Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent. William Carleton

is unnecessary to tell you that I was, during my life, a plain blunt fellow in all my transactions. When I was honest, I was honest like a man; and when I did the roguery, I did it like a open, fearless knave, that defied the world and scorned hypocrisy. I am, therefore, the same consistent old scoundrel as ever; or the same bluff, good-humored rascal which your old father—who sold his country—and yourself—who would sell it too, if you had one to sell—ever found me. To make short work, then, I want you to dismiss that poor, scurvy devil, Hickman, from your agency, and put that misbegotten spawn of mine in his place. I mean Val M'Clutchy, or Val the Vulture, as they have very properly christened him. Hickman's not the thing, in any sense. He can't manage the people, and they impose upon him—then you suffer, of course. Bedsides, he's an anti-ascendancy man, of late, and will go against you at the forthcoming Election. The fellow pretends to have a conscience, and be cursed to him—prates about the Union—preaches against corruption—and talks about the people, as if they were fit to be anything else than what they are. This is a pretty fellow for you to have as an agent to your property. Now, I'll tell you what, my Lord—you know old Deaker well. His motto is—'Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die—' I'll tell you what, I say; I have a mortgage on your property for fourteen thousand pounds. Now, put in Val or I'll be speaking to my lawyer about it. Put in Val, or you will never warm your posteriors in a seat for this county, so long as I carry the key of it. In doing so, make no wry faces about it—you will only serve yourself and your property, and serve Val into the bargain. Val, to be sure, is as confounded a scoundrel as any of us, but then he is a staunch Protestant; and you ought not to be told at this time of day, that the greater the scoundrel the better the agent. Would you have a fellow, for instance, whose conscience, indeed, must stand between you and your interest? Would you have some honest blockhead, who, when you are to be served by a piece of friendly rascality, will plead scruples. If so, you are a greater fool than I ever took you to be. Make Val your agent, and it is not you that will suffer by him, but the people—whom, of course, no one cares a curse about. I ought to have some claim on you, I think. Many a lift I have given your precious old father, Tom Topertoe, when I did not think of pleading scruples. To tell you the truth, many a dirty trick I played for him, and never brought my conscience to account for it. Make the most of this rascally world, and of the rascals that are in it, for we are all alike in the grave. Put in Val, then, and don't made an enemy of

      “Your old friend,

      “Randal Deaker.

      “P.S.—As to Val, he knows nothing of this transaction—I told him I would say so, and I keep my word. I forgot to say that if you write this beggarly devil, Hickman, a sharp letter for money, he may probably save you the trouble of turning him out. I know him well—he is a thin skinned fool, and will be apt to bolt, if you follow my advice.

      “Yours as you deserve it,

      “R D.”

      Now, it is necessary to say here, that amidst all this pretence of open villainy, there ran an undercurrent of cunning that might escape the observation of most men. In truth, old Deaker was not only a knave, but a most unscrupulous oppressor at heart, especially when he happened to get a man in his power from whom he wished to extort a favor, or on whom he wished to inflict an injury. In the present instance he felt perfectly conscious of his power over the heartless profligate, to whom he wrote such a characteristic letter, and the result shows that he neither miscalculated the feeble principles of his correspondent, nor the consequences of his own influence over him. By due return of post he received a reply, of which the following is a copy:—

      “Old Deaker—You have me fast, and you know it—so I suppose must is the word; now I'll tell you what I want, you old villain; I want two thousand pounds, and if M'Clutchy is to get the agency, I must have the money—so there is my must as well as yours. In the meantime I have written to Hickman on the same subject, want of money, I mean—what the consequences may be, I know not, but I fancy I can guess them.

      “Yours,

      “Cumber.”

CHAPTER VI.—The Life and Virtues of an Irish Absentee

       Table of Contents

      —Duties of an Irish Landlord—An Apologue on Property—Reasons for Appointing an Agent—M'Clutchy's Notions of His Duties—Receipt to make a Forty Shilling Freeholder.

      Lord Cumber to Henry Hickman, Esq.

      “London, April 1st, 18—

      “My Dear Hickman,

      “I wrote to you the day before yesterday, and, as the letter was one of a very pressing nature, I hope its influence won't be lost upon you. To you who are so well acquainted with the cursed pickle in which I am placed, it is unnecessary to say that I shall be fairly done up, unless you can squeeze something for me out of those rascally tenants of mine. Fairly done up is not the proper term either; for between you and me, I strongly suspect a young fellow called Swingler, an ironmonger's son, of giving me a twist too much, on more than one occasion. He was introduced, that is, proposed as a member of our club, by Sir Robert Ratsbane, whose grandfather was a druggist, and seconded by Lord Loadstone, the celebrated lady-killer, as a regular pigeon, who dropped, by the death of old 'burn the wind,' into half a million at least. The fellow did appear to be a very capital speculation, but the whole thing, however, was a trick, as I strongly suspect; for after losing to a tolerably smart tune, our gentleman began to illustrate the doctrine of reaction, and has, under the character of a pigeon, already fleeced half a score of us. Last week I suffered to the tune of eight hundred—Sir Heavyhead to that of twelve—Bill Swag five—and the Hon. Tom Trickman himself, who scarcely ever loses, gave bills for six fifties. I can't stand this, Hickman, that is, I cannot afford to stand it. What is fifteen thousand a year to a man like me, who must support his rank, or be driven to the purgatorial alternative of being imprisoned on his own estate? Hickman, you have no bowels for me, although you can have for the hard-fisted boors on my property, who wont pay up as they ought, and all through your indolence and neglect. You must send me money, get it where you will; beg, borrow, rob, drive, cant, sell out—for money I must have. Two thousand within a fortnight, and no disappointment, or I'm dished. You know not the demands upon me, and therefore you, naturally enough, think very easily—much too easily—of my confounded difficulties. If you had an opera girl to keep, as I have—and a devilish expensive appendage the affectionate jade is—perhaps you might feel a little more Christian sympathy for me than you do. If you had the expense of my yacht—my large stud at Melton Mowbry and Doncaster, and the yearly deficits in my betting book, besides the never ending train of jockies, grooms, feeders, trainers, et hoc genus omne—to meet, it is probable, old boy, you would not feel so boundless an interest, as you say you do, in the peace and welfare of another man's tenantry, and all this at that other man's expense. You're confoundedly unreasonable, Hickman. Why feel, or pretend to feel, more for these fellows, their barelegged wives, and ragged brats, than you do for a nobleman of rank, to whom you are deeply indebted. I mean you no offence, Hickman; you are in other respects an honest fellow enough, and if possessed of only a little less heart, as the times go, and more skill in raising money from these people, you would be invaluable to such a distressed devil as I am. As it is, I regret to say, that you are more a friend to my tenantry than to myself, which is a poor qualification for an agent. In fact, we, the Irish aristocracy living here, or absentees as you call us, instead of being assailed by abuse, want of patriotism, neglect of duties, and all that kind of stuff, have an especial claim upon the compassion of their countrymen. If you knew what we, with limited means and encumbered properties, must suffer in attempting to compete with the aristocracy of this country, who are enormously rich, you would say that we deserve immortal credit for holding out and keeping up appearances as we do—not that I think we always come off scott-free from their ridicule, especially when they see the shifts to which we are put, in order to stretch onward at their own pace. However, we must drink when we are thirsty, as well as they, and if the water happen to be low in the cistern, which, indeed, is mostly the case with us, we must, as the rook in the fable did with the