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Show IRISH CHARACTER SKETCHES. I ' i The Landlord. i (Written for The Intermountain Cath- olic.) j ' "Good morning, your reverence. I hope I see you well?" i '"Quite well, thank you, Mr. Reeves. ' Tou are well, too, I trust?" ; "In body, yes, your reverence, but in mind I'm a bit annoyed. See here, your . f reverence!" "Well, Mr. neeves." "We shall never get the people to quit j their old way of doing things. I got a spraying machine for those tenants of ' mine over in Ballymoteen, and I went there this morning to see how they were ! potting on with it, and what do you I think I found?" , "I cannot say, Mr. Reeves." "The spraying machine safely stowed i away in Peter Nolan's bam. When I asked him why in the name of thunder he wasn't using it, he said to me: i '. I - " 'Begorra, yer honor, I did, bud I 1 : only used it on a perch or two ov me I'ratie (potatoes) drills. Jimmy Rooney ; was passin' an' whin he saw what I j was at, he laughed at me an said, "I ought to have better sinse an' not to be using haythen machines invinted be tlie English governmint. We had champion cham-pion praties, and rhampion iryn afore yer sprayers wor invinted," he said. Take it home wud yeli, Jimmy Rooney, or the people will be sayin' ye're. takin' lave ov yer sinses. Begob. I vvudn't ate 1 a pratie that was sprayed iv yeh gave uie Asian Minor.' . "I got that machine specially for my tenants, and now they won't use it." "Never mind. Mr. Reeves, I'll go over i 'there, today and read the riot act over them. You will find the next time yon . : pay them a visit that they will be loud I in their praise of your gift to them." ' "How on earth will you manage them. Father Denis?" and the perplexed Mr. . ' Reeves leaned anxiously over his horee'B reck to hear the priest's answer. "Oh, I'll manage them." and Father Denis laughed. "I'll simply tell Jimmy Rooney he's your chief tenant. I'll sim-r'y sim-r'y tell him he did right not to use the ; spraying machine. In religious matters Rooney is my faithful follower, but when it comes to farming, he thinks I know nothing about it. He said to me once: " "Tor, riverence. ye're a grate praich-cr, praich-cr, and a pillar ov the church, bud yeh don't know a turnip from a mangel. "I'll wager you, Mr. Reeves, Rooney will be spraying away tomorrow simply because I told him not to, and the other farmers will follow his lead." ; "Well, I never." and Mr. Reeves lay back in the saddle with the laughter. "I'll be over the day after tomorrow to i ee how your 'scheme worked. Don't forget. Father Denis, that you and Fa-j Fa-j ther Tom are to dine w ith me on Thurs day. A roast joint and good claret is all I'll give you, and a game of whist after. Good-bye, now, and if you have the time at all tomorrow, come to the hunt. The meet is at Clooneen. and I'll enlarge the stag on Joe Moore's farm." j uu etiuom meet, in ireiana a good type of a landlord, and the most of them were rackrenters and ground down the poor tenant to the dust. If the tenant made improvements, the landlord raised the rent, and in case of ) non-payment, eviction was the remedy. Many of those landlords were absentees. They had their residences in London and on the continent, and left the management man-agement of their estates in the hands of agents whose cruelty to the tenants can never be written. The money wrung from the poor tenant was squandered i abroad in gambling and horse racing. , I remember as many as twenty families 1 cast out on the roadside in the course ' of a single day, and some of these poor f people were in the last stages of con- i I sumption. What the Irish race has suf- ; J fered at the hands of ba.d landlords can I never be written, but, thank God, their I day has gone and gone forever, and the I galling evil so long laid upon the shoul- I: ders of the'most patient, generous and noble peasantry in the world is re- l moved. The landlord of our village and ! the surrounding district was Mr t , Reeves, and I never knew a kinder landlord in my life. His tenants loved him, and in the course of his life he S never evicted a single one of them, i though many of them never paid him a ( penny of rent for years. In bad years, ! : he bought seel oats and potatoes for them, gave them straw to thatch their ; houses with; in fact, his hand and purse were ever ready and open to those in