Chapter VI: Part 6

I made my way down the hill, and over to the workhouse. The grounds before the entrance were not laid out with the taste observable at Enniskillen. Perhaps they had not a professional gardener among their inmates. At the entrance a person was leaning against the door in an easy attitude. I enquired if I might be allowed to see through the workhouse. He answered by asking what my business was. I informed him that I was correspondent for a Canadian newspaper. He then enquired if the paper I wrote for was a Conservative paper. I replied that I would not describe it as a Conservative paper, but as a religious paper. He then said the matron was not at home, and I prepared to leave. I enquired first if he was the master. He replied in the affirmative, and then said he would get the porter to show me round. "You will show her through," he said, to a stout, heavy person sitting in the entry.

This gentleman, who brought to my mind the estimable Jeremiah Flintwinch, accordingly showed me through the building. We passed the closed doors of the casual ward, where intending inmates were examined for admittance, and casuals were lodged for the night. Every door was unlocked to admit us and carefully locked behind us, conveying an idea of very prison-like administration. The able-bodied were at work, I suppose, for few were visible except women who were nursing children. There was a large number of patients in the infirmary wards. One man whose bed was on the floor was evidently very near the gate we all must enter. He never opened his eyes or seemed conscious of the presence of a stranger. I noticed a little boy lift the poor head to place it easier. I saw no one whom I could imagine was a nurse. The kindness and tenderness of the beggar nurses in the sick wards of the workhouse at Ballymena struck me forcibly. The absence of anything of the kind struck me forcibly in Manor Hamilton.

The children in this workhouse were pretty numerous. They demanded something from me with the air of little footpads. The women were little better. I was told, pretty imperatively, to look in my pockets. One woman rushed after me half way up stairs as if she would compel a gift. Coming back with my throat full of feelings, I was directed to a little desk behind the door, where lay the book for visitors: I was shown the place where remarks were to be entered. I wrote my name standing, as there was no other way provided. I was hardly fit to write cool remarks. The locked doors, the nurses conspicuous by their absence, the importunate beggars, the absent matron, the whole establishment was far below anything of the kind I had yet seen in Ireland. One woman had made her appearance from some unexpected place, and explained to me with floury hands, that if she were not baking she would herself show me through the house.

I think it is hard for struggling poverty to go down so far as to take shelter in the workhouse. It must be like the bitterness of death. I cannot imagine the feeling of any human beings when the big door clashes on them, the key turns, and they find themselves an inmate of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton. I do not wonder that the creatures starving outside preferred to suffer rather than go in. When I returned to the entrance the master had been joined by some others who were helping him to do nothing. He asked me over his shoulder what I thought of the house. I answered that it was a fine building, and walked down the avenue, wishing I was able to speak in a cool manner and to tell him what I thought of the house and of his management of the same.

Left Manor Hamilton on the long car for Sligo. The long car is the unworthy successor of the defunct mail coach of blessed memory. It is an exaggerated jaunting car arranged on the wheels and axles of a lumber waggon and it is drawn by a span sometimes; in this case, by four horses. A female was waving her hands and shouting incoherent blessings after us as we started. It might be for me or it might be for the land agent, who sat on the same side. I smiled by way of willingness to accept it, for it is better to have a blessing slung after one than a curse or a big stone.

Our road skirted Benbo (the hill of cattle), sacred now to rabbits and hares and any other small game that can shelter on its bald sides. Up hill and down hill, between hills and around hills, mountains of every shape and degree of bareness and baldness looking down at us over one another's shoulders as we drove along. An ambitious little peasant clung on behind with his hands, his little bare feet thudding on the smooth road and over the loose layer of sharp stones that lay edge upwards in places. He thought he was taking a ride. We passed small fields of reclaimed bog, where ragged men were planting potatoes in narrow ridges. We passed the brown fields where nothing will be planted; passed the small donkeys with their big loads; passed green meadows on a small scale; in places here and there, passed the houses, dark, damp and unwholesome, where these people live.

After we had rumbled on for some miles, enjoying blinks of cold sunshine, enduring heavy scudding showers, the landscape began to soften considerably. The grass grew green instead of olive, and trees clustered along the road. Umbrageous sycamores, claiming kindred with our maples, began to stand along the road singly and in clusters. We were still in a valley bounded by mountains, but the hill-sides waved with dark green and light green foliage, where the fir stretched upward tall plumes and the larch shook downward tasseled streamers. The green of the fields became greener and richer, the dark sterile moss-covered mountains retreated and frowned at us from the distance; we were leaving the hungry hills of north Leitrim for the pleasant valleys that lie smiling around Sligo.

