FOOTNOTES:
[3] There are also Mecridy's Maps for Cyclists and Tourists, published at the office of the Irish Cyclist, Dame Court, Dublin, at one shilling each. A very excellent lot of maps. Just what one wants and no more, and not so expensive as Stanford's.
[CHAPTER V]
The Island of Achill—Picturesque Scenery—Poverty of the People—"Keening" for the Dead—"The Gintleman Who Pays the Rint"—Superstitious Legends.
The island of Achill lies off the west coast of Ireland. Exposed to the full fury of the North Atlantic winds it is one of the bleakest spots on the globe. The manners and customs of its people change but slightly with the passing years.
Leaving the hotel on a misty morning, we roll off towards the sea. The way is narrow for a car and we pass uncomfortably near sleeping brown bogs whose quiet waters would promptly cover us up and suck us down past all resurrection were our wheels to slip over the brink.
Reaching a hill up which a man is driving cattle, our chauffeur sounds the horn and pushes gently forward, causing the animals to give way, whereupon their owner holds up his hand in indignant protest with a "Would ye dhrive the cattle!" To his thinking we should plod slowly up that miles-long hill behind his herd rather than cause them to move to one side,—to "dhrive the cattle!" being in his eyes little short of sacrilege. Yet his sort does not hesitate to drive other men's cattle off of still other men's land, and consider it their right so to do.
The long muddy road runs on the cliffs over the sea and finally turns down towards the coast, apparently losing itself in the waste. This is not the highway and we so discover in season to prevent an accident. Just then a small boy comes racing after us shouting that we should have turned off higher up. A few half-pennies and our thanks make him smilingly offer to return and show us the route, and a lift in the car completes his happiness,—the first time he has ever ridden in an automobile, I doubt not.
The traveller does not notice anything unusual until, having crossed the Peninsula of Curraun, he enters upon one of the strangest spots on earth. In the foreground, deep in a valley is a mysterious pool, black as night: all around rise the gloomy mountains, while over the peak to the west the sun is sending long shafts of purple and gold into the distant hollows, where brown turf fields stretch away, and low-walled, whitewashed, and thatched cottages spot the landscape, and the scarlet skirts worn by all the women throw splashes of vivid colour here and there. The whole is gloomy and sombre to a degree. The winds blow coldly and we draw our furs closely about us as the car speeds onward over roads not made for such usage. This indeed is ancient Ireland and one hears the Celtic tongue on all sides.
Holiday is held here as in Sligo, and the encounters with cattle and ponies are frequent. Here is a pony drawing a load of heavy timber which he insists upon running off with on our approach. Of course, we halt until we can creep by him. Yonder is a man to whom the fair has proven a not unmixed blessing. He lies upon his face on a bank, blind drunk, and will not take home with him the drinks consumed at the fair. His wife and father stand by trying to hold an old horse, but the bridle breaks and off he goes ahead of us, losing finally both blanket and saddle, and vanishing up a mountain. Another old gentleman, held on his horse by a dutiful son, curses us to the King's taste but in Celtic which we do not understand. Only the women are sober after the day's bout, and many is the beautiful face set off by the scarlet dress, which greets us smilingly or hides its sorrow from our glances.
Now the road grows wilder and wilder,—there is absolutely no sound save the moan of the distant ocean.
As we near the remotest part of the island, where the mountains raise their heads in solemn grandeur, there are no signs of human habitation except one lonely cottage. Its door is open, but there is no evidence of life. Suddenly the air shivers with the weirdest, loneliest cry I have ever listened to,—a sustained, penetrating wail rising and falling on the sad air and then shuddering away into silence, silence, silence rendered all the sadder by the fast approaching shadows of night. It is the famous "keening" or mourning cry for the dead. There are professional keeners and when one is informed of a death she starts for the house of sorrow and commences this melancholy cry as she goes. All the way over hill and dale, by these dark pools and through the bog pathways she goes, her cry bringing the women and children to the doors of all the huts. As she approaches the dead the cry dies away and ceases as she enters the cottage. Walking round the bier she commences anew and passing outward and away fills all the silence of the deepening night with her melancholy plaint. To hear it any place in Ireland is sad enough, to hear it amidst the desolation of Achill is almost terrifying and never to be forgotten. To-night it sounds like the voices of lost souls from the depths of the dark Atlantic.
