Left up among my country people in this hill country of Donegal, I set myself to see and to hear what they had to say for themselves or against their landlords. In the pauses of storm I walked up the mountains to see the people in their homes. I seem to have lost the power of description. I will never think of scenes I saw there without tears. I never, in Canada, saw pigs housed as I saw human beings here. Sickness, old age, childhood penned up in such places that one shuddered to go into them. Now, mark me! every hovel paid rent, or was under eviction for failing to pay.
The landlord has no duties in the way of repairing a roof or making a house comfortable. Such a thing is utterly unknown here. To fix the rent, to collect the rent, to make office rules as whim or cupidity dictates, to enforce them, in many instances with great brutality, is the sole business of the landlord; and the whole power of the Executive of England is at his back. This is not a good school in which to learn loyalty. Submission to absolute decrees or eviction are the only alternative.
The tenant has no voice in the bargain. He has no power to be one party to a contract. This irresponsible power of an autocrat over serfs of the soil is bad for both parties. I will try to tell these people's side of the question as nearly in their own words as I can.
When the native population was driven off the good valley lands to the hills of Donegal during the confiscation times, they built their cabins in groups, like the Scotchclachans, for company, perhaps even for protection. Each man broke up, clearing off stones and rooting up whins, the best patch within his reach. He ditched and drained pieces of low-lying bog, and paid for what he cultivated, all the rest being common.
By what title the Clemens of Leitrim got lordship over the wild hills as well as the fat lowlands I cannot tell; but all the country here, for miles and miles, up hill and down vale, is his. The people have absolutely no rights, far as the land is concerned.
The first move towards this dreadful state of things was called "Squaring the farms." This was done to compel the people to pay for the wild as well as the cultivated lands. Under the old system a man might have a few goats or sheep, or a heifer, on the hills, and, if his crop was not good, or a hail storm threshed out his oats, he could sacrifice these to pay the rent. When the farms were squared each man drew lots for his new holding. I am speaking of Lord Leitrim's estate. This was a hard decree, but the tenant had no alternative but to submit. A man often found himself squared out of the best of his clearing, squared out of his cabin and all accommodation for his cow or horse, and squared on to a new place without any house on it at all.
I made particular enquiry if Lord Leitrim had ever made any allowance or compensation to a man deprived of the house, which he or his fathers had built, after this summary fashion. No compensation. Every fixture put upon the land belonged to the landlord absolutely.
"Was there ever any help allowed to a man in building a new house?"
"In a very few instances a man got a door and a couple of window-sashes as a charitable assistance, not by any means as a compensation."
After some time the wild mountains, where there was nothing but rocks and heather, were fenced off. Before this the goats and sheep grazed up there. A new office rule made the price for a sheep or goat picking a living among the heather. It was one shilling and sixpence for a sheep with a lamb at her foot, and other animals in proportion. Still the wretched men of the hills struggled to live on in the only homes they had, or had ever known. Then the rents were raised. In one instance from L3 11s 4d to L6 5s for 6 Irish acres, the increased value being the result of the man's own hard labor. In another instance from L1 9s 4d to L13. Another office rule charges five shillings for the privilege of cutting turf for fuel even if cut on the little holding for which he is paying rent.
Now, when every nerve was strained to pay this rack rent, and cattle were high in price, if the unfortunate tenant failed, why, he was evicted. He might go where he liked, to the workhouse or the asylum, or the roadside, his little clearing would make pasture, and this, at the price of beef cattle, would be still more profitable. For any landlord in this part of Donegal to speak of freedom of contract is a fallacy. It does not exist.
The oppression at present exercised by Captain Dopping on the Leitrim estate, which he can carry out safely under the protection of bayonets, would raise up Judge Lynch in America before three months. Lately, the people told me, he visited the farm-houses in person, pulled open the doors of the little room that the better class strive to have, without permission asked, and walked in to inspect if there were any signs of prosperity hidden from the eye that might warrant further extortion. This act was resented with a feeling that found no relief in words. I noticed that there was no word of complaint or denunciation anywhere. Facts were stated, and you understood by glance and tone that the time for mere complaint was past.
I was taken to see a paralytic schoolmaster who had dared to build a room next to the school-house out of which he was helped into school every morning, for he could teach, though he had lost the use of his limbs. No sooner did Lord Leitrim know this than he had the paralytic carried out and laid on the road, and the room which he had built with his earnings and the help of his neighbors, was pulled down—not one stone was left upon another. He then lost his situation which was his living. I can hardly bear to describe this man's dwelling in which I found himself, his wife, four children and the cow. The winds of the mountain and the rains of heaven equally found their way in. His wife teaches sewing in the school at a salary of L8 per annum. This, with other help from the Rev. Mr. Martin, formerly Episcopal Rector of Kilmacrennan, who got the wife the post of schoolmistress, has kept these people alive. The father has not seen the sky since he was evicted in 1870. At present there is a writ of ejectment on the house for L9 of back rent, and he is sued for seed, got in the time of scarcity.
The house is horrible—there are boards with some straw on them over the beds. The children are very pretty, and as hardy as mountain goats. The father was quite an educated man, to judge from his speech. I, who was well clothed, shivered at the hearth, but want and nakedness stayed there constantly. If this poor man were put in the poor-house, he would have to part from the faithful wife and sweet children; but that is the doom that stares him in the face.
The longer I stayed among the hills the more I became convinced that the people had strained every nerve to pay what they considered unjust and extortionate rents. They worked hard; they farmed hard; they wore poor clothing; they left their hill and went over to Scotland or England, at harvest time, to earn money to pay the rent. "And we were not considered as kindly, or as much respected, as their hogs or dogs," said a farmer to me. There was nothing left after the rent for comfort, or to use in case of sickness; they always lived on the brink of starvation.
"Why did you not refuse to pay these increased rents when they were put upon you first? You should have refused in a body, and stood out," I said to one man. "Some could do that, my lady, but most could not. At first I had the old people depending on me, and I could not see them on the hillside; now I have little children, and the wife is weakly. And there were many like me, or even worse."
Now consider some of the office rules. My lord had a pound of his own: for a stray beast, so much; for a beast caught up the mountain without leave, eviction; for burning the limestone on your own place instead of buying it at the lord's kiln, eviction; for burning some parings of the peat land, the ashes of which made the potatoes grow bigger and drier, eviction. Not only did the man who did not doff his hat to the landlord stand in danger, but the man who did not uncover to his lowest under- bailiff. One exaction after another, one tyranny after another has dug a gulf between landlord and tenant that will be hard to bridge. I saw a stone house used as a barn. Lord Leitrim made the man who built it, who had got permission to build from the good Earl, tear down the chimney and make an office-house of it, on pain of eviction. He must continue to live himself in the hovel. Another widow woman, evicted for not being able to pay her rent, had the roof torn off her house, but has a place like a goose pen among the ruins, and here she stays. Every day rides out Capt. Dopping with his escort of police, paid for by the county, and evicts without mercy. Since the eyes of the world have been drawn to Ireland by the proceedings of the Land League none have been left to die outside. The tenants are admitted as caretakers by the week, but the eviction, I am told, extinguishes any claim the poor people might have under the Ulster Custom.
