Читать книгу The Highland Lady In Ireland - Elizabeth Grant - Страница 10

Everything comes into a sharper focus with this second year—the ways she brought up her children and looked after her husband; the methods used to cajole a sometimes reluctant tenantry into improvements; their relationships with the Agent and Steward; their views on friends and neighbours, priest and teacher; and (in an election year) how she regarded the politicians of the day from Peel (whom she revered) to O’Connell (whom she loathed).

FRIDAY JANUARY 1. A little note from Jane complaining of the excessive severity of the weather—Never felt any cold like it since the days of our Highland winters when we girls occupied the barrack room in the roof of the Doune, without a fire, without warm water, when we groped for our clothes a little after six o’clock, washed in ice and descended to the comforts of Cramer’s exercises on the piano-forte, or worse Bochsa’s on the harp till daylight allowed of our using our eyes; really children were cruelly used in those days, and for what purpose. Could we do any good with numb fingers, starving with cold and hunger and cross from actual suffering. Should we not have been better in our warm beds. Mary and I are wiser with our children. We never wish them to get up till they can see to dress and we have a warm room and good fire for them to go to afterwards and they never touch the pianoforte till they have had their breakfast and as I at least wish for no professors in my family, Janey has never yet any day practised an hour.

8. Miss Gardiner down with an order from the Inspector to attend at Naas to-morrow to furnish accounts and receive directions for the future management of our School. I took the reply on myself and made it like my father of old in the ‘brimstone and butter’ style sending them every account they could want but not sending the poor young woman, thinking their Inspector may come here himself if he has anything particular to say to us.

12. How taste changes. I remember as a girl being so delighted with Horace Walpole’s Letters, now they almost disgust me, so frivolous, such an absence of principle, such mere trifling through life, without an aim or an end, and vice so familiar to the society of the day, yet the charm of the style carries one on from one gossippy letter to another, all unsatisfactory though they be, and he had mind enough for better things had he lived in a better age, though naturally cold and ill-natured.

13. A letter from Mary—still delighted with Pau. She has got an admirer too, of course. She can’t live without one, but ’tis only the landlord of the maison Puyoo—rather a descent in the scale of lovers, but even beautiful women approach forty.

27. Very much interested in my book,1 which I finished with regret. Both Hal and I think that insanity was constitutional in him and would have broke out before had his life been unfortunate.

I cannot, when reading of these times and of these men avoid recurring in my thoughts to my father who lived with them and was of them and yet does not hold his proper station among them. In talents he was inferiour to few, in accomplishments superiour to most, but he had two great weaknesses, a wish to do too much and a desire that what he did do should be known and fully appreciated, he had the misfortune to be born heir to a very large fortune, to step into its possession when a boy, to find himself in his own country from his position a man of consequence and in his own family the one flattered idol of a large and needy connexion. He married, too, so very young, a beautiful and a clever woman, but he had to educate her and then he thought his own pupil too perfect and she was as young as himself, utterly ignorant of the world and her temper often prevented her using her judgement. There is nothing like the school of adversity, how can we make up to our children for their never knowing it.

How will O’Connell talk of his recent failure? He drove to Belfast under a borrowed name and left it in fear of his life under the escort of the police. The ministry are weak and ridiculous and contemptible but they have not been wrong in not putting down O’Connell, it was wiser to let him annihilate himself.

No children at my school but three and the hedge school full to overflowing, the priests, the odious priests, their poor law guardian is persecuting every one who did not vote for him, rating their holdings too high and leaning very light on his friends. Hal had to go to John Hornidge about it, Tom Kelly being of course, under ban and having come to complain. Mary Dodson and many more were turned from the Chapel door at Black Ditches because they had not pennies to pay for entrance. It was shut in their face by Mr. Germaine himself and all they do is to change their chapel. Tom Darker says he knows a 100 would go to church to-morrow if they were not afraid of one another and of the little secrets told at confession. Wretched country.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 8. Hardly ever was more vexed than on hearing this morning of the folly of that nice girl Anne Fitzpatrick, whom I used to admire as much for her cleanliness and modesty and industry as for her beauty. She has never been quite herself since her handsome lover, Pat Hipps, the carpenter, jilted her for a little dumpy heiress with forty pounds and latterly annoyed her mother by allowing a shabby looking labouring lad, without house or home to dangle after her. Last Monday she said she was going to Mrs. Tyrrell’s to have a gown made. Instead of that she went to Judy Ryan’s where she was joined by Mary Dempsey and this beau—from thence the three set off for the young man’s mother’s where they remained till Friday when Anne returned home to announce that the young man would not marry her. When he was sent for he would condescend to take her with twenty pounds. Old Mrs. Fitzpatrick stood out, would give no money, sent off the man and kept her daughter, but she will give in at last, they all do. This is the common way of proceeding where the young people know the old people won’t approve of the match they are making, this whole business is just a sample of the principle of the moral Irish. The lad aware he had no pretensions to be openly received as a lover, steals away the girl, assisted by another girl and also by a relation, a mother herself who could so easily have detained the silly girl while she sent down here for her brother John.

15. Read the little Temperance tract sent by Aunt Lissy. If all people kept their baptismal vows there would be no need of any human laws to govern our Commonwealths and if all people could be sufficiently educated, probably in some thousand or two of years we might reach this perfection. But in the meanwhile with the higher orders absorbed in selfishness and the lower plunged in vice and ignorance any restraint on the most degrading and most pernicious of their evil habits must operate beneficially on their morals.

18. Waked by a light in the room which made me start, it was Hannah with a candle, in a cloke, come for the pass books for Paddy who was just starting for Dublin, about five o’clock. We advised him not to go, it was so boisterous, rain and wind so violent, but he went. In the paper a violent letter of Mr. O’Connell’s and equally inflammatory speech of his son John’s threatening the English with another Irish rebellion whenever America and France declare war.

19. Interrupted all day by visitors, Mrs. Hornidge and Mrs. Finnemor, most beautifully dressed, had they been six and thirty and going to a publick breakfast, painted and made up and falsified in every way, they would have looked very well on the stage by lamplight.

20. Such a beautiful morning. Hal off in great glee for a fox hunt. No Paddy, what can the old man be about? Made ourselves miserable all the evening because Paddy had not returned. Hal began to think he had absconded altogether with cart, mare and goods for America, & as he dropt from the clouds here, whether he were a rogue or an honest man was problematical and this might have been a temptation beyond his withstanding. I absolved the poor man of all trickery but I feared he might himself have been tricked. Like other great men he has a failing—a woman can do anything with him and as in the course of these excursions he don’t always meet with the best of the sex I feared his having been inveigled into some den while his cart was pillaged and we were calculating how we should ever make up such a heavy loss—in short we were most ingenious in tormenting ourselves and we really passed a most anxious evening, I could hardly play piquet, and Tom Darker gave us no comfort for about one o’clock he began to have his misgivings and Miss Cooper’s consolation was that Paddy had broken the pledge and was lying in the ditch and that the mare would be sure to bring the cart home. At eleven we went upstairs, Hal, once more opened the window to listen along the road and heard them at the gate of the yard, it was such a relief, Paddy and the mare quite sober, all right, so we drank a glass of beer to their health!

21. Paddy came to deliver his letters looking so decent, so clean, so well dressed, my heart smote me for having doubted him. The nursery man had caused the delay.

24. East wind, stupid post. Election begun for the King’s County, dreadful excitement, Priests as busy as bees and this time they must succeed for no Conservative ever before tried to rescue the people from the degradated state they have fallen into.

25. King’s County election a perfect riot. All Sunday the priests were thundering from their Altars, so 70,000 ruffians assembled, regularly drilled, relieving one another and ill-using in every way Mr Bernard’s voters, who, however, make an excellent show on the poll. A small body of police and Military unable to keep the peace. This will be the last liberal struggle. The Conservative wealth must prevail over the pauper radicals in the end.