I have heard a cry like that from the Arab women of a desert town, but nowhere else on earth, and I doubt if any other people possess one of such concentrated, desolate sorrow as this,—a sound which almost makes the heart stand still.
Why should these people mourn the advent of peace? Surely it is better for them to sleep than to wake; better to die than to live.
Through the open doorway of this hut as we pass we catch but a glimpse of an old woman bowed in sorrow and a sheeted, silent form on the bed in the corner.
Photo by W. Leonard
Slievemore and Dugort, Achill
Our car glides slowly and silently by and we move onward, more and more into the island of Achill, into the heart of ancient Ireland, until, rounding the shoulder of a desolate mountain, we come suddenly upon the sea. This is no bay or inlet, no capes guard us here, there is no lighthouse in sight to indicate that man ever sends his ships out there. That is the heart of the ocean, the deep sea. The waves, black as midnight and hurled forward with the force of the Gulf Stream, and all the currents of the North Atlantic, come thundering in with such power that one instinctively draws backward, while the coast is all cut and jagged, torn up and thrown pell-mell by the ceaseless onslaught. You realise that just out there are vast depths, awful forces, and that once within their grasp nothing save an interposition of God could save you; even this land scarcely seems a safe abiding-place.
The sky above is black as the waters beneath it and the winds sough upward from the underworld as though laden with the misery of these people of Achill.
Are there not scenes and times when the great truth of the existence of the Deity is impressed upon one? By the deep sea, amidst the solitude of the mountains and the silence of the desert, from the song of a bird far overhead, and always from the eyes of a little child does not the assurance come to man, past all doubting, that verily there is—a God? Has the atheist ever existed who has not experienced this many times throughout his wretched life?
The face of Ireland in the far western section seems constantly covered with tears. The sadness and poverty of the people passes all comprehension. Surely the love of their home land must be very great to keep them here at all.
Lady Dudley has established a most excellent charity hereabouts in the shape of contribution boxes for the establishment of district nurses in these the poorest sections of Ireland. The girls have a sadly hard time of it as often they find nothing to rest on in these hovels save a box or head of a barrel. We are stopping in front of one now that would be considered unfit for cattle at home, a low stone hut thatched in rotting straw patched up with turf. There is no window, and the door has no glass. The interior, plainly visible, is horrible in its sodden wretchedness. Before the doorstep is a bog of manure and all kinds of filth in which the pigs and ducks are at work. As our eyes wander away and up to the hills, white with stone, we wonder why in God's name with feet to walk upon every soul does not leave this island, which is not intended for man to live upon; yet here they are and plenty of them, and many seem cheery and happy. The woman of this wretched hovel before us is pitching manure into a cart, and as she stands, barefooted, in the filth above her ankles, sings and talks to me in the liveliest fashion. Just beyond is a bog whose waters, black as night, and spangled with water lilies, reflect as in a mirror a flock of geese and a woman in a brilliant scarlet petticoat. Beyond rise the mountains sombre and gloomy and over all lowers a sky dark with storms. Then the rain falls, but only for an instant, when the sunlight descending in long shafts of intense light turns even this scene of desolation into one of beauty. If these people were moved into a richer and more fertile section would they remain there, or would one shortly find these filthy hovels occupied again by their original owners? If so, their love of home passes comprehension.
One cannot but feel that many of the countless millions yearly sent to foreign missions were better spent here, where, by improving the body, the salvation of the soul would be more easily attempted, for it is impossible to believe that with such horrible, sordid conditions, there can be any deep belief in the goodness of God.
When in Teheran, Persia, I could not but observe the extensive missionary buildings, and when I asked what people the work was amongst, the reply came "Nestorian Christians." So, all the contributions from the churches are expended upon those who are already Christians. For (as is certainly not known at home) a Persian to be converted does not mean loss of caste as in India but death, and hence conversion to Christianity amongst them is impossible. Persia is the most fanatical of all nations, where one may not even look into a mosque, much less enter, yet millions continue to pour into that land yearly. Comment should be unnecessary, but I cannot help feeling that comment is needed when looking out over a scene like this before us to-day. There are plenty of plague spots in our own new land which need close attention; for instance, in the mountains of Virginia where the people are so ignorant that they not only cannot read, but do not know what reading is. It is a disgrace to our land that the ministers from these mountains are forced to go begging through the churches for money to carry on their work, but,—it is not half so picturesque and interesting to help such as to send millions to the land of the Sultan of Ispahan and perchance be able to rescue some Lalla Rookh or encounter the veiled prophet of Khorassan.
