Asses in small
carts driven by old women in mutch caps, asses with panniers, the
harness entirely made of straw, asses with burdens on their backs laid
over a sort of pillion of straw. I thought asses flourished at Cairo and
Dover, but certainly Enniskillen has its own share of them. The faces of
the people are changed, the tongues are changed. The people do not seem
of the same race as they that peopled the mountains of Donegal.
A little while after my arrival, taking a walk, I wandered into an old
graveyard round an old church which opened off the main street.
Underneath this church is the vault or place of burial of the Cole
family, lords of Enniskillen - a dreary place, closed in by a gloomy
iron gate. A very ancient man was digging a grave in this old graveyard,
sacred, I could see by the inscriptions, to the memory of many of the
stout-hearted men planted in Enniskillen, who held the land they had
settled on against all odds in a brave, stout-hearted manner. None of
the dust of the ancient race has mouldered here side by side with their
conquerors. There was a dragoonist flavor about the dust; a military
flourish about the tombstones. A., of His Majesty's regiment; B.,
officer of such a battalion of His Majesty's so-and-so regiment; C., D.,
and all the rest of the alphabet, once grand officers in His Majesty's
service, now dust here as the royal majesties they served are dust
elsewhere. Went over to the ancient grave-digger, who was shovelling out
in a weakly manner decayed coffin, skull, ribs, bones, fat earth - so fat
and greasy-looking, so alive with horrible worms. He was so very old and
infirm that, after a shovelful or two, he leaned against the grave side
and _peched_ like a horse with the heaves.
"How much did he get for digging a grave?"
"Sometimes a shilling, sometimes one and six, or two shillings,
accordin' as the people were poor or better off."
"How were wages going?"
"Wages were not so high as they had been in the good times before the
famine. A man sometimes got three-and-six or four shillings then; now he
got two shillings."
"And board himself?"
"Oh, yes, always board himself."
"Some people now want a man to work for a shilling and board himself,
but how could a man do that? It takes two pence to buy Indian meal
enough for one meal. You see there would be nothing left to feed a
family on."
A stout, bare-legged hizzie appeared now, and kindly offered the old man
a pinch of snuff out of a little paper to overcome the effects of the
smell, and keep it from striking into his heart. This was one errand; to
find out who was talking to him was another.
