A slim, fair-haired woman, with her arms bare and her feet and legs in the same classic condition under her short dilapidated skirts, began to make some eloquent remarks. If there had been a thousand or two like her I do think the seventy police would have had hard work to protect the bailiff. One of our company, a gentleman, remarked to her that she had a fine arm of her own. "Troth, sir," said she, "If I was as well fed as yourself it's finer it would be." We agreed with this gentleman that if this woman was fed and clothed like other people she would certainly be a fine-looking person. She drew near to enquire if we were in any way connected with the police. Her enquiries were especially directed to myself. She was told that I was an American lady, and a few faces that scowled were smoothed into smiles immediately.
There were by this time four women and half a dozen boys present. No one spoke above their breath but our woman of bare arms. In answer to something addressed to her by our party, she said, "Sure they could not take a better time than seed time to droive us out of our senses. Sure God above has an eye and an ear for it. Look here," she said, throwing out her handsome bare arm, "look at the bare fields lying waste because the seed cannot be got to put in the ground; they're cryin' up to God against it. The cratures here have not enough yellow male to keep the hunger off. If they had waited till harvest there would be a color of justice to it." This woman had all the talking to herself, no one else had anything to say. She herself was not among those against whom the processes were served.
We saw the process server leave the ranks of the police and walk down to a wretched little cabin and return in a few moments. The order to march was given, and the police tramped along to the next house, a bit off the road. Two or three little children were in the field, apparently herding cattle. The least one said to his brother in an accent of terror, "Jimsey, Jimsey, the war is come at last."
Along the road, tramp, tramp, off the road through the bogs, every house called at seeming worse than the last. A rumor had been running along before us—ever before us—of an Amazonian army with pitchforks, tongs and the hooks used for drawing the sea weed ashore, armed and ready, some three hundred strong, waiting for the police. We never came up to this army or caught a sight of their rags. Crossing a field we were told of a merciful lady, a Mrs. Major Jones, who gave them seed potatoes and trusted them with meal when they had nothing to eat. As the police halted before some houses we heard the muttered exclamations of the few women near, "Eagh! eagh! oh, Lord, and them in need of charity!"
Well, we never came up with the army of women. The processes were not all served, for some of the houses were empty, and there was no one on whom to serve them; we turned our steps, or our horses rather, homeward to Ballina, the boys calling out in compliment to America, "Three cheers for the noble lady," as we drove off.
The threatened rain came on and came down heavily and we got our share of it before we got under shelter. An elderly gentleman was introduced to me at Ballina who had had a very great opportunity of noticing the working of the law and the struggles of the people. He admitted to me that some might possibly have paid some rent before the agitation began, but kept it back hoping for a permanent reduction, and then when they had it by them had used it for living, and now had nothing to meet the rent with. He said, however, that the most part had not recovered from the effects of the scarcity sufficiently to be able to pay up arrears— or, indeed, to pay anything on arrears.
We conversed a little about peasant proprietorship. He instanced the case of two persons who had become owners of church land, one of eight acres, another of sixteen. He spoke of the prosperity that had crowned their labors ever since hope came to them and they had something to struggle for. He said they came now decently clad to church and market. He had been in their houses and noticed as much as two flitches of bacon hanging in the chimney. One of them owned a team of horses. A man with a team of horses on his farm is in a different position from a man with only an ass and creels. Absolutely, said he, the man has devoted a portion of his land to apple trees.
It was a touching thing to see the earnestness with which this man spoke of these great evidences of prosperity—horses to work the farm, two flitches of bacon and planting apple trees. In Mayo, in two instances, I have seen a corner left untilled in a field. As there was an ass in one, and a goat browsing in the other, I do not know but what it was the best thing they could do to leave them untilled.
I may as well mention that the wretched people on whom the processes were served lived in Sligo, and the landlords who were pursuing them, as it were between the hay and the grass, were Sligo landlords, of those whom I heard praised so highly in Sligo town. Round Ballina, as round Sligo, there are few tenants on the land near the town; it has gone to grass and has cows instead of tenants. Sir Charles Gore's demesne and residence is very fine, and, as he seems to have a blessing with it, long may he enjoy his good things.