I find I am very apt—so to speak—to tumble off the island of Achill into almost any part of the world, so let us return once more.
The population of Achill is steadily decreasing, and now counts but forty-six hundred. These people have been described as a lot of thieves and murderers with, I should judge, very little justice in the charge. They had no such appearance to my eye.
The soil on the island is so thin and poor that her men cannot raise enough upon it to pay their rent and are forced to seek every year work in more favoured sections.
Photo by W. Leonard
Fisherfolk of Achill
It is claimed these islanders consist of four great families, whose members can be easily distinguished from each other, the French Lavelles, the English Scholefields, the creole Caulfields, the Danish Morans. But there are also pure Irish to be found in the O'Malleys, Gaughans, and Monahans. The houses are but heaps of rude stones (which have been moulded by the tide), round of gable, and roofed by fern, heather, and shingles fastened by straw bands. Often there are no chimneys.
We stop at the town of Dugort under the shadow of the sombre mountain, "Slievemore," which rises immediately behind it. The town is an attempt on the part of one church to upset the authority of another amongst these people, and judging by the absolute desolation of the place I should say that the move has not been successful. There are some good houses and a church, but the people do not appear to be about. In the dreary hotel, we spent some time in an inspection of the most marvellous collection of paintings it has ever been our misfortune to examine. There were several of them and they occupied most of the hallway. We were unable to discover what one of them was intended to portray. We asked the barmaid and she seemed equally in doubt. B. suggested the mountain of Slievemore—I thought, a leg of mutton. The artist is the hotel proprietor. We left a request that he would "Please not do it again" which seemed greatly to relieve the young woman in charge.
At the door stands a jaunting-car waiting to take the luggage of a man, who has been fishing hereabouts, to the station. We offer him a lift in our motor and I tell the barmaid to give a glass of whiskey to his car driver. It appears, when it comes, to be a fair sized drink, but the old chap cocks his eye first on it and then at me, remarking, as he touches his cap, "And did ye say, sir, it was twelve years old—indade thin it's small for its age." As we roll off he promises to pick us up when our car breaks down as he knows it will. If that is to occur it is well to start, as we are miles from Mallaranny and well know that aside from this dreary hotel no hospitality would or could be offered us in this desolate region, and that the feeling here is not, especially after the "day off," of the best, as is proven by the curses hurled at us once more by the old gentleman whom we encountered on our way out. Later we meet the load of timbers and find that the drunken man has been deposited face down on the top, while his poor wife and old father trudge along behind.
How different all here from the Ireland decked out for the tourist! How sad and stern and strange! As I turn to look back upon it the daylight departs and the shadows grow blacker and deeper, only the waters of the lake catching for an instant a fleeting glow which soon dies out into ashes; and with the coming of night silence and solitude, profound and unbroken, rest upon the island of Achill.
Yet there we saw some wonderfully beautiful women, women whose type has made Ireland famous, great blue-grey eyes and jet black hair,—or the fairest of blondes with pale yellow hair and blue eyes, like the rain-washed heaven of their native land. Again, as we rolled by some white-walled, rose embowered cottage, an ancient dame in high frilled cap would smile us a welcome, or, as once to-day, I saw such a splendid young fellow, whose eyes beamed down into those of his baby boy held in his arms. There was happiness there. He must have married "his Nora" and the boy must have had its mother's eyes. Happiness, yes truly, such as comes not often to the portals of a palace. The man smiles in my face as the car rolls by. In fact, nowhere in all the years of my wanderings have I met such quick response to a smile or greeting as in these wilds of Ireland—save when drink, the curse of the land, had destroyed the man; but always with the women one has seemed welcome.