FRIDAY MARCH 5. Sort of debate in the Commons concerning Maynooth College. It is a perfect pest to the country, a plague spot whose contamination is daily spreading. If there is to be a papist college it should be upon a more liberal scale, greater funds, lay professors, men of science competent to instruct the pupils and it should be freed from the absolute controul of the priesthood. At present it is a nursery for bigots, they learn nothing there but a spirit of persecution and intolerance and political fury, the fools become enthusiasts in bigotry, the wiser become frantick for temporal power, there is no attempt made to cultivate the mind, improve the intellect, controul the temper and they have so managed that there is no one with authority to rectify this abuse of the nation’s money.

The Doctor who came to dinner talking over this said it is surprising the spirit of enquiry among the priests themselves that has latterly been springing up and he goes much among them. And for the few Roman Catholic gentry, they are protestants in all but name and conservatives too; with the exception of the troublesome tail who being all men of broken fortune and few with much character find it suit them to live in a storm. Wrote to Ellen [Lucas] with a few more commissions and to condole with her brother John on the bit he lost from his arm at the Election; coat, shirt, flesh, all were bit out together by a ruffian, who is, however in jail.

22. Sweeps here, the same pretty boy again who was sold to the business by his mother for £1. Our master sweep was sold in the same way himself and he bears a good character and seems kind to his boys who are fat and healthy though nearly naked so that they must suffer miserably from cold, but climbing boys could not wear clothes, it is well the vile system is over. After this year no boy can be bound to the trade till he be sixteen years of age.

31. Heard that good Mr. Murray died last night about nine o’clock, quietly, he had been too weak all day to speak though perfectly sensible, he fell into a gentle sleep from which he never wakened. He survived his excellent wife little more than four months, they will be missed humble as was their sphere more than all the rest of the families in the neighbourhood, kind, worthy people.

THURSDAY APRIL 1. Mr. Murray is to be buried to-morrow, there is no idea who will be the new agent, Lord Downshire not being a man of any attachments except to his purse. Tom Murray heard he meant merely to keep a common bailiff here at an inferiour salary. Ogle Moore has written to ask for the house. Will it be given? Will Mrs. Moore like coming in to play parson’s wife in the village so many miles farther from the gaieties of Dublin and nearer to clerical duties.

3. Application from Mr. Fenton for the treasurership to the roads vacant by the death of poor Mr. Murray, Hal had already promised William Murray.

5. Finished Anster’s Faust yesterday; it is a very fine poem, beautiful passages in it, too wild in its construction to please me, a great deal too much mystified for me to attempt to understand, German being beyond my range. Our taste don’t bear God Almighty sitting talking with different attendants and laying bets with the devil, so that the prologue offends; the moral was intended to be good certainly, but it is oddly developed.

6. Sent off the half yearly query sheet to the National Board and a bad account it gives of our success, eighteen pupils the average daily attendance; patience, the priest will tire them out by and bye and I will tire him. Took a drive this most lovely of days but called no where. Went round the hill and to Blesinton, which was full of the trustees of the road, Colonel Bruen, Mr. Greene, George Moore etc. etc. Mr. Fenton had few supporters. William Murray was therefore made, acting Treasurer for the present and on the 5th of May a Meeting will be held to settle the matter.

Tom Darker and John and Tom Kelly off to Baltinglass to register their votes, it was a hard matter to get them to do it, the Irish are so cowardly and have so little energy, things never can be better while people are content to sit still and look on at all the ill that is doing, the other side don’t seem so inert. The priests whip them up to mischief enough. A queer mode of management but one that seems suited to their very limited understanding. Having borne a rent in John Fitzpatrick’s coat these ten days I sent his wife a present of a needle and thread to-day. She is generally very tidy, he says her eyes are bad, she was with the Doctor about them yesterday.

15. Had all the world to see me at home, first the Miss Henry’s, next Lady Milltown, shabbily dressed looking old and not well. She was very gracious, full of gossip and for a wonder not the least ill-natured. It is quite evident from her tone that the liberals as a party are gone, the wiser among them are all turning Conservative and leaving the ultras to their deserved fate the contempt merited by their very vicious principles.

She says they are beginning to think that all this long time Mr. O’Connell has been merely making tools of the patriots to fill his own purse, that his repeal agitation and his low rate of franchise and his plan for the farmers to value each other’s land are almost signs of insanity. I really think it a mercy that he has got to this for he is now no longer formidable, these absurd flights have ruined him with all but the few vagabonds immediately belonging to himself and though they may yet keep the people for some little time in too great a state of unhappy excitement for them to attend to the business which will really improve their condition this won’t last long.

Lady Milltown thinks Sir Robert Peel the greatest man of the age!! party spirit is dying away!! Baron de Robeck really has turned Conservative they say. He dined at Colonel Acton’s and his agent having carried all his tenants down to vote for the Liberal Candidate the Baron forbade them and threatened all with ejection that did so. Lady Milltown says he has left them because they would not give him a peerage—maybe.

Then she had a great deal to tell me about the exceeding beauty, the sense, the talent, the temper of Prince Albert who is very fond of the pretty little Queen and very happy with her and has improved her greatly in every respect as is indeed very evident for we never hear of those indecorums now which were slowly but very surely undermining her character in the eyes of her people. She dotes upon him and however he may influence her in private there is no appearance of his taking the slightest concern in matters of Government or any other matters not entirely belonging to himself. She has shown great judgment in choosing such a man from out of the whole world, and how clever and how clear sighted must [her mother] the Duchess of Kent and [her uncle] Leopold [King of the Belgians] have been. Lady Milltown seems out of spirits, discontented, not happy even in the expectation of company, poor woman I do pity her, but like her I never can again.

18. Lord Downshire has come with his new agent Mr. Gore, they came very late last night, half past eleven and sent for Mr. Kilbee who was in bed, had to get up and dress so kept them waiting. My Lord don’t like to be kept waiting. ‘Hah, Mr. Kilbee—in bed, hah, you go early to bed here Mr. Kilbee’ ‘People who pay so high for their land, my Lord, had need to be early in bed and early up’, said Mr. Kilbee. Lord Downshire’s is a character intolerable to me, so weak, so vain, so pompous, so self important. Not a bad landlord if he would be quiet about it, though a hard one, nor an unkind master but so full of himself he considers no one else and requiring a degree of subserviency in all his dependants. The Doctor’s story of him was enough for me, he had given £10 to clothe the poor of his estate here which brings him in £7,000 a year. ‘Mr. Murray’ said he ‘how is this, I gave £10 to the poor here a week ago and no mention of it whatever in the papers, how was that?’ To fancy a man, a rational being, dictating those fine puffs we every now and then laugh at in the newspapers about his trees, his charities and his liberality, one can hardly suppose such a lamentable degree of silliness.

20. Red cow calved yesterday, brown mare had a colt foal last night the image of Major; four young horses and four old, a nice stud and not one of them fit for use,—if I managed my department in like manner I wonder what would be said to me, my dear Colonel, eh. Sold all our lumpers2 at two pounds a ton, the produce of the old orchard, not an acre, value upwards of fourteen pounds, set that against the horses, Mrs. Smith!

21. All our cattle sick with this distemper everyone of them, it is not now fatal, nobody has lost an animal of late but they suffer a good deal and are very much reduced and thrown back by it; for fear the pigs should take it and so all our feeding be thrown away, we ordered both porker and baconer to be killed.

23. The Doctor brought the post down in the morning with a note from John regarding tenants in arrear which I answered by return of post. Now don’t owe a shilling in the world except this thousand pounds to George [Robinson]. By living quietly for a while we have got over all our perplexities and shall certainly on settling accounts in May have a balance in hand, the beginning of comfort. I don’t think we shall ever live up to our income again, all heavy expenses being over and the more land we get into our own hands the richer we shall be and the more valuable the property will become. So all looks very bright towards the future.

There was a little scrap too from Aunt Mary [Bourne] enclosing Jane’s extracts from the India letters. All perfectly well, [brother] John off at last by long sea to sail early last month, March, in the Walmer Castle. He is bent on living entirely in the highlands with his wife and children, determined upon it and very rightly. If his boys are to live on their inheritance hereafter they must learn to love their Duchus’ in childhood, and his wife will better bear a Highland winter in her old age by recollecting how many most happy summer days she passed with her young husband in the beautiful woodland scenes of Rothiemurchus. He wishes my mother and Jane to live with him, but this my mother will not do. She has no love for the Highlands and she will never return there without my father.

