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.