As for the pigs, they are so clean and so pink that one imagines that they wear silk socks and pumps. Do they walk?—bless you, no,—not on holidays at least, but ride in state, and here at last you meet and understand "the gintleman phat pays the rint." I firmly believe they have all been shaved. B. says not, not till after death. But those were very lovely and complacent pigs. I was only astonished that they were not riding in motor cars.
After the desolation of Achill it is pleasant to return to the hotel at Mallaranny. Owned by the Great Western Railway Company, it is most comfortable; a cozy fire before which a tabby cat is purring greets us as we enter the reading-room and we drop rugs and books with a sigh of contentment. Dinner over, the evening is passed deep in the history, romance, and poetry of the spot just visited.
Probably in no part of Ireland does superstition persist so strongly as in Achill. Many of the legends are gruesome and cluster about death and the grave. Many are beautiful, like that of the swans, and there is one about the seals, which they believe are the people who were drowned in the great flood. Not until this world is destroyed by fire will they be permitted to enter heaven, but once in every hundred years they resume their human shape upon earth, and it was during one of these periods that an incident happened which is still talked about in the island of Achill.
"John of the Glen had fallen asleep. Now the place he had chosen to repose in was for all the world like a basket; there was the high rock above him, and a ledge or rock all round, so that where he lay might be called a sandy cradle.
Photo by W. Leonard
A Lonely Road in Connemara
There he slumbered as snug as an egg in a thrush's nest, and he might have slept about two hours, when he hears singing—a note of music, he used to say, would bring the life back to him if he had been dead a month—so he woke up; and to be sure, of all outlandish tunes, and, to quote his words again, 'put the one the old cow died of to the back of it,' he never heard the like before; the words were queerer than the music—for John was a fine scholar, and had a quarter's Latin, to say nothing of six months' dancing; so that he could flog the world at single or double handed reel, and split many a door with the strength of his hompipe. 'Meuhla machree,' he says, 'who's in it at all?' he says. 'Sure it isn't among haythins I am,' he says, 'smuggled out of my native country,' he says, 'like a poor keg of Inishowen,' he says, 'by the murdering English?' and 'blessed father,' he says again, 'to my own knowledge it's neyther Latin or Hebrew they're at, nor any other livin' language, barring it's Turky'; for what gave him that thought was the grand sound of the words. So, 'cute enough, he dragged himself up to the edge of the ledge of the rock that overlooked the wide ocean, and what should he see but about twenty as fine well-grown men and women as ever you looked on, dancing! not a hearty jig or a reel, but a solemn sort of dance on the sands, while they sung their unnatural song, all as solemn as they danced; and they had such queer things on their heads as never were seen before, and the ladies' hair was twisted and twined round and round their heads.
"Well, John crossed himself to be sure like a good Christian, and swore if he ever saw Newport again to pay greater attention to his duty, and to take an 'obligation' on himself which he knew he ought to have done before; and still the people seemed so quiet and so like Christians, that he grew the less fearful the longer he looked; and at last his attention was drawn off the strangers by a great heap of skins that were piled together on the strand close beside him, so that by reaching his arm over the ledge, he could draw them, or one of them, over. Now John did a little in skins himself, and he thought he had never seen them so beautifully dressed before; they were seal skins, shining all of them like satin, though some were black, and more of them grey; but at the very top of the pile right under his hand was the most curious of them all—snowy and silver white. Now John thought there could be no harm in looking at the skin, for he had always a mighty great taste for natural curiosities, and it was as easy to put it back as to bring it over; so he just, quiet and easy, reaches in the skin, and soothering it down with his hand, he thought no down of the young wild swan was ever half so smooth, and then he began to think what it was worth, and while he was thinking and judging, quite innocent like, what it would fetch in Newport, or maybe Galway, there was a skirl of a screech among the dancers and singers; and before poor John had time to return the skin, all of them came hurrying towards where he lay; so believing they were sea-pirates, or some new-fashioned revenue-officers, he crept into the sand, dragging