25. Heard of Pat Farrell being nearly thumped to pieces by the priest the little Roman Catholic Curate, Mr. Rickard, a perfect little fury.

27. Had Pat Farrell with us in the morning. The Colonel had gone to him last night to see what state he was in and to insist on some steps being taken to put an end to these proceedings of this reverend firebrand who not content with beating almost everyone he has anything to do with, maligns those he is offended with from the altar and has kept the parish in perpetual disquiet ever since he entered it. So several of the people who have been themselves ill-used have determined they say to sign a petition explaining their grievances and to send Pat Farrell and another man up with it to their Bishop. The Colonel wrote him a note to back them which I think a very proper one though it did not meet with the approbation of the Doctor with whom we sat an hour before going into the poor Murrays’ auction. We looked at the plate and several other things and got Tom Darker to stay and bid for them but this day nothing we wanted was sold.

28. The Doctor came to breakfast and brought the post with him. We showed him the copy of the letter to Doctor Murray3 of which he could not help highly approving, his objection is against interfering with their squabbles at all. The more tyrannical the priests become the sooner he says the people will tire of them, the more the priests beat and abuse and extort the sooner will the William Tell arise who is to prove to the poor ignorant terrified multitude that these furies are but men and may be resisted with impunity. There is much truth in this and the fact is that the people generally are beginning to feel towards their priests and to speak of them in a way they would not have dared to think of two years ago. Farrell told most injurious tales yesterday of them. At the same time the landlord interfering to protect his people never can be injudicious. What we want to lead them to is to consider him as their friend, the natural guardian of their rights and their comforts.

I heard some complaints of Miss Gardiner I must enquire into, such as her sending the children into Blesinton for messages and to gather sticks for her fire and asking higher fees than I had settled on, these were Mrs. Hugh Kelly’s reasons for taking her children from school. Very likely quite explainable but still I must look after it all. I shall have time next week to set affairs to rights. Now while the Colonel and Doctor are at their piquet I must go and make my preparations for Dublin. I don’t somehow think that Pat Farrell and his petition will get there.

SUNDAY MAY 2. A rainy day the very best thing possible for the country, too wet however for church so I have time to set down that there was a very proper note to the Colonel from Bishop Murray saying he should in about a fortnight come to this neighbourhood when he should enquire into the very painful subject of the complaint against Mr. Richard.

9. Hal and I are reading at night Whateley4 on the ‘The Errours of Romanism’, so far most admirable, shewing that the spirit of superstition or misdirected religious zeal is inherent in human nature, as rife among the members of the reformed church as ever it was among the papists, taking different disguises in different sects, hurtful in all and to all and quite adverse to the purity of religious feeling inculcated by Jesus Christ. To me it has always appeared that we have changed names not habits. We are pagan idolaters still, have misunderstood the doctrines of our divine teacher, profaned His name, disobeyed His precepts and dishonoured the religion we only pretend to. But if the world continues to enlighten at the rate of its progress during the last five and twenty years, superstition will vanish in a few generations. Another startling kind of book I am reading is full of sublimities amongst its oddities. Carlyle on the French Revolution.

10. Tom Darker has entered with his accounts and I have Monday’s work to do before settling them, he is selling about thirty pounds worth of old potatoes and the two calves we parted with immediately after their birth, brought one nine the other eighteen shillings. Went to school and found matters improved, twenty-six pupils, more coming. Father Germaine been to visit them, the first time for near a twelvemonth. All very orderly and children doing very well. The removal of Mr. Rickard will certainly do good, he was a vile political agitator, ignorant and violent and bigotted, two years ago the people would never have complained of their priest had he half murdered them, they are grown bolder now and I am glad they see their Landlord will stand by them and that they find he can get a priest removed.

11. This is the road meeting and there are fears that Mr. Fenton’s party is so strong that poor William Murray may not be made Treasurer, perhaps no loss to him, the little fifty pounds a year might encourage him to sit still with the brother in his curacy as in this cheap country it would keep him alive in a chimney corner, when if he is outvoted he will be thrown on his own exertions for his bread.

I must not forget to set down all Mr. Verschoyle’s political news. A letter from Mr. Evans, the member for Dublin, reports that the Queen is inconsolable at the thoughts of losing her ministers, that Lord Melbourne has over and over again entreated to resign, assuring her they had lost the confidence of the country but tears, screams, claspings of hands was her answer to which absurdities of a headstrong girl he weakly yielded.

Poor girl she has many a hard lesson to learn and was called too early to such dangerous distinction She may hereafter turn out a fine character when tamed and one don’t dislike her attachment to the first set of people she ever had to deal with, who escorted her from a rigorous obscurity to the throne and first made her feel she was somebody.

Thirty people at the road meeting and Mr. Fenton was elected by a majority of three votes.

20. The news is that there is a majority against ministers of thirty-six upon Lord Landon’s motion on the sugar duties. We shall see by the evening papers. Vans [Hornidge] says he dined at Baron de Robeck’s yesterday where he heard that all the Officials are packing up. Lord Ebrington [Lord Lieutenant] said he should be a very few days here now and they are hurrying the Queen’s birthday, making its celebration take place tomorrow instead of Tuesday as otherwise it could not in the hurry be kept.

I read aloud Sir Robert Peel’s splendid speech all of which is masterly, one or two passages quite beyond the eloquence of these days and there is a fairness, a sobriety, an honest open English air pervading the whole of his business details and his censures of the present management and his exposition of his own intentions, which like cooling waters to the thirsty soul actually invigorate the brains which have so long been wearied by expediency.

27. John had the tenants in the hall for coolness, they paid well, two-hundred pounds and upwards in cash, a few begged for a short delay, but on the whole John don’t think there is above a hundred pounds of arrears on the property, the people all thriving too, visibly, how different was the state of things when Hal and John began their management. And then they say no matter about Absentee landlords, it may be fine theory but it don’t stand the test of practice.

I had to go to School to meet the Inspector, thirty-two children, very neat in their appearance, no parents, no visitors, no priest, only Mr. Foster and towards the end Judy Ryan, Tom Kelly stood at the gate for half an hour but never had the curiosity to look in. The children answered well, they looked clean, happy and up to their business, the Inspector was much pleased and said ‘this is a very nice school, it is a pity it is so small. I really do think now it will get larger, these publick examinations must have a good effect.

TUESDAY JUNE 1. Miss Gardiner came for thread, in such spirits about our school, three more pupils, twenty-nine in attendance yesterday. I think we shall conquer the priest and I hear Mr. Germaine is to be sent off after his Curate as his conduct has by no means pleased his Bishop. He has been threatening Pat Farrell and talking very indiscreetly about denouncing him from the Altar etc. Farrell answered him very stiffly and at last told him he had better be quiet for very little would rouse him to take the same course with him he had done with his Curate. And on telling the business to Tom Darker he declared that if Father Germaine ever attempted to strike him he really will summon him for the assault before the Magistrates. Would any one of them have said this or half of this, or made any sort of a complaint of their priest two year ago, indeed no; there is a wonderful change coming over them.

6. We were forced to unpack the cart though it was Sunday morning, the young ladies requiring their clothes and beef and fish and other stores having to be looked after, and the religion of this household not being at all of a ceremonious cast we had no difficulties about it. Mr. Cooke was here to-day to settle about papering the nurseries—the better day the better deed, the Roman Catholicks in this country make Sunday their great day of business.

7. Busy filling up the Census papers which are very complete as to information, the use I don’t exactly know, the poor people here are all terrified that they were to have been kidnapped or pressed or murdered on the night of the 6th. Half of them were not to go to bed and had barricaded their doors.

9. My Lord and my Lady in London, he at his Clubs and his races, she alone in that great crowd of which she forms too insignificant a unit to be even noticed. The most melancholy of all solitudes, her name was among the mob at the drawing room, but at none of the parties, not even at those few where by rights she should be.

THURSDAY, JULY 1. Elections, nothing but Elections, the papers full of them and the post full of them and the people full of them, though here we are quiet being remote from any polling places and most of us busy with wiser things.

