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Chapter I. The Bursting of the Storm.

In a valley opening on the shore of one of those wild but beautiful lochs that form a striking feature in the landscape of the west of Ireland, stood a farm-house that in itself and its surroundings bore evidence of being occupied by one of the better class of tenant-farmers. Humble, indeed, it seemed, with its heavy covering of thatch and its whitewashed walls; but in its muslin-curtained windows, in the woodbine festooned around the little rustic porch, and in the well-kept piece of lawn stretching down to the waters rippling on the beach, there was an air of simple refinement not commonly found among the peasantry in the surrounding district. A belt of plantation sheltered it from the wild gutss that sometimes swept down the glen and lashed the loch into fury, while in front the cottage looked out over the water to the gloomy heights that bounded the horizon beyond.

It was the close of an autumn day in 18—; dark clouds were sweeping across the sky, the fallen leaves were swirling in eddies over the lawn, and the sough of the wind foreboded a bleak and wintry night; while the gleam of light from the cottage windows spoke of warinth and comfort within. In a little parlour, plainly but comfortably furnished, where everything, from its substantial character and antique style, appeared to be an heirloom handed down from father to son for generations past, Sat William Dillon and his wife.

He was a man in the prime of early manhood, bronzed and weather-beaten somewhat, as one accustomed to attend to the practical duties of his farm, but with unmistakable signs of intellectual culture that told of influences other than those which usually fall to the lot of a young farmer in a remote country district. For William Dillon had been intended for a professional career, and the sequestered home in which he was had been his fathera's and his father's father's through generations. His father had sent him, being an only son, to Trinity College, Dublin, there to qualify for a different sphere. Circumstances had prevented that intention being realised, and the sudden death of his father had changed the whole current of William Dillon's life. He found it necessary to return and take charge of the farm, but the sudden blighting of his professional prospects had been a sore trial to him. He was reconciled to it by the fact that he was all the sooner able to gratify a long cherished wish and give a home to one very dear to him, who had been orphaned like himself.

Minnie Leslie was the daughter of the late medical man in the country town, and her fair face and winning ways had brought her many a suitor, but on her father's death she found herself wholly unprovided for. But her heart was true to her early love, and she bravely determined to earn her livelihood until the time when William Dillon would be able to redeem his vows. Events had hastened the realization of their wishes, however, marring their future prospects, and for seven years now the student, transformed into a farmer, had been bravely battling with difficulties incident to had seasons and disappointing harvests, cheered the while by the companionship and counsel of his sweet and gentle little wife. Three beautiful children had added to the responsibilities and chastened the spirit of William Dillon, giving him a keener interest in events at the time proceeding in the district around him, and in the dark outlook presented to the tenant farmers.

For a very dark cloud was lying over the west of Ireland, and men's hearts were failing them for fear. Crops had failed, and rents were in arrear, and it was the period of those wholesale clearances of the poor starving peasantry, which sent a thrill of grief and horror through the empire.

Not that William Dillon felt that he had page 2 a personal concern in the progress of these evictions, for he knew that his family had always stood high in the estimation of his landlord, and his rent was not in arrear further than had been the custom of the estate since time immemorial; still there were flying rumours of deer parks and extensive sheep farming, and foresting, and other schemes for utilising the district, more profitably than was now done from the precarious rentals of an impoverished tenantry, so that sometimes in his sombre moments he thought anxiously of the possible future.

During the past few weeks those rumours had been thickening, and this was the theme that filled the columns of the Independent in which William Dillon's attention was now absorbed. At last laying the paper aside with a sigh he said: ‘Oh, why has man the will and power to make his fellow mourn?’ His wife raised her head from the sewing with which she had been engaged.

‘What is that, Willie? Is there any more news about the tenants?’

‘Ah yes, Minnie, dear, it's heartbreaking, Another ukase has gone forth, and thirty or forty poor families on the other side of the Loch have to go.’

‘Poor things! God help them; in the very beginning of the winter too.’

‘Aye, Mninie, that is the time they choose for it. Oh, but it seems a hard dispensation of Providence. No wonder there are people who question whether there is a Providence at all!’

‘Don't say so, Willie. Providence allows these things for wise ends, and we are not able to judge of them.’

‘The ends may be wise enough, but the means are hard; and if these wise ends are to be obtained why should, poor, unoffending people be the victims? Here are about a hundred, I suppose, of men, women and children, who, though they know nothing about it to-night, are doomed to be turned out in the pitiless winter, to starve and sicken and die, perhaps, at the back of a ditch, and the author of all that wretchedness will spend his nights amid the gaiety and glare of ballrooms and all the other resorts of wealth and fashion, without one moment's regret, without a thought thrown away to the weeping mothers and dying children who are sacrificed to feed his pride and pamper him with luxuries.’

