property, and the dread powers of the Court of
Chancery; inviting them to meet me for
the despatch of business, in the neighbouring
town on the morrow, I dismissed the assembly
with a few conciliatory words, which were
received with applause and complimentary
phrases, which have as much meaning in low as
in polite society. "May your honour live long
to reign over us," and "It is easy to know the
real gentleman," were current flatteries with
these proficients in blarney.

On the next day a few brought money,—
many brought only excuses, which were
either palpably false or seemed very like
defiance; some of the tenants did not
appear; but, all who came had a story of grievance
and oppression suffered at the hands of
their deposed landlord.

Mr. Rigg was still a young man, having
inherited the estate from his father while
a child. Reared in utter idleness, without
education, and in the unrestrained indulgence
of every boyish caprice, he no sooner obtained
full possession of his property than he
launched into the wildest excesses of folly and
extravagance. Having quickly dissipated
the savings of a long minority, he borrowed
largely on mortgages and judgments; in
a few years, becoming unable to raise more
money in this way, and sorely pressed by
accumulated embarrassments, he had recourse
to the last shifts of a cruel and unscrupulous
ingenuity. He started points of law, broke
leases, and raised the rents, which he insisted
on being paid to the day, although a hanging
gale was the usage of the country; and if the
tenants were not up to time, he distrained without
a day's delay and without notice. He
persuaded them to lend him money, and when
rent-day came round would allow no credit
for the loan, but would compel them to pay
or would levy a distress without mercy. His
horses and cattle trespassed in their fields,
and he freely helped himself to whatever
pleased him of their property. So matters
went on for two or three years, the landlord
becoming more and more deeply involved,
his life more degraded and his resources
more desperate; for, as the tenants became
poorer, they grew more cunning, as well as
sullen and fierce, and it was neither so profitable
nor so easy to cheat and bully them
as before. Seeing that these things took
place in Tipperary, the marvel is that the
harried and plundered peasants did not turn
on their oppressor. Examples were not wanting
in their close neighbourhood of a terrible
vengeance for a tenant's wrongs. But whether
it was that the agrarian code had not
yet attained to that hellish perfection at
which it afterwards arrived, or that a lingering
spark of personal affection prompted their
forbearance, it is a remarkable fact that they
never made any open resistance to his
outrages, and never by any overt act resented
them; and although many of his proceedings
were notoriously illegal, not one of the
unfortunate people ever went to law with the
master. Indeed, the probability is, that so
sneaking an attempt would have been
indignantly reprobated by the body of the
tenantry. It was commonly supposed also, that
a chosen band of the most reckless spirits
watched over the safety of the landlord; and
this circumstance, or the prevalent belief of
it, may have deterred any hostile enterprise.

Like the farmers and peasantry of other
countries, the Irish are great lovers of
field sports; Mr. Bigg was ardent in the
pursuit of every species of game. A debt
incurred for topboots and other hunting gear
was the nucleus of the large encumbrance
which was the immediate cause or instrument
of his ruin; the plaintiff in the cause
of Toby versus Rigg, being a celebrated
bootmaker and money-lender. Almost to the last,
Mr. Rigg kept horses and hounds; and near
the close of his career of dissipation, it happened
more than once, while he had no dinner to
eat and none to help him, that he being
on his keeping, that is, hiding from the
process of the court, his favourite hunter, which
he could not bring himself to part with, was
plentifully but stealthily supplied with oats
by the tenants; and his dogs were brought
home to their cottages and shared their
children's meals. Their landlord had spent
his boyhood amongst them; they had catered
for, and been the companions of his amusements,
for in the field he was free and joyous
as in business he was morose and harsh. A
community of enjoyment is a strong bond of
attachment, and its influence never wholly
faded away from the minds of the rough
but kindly peasants. Master John, they
called their patron in the wild days of his
youth; and the same familiar and affectionate
style of Master John they continued, even
when most embittered against him for his
oppression.

It would be hopeless to attempt a
description of the confusion into which the
property had been brought by Mr. Bigg's
extraordinary system of management. The
boundaries of the farms were unsettled; the
land were full of squatters, many of whom
had formerly been tenants and had been
ejected by the landlord. These
interlopers of course paid no rent, and were
omitted from the rental, or list of tenants
and farms, which the owner gave in for my
use and guidance as receiver. This document
also contained a statement of the arrears of
rent due, and, as might be expected, made
no mention of the monies which many of the
tenants had advanced in the name or under
the pretence of fines and loans; and in most
cases there was a suppression of the agreement
to grant leases in consideration of these
advances. Utterly vain was the effort to
arrange such complicated accounts, or to
reconcile the reclamations of the tenants
with the obstinate demands of the landlord.