7. I went over to call on Mrs. Gore [wife of Lord Downshire’s new Agent] and think her rather a foolish woman, pretty, nice looking, but a great deal too talking and by no means satisfied with a house in which the windows look on the street of a village and which has neither a conservatory nor a flower garden. There was a great fuss about education too but it may be mere manner, acting fine from the town of Kilkenny. An old mother of Mr. Gore’s lives with them, above eighty, a papist, the protestants are scandalised at her being allowed to go to Mass, while the papists rejoice in an Agent who has so near a connexion in the true Church. She has one daughter a nun and another married to Mr. Rowe the great Methodist preacher, of course converted by him from the errour of her former ways. Mrs. Gore talked a great deal about religious impressions, Sunday schools etc., in short it seems very difficult to stop her upon any subject, I could hardly get away.

8. Drove to Russboro’—My Lady had just come in from her drive, the carriage was turning away from the steps and she was standing on them, most graciously descended to meet us, invited in the children and Miss Cooper and poured forth all her wrongs and her injuries and her distresses of various kinds with her usual passion and insincerity. Poor woman! She makes herself very miserable and there is no help for her, she cannot cure her unhappy temper and nobody else will put up with it, so alone she must live. My Lord wheeled in and kept me another half hour, such a wreck! Who would be a gambler. So noble looking as he was, younger than me and broke down completely and they affect to hold every one so cheap, he quietly, she outrageously treating all as dirt but themselves and their clique. While those they despise merely laugh at the despisers and leave them there alone in their arrogance to fret at it. What they might have been had either of them been better brought up.

11. Mrs. Haughton writes there were great fears yesterday that the radicals would after all head the poll; the same news was brought to Blesinton by the car which comes in late; this will be sad. Hal off about one for Dublin to vote for the County Dublin to-morrow and County Wicklow Tuesday.5 Shocking work in Carlow and the priests as busy as bees everywhere. Mr. George Moore told the Doctor that everywhere the prospects of the Conservatives are most encouraging; the Carlton Club reckon on a majority of seventy. I would divide this by half and still be satisfied. Mrs. Ogle Moore has a son, a fine baby; she suffered much more than usual, but she got over her dangerous time better though she was for two hours in great peril, so exhausted at last that she said: ‘Shall I live, Doctor?’ He says some day she will slip through, poor thing. How curious it is that to some women the very purpose of their being should be in the fulfilment so fraught with danger. Other animals give birt h of their young with an ease one should suppose natural to an occurence in the course of nature, but women almost always peril their lives when producing their children. It must be from the artificial lives we lead. Too little exercise to develop the strength of our bodies, and too many luxuries which further enervate them. The poor Doctor is still a prisoner Mrs. Kilbee hourly expecting her trial, then Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Gore,—population encreasing well.

14. Doctor called and had a long gossip for us of election news, priest interference etc. Lady Milltown also called, in a gracious mood with me but sadly out of sorts with the rest of the world. She really is totally deserted by everyone. No wonder they should both fly to Baden or any where else where they are not known, the mere change of place is consoling to those who have neither friends nor occupation. My Lord is gone to some races, my Lady goes after him on Saturday. Miss Sçavoy is gone too, the new governess, poor thing, arrives to-day little knowing the misery before her and the mother leaves the children with a stranger. She has begged of me to look after them which so far as calling occasionally I will do with pleasure but I decline all other charge.

16. Fine day, riding, walking, driving nearly the whole of it. Hal took a great drive, ride I mean about sixteen miles I am sure, called on half his acquaintance heard from Mr. Gore that in the Agent’s accounts there is a regular entry against Lord Downshire for the expenses of his visits to the Murrays. Hal was quite taken aback, so opposite from all he had ever heard. At Edenderry Mr. Gore said it was the same and that in the little intercourse he had himself had with him hitherto he had always acted liberally. Lord Downshire said he is not understood in this country.

17. Dublin County is won, Mr. O’Connell is returned for Cork. The intimidation going on in the South and West is frightful, armed mobs seem to have possession of the country stopping the voters, whose party they oppose even when in the Mail coaches, beating, stoning, imprisoning even murdering, it is dreadful that such things can be in a civilised land.

Miss Peel married with the greatest pomp to Viscount Villiers. Every body that is any body at the banquet. Prince George, Princess Augusta, many of the Queen’s household and a large number of the leading nobility and gentry at the marriage. Sir Robert Peel may be a proud man, fortune in every way favouring him, or rather rewarding his consummate prudence and temper and integrity.

Went to school and found no scholars, this fever and the several deaths caused by it having frightened all the parents. Drove to Blesinton and found quite a levée at the Doctor’s, himself, the Colonel, Mr. Ogle Moore, Mr. Finnemor, Mr. Gore, all having met to decide on the spot for building our new Dispensary which is to have rooms overhead for an infirmary or fever hospital, the contract is taken by the mason who built the market house and the scite is on the road to Naas a little distance from the town, on this side. Mr. Gore seems to be a very different sort of agent from poor weak Mr. Murray who had no energy, no abilities and no new lights.

26. A letter from John announces that the tenants are many of them after all our trouble getting into arrears, nearly three hundred pounds owing on the property up to last May which must not be allowed and therefore he will come and distrain upon all those farms whose holders do not produce cash immediately. It is quite unpardonable in those that really have it, such actual dishonesty as in Commons, Rutherfurd, Mick Tyrrell etc., and in the others, it merely proves that they are not fit to manage ground and should descend into the class of labourers at once for all the rents on this property are very low—1200 English acres 20 miles from Dublin producing but £770 a year.

7. Gloomy morning but no rain. Mrs. Gore better, she was in great danger again yesterday. I never saw the Doctor more anxious about anybody, really fretting. She was so ill and is naturally so delicate and the husband in such a state of misery about her, the six children too to leave behind. He came this morning looking quite relieved. There is going to be a subscription for Colonel Bruen, [the defeated candidate for Carlow] any sum however small will be accepted with much pleasure, none over £1 taken and whether a piece of plate or what will be presented to him they have not settled nor does it signify, the respect all the Conservative party hold their champion in will be demonstrated and indeed he is entitled to it for he has fought the good fight well.

The more I think over the unhappy condition of the people of this country the more convinced I am that all their misery springs from want of education, moral and intellectual, they get neither, either in their homes or generally at their schools and I should say the higher ranks are very nearly as much in need of it in every point as the lower.

Example in point. We went to Blesinton to-day to attend a Meeting of the Protestant Orphan Association, a most excellent institution of the utmost importance to the welfare of the country and the only remark it could call forth must be surprise that it is so lately established as twelve years ago, that it should be the only institution of the kind in Leinster and that its funds should still be so small. Two gentlemen connected with it came down to give information respecting its progress with a view to their statements exciting us all to greater zeal in our endeavours to aid it. We expected a pathetick appeal to our best feelings, a list of cases which had been relieved, an account of plans of education, expenditure etc.

What did we hear, the most furious declamation against the National Schools and other exciting political topicks without grammar, common sense, or proper application of words, from two unbearably vulgar creatures, one a Curate, not quite so bad as the odious Secretary to the Deaf and Dumb who obliged us the last. It was a most ridiculous exhibition, painful to reflect on as the amount of mischief in the power of these two mountebanks to create during their tour is incalculable. Mr. Moore was annoyed to a degree, Mr. Foster furious, it really might have the effect of injuring a good cause, indeed I should like to know more of the spirit which animates the Committee of the society before pledging myself to any further support.

At the Doctor’s fell in with Edward, Vans, Mr. Moore and one of the Shehans, editor of the Evening Mail,6 a most amusing and clever man, the worse of the fun of his youth I should say, he was on his way with the Recorder to his shooting lodge for a day or two during these political holidays.

28. A poor old body came to get help to stock a basket so I fitted it up in a way. Hal says they have a notion that if ever they have the merest shadow of a trade they will not be sent to the poor house, this trade then will not keep this poor body long out of it. John Hornidge is in the greatest fright ever was, he ejected a tenant and arranged with the man’s brother-in-law, Hugh Kelly to succeed him and the night before last the house was burned, a bullock shot and a poor lad the care-taker would have been burned too had it not been for a chance passenger for they had fastened the door on him. John Hornidge was pale and trembling when he told his tale and he would not proceed home in the broad daylight without the protection of Vans and Edward.

