“Do people live in such places?”
“Madam, that cabin holds a man, his wife, six children, the wife’s father and brother, pigs, calves and poultry. But you must see for yourself that I did not exaggerate. Come in with me.”
The lady entered, wading pluckily through the slush and mud that surrounded the cabin, and saw all and more than I had told her. There was the cold earth floor, wet and slippery, the two wretched beds on which these people slept, the pigs, the calves and the poultry, which must be sheltered and grown and fattened, not for their eating, but that My Lord may have his rent. There was the flat stone in one corner, with the smoky peat fire, no chimney to carry away the smoke; there were the half-ragged men, the half-naked women and children, shoeless, stockingless, skirtless, less everything; in short, there were all the horrors of absolute destitution, without one single redeeming feature.
“Take me out of this place,” she gasped.
It was not a pleasant sight for a lady delicately nurtured and daintily kept, whose hands had never been in cold water and upon whose face cold wind had never blown. These people were of her own blood, her own race, almost her own kin. She said never a word on the way back, but that afternoon she left Glengariff for Cork. But before she went, a boat went over the bay, and a dozen families had at least one square meal, and more money than they had ever seen before.
It is to be hoped that they ate the provisions, but the money—that went to My Lord’s agent for rent, beyond a doubt. And if My Lord’s agent was certain that he could depend upon the lady from Cork as a permanent almoner, he would ascertain to a penny just how much she intended to give, and raise the rent to that amount.
My Lord’s agent is as ravenous and insatiable as a grave-yard—he takes all that comes.
The lady from Cork is spending her entire time and a great deal of money in the interest of her people. It requires actual sight to understand the condition of the Irish.