The trees grew larger, the sycamores massed together in their full leafiness, bringing visions of a sugar bush in the time of leaves; they were mingled with the delicious green of the newly-leaved beech. The round-headed chestnuts, with their clustered leaves, were covered with tall spikes of blossom like the tapers on an overgrown Christmas tree. The ash and oak are shaking out their leaves tardily; the orchards are white with the bridal bloom of May. The fields are flocked with myriads of happy eyed daisies, the ditch backs glowing with golden blossoms. My eyes make me wealthy with looking at beauty.

We are nearing the town, for the woodland wealth is enclosed behind high walls. Grand houses peep from among the branches; trim lodges, ivy- garnished, sit at the gates, glimpses of gardens are seen, all the wealth of leafage and blossoming that fertility spreads over the land when spring breathes is here. In a glow of sunshine after the rain-- smiles after tears--we enter Sligo.

We draw up in the open street, everyone alights from our elevation as they can. No one takes notice of any other by way of help. Each gets off and goes his several way. The land agent, who has sat in high-bred silence all the way, pays his fare and goes off on the car that awaits him. The rest disperse. I pay my fare. The driver asks to be remembered. I mentally wonder what for. I paid a porter to place my bag on the car. I got up as I could, I scramble down as I may. I will pay another porter to take me to a hotel. The driver's whip takes as much notice of me as he does. Why in the world should I remember him? It is part of a system of imposition and it would be rank communism to find fault, so I remember him; he thanks me, and this little game of give and take ends.

Installed in the Imperial Hotel I send off my one letter of introduction, which remains. Discover the post office, find no letters, return and sit down to write across the water. The lady proprietor of the Imperial Hotel has been across the Atlantic and has a warm feeling toward the inhabitants of the great republic; she shares the benefit of this feeling with the wandering Canadian and takes us out to see Sligo.

Gladly do we lay down the pen to look Sligo straight in the face. Sligo looks nice and clean. Belfast is large, prosperous, beautiful; but many of her fine buildings and public monuments look as if they required to have their faces washed, but Sligo buildings are fair and clean. We pass a rather nice building, suppose it a school, but we are informed it is the rent-office of the late Lord Palmerston. That astute nobleman showed his usual good sense, if it was his choice, to own lands in the sunny vales of Sligo instead of the hungry hills of Leitrim. If some have greatness thrust upon them, some in the same way inherit lands. Out of the town we went, and climbed up a grassy eminence; with some difficulty got upon the "topmost tow'ring height" of an old earthwork--blamed on the Danes of course; everything unknown is laid on them. The square shape, the remains of the ditch that surrounds it look too much like modern modes of fortification not to have a suspiciously British look. Of course we are both delightfully ignorant on the subject.

The scenery from our elevated position is glorious. At our feet Sligo, all her buildings, churches and convents white in the sunshine, around her the fairest of green fields; the blue waters of Lough Gill sparkling and glancing from among trees of every variety that in spring put on a mantle of leaves. On every side but the gate of the west through which we see a misty glance of the far Atlantic, Sligo has mountains standing sentry around her. One, Knock-na-rea, is seen from a great distance, a long mountain with a little mountain on her breast. The bells were chiming musically, the sound floating up to where we stood. Below us, on the other side of the old earthwork, a little apart from one another, stood two great buildings, that are so necessary here, the poor-house and the lunatic asylum. These magnificent and extensive buildings must have cost an immense sum. The asylum has been enlarged recently, as the freshly-cut stone and white mortar of one wing testified.

As I looked, a band struck up familiar airs. We saw them standing in a field beside the asylum. I was told that the band was composed of patients. This made the music more thrilling. When they struck up "Auld Lang Syne," or "There Is no Luck About the House," there was a wail in it to my ears, after home, happiness and reason. We got down from our high position and came home by another way, passing through some of the poorer streets of Sligo, which are kept scrupulously clean. Even here women and girls were gathering sticks to cook the handful of meal. The poor are very poor on the bare hills of Leitrim, or in this green valley of Sligo.

XXIX.

ON LOUGH GILL--TWO MEN--STAMPEDE FROM SLIGO--THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN.

I was a little disappointed that I was getting no information on any side of the question of the day, and my letters which were to be sent to Sligo not coming to hand, I was advised to go down the beautiful Lough Gill to Drumahaire to see the ruins of Brefni Castle, the place from which the fair wife of the O'Ruarke, Prince of Brefni, fled with McMurrough, which was the cause of the Saxon first gripping green Erin. I thought I might as well, and set out to walk to the boat landing, a good _billie_ out of Sligo, along the street, past small tenement houses inhabited by laborers, who do not always obtain work, past the big gloomy gaol, past the dead wall and the high bank on the top of which goats are browsing, down to the landing beside the closely-locked iron gate, and the little lodge sitting among the trees behind it, belonging to the property of a Captain Wood Martin. Had the felicity, while yet some way off, of seeing the shabby little boat cast off the rope and puff herself and paddle herself slowly off down the lake.

