To
Make Assurance Sure, The Policeman Puts His Head Close To The Window,
Sees The Widow's White Face And Wild
Eyes sitting in the dark alone, and
the children sitting under the window, and then the party, with
something like
Tears in their eyes, something very like pity in their
hearts, go back to the barracks.
I wonder how these things will end. It is not stubbornness, but
helplessness and despair that makes them cling so to their homes,
combined with an utter dread of the disgrace and separation involved in
going to the workhouse. I listened to one tale after another of
harassment, misery and thoughtless oppression in Kiltyclogher till my
heart was sick, and I felt one desire - to run away that I might hear no
more. I applied the traditional grain of salt to what I heard, but could
not manage to add it to what I saw.
Mr. Tottenham rules part of Kiltyclogher. This man has a very evil name
among the tenants. Reclamation of land by very poor people is a very
serious matter. Not only do the bogs require drains twenty-one feet
apart and three deep (I have seen the people in the act of making such
drains again and again); not only do the surface stones require to be
gathered off, but great stones and immense boulders that obstruct the
formation of the drains, have to be removed, and as they have no powder
for blasting, they take the primitive method of kindling great fires
over the rock and splitting it up that way, so that their husbandry is
farming under difficulties.
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