CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RELIEF COMMITTEE.

At this time the famine was beginning to be systematised. The sternest among landlords and masters were driven to acknowledge that the people had not got food or the means of earning it. The people themselves were learning that a great national calamity had happened, and that the work was G.o.d's work; and the Government had fully recognized the necessity of taking the whole matter into its own hands. They were responsible for the preservation of the people, and they acknowledged their responsibility.

And then two great rules seemed to get themselves laid down--not by general consent, for there were many who greatly contested their wisdom--but by some force strong enough to make itself dominant.

The first was, that the food to be provided should be earned and not given away. And the second was, that the providing of that food should be left to private compet.i.tion, and not in any way be undertaken by the Government. I make bold to say that both these rules were wise and good.

But how should the people work? That Government should supply the wages was of course an understood necessity; and it was also necessary that on all such work the amount of wages should be regulated by the price at which provisions might fix themselves.

These points produced questions which were hotly debated by the Relief Committees of the different districts; but at last it got itself decided, again by the hands of Government, that all hills along the country roads should be cut away, and that the people should be employed on this work. They were so employed,--very little to the advantage of the roads for that or some following years.

"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert to a gang of labourers whom he found collected at a certain point on Ballydahan Hill, which lay on his road from Castle Richmond to Gortnaclough. In saying this he had certainly paid them an unmerited compliment, for they had hitherto begun nothing. Some thirty or forty wretched-looking men were cl.u.s.tered together in the dirt and slop and mud, on the brow of the hill, armed with such various tools as each was able to find--with tools, for the most part, which would go but a little way in making Ballydahan Hill level or accessible. This question of tools also came to a sort of understood settlement before long; and within three months of the time of which I am writing legions of wheelbarrows were to be seen lying near every hill; wheelbarrows in hundreds and thousands. The fate of those myriads of wheelbarrows has always been a mystery to me.

"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert, addressing them in a kindly voice. There was a couple of gangsmen with them, men a little above the others in appearance, but apparently incapable of commencing the work in hand, for they also were standing idle, leaning against a bit of wooden paling. It had, however, been decided that the works at Ballydahan Hill should begin on this day, and there were the men a.s.sembled. One fact admitted of no doubt, namely, this, that the wages would begin from this day.

And then the men came and cl.u.s.tered round Herbert's horse. They were wretched-looking creatures, half-clad, discontented, with hungry eyes, each having at his heart's core a deep sense of injustice done personally upon him. They hated this work of cutting hills from the commencement to the end,--hated it, though it was to bring them wages and save them and theirs from actual famine and death. They had not been accustomed to the discomfort of being taken far from their homes to their daily work. Very many of them had never worked regularly for wages, day after day, and week after week. Up to this time such was not the habit of Irish cottiers. They held their own land, and laboured there for a spell; and then they would work for a spell, as men do in England, taking wages; and then they would be idle for a spell. It was not exactly a profitable mode of life, but it had its comforts; and now these unfortunates who felt themselves to be driven forth like cattle in droves for the first time, suffered the full wretchedness of their position. They were not rough and unruly, or inclined to be troublesome and perhaps violent, as men similarly circ.u.mstanced so often are in England;--as Irishmen are when collected in gangs out of Ireland. They had no apt.i.tudes for such roughness, and no spirits for such violence. But they were melancholy, given to complaint, apathetic, and utterly without interest in that they were doing.

"Yz, yer honer," said one man who was standing, shaking himself, with his hands enveloped in the rags of his pockets. He had on no coat, and the keen north wind seemed to be blowing through his bones; cold, however, as he was, he would do nothing towards warming himself, unless that occasional shake can be considered as a doing of something. "Yz, yer honer; we've begun thin since before daylight this blessed morning."

It was now eleven o'clock, and a pick-axe had not been put into the ground, nor the work marked.

"Been here before daylight!" said Herbert. "And has there been n.o.body to set you to work?"

"Divil a sowl, yer honer," said another, who was sitting on a hedge-bank leaning with both his hands on a hoe, which he held between his legs, "barring Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady; they two do be over us, but they knows nothin' o' such jobs as this."

Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady had with the others moved up so as to be close to Herbert's horse, but they said not a word towards vindicating their own fitness for command.

"And it's mortial cowld standing here thin," said another, "without a bit to ate or a sup to dhrink since last night, and then only a lump of the yally mail." And the speaker moved about on his toes and heels, desirous of keeping his blood in circulation with the smallest possible amount of trouble.

"I'm telling the boys it's home we'd betther be going," said a fourth.

"And lose the tizzy they've promised us," said he of the hoe.

"Sorrow a tizzy they'll pay any of yez for standing here all day,"

said an ill-looking little wretch of a fellow, with a black muzzle and a squinting eye; "ye may all die in the road first." And the man turned away among the crowd, as an Irishman does who has made his speech and does not want to be answered.

"You need have no fear about that, my men," said Herbert. "Whether you be put to work or no you'll receive your wages; you may take my word for that."

"I've been telling 'em that for the last half-hour," said the man with the hoe, now rising to his feet. "'Shure an' didn't Mr. Somers be telling us that we'd have saxpence each day as long we war here afore daylight?' said I, yer honer; 'an' shure an' wasn't it black night when we war here this blessed morning, and devil a fear of the tizzy?' said I. But it's mortial cowld, an' it'd be asier for uz to be doing a spell of work than crouching about on our hunkers down on the wet ground."

All this was true. It had been specially enjoined upon them to be early at their work. An Irishman as a rule will not come regularly to his task. It is a very difficult thing to secure his services every morning at six o'clock; but make a special point,--tell him that you want him very early, and he will come to you in the middle of the night. Breakfast every morning punctually at eight o'clock is almost impossible in Ireland; but if you want one special breakfast, so that you may start by a train at 4 A.M., you are sure to be served. No irregular effort is distasteful to an Irishman of the lower cla.s.ses, not if it entails on him the loss of a day's food and the loss of a night's rest; the actual pleasure of the irregularity repays him for all this, and he never tells you that this or that is not his work.

