XXVIII.
THE MANOR HAMILTON WORKHOUSE—TO THE SOUTH AND WESTWARD—A CHANGE OF SCENERY—LORD PALMERSTON.
Before leaving Manor Hamilton, I determined to see the poor-house, the last shelter for the evicted people. I was informed that it was conducted in a very economical manner. It is on the outskirts of the town. On my way there I went up a little hill to look at a picturesque Episcopalian church perched up there amid the trees, surrounded by a pretty, well-kept burying-ground. The church walls were ornamented with memorial slabs set in the wall commemorating people whose remains were not buried there. A pretty cottage stood by the gate, at the door of which a decent-looking woman sat sewing. I addressed a few questions to her as to the name of the pastor, the size of his flock, &c. Her answers were guarded—very.
I made my way down the hill, and over to the workhouse. The grounds before the entrance were not laid out with the taste observable at Enniskillen. Perhaps they had not a professional gardener among their inmates. At the entrance a person was leaning against the door in an easy attitude. I enquired if I might be allowed to see through the workhouse. He answered by asking what my business was. I informed him that I was correspondent for a Canadian newspaper. He then enquired if the paper I wrote for was a Conservative paper. I replied that I would not describe it as a Conservative paper, but as a religious paper. He then said the matron was not at home, and I prepared to leave. I enquired first if he was the master. He replied in the affirmative, and then said he would get the porter to show me round. "You will show her through," he said, to a stout, heavy person sitting in the entry.
This gentleman, who brought to my mind the estimable Jeremiah Flintwinch, accordingly showed me through the building. We passed the closed doors of the casual ward, where intending inmates were examined for admittance, and casuals were lodged for the night. Every door was unlocked to admit us and carefully locked behind us, conveying an idea of very prison-like administration. The able-bodied were at work, I suppose, for few were visible except women who were nursing children. There was a large number of patients in the infirmary wards. One man whose bed was on the floor was evidently very near the gate we all must enter. He never opened his eyes or seemed conscious of the presence of a stranger. I noticed a little boy lift the poor head to place it easier. I saw no one whom I could imagine was a nurse. The kindness and tenderness of the beggar nurses in the sick wards of the workhouse at Ballymena struck me forcibly. The absence of anything of the kind struck me forcibly in Manor Hamilton.
The children in this workhouse were pretty numerous. They demanded something from me with the air of little footpads. The women were little better. I was told, pretty imperatively, to look in my pockets. One woman rushed after me half way up stairs as if she would compel a gift. Coming back with my throat full of feelings, I was directed to a little desk behind the door, where lay the book for visitors: I was shown the place where remarks were to be entered. I wrote my name standing, as there was no other way provided. I was hardly fit to write cool remarks. The locked doors, the nurses conspicuous by their absence, the importunate beggars, the absent matron, the whole establishment was far below anything of the kind I had yet seen in Ireland. One woman had made her appearance from some unexpected place, and explained to me with floury hands, that if she were not baking she would herself show me through the house.
I think it is hard for struggling poverty to go down so far as to take shelter in the workhouse. It must be like the bitterness of death. I cannot imagine the feeling of any human beings when the big door clashes on them, the key turns, and they find themselves an inmate of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton. I do not wonder that the creatures starving outside preferred to suffer rather than go in. When I returned to the entrance the master had been joined by some others who were helping him to do nothing. He asked me over his shoulder what I thought of the house. I answered that it was a fine building, and walked down the avenue, wishing I was able to speak in a cool manner and to tell him what I thought of the house and of his management of the same.
Left Manor Hamilton on the long car for Sligo. The long car is the unworthy successor of the defunct mail coach of blessed memory. It is an exaggerated jaunting car arranged on the wheels and axles of a lumber waggon and it is drawn by a span sometimes; in this case, by four horses. A female was waving her hands and shouting incoherent blessings after us as we started. It might be for me or it might be for the land agent, who sat on the same side. I smiled by way of willingness to accept it, for it is better to have a blessing slung after one than a curse or a big stone.
Our road skirted Benbo (the hill of cattle), sacred now to rabbits and hares and any other small game that can shelter on its bald sides. Up hill and down hill, between hills and around hills, mountains of every shape and degree of bareness and baldness looking down at us over one another's shoulders as we drove along. An ambitious little peasant clung on behind with his hands, his little bare feet thudding on the smooth road and over the loose layer of sharp stones that lay edge upwards in places. He thought he was taking a ride. We passed small fields of reclaimed bog, where ragged men were planting potatoes in narrow ridges. We passed the brown fields where nothing will be planted; passed the small donkeys with their big loads; passed green meadows on a small scale; in places here and there, passed the houses, dark, damp and unwholesome, where these people live.