Coming back a very pretty girl electrified me by informing me that I was from America. She advised me to take a small boat and have a sail on Lough Gill, for I would always regret it if I did not see its beauty when I had the opportunity. In her excessive kindness she introduced me to a river maiden, strong and comely, who would row me about with all kindness for a small consideration. Prudently discovered what the consideration was to be, and then gave in to the arrangement.

The water nymph had been away gathering sticks; she had to empty her boat and I waited a little impatiently, a little ruefully. The boat was big, clumsy and leaky, but the girl was eloquent and eager to persuade me it was a fast and comfortable boat. She produced an ancient cushion from somewhere; there was a clumsy getting on board, and she pushed off. We went sailing down among the swans, the coots and the rushes, and passed little tree-laden islands, hooped with stone wall for fear they might be washed away. The sun shone pleasantly, the swans floated on majestically, or solemnly dived for our pleasure, the coots skimmed about knowing well we had not often enjoyed the pleasure of watching them. The grand woods that encompass the residence of Wynne of Hazelwood spread out over many, many acres, caught the sunlight on one side. The broad green meadows of Captain Wood Martin lying among the trees looked like visions of Eden on the other. My river maiden discovered to me a swan's nest among the reeds; told me stories of the fierceness of brooding swans, and offered to get me a swan's egg for a curiosity, nevertheless.

Remarking to her that Captain Wood Martin kept his grounds locked up very carefully; enquired what should happen if we drew ashore and landed on his tabooed domain. The water maiden said one of his men would turn us out. Enquired if he was a good landlord. "Oh, sure he has ne'er a tenant at all at all on his whole place; it does be all grazing land. He takes cattle to graze. He charges L2 a year for a yearling and L5 a year for a four-year-old, and he has cattle of his own on it." How do you know the price? "Sure I read it on the handbills posted up."

Looking at the other side of the glorious lake, at the long thicket of trees that shades the demesne that Wynne of Hazelwood keeps for his home and glory, stretching over miles of country; saw the little grey rabbits, more precious than men in my native land, that were hopping along, after their manner, quite a little procession of them, at the edge of the bush; and said, "What kind of a landlord does Wynne of Hazelwood make?" "Is it Mr. Wynne, ma'am? Oh, then, sure it's him that is the good landlord and the good man out and out. He is a good man, a very good man, and no mistake." "Why, what makes you think him such a good man?" "Because he never does a mane or durty action; he's a gentleman entirely." "Come now, you tell me what he does not do; if you want me to believe in your Mr. Wynne, tell me some good thing he has done." "I can soon do that, ma'am," said my water maiden. "Last winter was a hard winter; the work was scarce, and the poor people would have starved for want of fire but for Mr. Wynne of Hazelwood." "He let you gather sticks in his woods, then?" "He did more than that; he cut down trees on purpose for the people, and we drew them over the ice, for the lough was frozen over. We had no fire in our house all last winter, and it was a cold one, but what we got that way from Mr. Wynne." Mr. Wynne's eloquent advocate rowed along the lake close in shore, for fear of any doubt resting on my mind, and showed the stumps of the trees, cut very close to the ground, a great many of them indeed, as a proof of Mr. Wynne's thoughtful generosity.

We rowed along over the laughing waters among the pretty islands, and finally pulled ashore on the Hazelwood demesne and landed. We walked round a little bit, filling our eyes with beauty; feloniously abstracted a few wild flowers and a fir cone or two, and reluctantly left Hazelwood. Now this gentleman was not a perceptible whit the poorer for all the cottage homes that were warmed by his bounty--yes, and hearts were warmed, too, through the dreary winter. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." There is riches for you--oh master of Hazelwood!

The emigration from Sligo amounts to a stampede now. How many more would leave the island that has no place for them, if they only had the means?

I missed that Drumahaire boat no less than three times--that is, she was either gone before the time when she was said to go, or was lying quietly at the wharf, having made up her mind not to stir that day. She seemed to have no stated time for going or coming, or if she had, to keep it as secret as an eviction, for no one could be found to speak with certainty of her movements. When disappointed for the third time, my very kind friend, Mrs. O'Donell, of the Imperial Hotel, took me on her own car to Drumahaire. We drove completely round lovely Lough Gill, seeing it from many points of view. Sligo is not altogether a garden of Eden, for we passed a great deal of poor stony barren land here and there during this journey. Like all hilly land, there are pretty vales among the hills and fair, broad fields here and there, but there is much barren and almost worthless soil.

Now, there is one thing that has struck me forcibly since I came to Ireland. I saw it in Down, Antrim, Derry, Donegal, wherever I have been as well as in Sligo. The poorer and more worthless the land, there were the tenants' houses the thickest. The good land has been monopolized to an immense extent for lands laid out for grandeur and glory--and they are grand and gloriously beautiful. Then pride and fashion demand that the mountain commons be reserved for game, that is, rabbits. A man must have extensive wilds to shoot over, so the poor laborers are huddled into houses--awful hutches without gardens, and the poor farmers are clustered on barren soil, trying to force nature to allow them to live after paying the rent.