After the Sessions yesterday Hal took us such a beautiful drive, he had to go to Elverstown to speak to Rutherfurd and we went in the car with him, he riding, poor Annie could not ride as the pony wants a fore shoe. We went all over the garden, the offices and the house all having a wealthy air for Ireland but bare looking to my foreign eyes. Mahogany tables in the parlour, beaufit with plenty of glass and china and an eight day clock, but a mud floor, no carpet, no curtains, bare walls. In the kitchen, two fiddles, no bacon, nor does he feed pigs, nor has he a dairy, he veals his calves and buys his milk, meat and butter. The back kitchen which in England would shew such comfort was here filled with turf, the oven a ruin, the way to the cellar blocked up, neither jug nor basin in any of the bedrooms but they were clean and airy and the beds seemed well furnished. A man that had such a farm in England would work just as hard as Rutherfurd but he would be fat and happy and there would be an air of plenty and of neatness about him that we must wait many a day before we see in this country.

31. Sarah arrived to see us. She had written to Miss Cooper announcing her visit and came about ten looking very well with a pretty, fat but very tiny baby. Indeed matters are not flourishing with poor Sarah. She and her husband can just make it out and that is all, the folly of servants marrying, particularly in this country where the wages are too low for them to support a family out of them, and then as in James’ case the wages are not always forthcoming, that dishonest habit people have of living beyond their means. Misery to themselves and to all belonging to them. Thank God we shall never feel this. Both Hal and I would live on potatoes and salt rather.

TUESDAY AUGUST 3. An advertisement in the Dublin Mail that Mr. Calcraft has engaged several of the singers and will give eight nights of Operas the end of this month, Grisi, Lablache and others. Hal says we shall go up for them, I hope we may find ourselves able to do so without imprudence it would be such real delight to me, the purse will bear it better than the persons. We are both such ricketty creatures, so very little knocks us up.

5. Yesterday at Naas Hal went over the Poor House which upon the whole he thought well arranged. It is not yet open, will not regularly open till Wednesday next but they would take in any perfectly destitute objects now upon an application from a rate payer. They won’t be troubled much at first I think. Vagrancy seems to be quite the pleasure of these unfortunate idle creatures, begging their bit from door to door, hearing and telling the news of the country, sometimes faring ill, sometimes well, sometimes better, it keeps up a kind of excitement in them akin to gambling without which they are hardly happy in the absence of all other occupation. The only hope is that the farmers will not give.

6. Really quite tormented with little Caroline, she has taken quite a mania for dress and she clips and works at the bodies of her gowns till she can hardly stuff herself into them and patches on great bits at the bottom till her petticoats trail all round upon the ground and after her tour with Johnny on the wet days she comes in with a quarter of a yard of mud about her legs, her bonnets too she won’t wear unless of the fashionable shape and she is such a plain little thing, she can only look well by being, very clean and very neat.

Wrote to Jane and gave her a little of my mind about this very foolish church business in Scotland. It is nothing but rank Popery under another name. An attempt by the priesthood to elevate themselves above the law of the land which certainly won’t succeed and will most likely disgust most intelligent persons with the Presbyterian assumption that most undoubtedly does a great deal of mischief and so does its morose character. It hurts the temper and the feelings of the people, and as for the outward decorum of manner so much praised in the Scotch it is very dearly purchased by an arrogance, a sourness, a bigotry that we would not tolerate among the heathens.

8. Beautiful Sunday. Little girls looked so very nice in their new black satin shawls. Miss Gardiner, poor soul, in her folly went and spent all her saved money on ever so many yards of black satin turque with silk for lining and flannel for wadding, fringe, etc., in the forlorn hope that she would get sale for shawls by disposing of them at 2/—less than they could be bought for in Dublin. Finished the fourth volume of Chambers’ Journal which continues to rise in interest and value and a most valuable little work by a Rev. Mr. Abbott, an American, ‘The Mother at Home,’ which should be put into the hands of every parent and every Governess, a class of persons more in need of instruction and education than almost any other.

12. Went to school, found seventeen children and every day now they are coming in again looking, poor things, very much cut up after this epidemick, took the opportunity of returning home with Judy Ryan’s children, wishing to see for myself whether what I had heard were true and which the miserable condition of the children, the failure of the rent and other indications nearly proved. The dinner for the poor things was ready, a plate full of the small old potatoes such as John Fitzpatrick latterly very much grumbled at having to give to the pigs, neither milk nor salt. There is a good house, above twelve acres of ground once in fair order. Judy went from me fully clothed, clothes for her children, seven pounds in money, two pigs, two turkeys, crockery and hardware quite beyond any supply ever hoped for in her station and all which she really deserved from her care of little Annie and her general good conduct while with us. When her husband died he left her with a horse, a dray, a cow, and a pig and no debt, her spare room was constantly let to some of the tradesmen employed in the building of this house and afterwards to James and Sarah. Besides this an Aunt died and left her a great deal of furniture and clothing and it is said money; of all this there remains nothing, even her crops are sold off the ground, her grazing paid for in advance, there is nothing outside nor inside but poverty, a bare house, starved ragged children, unstocked land. What has become of it all is more than any one can tell, really eat and drunk I believe, by herself, her great big sister, her two lazy brothers, her old wicked mother and a whole crew of beggar nephews and nieces, her debts are many too. The Colonel and Mr. Robinson will probably eject her and very properly for not payment of rent, her dishonest mismanagement proving her quite incapable of holding land, but I feel very sorry for Christy Ryan’s poor children impoverished to actual destitution, to keep for a few years that detestable clan of Quins in idle plenty. The little forsaken baby I had put to nurse with Judy and which while money lasted throve so well I shall certainly take from her to-morrow or next day and place where her board will be more faithfully spent on her, the little creature has shrunk into half her size—really looks dying. The whole scene is most miserable.

14. Had to go to school with work etc. and to remove the poor little miserable child from Judy’s wretched home to one not looking so decent but where I think she will be better minded—kept clean—made industrious and have enough to eat. She was at first saucy, but soon melted into tears, and exclaimed she wished she had taken my advice in time. She is indeed in utter poverty and has nothing but worse misery before her.

A letter from [sister Mary at] Pau quite out of humour with everybody but herself, her children, and Monsieur Puyoo, père et fils, still enraptured with her ‘Pyrennean home’ in words, yet I fancy she is tiring of it, she has been near a year there, a long time for her to be content with any place.

15. Beautiful Sunday, full church, such a sermon, a whole chapter of Kings was the text, Ahab and Jezebel7 the subjects, connubial felicity the moral in the unravelling of which he got into such a hobble that I let my veil down and sat quite in distress, there was no practical piety in this effusion nor indeed any piety at all, a kind of lecture of folly.

19. Beautiful day. Very busy preparing for the party tomorrow, boiling, baking, roasting, etc., to have enough luncheon for twenty-four people, though I suppose all won’t come. So our number is complete. I will do my part to make this our first auction go off well. We shall see how the party succeeds, it is not easy to manage any thing cheerful in our neighbourhood.

20. Auction went off very well indeed, had our rooms all ready, table laid, all but the hot dishes served, every thing ready by one o’clock. There was a very good cold collation of meats, jellies, creams, pastry, cakes etc., with a hot quarter of lamb and a hot pasty, a side table with vegetables, another with fruits, great plenty without being overloaded, all very nice. Ogle Moore and his sister Georgina, his wife and her sister and three children, the baby, Nelly and Edward; Mrs. Finnemor, Bessy and Louisa; Mr. and Mrs. Cotton and their two children; John Hornidge, Vans Hornidge, the Doctor, these were all we mustered.

