My dear old Jenny, that most faithful and attached of all humble domestic friends, came from Dummer, and I was wont to regard it with complacency for her sake.  But Jenny was not English; she was a generous, warm-hearted daughter of the Green Isle—­the Emerald gem set in the silver of ocean.  Yes, Jenny was one of the poorest children of that impoverished but glorious country where wit and talent seem indigenous, springing up spontaneously in the rudest and most uncultivated minds; showing what the land could bring forth in its own strength, unaided by education, and unfettered by the conventional rules of society.  Jenny was a striking instance of the worth, noble self-denial, and devotion which are often met withand, alas! but too often disregarded—­in the poor and ignorant natives of that deeply-injured, and much abused land.  A few words about my old favourite may not prove uninteresting to my readers.

Jenny Buchanan, or as she called it, Bohanon, was the daughter of a petty exciseman, of Scotch extraction (hence her industry) who, at the time of her birth, resided near the old town of Inniskillen.  Her mother died a few months after she was born; and her father, within the twelve months, married again.  In the meanwhile, the poor orphan babe had been adopted by a kind neighbour, the wife of a small farmer in the vicinity.

In return for coarse food and scanty clothing, the little Jenny became a servant-of-all-work.  She fed the pigs, herded the cattle, assisted in planting potatoes and digging peat from the bog, and was undisputed mistress of the poultry-yard.  As she grew up to womanhood, the importance of her labours increased.  A better reaper in the harvest-field, or footer of turf in the bog, could not be found in the district, or a woman more thoroughly acquainted with the management of cows and the rearing of young cattle; but here poor Jenny’s accomplishments terminated.

Her usefulness was all abroad.  Within the house she made more dirt than she had the inclination or the ability to clear away.  She could neither read, nor knit, nor sew; and although she called herself a Protestant, and a Church of England woman, she knew no more of religion, as revealed to man through the Word of God, than the savage who sinks to the grave in ignorance of a Redeemer.  Hence she stoutly resisted all ideas of being a sinner, or of standing the least chance of receiving hereafter the condemnation of one.

“Och, sure thin,” she would say, with simple earnestness of look and manner, almost irresistible.  “God will never throuble Himsel’ about a poor, hard-working crathur like me, who never did any harm to the manest of His makin’.”