We got to Drumahaire, stopped at a dandy iron gate beyond which the turrets of Brefni Castle were waving funereal banners of ivy, entered and found ourselves in a private domain. Here in the shadow of the old castle was the handsome modern cottage, extensive and stylish, inhabited by Mr. Latouche, the agent so much dreaded, so much hated in Northern Leitrim. This is the gentleman who is accused of charging the tenants 10s. 6d. for potatoes which the landlord sent down to be given to the tenants at five. If racking the tenantry is the condition on which he gets this lovely home, it is a temptation certainly. We felt as if we were in the wrong place, as, after glancing at the handsome cottage, the trim lawn fringed with shrubbery and then at the ruins we took the lower walk hoping to get round under the shelter of some trees to the ruins. A small river brawled over the stones below--far below where we were walking. A detached portion of the ruins sitting on a rock overlooked both us and the river. Was it in any part of this building that the naughty lady watched for her lover?

A little further on we looked down some steps into gardens stretching along beside the river--gardens blazing with flowers and sweet with blossomed fruit trees. It was so unexpected, so splendidly beautiful, it surpassed a dream of fairy-land. We passed on, saw a shadowy lady among the flowers on the lawn, knew it was the wraith of the unhappy and guilty Dearvorgill. Stole out of the farther gate--at least I did-- feeling naughty and intrusive. Found ourselves in the clean little town of Drumahaire, a pretty little village, straggled over a hillside among the trees.

Went into a shop to enquire for the veritable Brefni Castle. A sad and hungry-looking man scenting a possible sixpence started forward as guide. He piloted us back by the way we came into the ruins we had passed. Was determined to see visions and dream dreams amid these historical ruins. Alas, it was a disgraceful failure. Not only was the back of the modern tyrannical cottage laid up against the tyrannical castle of history, but the ancient and modern were dovetailed into one another, trying to bewilder you as to where ancient history and legend ended, and modern anecdote began. We looked into the great hall with its deep fire-place at the side, and upwards where another stately apartment had once been, a lofty presence room over the great hall, but the week's wash of the La Touches was flapping in the wind that moaned through the deserted halls of the O'Ruarke. Looked into a tower to find a peat stack, climbed over a load of coal to see the withdrawing room of the departed, but not forgotten great lady, or the kitchen that cooked for the men-at-arms, who waited on the lord's behest. Peeped into a turret and was insolently asked what we meant by a splendid but ill-tongued peacock; admired the ivy green that happed the bare walls and noticed that the chickens roosted there in its shelter.

We drove home by another way, among gay, green woods under the shelter of mighty rocks, passed more ruins. We stopped to examine these older ruins of the ancient O'Ruarkes. A Milesian gentleman showed us through them. It is the correct thing to have a ruin on your place; it is a kind of patent of gentility. If a banshee could be thrown in along with a ruin, a new man would give a great price for an old place. But banshees are getting scarce and decline to be caught. This ruin has been patched over, clumsily but earnestly, so that hardly a speck of the original ruin is left. It was delightful to listen to our Milesian guide. My companion was bound to get some information out of him. He was cautious, not knowing who we were or what design we might have to entangle him in his talk; he was determined that he would not give the desired information. He conquered. The ruins were not worth sixpence altogether to look at, but I gave him sixpence as a tribute to genius. And so in the dim evening we drove back to Sligo.

XXX.

SLIGO'S GOOD LANDLORDS--THE POLICE AND THEIR DUTIES--A DOUBTFUL COMPLIMENT--AN AMAZON.

It has been something wonderful to me that when I left Leitrim, I seemed to have left all bad landlords behind me. Every one I came in contact with in Sligo, rich or poor, had something to say about a good landlord. Some were thoughtfully kind and considerate, of which they gave me numerous instances; others if the kind actions were unknown, positively unkind ones were unknown also, so their portraits came out in neutral tints. I conversed with high Tories and admirers of the Land League, but heard only praise of Sligo's lords of the soil. I thought I should leave Sligo, believing it an exceptional place, but just before I left I heard two persons speak of one bad landlord of Sligo.

On May 18th I left the green valleys of Sligo behind and took passage on the long car for Ballina. I found that the long car was to be shared with a contingent of police, who were returning to their several stations after lawfully prowling round the country protecting bailiffs and process-servers in their unpopular work. I cannot believe that these quiet, repressed conservators of the peace can possibly feel proud of their duties. These duties must often--and very often--be repugnant to the heart of any man who has a heart, and I suppose the majority of them have hearts behind their trim jackets. I liked to look at these men, they are so trim, clean, self-respectful. They have also a well-fed appearance, which is comfortable to notice after looking at the hungry- looking, tattered people, from whom they protect the bailiffs.

We passed Balasodare--I did not stop, for I felt that it was better to get this disagreeable journey over at once.

