Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/229

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FAMINE IN IRELAND
223

tains and the sea on one side, and roads passable only on foot by the other, having no bridges, and the paths entirely lost in some places among the stones. We left our carriage, and walked as we could; and though we met multitudes in the last stages of suffering, yet not one through that day asked charity, and in one case the common hospitality showed itself, by offering us milk when we asked for water. This day I saw enough, and my heart was sick—sick. The next morning, the Protestant curate wished me to go early to the field, and see the willing laborers in his employ. He called one to the hedge, and asked if he had the potatoes in his pocket which he had gathered some days ago. The man took out a handful of small ones. "These," said the curate (the tear starting to his eye), "are what this man found in spading up the ground here; and so little have his family to eat at home, that he has carried them in his pocket, till he can find some little spot where he may plant them, lest if he should leave them in the cabin, they would be eaten." This man had a family of four to support on the fourpence earned in that field.

One interesting and last excursion ended my painful visit in this romantic desolate region. The company was made up of Mrs. Garvey, a cousin of hers of the same name, a widow who possessed land in these vales and mountains for four miles, and her two sons. The distance was eight miles, the road narrow, winding, rocky, and in some places entirely lost, excepting the foot-path of the shepherds. Our vehicle was a cart