'
The higgling for the price of the gold; the time lost in disputing about
the goodness of the notes, among some poor tenants, who could not read
or write, and who were at the mercy of the man with the bag in his hand;
the vexation, the useless harassing of all who were obliged to submit
ultimately--Lord Colambre saw; and all this time he endured the smell of
tobacco and whisky, and of the sound of various brogues, the din of men
wrangling, brawling, threatening, whining, drawling, cajoling, cursing,
and every variety of wretchedness.
'And is this my father's town of Clonbrony?' thought Lord Colambre. 'Is
this Ireland?--No, it is not Ireland. Let me not, like most of those
who forsake their native country, traduce it. Let me not, even to my own
mind, commit the injustice of taking a speck for the whole. What I have
just seen is the picture only of that to which an Irish estate and Irish
tenantry may be degraded in the absence of those whose duty and interest
it is to reside in Ireland to uphold justice by example and authority;
but who, neglecting this duty, commit power to bad hands and bad
hearts--abandon their tenantry to oppression, and their property to
ruin.
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