We stopped at a place called Dromore west, to change horses and to change cars. We had dropped the police, a few at a time, as we came along, so that now the car was not by any means crowded. We all stood on the road while the change of horses was being made. It was slow work, and I went into a shop near to ask for a glass of water. The mistress of the shop enquired if I would take milk. I assented, and was served with a brimming tumbler of excellent milk. Payment was refused, and as I turned to leave, I was favored with a subdued groan from the women assembled in the shop. Evidently they thought I was some tyrant who required the protection of the police. It would not flatter me--not much--to be taken for some landholders here.

When my police fellow-voyagers were dropped at their comfortable white barracks here and there, and only one was left, we fell into conversation to beguile the time. He had been at one time on duty in Donegal and knew how matters were there, from his point of view, better than I did. We spoke of Captain Dopping, and his opinion of him was if anything lower than mine. He expressed great thankfulness that guarding the Captain had never been his duty. Whether he disliked it from moral causes, or for fear of intercepting in his own person a stray bullet intended for the gallant captain, he did not say.

Arrived at Ballina after a long, tiresome journey, yet like everything else in this world it had its compensations. Ballina is a kind of seaport town, in the Rip Van Winkle way. An inlet from Killala Bay called the Moy runs up to the town. There is no stir on the water, no perceptible merchandise on the quay. One dull steamboat painted black, in mourning for the traffic and bustle of life that ought to be there, slides out on its way to Liverpool and creeps back again cannily. Unless you see this steamboat I can testify that you might put up quite a while at Ballina and never hear its existence mentioned, so it cannot be of much account. The streets are thronged with barefoot women and ragged lads with their threepenny loads of turf. The patient ass, with his straw harness and creels, is the prevailing beast of burden everywhere I have travelled since I entered Enniskillen with the exception of Sligo.

Sligo town, like Belfast in a lesser degree, has the appearance of having something to do and of paying the people something who do it. The traders who come to Ballina market seem to trade in a small way as at Manor Hamilton. Still, the town is handsome and clean, a large part of the population, prosperous-looking, in an easy going way, the ladies fine-looking and well dressed. One wonders what supports all this, for the business of the town seems of little account.

Spent a Sunday here and after church became aware that the too, too celebrated Miss Gardiner, with her friend Miss Pringle, had arrived at the hotel on their way to Dublin, on evictions bent. The police had marched out in the evening to her place to protect her in. I was eager to see this lady, who enjoys a world-wide fame, so sent her my card requesting an interview, which she declined. I caught a glimpse of her in the hall as she passed out with her friend and guard. She is a very stout, loud-voiced lady, not pretty. The bulge made by the pistols she carries was quite noticeable. "Arrah, why do you want to see either of them," said a maiden to me. "Sure they both of thim drink like dragons"-- dragoons she meant, I suppose--"an' swear like troopers, an' fight like cats." This was a queer bit of news to me. I did not take any notice of it at that time; but, dear me, it is as common news as the paving stories on the street.

Miss Gardiner is almost constantly at law with her tenants, lives in a state of siege, maintains, at the cost of the country, an armed body guard, and is doing her very best to embroil the country in her efforts to clear the tenants off her property. At the Ballycastle petty sessions a woman summoned by this lady for overholding, as they call it, appeared by her son and pleaded that she had been illegally evicted. Miss Gardiner told them they might do what they liked, but she must get her house. Now this house never cost Miss Gardiner a farthing for repairs nor for erection, and it is all the house the wretched creatures have, and, of course, they hold to it as long as they are able. The priest attempted to put in a word for the woman, and was unmercifully snubbed by the bench. In Miss Gardiner's next case, the bench decided that the service was illegal. Miss Gardiner then called out, "I now demand possession of you in the presence of the court." The bench would not accept this notice as legal. She had a great many cases and gained them all but this one. This particular Sunday when I had the honor of seeing her she was bound for Dublin on eviction business.

XXXI.

KILLALA--THE CANADIAN GRANT TO THE FAMINE FUND AND WHAT IT HAS DONE-- BALLYSAKEERY--THREE LANDLORDS--A LANDLORD'S INTERESTING STATEMENT.

I had the very great pleasure of a drive to the ancient town of Killala, accompanied by the wife of the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, who superintends the orphanage and the mission schools in connection with the Presbyterian Church of Ballina. Killala is an old town with a gentle flavor of decay about it. It has a round tower in good preservation, and an ancient church. I was shown the point where the French landed at the stirring time of war and rebellion.

It makes my heart glad to hear in so many places of the benefit the Canadian grant has been to this suffering country. I heard with great pleasure of fishing boats along the coast named Montreal, Toronto and other Canadian names in affectionate remembrance of the Canadian dollars that paid for them. This grant has been a means of convincing the people that there is such a place as Canada. The peasant mind had a sort of belief that America consisted of two large towns, New York and Philadelphia. In one instance the Canadian paid nets arrived on Thursday; they were in the water on Saturday, and many boats returned laden with mackerel. So great a capture had not been remembered for many years. In one locality where the nets given were valued for less than L200, it was proved that the boats had brought in during four weeks over L1,200 worth of mackerel.