the silver-coloured skin with him, thinking it wouldn't be honest to its rale owner to leave it in their way. Well, for ever so long, nothing could equal the ullabaloo and 'shindy' kicked up all about where he lay—such talking and screaming and bellowing; and at last he hears another awful roar, and then all was as still as a bridegroom's tongue at the end of the first month, except a sort of snuffling and snorting in the sand. When that had been over some time he thought he would begin to look about him again and he drew himself cautiously up on his elbows, and after securing the skin in his bosom (for he thought some of them might be skulking about still, and he wished to find the owner), he moved on and on, until at last he rested his chin upon the very top of the ledge and casting his eye along the line of coast, not a sight or a sign of any living thing did he see but a great fat seal walloping as fast as ever it could into the ocean: well, he shook himself, and stood up; and he had not done so long, when just round the corner of the rock, he heard the low wailing voice of a young girl, soft and low, and full of sorrow, like the bleat of a kid for its mother, or a dove for its mate, or a maiden crying after her lover yet ashamed to raise her voice. 'Oh, murder!' thought John O'Glin, 'this will never do; I'm a gone man! that voice—an' it not saying a word, only murmuring like a south breeze in a pink shell—will be the death of me; it has more real, true music in it than all the bagpipes between this and Londonderry. Oh, I'm kilt entirely through the ear,' he says, 'which is the high-road to my heart. Oh, there's a moan! that's natural music! The "Shan Van Do," the "Dark Valley," and the "Blackbird" itself are fools to that!' To spring over was the work of a single minute; and, sure enough, sitting there, leaning the sweetest little head that ever carried two eyes in it upon its dawshy hand, was as lovely a young lady as ever John looked on. She had a loose sort of dress, drawn in at her throat with a gold string, and he saw at once that she was one of the outlandish people who had disappeared all so quick.
"'Avourneen das! my lady,' says John, making his best bow, 'and what ails you, darling stranger?' Well, she made no answer, only looked askew at him, and John O'Glin thought she didn't sigh so bitterly as she had done at first; and he came a little nearer, and 'Cushla-ma-chree, beauty of the waters,' he says, 'I'm sorry for your trouble.'
"So she turns round her little face to him, and her eyes were as dark as the best black turf, and as round as a periwinkle.
Photo by W. Leonard
Kylemore Castle
"'Creature,' she says, 'do you speak Hebrew?' 'I'd speak anything,' he answers, 'to speak with you.' 'Then,' she says again, 'have you seen my skin?' 'Yes, darling,' he says in reply, looking at her with every eye in his head. 'Where, where is it?' she cries, jumping up and clasping her two little hands together, and dropping on her knees before John.
"'Where is it?' he repeats, raising her gently up; 'why, on yourself, to be sure, as white and as clear as the foam on a wave in June.'
"'Oh, it's the other skin I want,' she cries, bursting into tears. 'Shall I skin myself and give it you, to please you, my lady?' he replies; 'sure I will, and welcome, if it will do you any good, sooner than have you bawling and roaring this way,' he says, 'like an angel,' he says.
"'What a funny creature you are!' she answers, laughing a lilt of a laugh up in his face; 'but you're not a seal,' she says, 'and so your skin would do me no good.'
"'Whew!' thought John O'Glin; 'whew! now all the blossom is out on the May-bush; now my eyes are opened'; for he knew the sense of what he had seen, and how the whole was a memory of the old world.
"'I'll tell you what it is,' said the poor fellow, for it never took him any time at all to fall in love; 'I'll tell you what it is, don't bother any more about your bit of a skin, but take me instead of it—that is,' he said, and he changed colour at the bare thought of it, 'that is, unless you're married in your own country.' And as all their discourse went on in Hebrew and Latin, which John said he had not a perfect knowledge of, he found it hard to make her understand at first, though she was quick enough too; and she said she was not married, but might have been, only she had no mind to the seal, who was her father's prime minister, but that she had always made up her mind to marry none but a prince. 'And are you a king's son?' she says. 'I am,' says John, as bould as murder, and putting a great stretch on himself. 'More than that, I'm a king's great-grandson—in these twisting times there's no knowing who may turn up a king; but I've the blood in my veins of twenty kings—and what's better than that, Irish kings.'
"'And have you a palace to take me to?' she says, 'and a golden girdle to give me?'
