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 in _scalans_, 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.
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