After we had taken a view of Killala we had a pleasant interview with the good minister at Ballysakeery. Here we received one of those welcomes that cheer the travellers' way and leave a warm remembrance behind. The famine pressed hard upon Mayo. Many respectable people were obliged to accept relief in the form of necessary food, seed potatoes and seed oats. It is a noticeable fact that here, as in Leitrim--that part at least of Leitrim in which I made investigations--the landlords in a body held back from giving any help to the starving people on their lands. Sir Roger Palmer gave potatoes to his tenants and sold them meal at the lowest possible figure, thus saving them from having the millstone of Gombeen tied round their neck. Sir Charles Gore, a resident landlord, has the name of generosity at this time of want, and justice at all times, which is better to be chosen than great riches. The Earl of Arran, who has drawn a large income, he and his ancestors, from this part of Mayo for which they paid nothing, not only gave nothing but gave no reply whatever to letters asking for help.

The land belonging to the Earl of Arran here--I cannot undertake to write the name of the locality by the sound--was a common waste and was let by the Earl at two shillings and sixpence per acre to Presbyterian tenants, who came here from the North I believe. Of course they had to reclaim, fence, drain, cultivate for years. They built dwellings and office houses, built their lives into the place. After they had spent the toil of years on improvement, their rents were raised to seven and sixpence per acre, five shillings at one rise; then it was raised to ten shillings; the next rise was to fifteen shillings and then to twenty. The land is not now able to bear more than fourteen shillings an acre rent and support the people who till it. These people have been paying a rack rent for years to this nobleman, the Earl of Arran, yet when starvation overtook them, he had neither helping hand nor feeling heart for them.

The distress of this last famine was so great in this corner of Mayo that people on holdings of thirty acres were starving--would have died but for the relief afforded. It takes some time--and more than one good harvest--for people who have got to starvation to recover themselves far enough to pay arrears of rent.

We visited the ruins of Moyne Abbey, which are in good preservation yet. One of the present lords of the soil had a part of it made habitable and lived there some time, but it is again unroofed and left to desolation. It has been a very extensive building, stretching over a great extent of land now cleared of ruins. What remains is still imposing.

We had a pleasant interview with the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the kind and patriotic priest of this neighborhood, and we returned to Ballina as gratified and as tired as children after a holiday excursion.

I was introduced at Ballina to a landlord, a fine, clever-looking man, with that particularly well-kept and well-fed appearance which is as characteristic of the upper classes in Ireland as a hunger-bitten, hunted look is characteristic of the poor. I would not like to employ as strong language in speaking of the wrongs of the tenantry as this gentleman used to me. He is both landlord and agent. He condemned all the policy of the Government toward Ireland in no measured terms. Spoke of the emigration that is going on now, as well as the emigration that had taken place after the last famine, as men going out to be educated for and to watch for the time of retribution. Retribution for the accumulated wrongs which mis-government had heaped upon Ireland he looked upon as inevitable, as coming down the years slowly but surely to the place of meeting and of paying to the uttermost farthing. Well, now, these are queer sentiments for a landlord to hold and to utter publicly. He acknowledged freely that a great part--a very great part--of the excessive rents extorted on pain of eviction, the eviction taking place when the unfortunate fell behind, were really premiums paid on their own labor. Furthermore, he acknowledged that he himself had raised the tenants' rents on the estates for which he was agent, compelling them to pay smartly for the work of their own hands. He spoke highly of the people as a whole, of their patience, their kindliness to one another, and their piety. He spoke of the case of one man, a peasant, who could only speak broken English, who came under his notice by coming to him to sell rye-grass to make up his rent. This man with the imperfect English was a tenant of the gentleman's brother. He held three acres, two roods of land in one place at a rent of L7 5s, where his house stood; one acre, at L1 4s. Of course he or his ancestors built the house. His poor rate and county cess is 16s, or $46.25 yearly for four acres, two roods of land. If they got it for nothing they could not live on it, say some. The best manure that can be put upon land is to salt it well with rent, say Mr. Tottenham and Mr. Corscadden. Well, this man since the famine, has no stock but one ass and a few hens. He cut and saved his rye-grass himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little meal and potatoes. He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles, except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads per day--twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent. Often after his hard day's work he has gone out at night with the fishers and toiled all night in hopes of adding something to his scanty stores. Said the landlord, "The vilest criminal could not have a harder life than this God-fearing uncomplaining peasant. What I tell you I drew from him, for he made no complaint." "You have a hard life of it, my man," said the landlord to him. He was not his tenant. "Well, sir, sure God is good and knows best," was the man's answer.

