In anger as well as in sorrow the Irishman is eloquent. A gentleman who
was lately riding through the county of ----, in Ireland, to canvass,
called to ask a vote from a poor man, who was planting willows in a
little garden by the road side.
“You have a vote, my good sir, I am told,” said the candidate, in an
insinuating tone.
The poor man stuck the willow which he had in his hand into the ground,
and with a deliberate pace came towards the candidate to parley with
him.
“Please your honour,” said he, gravely, “I have a vote, and I have not a
vote.”
“How can that be?”
“I will tell you, sir,” said he, leaning, or rather lying down slowly
upon the back of the ditch facing the road, so that the gentleman, who
was on horseback, could see only his head and arms.
“Sir,” said he, “out of this little garden, with my five acres of land
and my own labour, I once had a freehold; but I have been robbed of my
freehold: and who do you think has robbed me? why, that man!” pointing
to his landlord’s steward, who stood beside the candidate. “With my own
hands I sowed my own ground with oats, and a fine crop I expected--but I
never reaped that crop: not a bushel, no, nor half a bushel, did I ever
see; for into my little place comes this man, with I don’t know how many
more, with their shovels and their barrows, and their horses and their
cars, and to work they fell, and they ran a road straight through the
best part of my land, turning all to heaps of rubbish, and a bad road
it was, and a bad time of year to make it! But where was _I_ when he
did this? not where I am now,” said the orator, raising himself up and
standing firm; “not as you see me now, but lying on my back in my bed
in a fever. When I got up I was not able to make my rent out of my land.
Besides myself, I had my five children to support. I sold my clothes,
and have never been able to buy any since but such as a recruit could
sell, who was in haste to get into regimentals--such clothes as these,”
said he, looking down at his black rags. “Soon I had nothing to eat:
but that’s not all. I am a weaver, sir: for my rent they seized my two
looms; then I had nothing to do. But of all this I do not complain.
There was an election some time ago in this county, and a man rode up to
me in this garden as you do now, and asked me for my vote, but I refused
him, for I was steady to my landlord. The gentleman observed I was a
poor man, and asked if I wanted for nothing? but all did not signify;
so he rode on gently, and at the corner of the road, within view of my
garden, I saw him drop a purse, and I knew, by his looking at me, it was
on purpose for me to pick it up. After a while he came back, thinking,
to be sure, I had taken up the purse, and had changed my mind, but he
found his purse where he left it. My landlord knew all this, and
he promised to see justice done me, but he forgot. Then, as for the
candidate’s lady, before the election nothing was too fair-speaking for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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