He prefers work that is not his own. Your coachman will have no objection to turn the mangle, but heaven and earth put together won't persuade him to take the horses out to exercise every morning at the same hour. These men had been told to come early, and they had been there on the road-side since five o'clock. It was not surprising that they were cold and hungry, listless and unhappy.

And then, as young Fitzgerald was questioning the so-named gangmen as to the instructions they had received, a jaunting car came up to the foot of the hill. "We war to wait for the ongineer," Shawn Brady had said, "an' shure an' we have waited." "An' here's one of Misther Carroll's cars from Mallow," said Thady Molloy, "and that's the ongineer hisself." Thady Molloy was right; this was the engineer himself, who had now arrived from Mallow. From this time forth, and for the next twelve months, the country was full of engineers, or of men who were so called. I do not say this in disparagement; but the engineers were like the yellow meal. When there is an immense demand, and that a suddenly immense demand, for any article, it is seldom easy to get it very good. In those days men became engineers with a short amount of apprenticeship, but, as a rule, they did not do their work badly. In such days as those, men, if they be men at all, will put their shoulders to the wheel.

The engineer was driven up to where they were standing, and he jumped off the car among the men who were to work under him with rather a pretentious air. He had not observed, or probably had not known, Herbert Fitzgerald. He was a very young fellow, still under one-and-twenty, beardless, light-haired, blue-eyed, and fresh from England. "And what hill is this?" said he to the driver.

"Ballydahan, shure, yer honer. That last war Connick-a-coppul, and that other, the big un intirely, where the cra.s.s road takes away to b.u.t.tevant, that was Glounthauneroughtymore. Faix and that's been the murthering hill for cattle since first I knew it. Bedad yer honer 'll make it smooth as a bowling-green."

"Ballydahan," said the young man, taking a paper out of his pocket and looking up the names in his list, "I've got it. There should be thirty-seven of them here."

"Shure an' here we are these siven hours," said our friend of the hoe, "and mighty cowld we are."

"Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady," called out the engineer, managing thoroughly to Anglicise the p.r.o.nunciation of the names, though they were not Celtically composite to any great degree.

"Yez, we's here," said Thady, coming forward. And then Herbert came up and introduced himself, and the young engineer took off his hat.

"I came away from Mallow before eight," said he apologetically; "but I have four of these places to look after, and when one gets to one of them it is impossible to get away again. There was one place where I was kept two hours before I could get one of the men to understand what they were to do. What is it you call that big hill?"

"Glounthauneroughtymore, yer honer," said the driver, to whom the name was as easy and familiar as his own.

"And you are going to set these men to work now?" said Herbert.

"Well, I don't suppose they'll do much to-day, Mr. Fitzgerald. But I must try and explain to the head men how they are to begin. They have none of them any tools, you see." And then he called out again.

"Thady Molloy and Shawn Brady."

"We's here," said Thady again; "we did not exactly know whether yer honer'd be afther beginning at the top or the botthom. That's all that war staying us."

"Never fear," said Shawn, "but we'll have ould Ballydahan level in less than no time. We're the boys that can do it, fair and aisy."

It appeared to Herbert that the young engineer seemed to be rather bewildered by the job of work before him, and therefore he rode on, not stopping to embarra.s.s him by any inspection of his work. In process of time no doubt so much of the top of Ballydahan Hill was carried to the bottom as made the whole road altogether impa.s.sable for many months. But the great object was gained; the men were fed, and were not fed by charity. What did it matter, that the springs of every conveyance in the county Cork were shattered by the process, and that the works resulted in myriads of wheelbarrows?

And then, as he rode on towards Gortnaclough, Herbert was overtaken by his friend the parson, who was also going to the meeting of the relief committee. "You have not seen the men at Ballydahan Hill, have you?" said Herbert.

Mr. Townsend explained that he had not seen them. His road had struck on to that on which they now were not far from the top of the hill.

"But I knew they were to be there this morning," said Mr. Townsend.

"They have sent quite a lad of a fellow to show them how to work,"

said Herbert. "I fear we shall all come to grief with these road-cuttings."

"For heaven's sake don't say that at the meeting," said Mr. Townsend, "or you'll be playing the priests' game out and out. Father Barney has done all in his power to prevent the works."

"But what if Father Barney be right?" said Herbert.

"But he's not right," said the parson, energetically. "He's altogether wrong. I never knew one of them right in my life yet in anything. How can they be right?"

"But I think you are mixing up road-making and Church doctrine, Mr.

Townsend."

"I hope I may never be in danger of mixing up G.o.d and the devil.

You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. Remember that, Herbert Fitzgerald."

"I will remember nothing of the kind," said Herbert. "Am I to set myself up as a judge and say that this is pitch and that is pitch? Do you remember St. Peter on the housetop? Was not he afraid of what was unclean?"

"The meaning of that was that he was to convert the Gentiles, and not give way to their errors. He was to contend with them and not give way an inch till he had driven them from their idolatry." Mr.

Townsend had been specially primed by his wife that morning with vigorous hostility against Father Barney, and was grieved to his heart at finding that his young friend was prepared to take the priest's part in anything. In this matter of the roads Mr. Townsend was doubtless right, but hardly on the score of the arguments a.s.signed by him.

"I don't mean to say that there should be no road-making," said Herbert, after a pause. "The general opinion seems to be that we can't do better. I only say that we shall come to grief about it.

Those poor fellows there have as much idea of cutting down a hill as I have; and it seems to me that the young lad whom I left with them has not much more."