I was very much astonished at this gentleman's narrative and his other admissions, and I ventured to enquire for my own satisfaction had he made restitution to the tenants. "Have you, sir, restored what you have robbed?" I did not suggest the four-fold which is the rule of that Book which we acknowledge as a guide and law-giver. "I am doing so," he replied, and he handed me a printed address to the tenants, offering twenty-five percent reduction on arrears, if paid within a certain time. Now, I was very much interested in this gentleman and in his opinions, but I could not bring myself to agree with him that this was restitution. However, I state the matter and leave it to that enlightened jury, the readers of the _Witness_, "too large to pack at any rate," and let them give their decision. I think myself that a little of the Sermon on the Mount, applied conscientiously, would be good for those who hold the happiness of Ireland in their hands. When justice becomes loud-voiced and likely to pass into vengeance, they talk of giving a little as charity.

XXXII.

THE STORY OF AN EVICTION.

On the 20th of May I received a whisper of an eviction that was to occur up in the neighborhood of the Ox Mountains. Great opposition was expected, and therefore a large force of police was to be there. I procured a car, and in company with the local editor went to see. The landlord of this property is an absentee; the agent--a Mr. Irwin--lived in a pleasant residence which we passed on our way. We noticed that it was sheepshearing time at his place, and many sheep were in the act of losing their winter covering.

After we left Ballina behind, and followed in the wake of the police for some time, we seemed to have got into the "stony streak." Such land! Small fields--pocket handkerchiefs of fields--the stones gathered off them built into perfect ramparts around them! I enquired of one gentleman what was the rent exacted for this land so weighted down with stones--for in addition to the high, broad fences surrounding the little fields some of them had cairns of stones built up in the middle of them. He said thirty shillings an acre ($7.50); asked another who said fifteen ($3.75). I fancy one would need to see the office receipts to know correctly.

There is little cultivation in this part of the country. Hopeless- looking ragged men, and barefoot ragged women, were at work in the fields; little ragged children peeped from the wretched houses at the police as they passed. And indeed they were a fine squad of broad- shouldered, good-looking men, heavily-armed, marching along, square and soldier-like, with a long, swinging step that goes over the ground quickly.

We followed them up a stone-fenced lane just wide enough for the car to pass. As we went along, men working at building a stone wall, looked at the procession with a cowed frightened look. Our carman gave them the "God save you" in Irish, and in answering they turned on us surely the weariest faces that ever sat on mortal man. The lane becoming narrower, we soon had to leave the car and follow the police on foot through a pasture sprinkled with daisies.

Suddenly we saw the police scatter, sit down on the ditch and light their pipes, throw themselves on the grass, group themselves in two's and three's here and there. The end of the journey was reached.

We looked round for the wild men of Mayo from whom the bailiff, sub- sheriff, and agent were to be protected, who were, I was told, to shed rivers of blood that day. They were conspicuous by their absence. There were three or four dejected-looking men standing humbly a bit off, three women sitting among the bushes up the slope, that was all. The house where the eviction was to be held was a miserable hovel, whose roof did not amount to much, sitting among untilled fields, with a small dung heap before the door. It was shut up, silent and deserted.

The bailiff, a gentleman who, if ever he is accused of crime, will not find his face plead for him much, broke open the door and began to throw out the furniture on the heap before the door. Here are the items: One iron pot, one rusty tin pail, two delf bowls,--I noticed them particularly, for they rolled down the dungheap on the side where I stood,--one rheumatic chest, one rickety table, one armful of disreputable straw, and one ragged coverlet. This was supposed to be the bed, for I saw no bedstead; there was no chair, no stool, or seat of any kind. The sub-sheriff with the bailiff's assistance fastened the door with a padlock. He handed the agent a tuft of grass as giving him possession, and the eviction was over.

The agent--a large-featured man--seemed undecided as to whether he would view the transaction in a humorous light or as a scene where he was chief sufferer. He came forward and offered some rambling remarks addressed to nobody in particular. He drew our attention to the condition of the roof which needed renewing, to the fields that were uncropped. This was certainly shiftless, but when he mentioned that the man had gone to England "in the scarcity" to look for work, and was lying sick in an English hospital, we did not see how he could help it. He told us how bad the man was; how he pitied his wife, who was, he said, worse than himself. She was not present, being from home when her poor furniture was pitched out. He lamented over the fact that this man had sent him nothing of his wages, while another man had sent him as much as thirty pounds. He then went into details of these evicted tenant's married life; how his wife and he lived, and how they agreed; and rambled off into general philosophic remarks rather disagreeable and nasty.

No one seemed to pay any attention, although he looked from one to another for an answering smile of appreciation to his funny attempts to justify himself and amuse his hearers. Some one asked him how much rent was due; he said ten or eleven years. Two years were due, as we found by the law papers on returning to Ballina. He then made an attack on the poor men standing there, asking why they were not at home working, and telling them what they should be doing. While he lectured these men in a joking voice, he turned his eye from one to another of those present as if he were seeking for applause.