I have seen nothing yet to make me think I was in a disturbed country except meeting Captain Dopping and his escort, and seeing white police barracks and dandy policemen, who literally overrun the country. It carries one's mind back to the days of bloody Claverhouse or wicked Judge Jeffries to hear and see the feelings which the country people— Catholic as well as Protestant—have towards the memory of the late Earl. "Dear, the cup of his iniquity was full, the day of vengeance was come, and the earth could hold him no longer," said a Protestant to me.
"It was bad for the people, whoever they were, that took vengeance out of the hands of the Almighty, but many a poor creature he had sent out of the world before he lay helpless at the mercy of his enemies," said many an orthodox person to me. One poor girl on that dreadful day thanked God that the oppressor was laid low. Her mother evicted, had died on the roadside exposed to the weather of the hills, her brother went mad at the sight of misery he would almost have died to relieve but could not, and is now in the asylum at Letterkenny. One can imagine with what feeling this desolate girl lifted her hands when she heard of the murder, and said, "I thank Thee, O Lord."
What kind of a system is it that produces such scenes, and such feelings? It is a noticeable fact how many there are in the asylum in Letterkenny whose madness they blame on the horrors of these evictions. Wise legislation may find a remedy for these evils, but the memory of them will never die out. It is graven on the mountains, it is stamped on the valleys, it is recorded on the rocks forever.
The twenty-sixth of March rose sunny and cold, and I decided to hire a horse and guide to go to Derryveigh, made memorable by Mr. John George Adair. The road lay through wild mountain scenery. Patches of cultivated fields lay on the slopes; hungry whin-covered hills rose all round them, steep mountains rank upon rank behind; deep bog lands, full of treacherous holes, lay along at the foot of the mountain here and there. The scenery is wild beyond description, not a tree for miles in all the landscape.
On some of the lower hills men were ploughing with wretched-looking horses. Men were delving with spades where horses could not keep their footing. The houses were wretched, some only partly roofed, some with the roof altogether gone and a shed erected inside, but for the most wretched of all the hovels rent is exacted.
Every bit of clearing was well and carefully labored. The high, broad stone fences round hillside fields were all gathered from the soil.
At one place, I was told that the brother of the occupant had sent him, from America, money to make the house a little more comfortable. He roofed it with slate. The rent was raised from L2 9s 4d to L13 10s. I may remark here that the tenants complain that the present Earl, through his agent, Capt. Dopping, is even more oppressive in a steady, cruel manner than the late Earl.
The late hard times—the cruel famine—has led to the sacrifice of all stock, so that some of these people have not a four-footed beast on their holding.
As we wound along among the hills my guide spoke of getting another man to accompany us, who was well acquainted with the way to Derryveigh, and we stopped at his place accordingly. He came to the car to explain that he was busy fanning up corn, or he would be only too glad to come. In a subdued whisper he told my guide of Capt. Dopping having been at his house, with his bailiffs and body-guard of police—threatening the wife, he said. He then told of the sacrifices he had made of one thing and another to gather up one year's rent. He had to pay five shillings for cutting turf on his own land, and one shilling for a notice served on him. Poor little man, he had a face that was cut for mirthfulness, and his woefulness was both touching and amusing. So we left him and went our way.
Along the road, winding up and down among the hills, by sudden bogs and rocky crags still more desolate and lonely looking, we came upon a cultured spot, now and then, where a solitary man would be digging round the edges of the rocks. Again we were among wild mountains heaving up their round heads to the sky and looking down at us over one another's shoulders. It brought to my mind the Atlantic billows during the last stormy February. It is as if the awful rolling billows mounting to the sky were turned into stone and fixed there, and the white foam changed into dark heather. After driving some time the landscape softened down into rolling hills beautifully cultivated, and sprinkled here and there with grazing cattle.
We are coming to Gartan Lake, and where there is a belt of trees by the lake shore stands the residence of Mr. Stewart, another landlord. He, when cattle became high-priced, thought that cattle were much preferable to human beings, so he evicted gradually the dwellers who had broken in the hills, and entered into possession, without compensation, of the fields, the produce of others' toil and sweat. His dwelling is in a lonely, lovely spot, and it stands alone, for no cottage home is at all near. He has wiped out from the hill sides every trace of the homes of those who labored on these pleasant fields and brought them under cultivation. Since the Land League agitation began he has given a reduction of rents, and the whole country side feel grateful and thankful.
There is no solitude so great that we do not meet bailiffs at their duty, or policemen on the prowl.
We are now nearing Derryveigh. There are two lakes lying along the valley connected with a small stream. My guide informed me that both lakes once abounded with salmon. The celebrated St. Colombkill was born on the shores of the Gartan Lake. Being along the lake one day he asked some fishermen on the lower lake to share with him of the salmon they had caught. They churlishly refused, and the saint laid a spell on the waters, and no salmon come there from that day to this. They are plentiful in Upper Gartan Lake, and come along the stream to the dividing line, where the stream is spanned by a little rustic bridge; here they meet an invisible barrier, which they cannot pass. I told my guide in return the story of the Well of St. Keyne, but he thought it unlikely. So there is a limit to belief.
Since Mr. Adair depopulated Derryveigh, and gave it over to silence, the roads have been neglected, and have become rather difficult for a car. The relief works in famine time have been mainly road-making, and there are smooth hard roads through the hills in all directions, so the people complain of roads that would not be counted so very bad in the Canadian backwoods. However, the difficulty being of a rocky nature, we left the car at the house of a dumb man, the only one of the inhabitants spared by Adair. He and his sister, also dumb, lived together on the mountain solitudes. She is dead, and a relative, the daughter of one of the evicted people, has come to keep house for him. He made us very welcome, seeing to it that the horse was put up and fed with sheaf oats. I and my guides, for we were now joined by the man who had had the oats to fan— he had got his brother to take his place and came a short cut across the hills to meet us—so we all three set out to walk over Derryveigh.