After we had rumbled on for some miles, enjoying blinks of cold sunshine, enduring heavy scudding showers, the landscape began to soften considerably. The grass grew green instead of olive, and trees clustered along the road. Umbrageous sycamores, claiming kindred with our maples, began to stand along the road singly and in clusters. We were still in a valley bounded by mountains, but the hill-sides waved with dark green and light green foliage, where the fir stretched upward tall plumes and the larch shook downward tasseled streamers. The green of the fields became greener and richer, the dark sterile moss-covered mountains retreated and frowned at us from the distance; we were leaving the hungry hills of north Leitrim for the pleasant valleys that lie smiling around Sligo.
The trees grew larger, the sycamores massed together in their full leafiness, bringing visions of a sugar bush in the time of leaves; they were mingled with the delicious green of the newly-leaved beech. The round-headed chestnuts, with their clustered leaves, were covered with tall spikes of blossom like the tapers on an overgrown Christmas tree. The ash and oak are shaking out their leaves tardily; the orchards are white with the bridal bloom of May. The fields are flocked with myriads of happy eyed daisies, the ditch backs glowing with golden blossoms. My eyes make me wealthy with looking at beauty.
We are nearing the town, for the woodland wealth is enclosed behind high walls. Grand houses peep from among the branches; trim lodges, ivy- garnished, sit at the gates, glimpses of gardens are seen, all the wealth of leafage and blossoming that fertility spreads over the land when spring breathes is here. In a glow of sunshine after the rain— smiles after tears—we enter Sligo.
We draw up in the open street, everyone alights from our elevation as they can. No one takes notice of any other by way of help. Each gets off and goes his several way. The land agent, who has sat in high-bred silence all the way, pays his fare and goes off on the car that awaits him. The rest disperse. I pay my fare. The driver asks to be remembered. I mentally wonder what for. I paid a porter to place my bag on the car. I got up as I could, I scramble down as I may. I will pay another porter to take me to a hotel. The driver's whip takes as much notice of me as he does. Why in the world should I remember him? It is part of a system of imposition and it would be rank communism to find fault, so I remember him; he thanks me, and this little game of give and take ends.
Installed in the Imperial Hotel I send off my one letter of introduction, which remains. Discover the post office, find no letters, return and sit down to write across the water. The lady proprietor of the Imperial Hotel has been across the Atlantic and has a warm feeling toward the inhabitants of the great republic; she shares the benefit of this feeling with the wandering Canadian and takes us out to see Sligo.
Gladly do we lay down the pen to look Sligo straight in the face. Sligo looks nice and clean. Belfast is large, prosperous, beautiful; but many of her fine buildings and public monuments look as if they required to have their faces washed, but Sligo buildings are fair and clean. We pass a rather nice building, suppose it a school, but we are informed it is the rent-office of the late Lord Palmerston. That astute nobleman showed his usual good sense, if it was his choice, to own lands in the sunny vales of Sligo instead of the hungry hills of Leitrim. If some have greatness thrust upon them, some in the same way inherit lands. Out of the town we went, and climbed up a grassy eminence; with some difficulty got upon the "topmost tow'ring height" of an old earthwork—blamed on the Danes of course; everything unknown is laid on them. The square shape, the remains of the ditch that surrounds it look too much like modern modes of fortification not to have a suspiciously British look. Of course we are both delightfully ignorant on the subject.
The scenery from our elevated position is glorious. At our feet Sligo, all her buildings, churches and convents white in the sunshine, around her the fairest of green fields; the blue waters of Lough Gill sparkling and glancing from among trees of every variety that in spring put on a mantle of leaves. On every side but the gate of the west through which we see a misty glance of the far Atlantic, Sligo has mountains standing sentry around her. One, Knock-na-rea, is seen from a great distance, a long mountain with a little mountain on her breast. The bells were chiming musically, the sound floating up to where we stood. Below us, on the other side of the old earthwork, a little apart from one another, stood two great buildings, that are so necessary here, the poor-house and the lunatic asylum. These magnificent and extensive buildings must have cost an immense sum. The asylum has been enlarged recently, as the freshly-cut stone and white mortar of one wing testified.
As I looked, a band struck up familiar airs. We saw them standing in a field beside the asylum. I was told that the band was composed of patients. This made the music more thrilling. When they struck up "Auld Lang Syne," or "There Is no Luck About the House," there was a wail in it to my ears, after home, happiness and reason. We got down from our high position and came home by another way, passing through some of the poorer streets of Sligo, which are kept scrupulously clean. Even here women and girls were gathering sticks to cook the handful of meal. The poor are very poor on the bare hills of Leitrim, or in this green valley of Sligo.