"Now this, John thought, was mighty mean of her; but he looked in her eyes and forgot it. 'Our love,' he says, 'pulse of my beating heart, will build its own palace; and this girdle,' and he falls on his knees by her side, and throws his arm round her waist, 'is better than a girdle of gold!' Well, to be sure, there was no boy in Mayo had better right to know how to make love than John O'Glin, for no one ever had more practice; and the upshot of it was that (never, you may be sure, letting on to her about the sealskin) he clapt her behind him on Molche, and carried her home; and that same night, after he had hid the skin in the thatch, he went to the priest—and he told him a good part of the truth; and when he showed his reverence how she had fine gold rings and chains, and as much cut coral as would make a reef, the priest did not look to hear any more, but tied them at once. Time passed on gaily with John O'Glin: he did not get a car for Molche, because no car could go over the Mayo mountains in those days; but he got two or three stout little nags, and his wife helped him wonderful at the fishing—there wasn't a fin could come within half a mile of her that she wouldn't catch—ay, and bring to shore too; only (and this was the only cross or trouble John ever had with her, and it brought him a shame-face many a time) she'd never wait to dress anything for herself, only eat it raw; and this certainly gave him a great deal of uneasiness. She'd eat six herrings, live enough to go down her throat of themselves, without hardly drawing her breath, and spoil the market of cod or salmon by biting off the tails. When John would speak to her about it, why she'd cry and want to go back to her father, and go poking about after the skin, which she'd never mention at any other time; so John thought it would be best to let her have her own way, for when she had, it's nursing the children, and singing, and fishing she'd be all day long; they had three little children, and John had full and plenty for them all, for she never objected to his selling her rings, or chain, or corals; and he took bit after bit of land, and prospered greatly, and was a sober, steady man, well-to-do; and if he could have broke her of that ugly trick she had of eating raw fish, he'd never say no to her yes; and she taught the young ones Hebrew, and never asked them to touch a morsel of fish until it was put over the turf; and there were no prettier children in all the barony than the 'seal-woman's'; with such lovely hair and round blinking eyes, that set the head swimming in no time; and they had sweet voices, and kind hearts that would share the last bit they had in the world with any one, gentle or simple, that knew what it was to be hungry; and, the Lord he knows, it isn't in Mayo their hearts would stiffen for want of practice.
"Still John was often uneasy about his wife. More than once, when she went with him to the shore, he'd see one or two seals walloping nearer than he liked; and once, when he took up his gun to fire at a great bottle-nosed one that was asleep on the sandbank, she made him swear never to do so: 'For who knows,' she says, 'but it's one of my relations you'd be murdering?' And sometimes she'd sit melancholy-like, watching the waves, and tears would roll down her little cheeks; but John would soon kiss them away.
"Biddy"
"Poor fellow! much as he loved her, he knew she was a sly little devil; for when he'd be lamenting bitterly how cute the fish were grown, or anything that way, she'd come up and sit down by him, and lay her soft round cheek close to his, and take his hand between hers, and say, 'Ah, John darlin', if you'd only find my skin for me that I lost when I found you, see the beautiful fish I'd bring you from the bottom of the sea, and the fine things. Oh! John, it's you then could drive a carriage through Newport, if there were but roads to drive it on.'
"But he'd stand out that he knew nothing of the skin; and it's a wonder he was heart-proof against her soft, deludering, soothering ways; you'd have thought she'd been a right woman all her life, to hear her working away at the 'Ah, do,' and 'Ah, don't'; and then, if she didn't exactly get what she wanted, she'd pout a bit; and if that didn't do, she'd bring him the youngest baby; and if he was hardened entirely, she'd sit down in a corner and cry; that never failed, except when she'd talk of the skin—and out and out, she never got any good of him about it—at all! But there's no end of female wit; they'll sit putting that and that together, and looking as soft and as fair-faced all the while as if they had no more care than a blind piper's dog, that has nothing to do but to catch the halfpence. 'I may as well give up watching her' said John to himself; 'for even if she did find it, and that's not likely, she might leave me (though that's not easy), but she'd never leave the children'; and so he gave her a parting kiss, and set off to the fair of Castlebar. He was away four days, longer certainly than there was any call to have been, and his mind reproached him on his way home for leaving her so long; for he was very tender about her, seeing that though she was only a seal's daughter, that seal was a king, and he made up his mind he'd never quit her so long again. And when he came to the door, it did not fly open, as it used, and show him his pretty wife, his little children, and a sparkling turf fire—he had to knock at his own door.