John Hornidge was chosen Auctioneer and a most capital one he made, buyers were very ‘shy’ yet we managed amongst us to bid up some of the books pretty well. Altogether the Club will have twenty-seven pounds odd for the supply of the ensuing year which is more than we began with. We got our own book, Sir James Mackintosh for only a shilling or two more than half price. Sketches by Boz, his first work for four shillings, Sir Samuel Romilly for six shillings, Lockhart’s Life of Scott for one pound twelve and six, Miss Casey, the monkey, bidding it up out of spite.

24. A grand event. I rode on Grasshopper, but had Frank walking beside me, felt happier after a while but painfully nervous at first, good natured Hal rode beside me, we went all round the hill, were out two hours and every body big and little laughed at me!

27. Delightful day. Exhibited myself and my folly [she believed she was pregnant] for a second time upon Grasshopper, going without Frank and suffering an agony of fear that should have excited pity rather than mirth. We went to Blesinton, to Tulfarris and home by the ruined cottage, I may call it now. We were out near three hours, but I could not screw up my nerves to a canter.

31. Old Mrs. Tyrrell was here in great glee having hope of work from Mrs. Gore, she has quite altered the look of my poor little foundling in this short time, the child has a happy bright air quite unlike her former stupidity, and is clean and fat; she will get a few thumps I daresay for that is cabin fashion, but she will be kept clean and be well fed and be brought up in habits of active industry. I gave my parcel for the ‘orphan’, queer kind of orphan whose parents are living, to Peggy, and bid her tell Mrs. Quin to tease me no more with her stories, all the consequences of her own misdeeds. She deprived the son of her first husband of his inheritance to give it to the son of her second who is repaying her injustice with merited ingratitude. In managing her house she secreted a private hoard which to the amount of twenty pounds, or more she quilted into her petticoat and always treating her daughters harshly deserved that one of them should run away with a lover she disapproved of and carry this petticoat along with her. Still I am sorry for the old body, and for the seven destitute grand-children whose father should be where I am sorry to say red Pat Quin is, the Quins are a bad set, the whole race.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 1. [My brother] John [now] actually at the Doune, sitting in the library, walking along the passages, his children in our nursery and then wandering along the banks of the Spey, or in the walks in the plantations, our walk over the shoulder of the Ord to Loch an Eilen, shewing our cottage to his wife, all the places so well remembered, alas! not all the people. How these Highland scenes cling to the heart, what would I give to be among them again, shewing my children the lovely ‘spot where my forefathers dwelt’ to catch the remains of all the noble feelings of the Highlander before steam quite extinguishes the romance of that beautiful country; how different was the love of all our people for us from any sentiment of respect or attachment I have ever met since, and how certainly the recollection of past events and the ages of connexion between Chieftain and vassals, or rather clansmen, excited every warm and every noble feeling.

2. Sir Robert Peel sent for to Windsor, graciously received, ladies [of the Bedchamber] all resigned and Ministers too, Lord John’s tone is very gentlemanly, Lord Stanley’s reply equally correct, there will be no factious opposition.

I had a letter to-day from brother John, who is enchanted with Rothiemurchus all the changes are improvements, he has seen no place so beautiful, the plantations, fine woods, the young forest amply redeeming to the scenery, the effect of the old, he urges a visit from us, kindly and temptingly, and it could easily be done earlier in the season with time to prepare for it. Yet I am not sure that I should be happy in Rothiemurchus with any host but my father at the Doune.

8. The Doctor came to see after us and brought word that Lord Milltown has lost his match with Lord Howth, five hundred pounds and large bets besides, such infatuation. Really Lord Milltown must just be the laughing stock of his own vile set.

9. It is the greatest of pleasures to me listening to good musick. I can recollect alas! not Malibran, for I never heard her, but Grisi, Pasta, Miss Birch, Camporesi, De Begnis, him, she was horrid, Fodor, Naldi, Bartleman, and a dim idea of Mme. Catalani and Mrs. Billington, with Lodor, Cramer and even Salomon once when I was quite a child. My pleasures of this most enchanting kind seem to be over. We are out of the way of everything and were we near them there is asthma on the one hand, cough and fever on the other, quite in the way of any amusements except those quiet and very happy ones to be found either at our own fireside or in the open air of our mountains.

10. We are to have Lord de Grey for our Lord Lieutenant, violently objected to by Mr. O’Connell on account of his very protestant connexions. Lord Eliot as Secretary equally disagreeable to the Mail on account of opinions too liberal8, manners too haughty; no Lord Chancellor—Sir Edward Sugden the most fitted by far would have been but for his wife, the follies of youth paid for most amply in mature age.9 She was his cook and bore him several children before he married her, of course not presentable and he is weak enough to wish to present her. I think there is a coarseness of mind though in the man who could marry, entail as his companion for life so inferiour a person as one of Lady Sugden’s degree must be.

11. Hal went to bed perfectly well, waked at two with asthma, had to get up and never threw the feeling off all night, it came on very badly indeed about seven, yielded to Stramonium10 but returned even worse and did not leave him till noon when he took a light breakfast.

Mr. Moore came loaded with books for our Society and all Chamber’s Educational Course for us, he talked away very agreeably, by the bye has got it into his head that we ought to go back to fasting and other ceremonies certainly enjoined by the rubrick but so long disused that a return would look very popish and be very absurd. My presbyterian education disinclines me to these observances. Lady Milltown also called, sat half an hour or more in great good humour though her Lord is in the midst of racing troubles and the entertainments they had provided for Curragh guests were spread in vain. No guests arrived.

Read Chambers’ on Infant management, a most truly judicious work, drank tea in our own room with all the children, every one of us engaged with the little volumes of Chambers’ Course. Miss Cooper took the ‘Management of Infants.’ Annie the drawing books, Janey the ‘Moral Class book’ and the ‘History of Greece.’ I have my head just now full of ‘infant education’ and having studied it all the morning I gave the book in the afternoon to Miss Gardiner whom I sent for on purpose and held a long discourse with her on the necessity of educating herself by degrees as she is educating her pupils which with the books I give her and my assistance she can easily do.

How much real practical knowledge, judgement, temper, spirits, is necessary in the instruction even of the lower orders. What a serious charge then is such a family as ours, how much good or evil to themselves and the large circle over which even individual influence must extend depends on the habits they are brought up in.

14. All went in to Blesinton on business, the Colonel to a meeting to arrange a Loan fund, Lord Downshire subscribed fifty pounds he was in the chair, the Colonel fifty, Mr. Gore fifty, Mr. George Moore twenty-five, Mr. Finnemor twenty-five, no others as yet, but papers will be sent round to all. I went in to wait and met Ogle Moore, the Colonel and Lord Downshire who begged to be presented to me and indeed I think it very strange he never called upon me, he is the only neighbour who omitted that civility, pompous man they call him, but he is beginning to find out that the airs of grandeur which perhaps suited the style of the world in the days of his youth are quite thrown away on this generation and on me in particular. My old Highland blood laughs at his new pretensions, he is very absurd and very weak and very fond of money but not a bad kind of man.

19. My brother William’s birthday. What a fête day this used to be with us and what it might have been still had there been as much good sense in the family as there is talent. Sometimes when I think of the inheritance he was born to and then feel he is now forty past, and has still to endure some years of India, I do grieve over the waste of happiness that mere carelessness has produced. To what might not my father have attained had he kept his place in his own country, his sons where would they not have been, his daughters also, and his people, it will take more than the next generation to retrieve a few years of folly.

22. Tried to get a kitchen maid for Mrs. Finnemor but fancy I shall fail, the progress of civilisation indisposing any girl who has a hope of doing better to take a situation where the women servants sleep on a shakedown in the kitchen, three together, bring all the water from the river, wash all the potatoes for man and beast, have low wages, meat but twice a week cut into rations in the parlour and sent out in portions. They would bear this well in a farmer’s house and be glad to get the place but when with this low degree in kitchen there is the utmost profusion in hall with great finery at times and grandeur of position, always they who practise such contradictions must be content with the refuse of the serving class who will besides never enter their shabby genteel precincts till squire of rank and honest yeoman have filled their households. How can the young people thus brought up be fit to mingle with the society their father’s wealth would admit them to.

25. Finished an excellent work on natural physiology, part of Chambers’ Course. Now that education has become rational we may expect to see people really wiser, better and oh how much happier, there could be no Mrs. Finnemors to torment us.