need. He lived in an old manor house below the village, and ; , with the exception of a month spent In Jxndon during Ascot week, he never never left his home. He was aa thorough thor-ough a sportsman as he was a kind landlord, and well he fulfilled the! position of master of one of the foremost fore-most pack of staghounds in Ireland. He loved racing and hunting, and it would be hard to find his equal as to the knowledge of a horse. He kept lour or five racers, and these were trained by Tom Nolan, whom my read- ev has met in one of my former sketches. These horses captured many i important races in the course of the i year, and there was no more prouder man in the breadth of the land than ! Mr. Reeves when the black jacket and i scarlet cap (his colors) were carried to victory. Great would be the re-. re-. joicing in the village over the victory, ' and even Peg the Barge would hang nut a scarlet petticoat whenever such j a thing happened. She had a warm spot in her heart for Mr. Reeves be- ! cause when the fox made too free with any of her geese Mr. Reeves compensated compen-sated her to about five times the ' value. Though a Protestant, there were no letter friends than Father i Tom and Mr. Reeves, and whenever the chapel wanted repairs or any other parish work was to be done Mr. Reeves was always first with his do- , nation. I ' "See here, boys." Jim Scully re marked on more han one occasion. "his honor, Mr. Reeves, would be a j Catholic out an' out iv he'd only give " up atln' mate on a Friday." Jim worked with Mr. Reeves, that is, was in the latter's employment, for ; Scully, as far as I was aware, knew not the meaning of the word work, though to see him moving about the ' farmyard you would be led to imag- jne that he was doing ten men's work. I Jim was always moving when he ! should be working, and when lie was not moving he was either smoking or " chewing straws and discussing all news, foreign and domestic, from the price of rabbits to the next probable prime ministec Mr. Reeves enjoyed Scully, and I believe it was for the sake of Scully's queer sayings atid j doings he kept him at all. Mrs. I Reeves was as .good and kind as her I husband, and the moment she learned I there was a person sick In the parish 1 the carriage was called into requ'si- ition and in the carriage was a liberal supply of dainties. For a lady in her position she was the simplest of the I simple and was as much at home in the mud cabin of the poor as in her own drawing room. She liked to do her charity by stealth. The auctioneer was of the same charitable disposition as I she was. and like her never allowed I the left hand to know the doings of the right in this matter. It was laugh- I i able to h?ar the conversation between ' 3 ( ' - ' - the two whenever they encountered one anothercoming or going from a sick house. "Good mornin', yer ladyship. I just called in to Peter Doonan's for a light for me pipe, an' I'm sorry to say Peter Pe-ter isn't at all well. I'll speak to Father Tom about him, for I think he's very poor, just as poor as meseif, an' that's sayin' a grate dale. (The autcioneer was , after giving Peter half bovereign at least), bud ye're callln' an' your ladyship can see for yourself." your-self." "1 don't think I'll call today, it might put Peter about, an' I forgot my purse, and, Mr. O'Neill, I" "See here, your ladyship," and the auctioneer draws near Mrs. Reeves' carriage, "I'm a poor man, bud I can lind yeh half a sovereign all the same (this with a twinkle of the eye). Yed can give it to Peter along with that basket of goodies I see there." j "No, thank you, I'll " "Search the linings of yer pocket an' find a loose sovereign there. Good-day, yer ladyship. I won't die hungry while Mr. and Mrs. Reeves are about the manor." It is Sunday evening and Mr. and Mrs. Reeves are walking slowly up the road. Ped the Barge is in the act of bursting out in all the fury of her H-ntli ol lnhnnv DrtWrf'S doff, who has just eaten up the evening meal of her geese. She sees Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, and at once the storm is gone and on her face, worn with age and battles fought, appears a glad smile and on her lips the words: "God bless yer ladyship an' honor, an' may God lave yeh to us for many a long day." and Peg's prayer is ours and that of all the dear old village. BT CABIN. ' Next week "The Tramp." |