an attack of a more decisive nature; and so contrived it was, that, if it failed, it should appear to have been made without design to injure, and in total ignorance.