It was a trying walk, a walk to be measured by ups and downs, for the Derryveigh hamlets were widely scattered. There they were—roofless homes, levelled walls, desolation and silence. And it is a desolation, indeed. Broken down walls here and there, singly and in groups, mark the place where there was a contented population when Mr. Adair bought the estate. He had made plans for turning his purchase into a veritable El Dorado. The barren mountains are fenced off, surely at a great expense, that no sheep or lamb might bite a heather bell without pay. It was to be a great pasture for black-faced sheep. The sides of the mountains, which are bog in many places, are scored with drains to dry up the bog holes and give the sheep a sure footing. I did not see many sheep on the hill or many cattle on the deserted farms. It is an awfully lonesome place; desolation sits brooding among the broken-down walls. My guide, a lonesome-looking man, enlivened our way by remarks like these: "This was a widdy's house. She was a well-doin' body." "Here was a snug place. See, there's the remains of a stone porch that they built to break off the wind." "That was Jamie Doherty's, he that died on the road-side after he was evicted. You see, nobody dare lift the latch or open the door to any of the poor creatures that were put out."
And this has been done; human beings have died outside under the sky for no crime, and this under the protection of English law. Many of these people lost their reason, and are in the asylum at Letterkenny. Some are stillcosheringhere and there among their charitable neighbors, while many are bitter hearted exiles across the sea. After walking up and down amid this pitiful desolation, and hearing many a heart-rending incident connected with the eviction, a sudden squall of hail came on, and we were obliged to take shelter on the lee side of a ruined wall till it blew over. To while away the time one of the guides told me of a local song made on the eviction, the refrain being, "Five hundred thousand curses on cruel John Adair."
Across the Gartan Lake we could see from our partial shelter the point to which Mr. Stewart wasted the people off his estate. Mr. Stewart's is a handsome lonely place, but when one hears all these tales of spoliation it prevents one from admiring a fine prospect. "He is dealing kindly with the people now," said my guides, "whatever changed his heart God knows."
The shower being over we returned to the house of the dummy. In our absence dinner had been prepared for us. She had no plates, but the table on which she laid oat cakes was as white as snow. She gave us a little butter, which, by the signs and tokens, I knew to be all she had, boiled eggs, made tea of fearful strength, and told us to eat. My guides enjoyed the mountain fare with mountain appetites. I tried to eat, but somehow my throat was full of feelings. I had great difficulty to make this mountain maid accept of a two shilling piece for her trouble. We returned by the way we came to a point where we had a view of a rectory which was pointed out to me as the abode of another good rector. These people do seem to feel kindness very much. Here we took another road to visit Glenveigh and see Adair's castle. On the way we were informed by a woman, speaking in Irish, that a process-server near Creeslach was fired at through the window of his house. He had been out serving processes, and was at home sitting with his head resting on his hand. Three shots were fired, two going over his head and one going through the hand on which his head was resting. Two men are taken up to-day.
* * * * *
I have secured a copy of the ballad referred to by our guide, which records the desolation of Derryveigh. All such actions are celebrated in local poetry; but this is one of the fiercest; you can publish it if you think best:—
"The cold snow rests on levelled walls, where was a happy home,The wintry sky looks down upon a desolate hearthstone.The hearth by which the cradle song has lulled our infant's sleep,Is open to the pitying skies that nightly o'er it weep.There is rippling in the waters, there is rustling through the air,Five hundred thousand curses upon cruel John Adair.
"It is not we that curse him, though in woe our sad heart bleeds,The curse that's on him is the curse that follows wicked deeds.He suspected and he punished, he judged, and then he drewThe besom of destruction our quiet homesteads through;So it's rippling in the waters, it is rustling through the air,Five hundred thousand curses upon cruel John Adair.
"We little dreamed upon our hills destruction's hour was nigh,Woe! Woe the day our quiet glens first met his cruel eye!He coveted our mountains all in an evil hour,We have tasted of his mercy, and felt his grasp of power;Through years to come of summer sun, of wintry sleet and snow,His name shall live in Derryveigh as Campbell's in Glencoe.
"A tear is on each heather bell where heaven's dew distils,And weeping down the mountain side flows on a thousand rills;The winds rush down the empty glens with many a sigh and moan,Where little children played and sang is desolate and lone.The scattered stones of many homes have witnessed our despair,And every stone's a monument to cruel John Adair.
"Where are the hapless people, doomed by John Adair's decree?Some linger in the drear poor-house—some are beyond the sea;One died behind the cold ditch—back beneath the open sky,And every star in heaven was a witness from on high.None dared to ope a friendly door, or lift a neighbor's latch,Or shelter by a warm hearthstone beneath the homely thatch.
"Beside the lake in sweet Glenveigh, his tall white castle stands,With battlement and tower high, fresh from the mason's hands;It's built of ruined hearth stones, its cement is bitter tears,It's a monument of infamy to all the future years,He is written childless, for of his blood no heirShall inherit land or lordship from cruel John Adair.
"His cognizance the bloody hand has a wild meaning now,It is pointing up for vengeance to Cain-like mark his brow,It speaks of frantic hands that clasped the side posts of the door;Pale lips that kissed the threshold they would cross, oh, never more.The scattered stones of many homes, the desolated farms,Shall mark with deeper red the hand upon his coat of arms.The silver birches of Glenveigh when stirred by summer airShall whisper of the curse that hangs o'er cruel John Adair."
In the silence of the night when sleep would not come, and when my imagination rehearsed over and over again sights I had seen and tales I had heard, I made an almost cast-iron resolution to escape to the estate of Stewart of Ards and have one letter filled up with the good deeds of a landlord. Alas for me! another storm, a rain storm, and a touch of neuralgia conspired to keep me "ben the house" in the little room upon the mountain side. One can weather snow or hail easier than a mountain rain storm. The rain is laden with half-melted snow, and the wind that drives it is terribly in earnest.
It is one queer feature of this mountain scenery, the entire absence of trees. The hills look as if the face of the country had been shaved. Up the hill sides the little fields are divided off by high, broad stone fences, the result of gathering the stones out of the fields. The bog land to be reclaimed requires drains three feet deep every six feet of land.
To trench up a little field into ridges six feet apart, to gather stones out of a little field sufficient to surround it with a four feet high stone fence, to grub out and burn whins, to make all the improvements with your own labor, and then to have your landlord come along with his valuator and say, "Your farm is worth double what you pay for it; I can get thirty shillings an acre for it," and to raise the rent to its full value, which you must pay or go out. This sort of thing is repeated, and repeated, in every variation of circumstances and of hardship, and the people submit and are, as a whole, quiet and law-abiding.
I was called out of my little den to see a woman, one of the evicted tenants of Mr. Adair. She was on her way to Letterkenny to see her son, who is in the asylum since the eviction. It was hard enough to wander through the ruins and hear of the eviction scenes from others, but to sit by the turf fire and listen to one who had suffered and was suffering from this dreadful act, to see the recollection of it expressed in look and tone was different. This woman—husband dead, son in the asylum—was a decent-looking body in cloak and cap, with a bleached face and quiet voice.