These men, not heeding the agent, were presenting a petition to the sub- sheriff. I drew near to learn what it was. They were thin, listless looking witted men. One could not help wondering when they had last eaten a square meal. Half-starved in look, wretched in clothing, stood like criminals awaiting sentence, with dreadfully eager eyes and parched lips that would not draw together over their teeth, before the plump rosy sub-sheriff. They asked for some meal on credit which the sub- sheriff refused. I asked them if they owed any rent. No, they did not owe a penny of rent, they said. Remember there was only one harvest between them and the famine year. They had also put in the crops in their little holdings, they said, "but as God lives we have neither bite nor sup to keep us till harvest time." The sub-sheriff asked why they did not go to a certain dealer. They said the terms were so hard that they could never pay him. "How much would keep you till the crops come in," he asked. Two hundred of Indian meal for each they said. Finally he promised them one hundred each on credit, even if he had to pay it out of his own pocket. "That is what you will have to do," said the agent.

We left and drove home. We saw the police, hot and tired, march past to their barracks after our return. These men had a long march, loaded down with arms to protect the bailiff, the stalwart agent, the rosy sub- sheriff from a crowd of five hunger-bitten peaceable men and three ragged women. The whole crowd might have been put to flight by any one of the three with one hand tied behind him.

I forgot to mention that the agent offered to one of the women there all the tenant's poor things that were thrown out, which was an honest and honorable proceeding on his part, and very generous.

XXXIII.

A SEVERE CRITICISM JUSTIFIED--PROCESS SERVING BY THE AID OF THE POLICE-- THE WHITE HORSE OF MAYO--PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP.

I am glad to see by the papers that the state of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton has been censured by the doctors, and deliberated about at a meeting of guardians. It is certainly the worst conducted workhouse I have seen as yet in Ireland, and it says with a loud voice, woe to the poor who enter here. It was told me on this twenty-seventh day of May that if I really wanted to see a disturbance a serious collision was apprehended between the constabulary and the people, at some distance from Ballina. I have been led to distrust the accounts of disturbances that appear in the papers, or at least to admit them with caution. I was assured that now at least I should see the wild men of Mayo, for they had assaulted the process server and stripped him of his clothing, taking his processes from him, some days before, and they would be out in thousands this day to oppose the serving of the processes.

Got a car, as travelling companion the local editor, and driven by a knowledgable man, followed in the wake of the police, seventy of them, toward the scene of the disturbance to be. The police had one hour the start of us. It was a dim day of clouds and watery blinks of sunshine. As we drove along all historical spots were pointed out to me, being a stranger, with great politeness. A place on the road where the French had surged up from Killala and met and fought with the English, was pointed out to me. "Here they were defeated, thim French."

We passed the place where lived from colthood to glory the celebrated white horse of Mayo, the "Girraun Bawn." This horse, a racer, "bate" all Ireland in his day, and was ridden without a saddle or bridle. Mayo was very proud of this racing steed, so much so that when horses were seized and impounded for the county cess, a farmer who had received his mare back again, considering that it would be a disgrace if the king of horses were left in the pound, returned to Castle Connor to the pound, left his own horse there and released "Rie Girraun."

This celebrated horse was stolen it appears. After some time a troop of dragoons were quartered in Mayo, whose commanding officer rode a horse suspiciously like "Rie Girraun." The servant man who had ridden and cared for the white horse of Mayo recognized the horse and drew inconveniently near to the soldiers on parade to make sure whether it was "Rie Girraun" or not. The officer, annoyed at the man intruding where he was not wanted, asked him what business he had there. He said, "The horse your honor rides was stolen from this place, and I was looking at him to be sure. He is the famous white horse of Mayo." He was asked to prove it, which he undertook to do if the officer would alight, which he did. The peasant, then, hidden behind a stone ditch, called to the horse in Irish, asking him if he would have a glass of whiskey. The horse had been accustomed to get this when he had won a race, and knew the taste of poteen. He pricked up his ears and galloped round, looking for the voice. On the words being repeated two or three times, he vaulted over the stone wall and came to his old friend hidden behind. The officer would not part with the horse, but he paid liberally for him--so it seems the white horse of Mayo ended his days in the service of royalty.

The grandson of the possessor of the white horse was the other day fined L6 for possessing poteen, and was unable to pay it.

Listening to these stories we came up with the police, who had alighted from their cars and were going through their exercise preliminary to a march. We made our way through the cars, our driver chaffing a little with the drivers of the other cars. Just opposite where the police left the cars was the most utterly wretched house that I had yet seen. A large family of ragged people gathered at the door, looking to be in anything but fighting trim. We drove slowly, the police marched quickly, until we saw them take to the fields, when we alighted per force and followed them.