There were some lady tourists as well as gentlemen staying at Cong. They
were on pleasure bent, and had been dreadfully annoyed and disgusted in
Galway at the heartbreaking scene attending the departure of some poor
Irish emigrants. They are unreasonable in their grief, and take parting
as if it were death; but it is as death to many of the aged relatives
who will see these faces whom they love no more. I could not help
thinking how differently people are constituted. When I saw the
streaming eyes, the faces swollen with weeping, and heard the agonized
exclamations, the calls upon God for help to bear the parting, for a
blessing on the departing, I had to weep with them. These people were
all indignation where they were not amused. The old women's cries were
ill-bred howlings to their ears, their grief a thing to laugh at. They
made fun of their dress - how they were got up - as if their dress was a
matter of choice; grew indignant in describing their disgust at the
scene. Ah, well, these poor mountain peasants were not their neighbors,
they were people to be looked at, laughed at, sneered at, and passed by
on the other side; but I - these people are my people and their sorrow
moveth me.
XLIV.
THE ASHFORD DEMESNE - LORD ARDILAUN - LOUGH CORRIB.
The Ashford demesne affords walks or drives for miles. Everything that
woods and waters, nature and art can do to make Ashford delightful has
been done. I got a companion, a pretty girl, a permit from some official
who lived in a cottage at Cong, and set out by way of the Pigeon Hole to
see at least part of the place.
I may as well mention here how surprised we were to hear the Antrim
tongue from the recesses of the cave, and to find a group of strangers
exploring on their own account. They were working men who had come from
Belfast to work for Lord Ardilaun, and were making the most of a holiday
before they began. I was very much surprised to see men from Antrim,
where the wages are much higher than here, come down to work in the west
where labor is so cheap, and want of work the complaint.
To show how cheaply men work here, I may mention that being at a village
which lies outside of Lord Ardilaun's demesne, but on his estate, I was
standing on the road and a clergyman was talking in Irish to a man who
was employed at mason work in repairing the wall, a small quiet looking
man who did not stop work as he talked. Of course I could not understand
more than the scope of their discourse, but I understood distinctly one
question asked; "How much do you get for a day's work?" "One shilling
and two pence a day." "Without food of course?" "Of course." I had
heard in the North that casual laborers get two shillings a day there,
but they do not get two shillings when employed constantly.