"We were all under sentence of eviction, but it was told to us that it was for squaring the farms. Then we were warned to pay in the half- year's rent. It was not due till May, and we had never been asked to pay the rent ahead of us before. But the landlord was a new one, and if he made a rule, why, we must obey him; so we scraped up and sold this and that and paid it. If we had known what was coming we might have kept it, and had a penny to turn to when we were out under the sky. It was to get the rent before he turned us out that he made that plan. We were put out in the beginning of April; our rent was paid up to May. Oh, I wish, I wish that he had driven us into the lake the day he put us out. A few minutes would have ended our trouble, but now when will it end! I have been through the country, my lady, and my boy in the asylum ever since."
Went to the Catholic chapel up here in the mountains. It was quite convenient to my lodging. It is a very nice building with a new look. I was surprised to see such a fine building in the mountains, for, owing to the poverty of the people, there were no chapels at all in some places a little time ago. Mass was celebrated inscalans, a kind of open sheds, covered over head to protect the officiating priest from the weather, while the people clustered round in the open air. When I spoke of the nice appearance of the chapel I was told that the children of these hills scattered through the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, had helped in its building. There were between seven and eight hundred people present. There were no seats on the floor of the chapel. I could not help admiring the patient, untiring devotion of these people, and the endurance that enabled them to kneel so long. The prevailing type of face is eminently Scottish, so is the tone of voice, and the names, Murrays, Andersons, and the like.
Were it not for the altar and the absence of seats I could have imagined myself in a Glenelg Presbyterian congregation. The Irish spoken here, and it is spoken universally, has a good deal of resemblance to Glenelg Gaelic. I was surprised at how much I understood of the conversations carried on around me. The women, too, in their white caps, with their serious, devotional comely faces, reminded me of faces I have seen in dear old Glengarry.
There were not half a dozen bonnets in the whole congregation—snow- white caps covered with a handkerchief for the matrons. They wore cloaks and shawls, and looked comfortable enough. I saw some decent blue cloth cloaks of a fashion that made me think they had served four generations at least. The lasses wore their own shining hair "streeling" down their backs or neatly braided up; abundant locks they had, brown color prevailing. Fresher, rosier, comelier girls than these mountain maidens it would be hard to find.
The men's clothing, though poor, and in some instances patched in an artistic fashion, was scrupulously clean. In the congregation were some young men well dressed, bold and upright, whose bearing, cut of whiskers, and watch chains, showed that they had lived among our trans- Atlantic cousins of the great Republic.
The priest of the hills is the one man whom these people trust. The prevailing type of landlord has been their enemy and oppressor. The priest has been friend, counsellor, sympathizer, helper, as well as clergyman, and so he issoggarth aroon.
The storm continues at intervals. I get one clear, cold bit of fair weather to climb to the top of Doune hill, where the Ulster kings used to be crowned, a sugar-loaf shaped hill with the top broken off, rising in isolated grandeur up high enough to give one a breather to get to the top.
The weather returned to its normal condition of storm, and I was shut up again. I became a little homesick, had the priest to tea, and enjoyed his conversation very much, but he had to go off in the storm on a sick call. A priest in these mountains has not the easiest kind of life in the world.
Illusions took possession of my brain. I fancied myself a great queen, to say the least of it. A whisper got among the hills that a great American lady with unlimited power had come seeking the welfare of the country, and so any amount of deputations wafted on me. I will give a few specimens.
Two men to see my lady in reference to a small still that had been misfortunately found on the place of an old man upward of eighty. He was fined L12, and would my lady do anything?
Two women under sentence of eviction, my lady (I saw the place of one of these, the roof was on the floor, and a little shelter was in one corner like the lair of a wild beast, and here she kept possession in spite of the dreadful Captain Dopping; the agent). Would my lady send out their two daughters to America and place them in decent places?
And here was old Roseen, old and miserable, without chick or child, or drop's blood belonging to her in the wide world, and would my lady remember her?
Here's the crature of a widow from the mountain with four small children, and no man body to help her with the place, and not a four- footed beast on it belonging to her; all went in the scarcity; would my lady look to her a little, sure she was the neediest of all?
And here was the poor cripple boy that his reverence was so good to, &c., &c., &c., in endless file.
Nothing kept this over-dose of "my lady" from going to my head like Innishowen poteen, but the slenderness of my purse. Determined at last, warned by my fast-collapsingportmonnaie, to refuse to see any more deputations and keep ben-the-house strictly. A cry arose that Captain Dopping and his body-guard, on evictions bent, were coming up the hill. I rushed out, mounted a ditch of sods for one more look at the little tyrant of their fields. As I stood shading my eyes with my hand and looked across at the dreaded agent, a plaintive "my lady," bleated out at my side, drew my eyes down. It was a woman; she did not speak any more, but looked, and that look drew out my fast collapsing purse. I walked slowly into the house, determined to escape from the hills while I had the means left of escaping.
I have returned to pleasant Ramelton, and will write my visit to Glenveigh Castle from here. This town will always be a place of remembrance to me on account of the Christian kindness, sympathy, encouragement and counsel which I have received in it.
It was my great good fortune to get an introduction to Mr. and Miss McConnell, a brother and sister, who are merchants in this place. They are of the stock of the Covenanters, a people who have left the stamp of their individuality on the piety of the North of Ireland. Sufferers themselves from Lord Leitrim's tyranny and greed, they sympathize with other sufferers, and sympathize with me in my work to a greater extent than any others since I left home. I can say with feeling, I was a stranger and they took me in.
I have been driven in many directions sight-seeing in their cosy little pony carriage. It is a nice little two-wheeled affair. I believe the orthodox name of it is a croydon. It carries four, who sit back to back, while the back seat turns up when not wanted. It was in quite a different trap that I rode in on my visit to Glenveigh. During my journey there we talked, my guide and I, of what constitutes a good landlord. It was a negative sort of goodness which he expected from the good landlord—"that he would not harry the tenants with vexatious office rules; that he would let them alone on their places so long as they paid their rent; that he would not raise the rent so that all grown on the land would be insufficient to pay it." Since the Land League agitation some landlords have granted a reduction of rents, and some have even given a bag of potatoes for seed as a gift to the poorer tenants.
The road to the new castle leads through scenery of grand mountain solitudes, treeless, houseless and silent. Our road wound in a serpentine fashion among the mountains. The drains that regularly score the foggy mountain sides produce a queer effect on the landscape.
As we wound along the serpentine road nearing the castle, the hills seemed to get wilder and more solemn. No trace of human habitations, no sound of human life, treeless, bare, silent mountains, wastes of black bog, rocks rising up till their solemn heads brushed the sky,—Irish giants in ragged cloaks of heather.