‘But do you think that Lord Errington really knows about this?’

‘Why should he not? And if he does not is it not equally criminal negligence that hands over such powers to another to use them as he will?’

‘Lord Errington has always had the name of being a man of the most humane and even generous feelings, and I can hardly think that he can have given his sanction to turning out these poor creatures in the depth of winter.’

‘True, dear; I believe he has not directly sanctioned it. But what does he care to know about their condition, or the state to which they will be reduced? He has never been over on the estate but once in his life, and then he only saw the people in their go-to-chapel best, drawn up in review for him — a smiling, happy, and contented peasantry. And there was the agent, too, Captain Lewis, benignant and condescending, asking them if they had any request or complaint to make to “his lordship,” and generally conveying the impression that the estate was an Arcadia of simple rustic contentment. Never till my dying day will I forget the contrast to the haughty and imperious way in which he usually speaks to the tenants on rent — day, as if he thought himself still in India, hectoring a lot of wretched ryots, or giving orders to a troop of dragoons. I say, dear, that a man like Lord Errington, who gives absolute control over his tenants to a man of the antecedents and training of Captain Lewis, is responsible for all the consequences. There is not a cruelty perpetrated on the estate which his lordship could not prevent if he wished, but being pressed by his own necessities, brought on by extravagant living, he has handed the whole thing over to a heartless man, who, if he can only squeeze out the money that is wanted, is utterly regardless of the suffering he inflicts. I certainly have no reason to complain of Captain Lewis myself, for he has always treated me with courtesy, at least so far as his nature would allow, but it has made my blood boil to hear him sometimes talking to some of the tenants when they were pleading for delay. I think it would be a terrible thing for any man to have to cast himself on his forbearance, for his tender mercies are cruel.

‘But what does the paper say about the evictions; is there any one that we know among those to be turned out?’

‘There is a long article about the whole affair, but this is the part that refers to the new evictions. “But the work of depopulation goes on apace. We understand that on the neigbouring estate of Lord Errington, the angel of death has been again commissioned, to go forth to slay with famine, and cold, and pestilence. Some five or six townlands on the shores of Loch —–, viz.; Ballagh, Killena, Mullahmore, Drumcran, Ballimore, and Killevan, are to be swept with the besom of destruction, and the wretched inhabitants are to be cast out to die in the shoughs. That estate has already an uneuviable notoriety—”’

‘Did you say Killevan? Why, that is where poor Tom's mother lives: poor old thing, and she has been bedridden for years, surely they will have mercy on a poor old creature like that, and not turn her out?’

‘Mercy, Minnie dear, mercy is a quality page 3 that does not enter into that kind of business. But poor Tom, I'm really sorry for him; how he will be cut up when he knows of it, for he is as good a son as he is a servant, and is greatly attached to his old mother.’

‘But, Willie dear, would it not be a kindly thing to take her here when she is turned out?—at least, for a little while until they have had time to look about them and see where they are to go. Poor Tom would gladly give up his bed to his mother and take a shakedown anywhere.’

‘But, Minnie, you forget; the rule of the estate is that anyone giving bread or sup to anyone evicted, will be punished and perhaps evicted himself. The object is to clear them out of the district and drive them to the workhouse—or the grave, perhaps, which would be a greater relief to the estate and, probably to the unfortunate creatures themselves.’

‘What is that—a knock at the door?’

‘No, it is the flapping from the wind. How stormy it is, Surely nobody would be coming here at this time of night, and such a night. It is a knock?’

‘Don't go out, Willie, you don't know who it may be.’

‘Oh, I must see who it is. Who is there?’

‘It's me, Mr Dillon, Phil Murphy; can I spake wid you a minute?’

‘Oh, come in, Phil; come inside.’

‘No, Mr Dillon; my shoes are too dirty—the lane is so muddy; but I want to spake wid you a minute at the door.’

Mr Dillon took his hat off a peg in the hall, and, saying to his wife that he would be back in a moment, went outside, closing the door behind him.

Mrs Dillon, as she went on with her sewing, could hear the two men engaged in a low tone of conversation; although what was said or what the subject of conversation was she could not make out. Half-an-hour had passed, and still the conversation continued, until Mrs Dillon, anxious for her husband standing out in the cold, was on the point of opening the door and interrupting the conversation. At length she could hear their good-byes, when the door opened and her husband entered. Replacing his hat in the hall he came into the parlour, and the quick eye of his wife at once perceivd that there was something wrong.