The Doctor was here in the morning to look after the Colonel, he shocked me with the history of the poor run over child. After the accident Mrs. Finnemor drove on to pay her visit as if nothing had happened, not waiting to see the Doctor nor calling on him nor on the child on her return. She left four shillings with the mother who watched her movements well and said to the Doctor it was very little like a lady not to have taken a little more trouble about the creature her own car had all but killed. She sent some rag and a loaf of bread and a message to the Doctor ‘to have her mind relieved’ but she has carefully avoided employing him to look after it, as carefully alluded to his Dispensary duties and though she earnestly asked of him what the family wanted to which he gravely replied ‘everything from a roof over their heads to food, fire and raiment’ there have been no results, these may come however, it is not the amount of recompense for an accident that can’t be repaired that I am thinking of, it is the feeling of pounds shillings and pence that runs through her character that is utterly despicable.

Dear Janey and Annie if such a misfortune had happened to us should we not have been daily by the bedside of that suffering child, seeing ourselves that its wants were supplied and seizing the opportunity to develop some ideas of good in the parents.

26. I went to church with the little girls, it was crammed. Mr. Moore preached, I did not like the sermon it might have been given at the Chapel at the cross by the Priest, too minute an account of the Crucifixion, painfully so, orthodox I suppose but not in unison with my interpretation of the mission of Jesus. The man and the sufferings of his body, not the divine doctrines he was inspired to teach.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 1. Miss Cooper and I walked down to see Peggy where we were annoyed by old Mrs. Quin with her noisy history of family quarrels and I took an odd sort of fainting fit and had to be brought home on the car, laid on the sofa for the rest of the evening and carried up to bed by the maids.

5. Hal really getting well which is lucky as I am like to be laid up for some time to come I fear. I had hoped by all the care I had been taking of myself with regard to diet and exercise that I might go on as other strong women do as usual without publishing my misfortunes to the world six months at least before they need know of them, but it seems all won’t do, a bad habit in these cases is not easily got over.

15. Such news, a letter from Jane, I am quite unfit to do more than mention it, she is going to be married to James Gibson Craig.

16. I could not sleep all night for the happy news of yesterday and am still too confused to think of any other subject or of that calmly. James has settled Mama is to live with them. Every body speaks so highly of him, for abilities, for worth, for business habits, and he will be very wealthy and well will they both employ their wealth.

20. Such a season, God help the poor for I am sure man can’t, potatoe crop a failure, corn malting in the stooks, no turf, misery.

21. Fine day. Tom Darker bought two pigs at Naas yesterday for feeding, our potatoes being too bad to keep over the winter, they were very dear as is all stock this year.

27. Bitter cold and dismal is the prospect before us, so early, so severe a winter, no fuel, no harvest, corn still out and malting, potato crop a failure, what will become of the improvident poor of this country, in the Poor House some must be driven to take refuge but it won’t contain a fourth part of the starving population and many will die rather than enter it and many, many a decent family will suffer bitterly and won’t complain. It is all very well for such as we are. We may get less rent and be obliged to forgo some luxuries, some pleasures but necessaries we can always command in plenty, the worst evil to us would be to have to give up a workman or two and so throw industrious creatures out of bread, it is all very miserable.

28. Hal off to Dublin for india rubber hunting boots and many other little necessaries. The Doctor came to shew us his thumb which he had dislocated the night before on his walk home from Mr. John Hornidge’s and set himself, they had dined at Mr. Lynch’s and I think from the lateness of the hour Baron de Robeck being there he may have been a little bewildered, he swears not, it was a stone and a bad shoe.

30. A letter from Jane or rather two one to the Colonel and one to me, so full of happiness, dear good worthy Jane, how differently does this most auspicious marriage affect me than did your first, when all was sad around us, no ray of comfort anywhere and worst of all that was hanging over us was your sacrifice of your self in your very prime of life and with all your superiority of mind with wit and spirits and beauty to so old and so cross and so queer looking a little shrivelled up mannie as that clever worthy Colonel Pennington. I shall never forget that ceremony, for I knew all it cost you. I shall never forget all I suffered when you drove in bridal pomp from a door that closed on as much mental misery as ever wedding brought. It was as you said the dawn of better days, the year more of struggle and hope again lightened my poor mother’s heart. My father’s India judgeship carried us all from poverty deeper than was ever suspected to the far distant land where we found kindness and comfort and happiness waiting for us.

Old Peggy came up to have a gossip with me, to tell of the great price she got for her pig and the joy with which she hears of her new lodger, in short she would be the happiest old woman in the country if the cock turkeys would but look as plump on the dish as the hens. The priests are quarrelling among themselves and some of the people are quarrelling with the priests and there is a growing desire privately among some of the people to possess themselves of Bibles, so in spite of disappointments and vexations I do think better times are at hand. I have had a great deal of plague these few days with old Mrs. Tyrrell and her landlord who is not behaving well to her, but with the help of Tom Darker we have got all settled.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5. Mr. Foster called to consult about the protestant poor on our church list, there are still eight on it, the farmers are objecting to the collection having the rates to pay besides. We agreed on speaking to Mr. Moore about each of the able and willing taking one of these poor creatures entirely for the small remnant of their days, as Miss Hall one, we one, Mr. Foster one etc. Also Tom Darker and I settled upon a plan for repairing the road to the bog next Spring. I am a very busy body I think, the Colonel may laugh and I may sometimes fail particularly where there are prejudices to fight against, still some good must sometimes be done and every little helps.

8. to 22. Sad gap in my journal, a whole fortnight this very day. Today I am writing at a table and find I am steadily regaining strength, though slowly and I attribute the whole to my frights on horseback, being at the time I began riding unfit for any agitation though I was not aware of this, so instead of expecting a little May flower I must, I suppose look for an April fool, the better suited of the two to an old goose as I must of course be called to be getting into such an absurd scrape at my age and after four years of rest. It is really ridiculous, and such a surprise besides.

23. Did rather much yesterday so do not feel so well to-day and am forced to keep the sofa. Peggy came up in great distress, her poultry house was broken into last night and my four fat turkies stolen, this sort of crime is very frequent this winter, fowl of all kind, turf, wearing apparel, even sheep, are stolen on all hands in this, which used to be reckoned a poor enough but honest country, misery is very rife, morals not taught, police idle.

The Prince of Wales has been born, a fine child, the Queen bearing his birth well, but a short time in pain and like me never for a moment ailing after so that from the 6th day no bulletin was issued. In no department of practical science does greater progress seem to have been made than in the management of the lying in room.

Our Lord Lieutenant is giving splendid parties, acting most judiciously, winning his way steadily, his Levée was immense, 1500 persons, all parties, the largest ever known since George iv. held one. They began to set down at eleven and finished at half after four. Many could only get their cards sent up, many were stopped on their road to town from want of conveyances, all being overfilled, the procession reached from the Castle gates to beyond Merrion Square, five guineas given for a pair of horses, two guineas for a bed. And there was a list of nobility to which our little Court has for long been a stranger.

O’Connell was there as Lord Mayor and was agitated, either by his strange position or his cool reception so much that he forgot to take off his hat. I see by the papers to-day that he is quite concerned for his omission and makes an ample apology, nothing being further from his intentions than any appearance of disrespect. His tribute Sunday, the last, brought him in Dublin alone £2,000. What does he do with these enormous sums, the repeal rent etc.

I have got to the 7th volume of Chambers’ Journal, it is a library, and have gone through many of the little works published as his educational course, some numbers of the Dublin University Magazine with more of Charles O’Malley11 of whom I am near tired in spite of the inimitable Baby Blake, ‘Two years before the Mast’ stupidly interesting, and now am much taken with some stories by Mrs. S. C. Hall admirably illustrative of low Irish character in which there is so much good even great combined with serious evil and a perversity there is no overcoming in this generation at any rate.