At last we came in sight of Loughveigh lying cradled among the rocks, and got a glimpse of the white tower of Glenveigh Castle. There is a small skirting of wood near the castle where the silver barked birch prevails from which the glen takes its name, interspersed with holly trees, which grow here in profusion, and some dark yews, prim and stately, drawn up like sentinels to guard the demesne.
No place could be imagined more utterly alone than Glenveigh Castle. The utter silence which Mr. Adair has created seems to wrap the place in an invisible cloak of awfulness that can be felt. Except a speculative rook or a solitary crane sailing solemnly toward the mountain top, I saw no sign of life in all the glen. Owing to the windings of the road it seemed quite a while after we sighted the top of the tower before we entered the avenue which sweeps round the edge of the lake shore, and finally brought us to the castle. The castle stands on a point stretching out into the lake. Opposite, on the other side of the lake, a steep, bare, dark rock rises up to the dizzy height. It is the kind of rock that makes one think of fortified castles, and cities built for defence, that ought to be perched on a summit, but Glenveigh Castle should be a lady's bower, instead of a fortalice. Behind the castle the mountain slopes are clothed with young trees. The castle itself is a very imposing building from the outside; grand, strong, rather repellant; inside it has a comfortless; ill-planned, unfinished appearance. The mantel-piece of white marble with the Adair arms carved on it—the bloody hand, the mottovalor au mort, the supporters two angels—lies in the hall cracked in two. A very respectable Scotchman, a keeper, I suppose, showed me over the building. He must enjoy a very retired life there, for in all the country for miles there is not a human habitation except the police barrack that looms up like a tall ghost at the other end of the lake.
As we drove home through the mountains I noticed that Mukish wrapped herself in the misty folds of her veil. Soon after the storm rolled down the mountain sides and chased us home.
Left Ramelton at seven o'clock Monday morning, April 4th, the hoar- frost lying white on the deck of the little steamer. The cabin was black with smoke that would not consent to go in the way it should go, so one had to be content with the chill morning, the hoar frost and the deck.
We steamed up past the town of Rathmullen with the two deserted forts grinning at one another.
Two women of the small farming class were, like myself, sitting close to the machinery to get warm. They were gravely discussing the value of a wonderful goose owned by one of them. I do not think the owner of a fast horse could go into greater raptures or more minute description of his good points than these two ladies did about the goose. One declared that she had been offered eight shillings ($2) for the goose and had refused it. This is one proof of the high figure at which all animals, birds and beasts, common to a farm are held. Although this goose was exceptionally valuable, yet a goose is worth five shillings or $1.25.
A laborer's wages is two shillings, without food, so it would take him two and a half days' work to earn a goose, a day's work to earn a hen or a duck, fifteen days' work to earn a suckling pig, nearly four months to buy the cheapest cow; always considering that he has food to support him while so earning. I have heard poor men blamed for not raising stock. When the price of stock is considered, and that a small field for grazing purposes is rented at L8, I confess I wonder that any poor man has a cow. If he has, butter is now thirty cents per pound in this locality, and a cow is therefore very valuable.
Before I leave bonnie Ramelton behind altogether, I must say that it has been in the past fortunate in a landlord. Old Sir Annesly Stewart, lord of this fair domain at one time, invariably advised his tenants who purposed to build houses, to secure titles first, saying, "Do not trust to me, I am an old man and will soon pass away: who knows what manner of man may succeed me? I will give a free farm grant, equivalent to guarantee deed, I am told, to anyone wanting to build." So the owners of houses in Ramelton pay ground rent, while at Milford, Kilmacrennan and Creaslach the strong hand has seized the tenants' houses without compensation. It is said that the present owner of old Sir Annesly's estate, who is not a lineal descendant, however, feels as Bunyan describes the two giants to feel, who can grin and gnash their teeth, but can do no more.
All this and more I hear, as the sun comes up and the frost disappears, and we sail over bright waters. One might enjoy sailing over Lough Swilly, the whole of a long summer day. Everything pleasant comes to an end, and we land at Fahan, and while waiting for the train my attention is drawn to the fair island of Inch, with its fields running up the mountain side, and the damp black rocks through which the railway has cut its way at Fahan. The train comes along, and we go whirling on past Inch, Burnfoot Bridge, and into Derry. A Presbyterian doctor of divinity is in our compartment, and some well-to-do farmers' wives, and again and yet again the talk is of the land and the landlords. Instance after instance of oppression and wrong is gone over.
But Derry reached, I must say good-bye to some agreeable travelling companions, and take the mail car to Moville for a tour round Innishowen; Innishowen, celebrated for its poteen; Innishowen, sung about in song, told about in story.
"God bless the dark mountains of brave Donegal,God bless royal Aielich, the pride of them all—She sitteth for ever a queen on her throne,And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen.A race that no traitor or tyrant has knownInhabits the valleys of green Innishowen."
From Derry to Moville is, as usual, lovely—lovely with a loveliness of its own. Fine old trees, singly, in groups, in thick plantations; beautiful fields; level clipped hedges; flowers springing everywhere, under the hedges, in little front gardens, up the banks. The land is dreadfully overrun with gentry's residences fair enough to the eye, some of them very beautiful, but one gets to wonder, if the land is so poor that it is spueing out its inhabitants, what supports all these?
The wide Lough Foyle is in sight of the road most of the way, and a sea- bound steamer carries me away in thought to Canada. The air is nipping enough to choke sentiment in the bud. It is bitter cold, and I have the windward side of the car, and shiver at the nodding daffodils in blooming clumps at every cottage as we pass along. There are some waste unreclaimed fields, and the tide is out as we drive along, so that long stretches of bare blue mud, spotted with eruptions of sea weed, fit well with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the curves of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along, and the brown-sailed little boats scudding before the breeze.
The Lough is on one side, and a remarkable, high steep ridge on the other, yellow with budded whins, green with creeping ivy, and up on the utmost ridge a row of plumed pines. When I noticed their tufted tops standing out against the sky, I felt like saying, "Hurrah! hurrah for Canada!" the pines did look so Canadian looking. I soon was recalled to realize that I was in my own green Erin, and certainly it is with a cold breath she welcomes her child back again.
We knew we were nearing Moville: we saw it on a distant point stretching out into the Lough. I forgot to mention that the land began to be full of castles as we drove along the road. We passed Red Castle and White Castle and when we reached Moville, Green Castle was before us a few miles further down. Further down I wished to go, for a very distant relative was expecting me there—Mr. Samuel Sloan, formerly of the Royal Artillery, who had charge of Green Castle Fort for years; but now has retired, and lives on his own property. I like people to claim kindred with me; I like a hearty welcome, theCead mille faille ghud, that takes you out of hotel life and makes you feel at home. I was so welcomed by my distant kinsman and his excellent wife that I felt very reluctant to turn out again to hotel life.
