After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks, half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of seeing their own washed away during the night.
From Ballynakill--where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated villages, and an "exterminated" people--to the supremely wretched islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite below the level of civilization.
[Footnote 1: This prediction was literally fulfilled.]
At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the _jacquerie_ which broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with his tenants and the country side.
The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the premises. All is calm and pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door, which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain, by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.
All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the conviction that here at least life and property are secure. It is true that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr. Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing wonderful in that.