We had a great party here last night down in the kitchen in honour of Aunt Jane’s wedding. Upstairs only a glass of champaign round to the health of the happy pair, but below a grand entertainment. Tea, coffee, round of cold beef, slim cakes, bread and butter and a glass of sherry each to those who were not teetotallers. The company were the six house servants and the four outsides and Paddy and Peggy Dodson. And talking them over Hal and I began to reckon how many individuals we with our small means entirely supported, it surprised us how many we helped and there we stopt. Well spent money, better employed than in dress or fine furniture or feasting, for I am not yet a convert to the axiom that the spender no matter on what is always a benefactor, I can’t help thinking there should be method in distribution.

26. The Colonel seized in the most unaccountable manner with asthma, the worst fit he has had for years. Once or twice the violence of the spasm was quite painful to witness. We can no way account for the attack except that drinking Jane’s health in champaign and Constantia might have deranged his stomach and the cold ride to Donard hurt him afterwards. There we were, however, all day a pretty pair, both perfectly helpless, he in his chair, I on my sofa. The Doctor came to sympathize but he could only preach patience, he had no cure for either.

27. John Robinson has arrived for the November rents, looking well. Miss Cooper has settled his counting room for him and the Tenants are waiting. John made us quite happy in the evening by his account of the tenants, trying to farmers as the season has been with the untoward weather and mortality among the cattle, they have paid well, are all forwarder than they were this time last year and so decently dressed, clean, whole, comfortable looking, many of them with good cloth body coats and all good frieze coats, very different indeed from the ragged crew that welcomed me to Baltiboys just ten years ago this past October. It makes one feel very happy to see such improvement year by year among old and young, it is worth some personal sacrifice if indeed it can be called sacrifice to substitute the substantial pleasures resulting from properly fulfilled duties for mere selfish gratifications.

28. All off to church in hopes of hearing Mr. Moore. And here am I useless to everyone, however, I think, read and reflect, lay plans for more active future days. Above all not to lose temper with the ignorant, keeping in mind how much stronger prejudices must be in those who have seen little, learned less and are naturally indisposed to an heretick and a stranger. John came up to our room after tea and talked very agreeably till bedtime. And we were all in high spirits, very different from last year when at this time before the rents came in we owed John upwards of a hundred pounds, and now it is the other way for we have a balance to that amount in our favour.

30. Unable to get up, Hal better, still he had to sit up for two hours in the night. I sometimes think I sha’n’t get through rightly, these throwbacks are disagreeable, but I will do all in my power by patient obedience to rules to ensure the health and safety of the poor little creature that is trying mine and the issue is in God Almighty’s hands.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1. I was very wrong to grumble yesterday when I can write, read and work really very comfortably, and am in no pain, even did all my accounts this morning, paid my debts, balanced my books and am all in order for another month or so.

From Mr. Gardiner I have a most miserable account of poor unhappy Mary. He has been in great anxiety, not without reason, and now though she is better the relief is but temporary, disease is there, checked for the present, but ready to proceed quick or slow according to the care she can be induced to take of herself. With a firmer character than Mr. Gardiner’s to support her Mary might have been healthy, happy, deserving. As it is all her perverse dispositions have actually been fostered by his weak indulgence into inveterate habits of the most baneful tendency, and she who might have been the charm of all connected with her from her wit, her beauty, her grace and her natural kindness of heart only exists in a foreign land in broken health, low spirits, really the object of our pity.

A diseased craving for admiration is at the bottom of all her unhappiness, a growing want of excitement, a gradual disinclination to home pursuits, a wilfulness that would bear no contradiction all followed, tight lacing, thin shoes, an exposed form, late and irregular hours, a disregard of everything but momentary pleasure combined with a system of rich and savoury and improper eating such as in a woman is seldom even imagined, have all ended in such complete derangement of the system from indigestion that I do not see how it is probable for her constitution to stand it. Wayward she was from her birth, my father however controulled her into a creature that was the charm of our young lives, poor Mary, when I think of her in Highland days with her winning smile and her graceful ways and her clear bright beauty I feel she is not the same pure hearted being now, and in grief I write it, is it a consolation to think constitutional mental infirmity has much to do with it.

2. Hal a good night — I slept ill and was feverish and restless, to be expected with such an inactive life. A charming hunt, the Colonel home late in such spirits, rode forty miles.

3. A hurricane half the night, the meadows all flooded this morning, a fine day. Hal slept like a top all night, I pretty well considering, on the sofa again. Tom Darker sent me word he never knew the Colonel ride as he did yesterday, he thought he would kill the mare, he was in such spirits too.

9. This vigorous government has brought peace already, agitation now is such a mere farce that it must soon cease altogether, every one appearing tired of it, the [Repeal] rent too has been a perfect failure, smaller sums than usual collected in the most repealing neighbourhoods, none at all in some places, in others a refusal to allow of it. There is a great change coming over Irish minds most certainly, the most remarkable move being among the priesthood with whom alone any great change for good can originate; those of us who live for twenty years will see better times arising. In the meanwhile letters and pamphlets are [published] by priests and laymen, nobles and others, and the Executive doing its part well, getting quit of as much jobbing as possible, ten stipendiary magistrates dismissed, twenty more to follow, the whole magistracy to be revised, the whole Poor Law scandals to be put an end to. This bad weather, and with me a prisoner to my room we actually live on the post, the penny letters are delightful, and the Evening Mail which always picks up any news going, the London papers say little.

11. Jane sends me an Inverness paper in which is a paragraph with which she is evidently delighted, rather a ridiculous effusion in praise of herself and in honour of her second nuptials with some flattery to my father in the Lord Downshire style half a column long. I am to send this on to Pau. Another supply has been sent to Aunt Mary and Uncle Ralph and I daresay half the world beside for Jane must live in publick. Great and good and noble qualities she has, her motives are pure, her actions benevolent and disinterested, her activity in well doing unwearied, but the world must know of it all and praise it all. Any woman of quiet delicacy, making a second marriage at forty years of age would have managed the business much more privately. There are hundreds of excellent women in these good days who do their duty more thoroughly than Jane and quite unobstrusively, but she is a fine warm-hearted creature, though a little spoiled by the doses of praise she loves.

13. In the Inverness paper was a much more interesting paragraph to me than the bonfire, an advertisement from a tailor in Kingussie for nine journeymen ensured constant work at Inverness prices. Thirteen years ago I don’t know that there was even one tailor in the wretched looking row of houses called by courtesy a village. The first shop for soft goods had just been established, an untidy looking store where we all made a duty of buying some tea, ribbons and calico occasionally, the sale of the Duke of Gordon’s large Badenoch property has effected this improvement, it has been sold in small divisions and has created a country neighbourhood; food for reflexion in this.

Hal a fine hunt with the harriers. All the rest went to call at Tulfarris and the good Miss Henrys had brought presents all the way from Wiesbaden for the children, parasols for the little girls and a toy for Jack, so kind in them to encumber themselves thus from such a distance, indeed to remember them at all, and it makes me take shame to myself for being so indifferent to the really kind friends amongst whom my husband has fixed. They all want much to make them really sociable neighbours, and the happiness of our circle would be materially improved could they all throw off a stiffness unknown to Highlanders and Indians, but elderly people don’t alter their habits easily, we must only make the best of it.

1. The Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly (1757–1818), the radical reformer; the H.L. writes a little later that he ‘just mentions my father as among the clever men at the Scotch Bar whose politicks were in the way of their advancement.’

2. One of the coarsest varieties of Irish potato.

3. Daniel Murray, who the H.L. much admired, was R.C. Archbishop of Dublin from 1823 to 1852.

4. Richard Whateley was Protestant Archbishop of Dublin from 1831–63.

5. He owned property in both counties and thus qualified for two votes.

6. Founded in 1823, the Dublin Evening Mail was a militantly Protestant newspaper.

7. I Kings, Ch.s 18 and 19.

8. Oliver Macdonagh (NH of I) describes the Lord Lieutenant as ‘a right wing Tory with Irish Protestant connections’ and the Chief Secretary as ‘a well-meaning liberal Tory’.

9. He had in fact been Lord Chancellor in 1835 and was to hold this office again from 1841 to 1846.

10. A narcotic drug prepared from the thorn apple (daturn stramonium).

11. One of Charles Lever’s early novels; the D.U.M. was seen as a strongly Tory, ascendency protestant publication.