Next day after my arrival we got a car and made an excursion down along the coast to Port-a-dorus. I thought I had seen rocks before, but these rocks are a new variety to me. They occur so suddenly that they are a continual surprise. Along the coast, out in the water, they push up their backs in isolated heaps like immense hippopotami lying in the water, or petrified sharks with only a tall serrated back fin visible. There would occur a strip of bare brown sand, and outside of that row upon row of sharp, thin, jagged rocks like the jaw teeth of pre-Adamite monsters. In other places they were piled on one another in such a sudden way, grass growing in the crevices, ivy creeping over them, the likeness of broken towers and ruined battlements, that one could hardly believe but that they were piled there by some giant race.
When we had driven as far as the car could go we left car and driver, and scrambled over the rocks like goats. Rocks frowned above us, between us and the sky, rocks all round in black confusion. As we climbed from slippery rock to slippery rock, over long leathery coils of thick sea weed, like serpents, on, on through theDorusto the open sea, noticing the dark passages, the gloomy caves, the recesses among the cliffs, the narrow passes, where one could turn to bay and keep off many, it was natural to think of rebels skulking here, with a price on their heads, after the '98, or of lawless people stilling illicitpoteento hide it from the gaugers. Sheltered by the rocks of Port-a-dorus, I could enjoy the sea air flavored with essence of sea weed. We watched for a while the waves playing about the rocks and washing through the door in innocent gambols. This sportfulness did not impose upon me nor the rocks either, for the marks of the Atlantic in a rage were graven on their brows in baldness and in wrinkles.
Along the road as we drove back I noticed the white cottages of coast guardsmen who have married the maidens of the hills. They were there in their patches of ground, delving with the spade, scattering sea weed manure, the landlords here allowing them to gather all the sea weed that drifts to their shores. Decent looking men these, in their blue uniforms and thoughtful sea-beaten faces, with hardy little children around them, playing or helping. The rocks rise among the fields with the same startling abruptness as they do along the shore, looking still more like ruins of old castles. Round these rocks and among them, in every nook and cranny where there is a spadeful of earth, is delved carefully by these mountain husbandmen.
As I looked at the rocks and crags, and the workers among them, I could hardly help thinking they dearly earned all that grew upon them, although there would be no half-yearly rent hanging over them. In one little clearing some children were scattering manure. One, a sturdy little maiden, but a mere baby of about seven years of age, had a fork cut down to suit her size, and was handling it with infantile vigor, laying about her with great vim. It was such a comical sight that we stopped the car to watch her. As soon as she saw she was watched, she dropped the fork and scampered off to hide. A pretty little child, hardy and healthy and nimble as a goat.
Of course on this coast there are tall, white light houses, two of them keeping guard over the rocks. Here and there are coast guard stations, white and barrack-like, only holding blue jackets instead of red or green.
The tenants along here praised their landlords. One of them, the Marquis of Donegal, was spoken of as a merciful lord all through the hard years. He had forgiven them rent which they could not pay, and lowered the rent when they did pay, returning them some of the money, and the poor people spoke of him with warm gratitude.
I notice that the people here have a good many sheep. They are not so very wretched as the mountaineers I saw in northern Donegal. Poor they must be, to dig out a living from among these rocks and keep up a lord besides, but their lord has had a more human heart toward them than other lords over whose lands I have been.
Went on an exploring expedition to the ruins of Green Castle. One authority told me it had been the castle of the chief of the clan Doherty, once ruling lord here in the clannish times. Another equally good authority told me it was built by De Burgo in the sixteenth century to hold the natives in awe. Whoever built it, the pride of its strength and the dread of its power have passed away forever. It is a very extensive ruin and covers a large tract of ground. It looks as if three solid, high, square buildings were set, not very regularly, end to end, the outer wall of one built in a semi-circle, and towers raised at every corner and every irregularity of the wall. Of course the roof was on the floor, turrets and towers have lost part of their height and stand, rent and ragged, tottering to their fall.
A good deal is said about the Norman style of arch and the Saxon style of arch found in old buildings. I am convinced that the arches of Green Castle, and its architecture generally, had been formed on the pattern of the rocks at Port-a-dorus and the other heaps along the coast. The same massiveness, the same wedge-like stones piled together to form arches prevail in both.
Seaward the castle sits on a steep rock, like the rock on which Quebec sits for height, but cleaner scarped, and more inaccessible I should think. To stand on the shore and look up, the castle seems perched on a dizzy height, its ruined battlements and broken towers rising up into the sky. The pretty green ivy forms a kindly hap and a garment of beauty, both for rock and ruin. Long live the ivy green.
There is a clean, smooth new fort standing beside the ruined old castle like a prosperous, solid, closely-shaven, modern gentleman beside dilapidated nobility. Its fat, broad tower looks strong enough and solid enough and grim enough for anything. Inside of the fort everything is clean, regular and orderly, as becomes a place under the care of British soldiers. The house, or quarters I suppose they should be called, are clean and bright, whitewashed (I almost said pipe-clayed), to the highest point of perfection. There are fortifications above fortifications here, and plenty of cannon pointed at an imaginary foe. There are cannon balls in scientific heaps waiting to be despatched on errands of destruction. Long may they wait.
I saw the outside of the magazine, cased over with so many feet—oh, a great number—of solid masonry, padded over that with a great many feet of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder—tons and tons of it. Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their martial feet when they enter into his temple—slippers without a suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed. If any one of these intruded on this domain sacred to Mars, he would in his indignation gift them with the feathered heels of Mercury and send them off with an abrupt message for the stars.
Had a great desire to go up to the top of the great tower and see what could be seen from it. I was informed, delicately, that in these disturbed times it was not thought best to admit strangers. The lonely martello tower on the opposite sands was pointed out to me, sitting mistress of desolations in the shadow of the rocks of MacGilligan. I was informed of the money's worth of pile work, thousands upon thousands of pounds sterling, on which this ugly and useless tower is sitting. As I walked around the outside of the fort landward and seaward, I think it quite possible to take it. I make this spiteful remark because I did not get into the tower.
On the opposite shores of the lough at the inland end of the range that rose above and behind the martello tower where it slopes down, I saw the rocky figure of a woman, gigantic, solemn, sitting with her hands on her knees looking southward. Looking for what—for the slowly approaching time of peace, plenty and prosperity, of tardy justice and kindly appreciation? The cost of tower and fort would give Innishowen a peasant proprietary, loyal, grateful and loving, that would bulwark the lough with their breasts. Burns is true—a patriotic, virtuous populace forms the best "wall of fire around our much-loved isle."
