Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/151

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FAMINE IN IRELAND
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their hunger, ventured to stop till the tide washed in and swept them away. Two men were dashed from a fearful height and dreadfully mangled;—one was killed instantly—the other lingered a few weeks and died. They were both in search of eggs to appease hunger. They seemed to face danger in a most deliberate manner, and go where none but the goat or eagle would venture. In this parish I found a specimen of that foolish pride and inability of a class of genteel Irish women, to do anything when difficulties present themselves. It was a young lady who lived back two miles upon the mountain, who belonged to one of the faded Irish "respectables;" she was educated in the popular genteel superficial style, and the family had some of them died, and all broken down: she, with her brother-in-law, from Dublin, was staying in a thatched cottage, which had yet the remains of taste and struggling gentility. Two of the peasant women had seen Mr. Bourne and me going that way, and by a shorter path had hastened and given the Miss notice, so that when we entered, the cottage was in trim, and she in due order to receive us. But that pitiful effort was to me painful to witness, having been told that she suffered hunger, and knew no possible way of escape, yet she assumed a magnanimity of spirit and complained not, only expressed much pity for the poor tenants on the land about her, and begged us if possible that we would send some relief. Her table was spread with the fashionable ornaments which adorn the drawing-rooms of the rich; and she, with a light scarf hung carelessly

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