Luttrell Of Arran
He who can write such stories as “Wylder’s Hand” or “Uncle Silas,” needs no praise of mine; but I can at least say how warmly I admire his genius, how heartily I enjoy his genial humour, and how thoroughly I appreciate his right to his second christian name, and if these be not claims enough for success, let him be assured there are few men can show more.
CHARLES LEVER.
Marola, La Spezia, January, 1865.
“One half the world knows not how the other half lives,” says the adage; and there is a peculiar force in the maxim when applied to certain remote and little-visited districts in these islands, where the people are about as unknown to us as though they inhabited some lonely rock in the South Pacific.
While the great world, not very far off, busies itself with all the appliances of state and science, amusing its leisure by problems which, once on a time, would have been reserved for the studies of philosophers and sages, these poor creatures drag on an existence rather beneath than above the habits of savage life. Their dwellings, their food, their clothes, such as generations of their fathers possessed; and neither in their culture, their aspirations, nor their ways, advanced beyond what centuries back had seen them.
Of that group of islands off the north-west coast of Ireland called the Arrans, Innishmore is a striking instance of this neglect and desolation. Probably within the wide sweep of the British islands there could not be found a spot more irretrievably given up to poverty and barbarism. Some circular mud hovels, shaped like beehives, and with a central aperture for the escape of the smoke, are the dwellings of an almost naked, famine-stricken people, whose looks, language, and gestures mark them out for foreigners if they chance to come over to the mainland. Deriving their scanty subsistence almost entirely from fishing and kelp-burning, they depend for life upon the chances of the seasons, in a spot where storms are all but perpetual, and where a day of comparative calm is a rare event.
Charles James Lever
LUTTRELL OF ARRAN
TO JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU, ESQ.
CHAPTER I. A WILD LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER II. A YACHTING PARTY.
CHAPTER III. AN OLD STORY
CHAPTER IV. ON BOARD.
CHAPTER V. HOW THE SPOIL WAS DIVIDED
CHAPTER VI. ON THE SEA-SHORE AT NIGHT
CHAPTER VII. A COTTAGE IN WALES.
CHAPTER VIII. AN OLD BACHELOR’S HOUSE
CHAPTER IX. MR. M’KINLAY’S TRIALS
CHAPTER X. THE SHEBEEN
CHAPTER XI. THE LEGEND OF LUTTRELL AND THE———
CHAPTER XII. THE WALK IN THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER XIII. THE PROJECT
CHAPTER XIV. A DISCUSSION
CHAPTER XV. Mr. M’KINLAY’S MISSION
CHAPTER XVI. THE OLD LEAVES
CHAPTER XVII. THE NOR’-WESTER
CHAPTER XVIII. A SKIPPER.
CHAPTER XIX. THE LAWYER “ABROAD.”
CHAPTER XX. THE SUPPER AT ARRAN
CHAPTER XXI. A WELCOME HOME
CHAPTER XXII. SOME WORDS AT PARTING
CHAPTER XXIII. MALONE IN GOOD COMPANY
CHAPTER XXIV. A QUIET TALK IN A GARDEN.
CHAPTER XXV. THE TWO PUPILS
CHAPTER XXVI. THE DINNER IN THE SCHOOLROOM
CHAPTER XXVII. KITTY
CHAPTER XXVIII. SIR WITHIN “AT HOME.”
CHAPTER XXIX. MR. M’KINLAY IS PUZZLED.
CHAPTER XXX. SCANDAL.
CHAPTER XXXI. DERRYVARAGH
CHAPTER XXXII. MR. M’KINLAY IN ITALY
CHAPTER XXXIII. SIR WITHIN AND HIS WARD
CHAPTER XXXIV. SIR WITHIN’S GUESTS
CHAPTER XXXV. A WALK BEFORE DINNER
CHAPTER XXXVI. A NEW FRIENDSHIP
CHAPTER XXXVII. A WOODLAND RIDE
CHAPTER XXXVIII. SCHEMING
CHAPTER XXXIX. WITH DOCTORS
CHAPTER XL. A SUDDEN REVERSE
CHAPTER XLI. THE DARK TIDINGS
CHAPTER XLII. THE SANDS AT SUNSET
CHAPTER XLIII. THE INSULT.
CHAPTER XLIV. THE FLIGHT
CHAPTER XLV. ON ARRAN
CHAPTER XLVI. THE STRANGER AT THE WELL.
CHAPTER XLVII. HOW KATE WAS TASKED
CHAPTER XLVIII. HOW THE TASK TRIED HER
CHAPTER XLIX. MR. O’RORKE ABROAD
CHAPTER L. TWO OF A TRADE.
CHAPTER LI. THE BOAR’S HEAD
CHAPTER LII. THE NIGHT AT SEA
CHAPTER LIII. THE GAOL PARLOUR
CHAPTER LIV. IN CONCLAVE.
CHAPTER LV. STILL CONSPIRING
CHAPTER LVI. A HEAVY BLOW.
CHAPTER LVII. THE HOME OF SORROW
CHAPTER LVIII. SIR WITHIN ABROAD
CHAPTER LIX. MR. GRENFELL’S ROOM
CHAPTER LX. MR. M’KINLAY IN THE TOILS
CHAPTER LXI. MR. M’KINLAY’S “INSTRUCTIONS.”
CHAPTER LXII. FISHING IN TROUBLED WATERS
CHAPTER LXIII. WITH LAWYERS
CHAPTER LXIV. ON THE ISLAND
CHAPTER LXV. THE LUTTRELL BLOOD
CHAPTER LXVI. A CHRISTMAS AT ARRAN
CHAPTER LXVII. A CHRISTMAS ABROAD
CHAPTER LXVIII. TRUSTFULNESS
CHAPTER LXIX. THE END