It is not easy to get up and leave Green Castle, and the friends there who made me feel so pleasantly at home; but hearing of evictions that were to take place away in the interior of Innishowen, I bid a reluctant good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Sloan at Green Castle, and hiring a special car set off in the direction of Carndonagh. The road lies between mountains. The valley through which the road threads its way is varied enough; in parts bog of the wildest, and barren-looking fields sloping up to as barren, rocky mountains in their tattered covering of heather, black in its wintry aspect as yet—mountain behind mountain looking over one another's shoulders ever so many deep with knitted brows, wrinkled into deep gullies. One of these mountains (Sliabh Sneach, snow mountain) deserves its name; snowy is its cap, and snow lingers in the scarred recesses running down its shoulders. We passed fair, carefully cultured farms and farm houses, spotlessly white under the shade of trees. Other farms meeting these ran up far on the mountain side. The white houses, with which the mountain sides are plentifully dotted over, show very plainly, and are rather bare-looking and unsheltered among the dark heather. There are more dwellings on the same space in Innishowen among the hills than in the parts of the Donegal mountains where I have been. The people seem better off and more contented. Many of them have a kind word for their landlords.
In no part of Innishowen that I saw is the same wretchedness and misery apparent as I saw in "northern Donegal." There is, there must be a less crushing set of office rules. As an instance of this, the car driver informed me that the high, utterly heath-clad mountains were allowed to the people for pasturage, with very little if anything to pay. This accounts for the number of sheep I saw trotting about with lambs at their feet, twins being the rule and even triplets far from uncommon. My informant told me that lambs in early autumn were worth from thirty-five shillings to two pounds when fit to kill. I thought this a fabulous price, but it was confirmed to me by a cattle dealer on the train from Derry to Limavady. If a small farmer had many lambs to sell, he would have material help in making up the rent. My driver had three acres of land; he told me if he owned it out and out, after he got it paid for, he could lived comfortably. He had two horses and a car, and let out his car for hire. I considered that if he got much call for his car he might do that—a special car for four or five miles costing $1.25, and if the driver is a hired man he often depends on his chance, so there must be 25 cents for him also.
It is very necessary, if one wants to see anything of the country to get off regular routes at regular times, so posting becomes a necessity.
Suddenly we became aware of a great crowd assembled at a group of small houses a little off the public road, and turned our horse's head in that direction. There were a great many cars—well there might be, for there were seventy police on the ground, under the command of a police officer named McLeod. There was an immense crowd of people, who were entirely unarmed, not even a shillelagh among them; but if knitted brows and flashing eyes mean anything, there were men there capable, if any incident set pent-up rage free, to imitate the men of Harlech, who, with plaided breasts, encountered mail clad men. A large proportion of the crowd were women and girls, for there is a flourishing branch of the Ladies' Land League here.
The tenants to be evicted were, some of them, tenants of the Rev. William Crawford. I was told by what seemed good authority that the tenants did not owe much rent, but were pressed just now to punish them for joining the Land League. It was believed that the tenants were able to pay, but there was a strike against what they believed exorbitant rent. The evictions were to demonstrate the landlord's power to compel them to pay. There was a great crowd.
The policemen were formed in fours, and the crowd howled and hooted as they proceeded to the first house, McCallion's. The policemen took up a position convenient to the house, and a few were stationed at the door. The under sheriff was on the spot.
The little cottage was neat and tidy, white-washed of course. I was not inside; I did not like to go; those who were said it was very clean and neat. A room with a few ornaments, a table and some chairs, and a kitchen with its dresser and table, and a few chairs and stools. The rent was L14 6s. The tenant stated that he objected to pay the rent on account of it being too high. The family were sad-looking, but were very quiet. A paper was presented to him to sign, acknowledging himself a tenant at will, and promising to give up the holding on demand; on signing the paper, he got a respite of six months.
The crowd then went to the house of James McCauley, when the same form was gone through and the same respite granted.
The next house was John Carruthers'. Here the crowd were very much excited, the women screeched, the men howled, and the poor constabulary came in for unlimited hooting.
The next place was the joint residence of Owen and Denis Quigley, joint tenants of a little patch. The cottage is in a gulley on the mountain side, about a mile of crooks and turns from John Carruthers' house. The crowd was very large that was gathered round the door. As the police came up how they did howl! How they did shout, "Down with Harvey (the agent), and the Land League for ever." Some of the women declared themselves willing to die for their country.
Another man was evicted, a tenant of Mr. Hector McNeil. The rent here was L22 3s and the valuation L18 10s. Like the rest he said he could not pay it because it was too high.
At the next place a young lady Land Leaguer delivered a speech—Mary McConigle, a rather pretty young girl. Her speech was a good deal of fiery invective, withering sarcasm and chaff for the police, who winced under it, poor fellows, and would have preferred something they could defend themselves from—bayonets, for instance—to the forked lightning that shot from the tongue and eyes of this female agitator. Whatever would be the opinion of critics about it, Mary McConigle voiced the sentiments of the people and was cheered by the men and kissed by the women. There were a good many speeches made at different times.
Father Bradley, a tall, sallow young priest with a German jaw, square and strong and firm, spoke very well, swaying his hearers like oats before the wind. He praised them, he sympathized with them, he encouraged them, putting golden hopes for the future just a little way ahead of them, but through it all ran a thread of good advice to them to be self-restrained and law-abiding. I think I rather admired Father Bradley and his speech. I had a little conversation with him afterward. He said the lands were really rented too high, too high to leave for the cultivator of the soil anything but bare subsistence in the best of years; and when bad years followed one another, or in cases of sickness coming to the head of the family, want sat down with them at once.
Mr. Cox, the representative of the Land League, was also there, and made a speech. He and some gentlemen of the press arrived in a car with tandem horses. Such grandeur impressed upon the people the belief that they were connected with law and landlords, so, in enquiring the way, they found the people very simple and ignorant. When they came where roads met they were at a loss to know how to proceed, and a countryman whom they interrogated was both lame and stupid; when he knew, however, who Mr. Cox was, he recovered the use of his limbs and brightened up in his intellect in a truly miraculous manner. There were other speeches during the forenoon of the evictions from Father O'Kane, the gentle little priest of Moville, Mr. McClinchy, the Poor Law Guardian, and others.
The greatest success of the day as to speech-making was, after all, the speech of Mary McConigle, to judge of its present effect—no one else was kissed. The gist of most of the speeches which I heard, or heard of, was, advising to hope, to firmness, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and a counsel to be law-abiding, wrapped up in a little discreet blarney.