‘Minnie,’ he said, ‘the bolt has struck us.’

‘What bolt? What is it? Tell me what you mean, dear.’

‘We have to go, Minnie; turned out of the house in which my family has lived for centuries.’

‘Oh no, dear, surely not. Is that what Phil Murphy told you? How does he know? How has he heard it?’

‘He has just come from town, where he says everyone was talking about it. It appears that the whole of the district round is to be cleared to be turned into grazing parks or something, and we have to go with the rest. It was heard first at the office from the Captain himself.’

‘But we are not behind with the reut.’

‘It doesn't matter; it is the land, not the rent they want, and we must go.’

Mr Dillon rested his face on his hand, and a tide of sorrow swept through his heart as he gave way to the sombre thoughts that this sudden change in his prospects inspired, while his wife bending over her sewing went quietly on with her work; on which from time to time a tear silently fell. The moaning of the wind among the trees without seemed to sing the requiem of departed hopes, and a dark cloud of sorrow had suddenly settled down on the home of the Dillons. At last, quietly laying her work on the table, Mrs Dillon, throwing her arms around her husband's neck, seated herself on his knee. ‘Never mind, dear, it may not be as hard as it looks, we have passed through troubles before, and we are not going to let this one crush us. It may be that it is only an idle rumour that Murphy has got hold of.’

‘No, Minnie, I feel sure it is true; not merely that Murphy has heard it, but it looks so likely. It appears that the whole district is to be cleared out, and we cannot expect to be made an exception. In fact it would interfere with the plan of their arrangements, if what is stated be correct. However, I will go into town in the morning and learn the worst; and, if we must leave, the world is wide enough for us, we are both young and with plenty of energy, and there is no doubt, we will find a way through somehow.’

‘Yes, dear Willie, that is the way to look at it; there is no use in being cast down; if the worst comes to the worst our dear little children will not want; we can both work; thank God we are both healthy and strong, and education may enable us to do better than ever we could have done with the farm.’

‘I will go into town and see the agent. I hardly know anything I dislike more than seeming to ask a favour from Captain Lewis, but if it is so that he intends to take the place, I might be able to persuade him to so far modify his plans as to let us remain. At all events I shall learn the truth, and the sooner we know the position the better.’

But when his wife had retired, and William Dillon remained alone with his thoughts, the severity of the sacrifice which he was called on to make presented itself in all its sadness. In this little room in which he sat the happiest hours of his boyhood had been passed. On that couch, old-fashioned and time-worn, he had often flung himself to rest weary with play. The table, the chairs, the very carpet, were all associated with his earliest recollections, and were hallowed to his eyes by the memories that they brought page 4 of all the tender cares of indulgent parents. There from the walls father and mother still looked down on him with that affectionate and anxious tenderness with which they had followed him in his boyish waywardness; indeed, there seemed to him a deep and more sympathetic tenderness in the look, as if they were conscious of the great trouble that had come to him.

And then his thoughts went wandering back over the events of his life, to the days when, without a care or any knowledge of the troubles that life brings, he had roamed about over the hills that were soon to be his no more; he thought of the joyous reckleessness of his student years, and of the opportunities of professional distinction that were suddenly quenched; and then of the brave, firm effort he had made to contend with the difficulties of farming life, cheered and stimulated by the thought that every year was giving security to the comforts with which he was surrounding those that were dearor to him than his own soul. Over all this long vista of the past he looked with a softened saddened feeling, prepared to be satisfied if any condition of the past could return in place of the dark cloud of uncertainty and difficulty that now hung over the future.

True enough with all his strength and energy life presented no hopeless problem for William Dillon; but the sudden severance of the ties that bound him to the home of his fathers was hard to bear. Although enjoying the comforts of life and regarded as a well-to-do farmer, he felt, that when all arrears of debt were paid and other engagements met, he would have little if anything to begin life over again; and as the remote district in which he lived presented few opportunities for his engaging in any other employment he could not conceal from himself the fact that the loss of his farm meant exile from the scenes to which he so fondly clung. Depressed and saddened by the suddenness of the change that had come over his prospects, it is not strange that William Dillon, as he sat on into the silent hours of the night, brooding over the present, over the past, and over the future, gave way to despondency; and that in the slow and measured cadence of the old clock in the corner he seemed to hear ‘Ever forever, forever, never.’