As we drove away in the direction of Carndonagh we passed on the way a wing of the Ladies' Land League, marching home in procession two and two. A goodly number of bareheaded sonsie lasses, wrapped in the inevitable shawl; rather good-looking, healthy and rosy-cheeked were they, with their hair snooded back, and gathered into braids sleek and shining. Brown is the prevailing color of hair among the Irish girls in the four counties I have partly passed through. These Land League maidens reminded me of other processions of ladies which I have seen marching in the temperance cause. They were half shame-faced, half laughing, clinging to one another as if gathering their courage from numbers.
Carndonagh, which we reached at last, is another clean, excessively whitewashed little town, straggling up a side hill, with any amount of mountains looming up in the near distance.
A little after we arrived the Carndonagh contingent of the police on duty at the evictions came driving in, horses and men both having a wilted look. The drivers came in for some abuse as they took their horses out of the cars on the street. One old man could not at all express what he felt, though he tried hard to do so, and screeched himself hoarse in the attempt.
The police, as they alighted down off the cars, made for their barracks— a tall white house standing sentry at a corner. As one entered, a little child toddled out to meet him with outstretched arms. He stopped to kiss and pet the child, looking fatherly and human. I am sure the little kiss was sweet and welcome after the howls and hoots of the crowd and the sarcastic eloquence of Miss McConigle. I pity the police; they are under orders which they have to obey. I have never heard that they have delighted in doing their odious duty harshly, and the bitter contempt of the people is, I am sure, hard to bear.
After dinner at Cardonagh, went down to the establishment of Mrs. Binns, an outlying branch of the great factory of Mr. Tillie, of Derry. Saw the indoor workers, many in number and as busy as bees. Some of them were very, very young. Mrs. Binns informed me that the times were harder in this part of the country than a mere passer-by would ever suspect; that the clothing to be worn when going out was so carefully kept, from the ambition to look decent, that they appeared respectable, while at the same time sorely pinched for food. The employment given in this factory is all that stands between many households and actual want. The machines here are not run by steam, but by foot power. I noticed weary limbs that were beating time to work! work! work! Mrs. Binns, a kind motherly woman, spoke earnestly of the industry, trustworthiness, self-denial, loyal affection for parents, and general kindliness that characterized the Irish peasantry.
This testimony to the qualities of the Roman Catholic peasantry has been the universal testimony of every employer who spoke to me on the subject. I have met with those who spoke of the native Irish, as they spoke of the poor of every persuasion, as lazy, shiftless and extravagant. These people talked from an outside view, and looked down from a certain height upon their poorer neighbors. Invariably I found the most favorable testimony from those who came into nearest contact with these people. As far as personal danger is concerned, having neither power nor inclination to oppress the poor of my people, I feel free to walk through the most disturbed districts as safely as in the days of Brian Boru.
To come back from that stately king down the centuries to the present time, I had intended to go from Carndonagh to Malin, and afterward to Buncrana, and from thence to Derry, having nearly gone round Innishowen. But this was not to be. Regular mail cars did not run on the days or in the direction in which I wished to go. I deliberated with myself a little, heard the comments of the people on the events of the day—the regrets that a greater force had not gathered and a greater demonstration been made. The women especially who had been forced to remain at home on the occasion of to-day regretted it very much. My car- man must return home to plough on the morrow; could not by any means go any further with his car just at present. I do think he is afraid. Another car in this little place is not to be had in the present state of police demand, for they are going out for further evictions on the morrow.
I retained the car and driver I had brought with me, and returned to Moville. My driver, a rather timid lad, told me he would not like to drive the police to these evictions and then return after dark the same way; he would be afraid. He would not drive the police, he said, on any account; he thought it wrong to do so. I noticed that, on pretence of showing me more of the country, he brought me back to Moville another way. Whether he thought I was likely to be taken for Mrs. Doherty, of Redcastle, who was one of the evicting landholders at the present time, or only for a suspicious character, I cannot say.
I was very glad afterward that I had not been able to carry out my original intention of going to Malin, for some of the evictions there were of a most painful character. It was better that I was spared the sight. In the case of a Mr. Whittington, whose residence, once the finest in that locality, is now sorely dilapidated, his wife, with a new born babe in her arms, and a large family of little children around her, were evicted. Is there not something very wrong when such things can be? Of course, when the bailiff carried out the furniture to the the roadside he was jeered and hooted at.
All the sympathy of the press is on the side of the landlords, and none but the very poor, who have suffered themselves, have pity, except of a very languid kind, for scenes such as this.
There are evictions and harassments flying about, as thick as a flight of sparrows through Innishowen at present.
At Moville I had the pleasure of an interview with the Rev. Mr. Bell, the Presbyterian minister of that place. He has studied the subject of the land laws in general and as they affected his own people in particular. Mr. Bell admits that there is great injustice perpetrated under the Land Law as it stands; that the Land Law of 1870 gave relief in many instances, and was intended to give more, but that numerous clauses in the bill made it possible to evade it, and it was evaded by unscrupulous men in many cases. "The necessity of a large measure of land reform, we admit," he says; "we must get this by constitutional means. Real wrongs must be redressed by agitating lawfully, persistently, continually and patiently, till they are redressed constitutionally. We must remain steadfast and never give in, but never transgress the law in any case or take it into our own hands. The Parnell agitation goes beyond this, and when they travel out of the safe path of using constitutional means, into something that leads to confiscation of property and robbery of landlords, and a concealed purpose, or only half concealed, of separation from England, we cannot follow them there."
Mr. Bell instanced many cases of gradual prosperity and attainment of wealth among his flock, but they were exceptional cases, and there were better farms in the case for one thing, and leasehold tenure for another, combining with their industry and thrift to account for the success.
I had conversation with another gentleman of this congregation, who, like many others, believed firmly in Paddy's laziness and carelessness at home. I am very tired of these statements, for any one can see the thrifty way mountain sides, scraps amid rocks, strips of land inside the railway fences, and every spade breadth is cultivated. It is not fair for a man who has means to judge a poorer man from the outside view of his case. There was a strange inconsistency in this gentleman's opinions, for while he declared laziness to be the cause of poverty and not the oppression of rent raised above value, yet when peasant proprietorship was mentioned as a remedy, he declared he would not take the farms as a gift and try to raise a living out of them.
I heard some lament the prevalence of stilling illicit whiskey in Innishowen. The excuse for doing so was to raise money for help in the prevailing poverty. They said the manufacture on the hills, whiskey being so easy to be had, nourished drinking customs among men and women alike, and what was made one way was lost one hundred-fold in another. A priest, recently deceased, a certain Father Elliott, had devoted talents of no mean order and great loving-kindness to the work of stemming this great evil. At his funeral there were between three and four thousand members of the temperance bands, which were the fruit of his labors. He died of typhus fever, and I heard his name mentioned with respectful regret by all creeds and classes.