"'Push it in, daddy,' cried out the eldest boy; "'mammy shut it after her, and we're weak with the hunger.' So John did as his child told him, and his heart fainted, and he staggered into the room, and then up the ladder to the thatch—It was gone!—and John sat down, and his three children climbed about him, and they all wept bitterly.
"'Oh, daddy, why weren't you back the second day, as you said you'd be?' said one. 'And mammy bade us kiss you and love you, and that she'd come back if she'd be let; but she found something in the thatch that took her away.'
"'She'll never come back, darlings, till we're all in our graves,' said poor John—'she'll never come back under ninety years; and where will we all be then? She was ten years my delight and ten years my joy, and ever since ye came into the world she was the best of mothers to ye all! but she's gone—she's gone for ever! Oh, how could you leave me, and I so fond of ye? Maybe I would have burnt the skin, only for the knowledge that if I did, I would shorten her days on earth, and her soul would have to begin over again as a babby seal, and I couldn't do what would be all as one as murder.'
"So poor John lamented, and betook himself and the three children to the shore, and would wail and cry, but he never saw her after; and the children, so pretty in their infancy, grew up little withered atomies, that you'd tell anywhere to be seal's children—little, cute, yellow, shrivelled, dawshy creatures—only very sharp indeed at the learning, and crabbed in the languages, beating priest, minister, and schoolmaster—particularly at the Hebrew. More than once, though John never saw her, he heard his wife singing the songs they often sung together, right under the water; and he'd sing in answer, and then there'd be a sighing and sobbing. Oh! it was very hard upon John, for he never married again, though he knew he'd never live till her time was up to come again upon the earth even for twelve hours; but he was a fine moral man all the latter part of his life—as that showed."
As I close my book and put out my candle for the night the moonlight streaming in at the window draws me to the casement. The bay is like a sheet of quivering silver with the mountains of Achill and the island of Clare towering darkly above it. On the highway winding off white in the clear light no sign of life is visible and but for the softly sobbing winds, the silence of the night is intense. The tide is flowing to the sea and the waters are deserted save for one slowly drifting boat. One is scarcely conscious at first of any sound other than that of the winds but, as the boat draws nearer on the air floats upward one of those sad crooning melodies of these people—at first a low monotone which rises and rises, wailing all around and far above until the very mountains seem to throw back the sorrow of it. Then it falters away into silence.
From a steel engraving
The Lynch House, Galway
[CHAPTER VI]
Monastery of Burrishoole—Queen Grace O'Malley and Her Castle of Carrig-a-Hooly—Her Appearance at the Court of Elizabeth—Dismissal of Her Husband—Wild Scenery of the West Coast—The Ancient Tongue—Recess—Kylemore Castle—Crazy Biddy.
Leaving Mallaranny we retrace our route towards Newport and pass near Burrishoole, the ruined monastery of the Dominicans, and then the castle of Carrig-a-Hooly, from whence that Amazon Queen of this section and of the island of Clare, Grace O'Malley, dismissed her lord and husband of a year's standing.
Carrig-a-Hooly is to-day a square pile of very solid construction, standing upon a rock, and at one time protected by a massive surrounding wall. The few windows or loopholes are far apart and very narrow. From which one Queen Grace dismissed her approaching lord is not related but that the dismissal was short, sharp, and to the point, effective, there seems no doubt, as she continued to hold sway over all the County of Mayo and the adjoining islands, to say nothing of as much of the neighbouring counties as she could cowe into submission.
The monastery of Burrishoole is said to have been her burial-place, and there her skull was for a long time preserved as a precious relic, but it is also stated that, together with those of many others buried there, her bones were stolen and being carted to Scotland were ground up for manure, enriching the land as those of Cæsar were used to stop the chinks and keep the wind away.
It was well for the thieves here that they worked and escaped in the night, for such desecration would have resulted in their quick dispatch had the superstitious peasantry caught them.
Many of the latter believe that the skull of the Queen was miraculously restored to its niche in the abbey, but if so it has mouldered into dust long since.
The skulls still to be seen here are regarded with deep veneration and are often borrowed by the peasantry to boil milk in, which being served to the sick one is a sure antidote for all ills.
Queen Grace of Mayo strongly reminds one of another Queen in a far-off country,—Tamara, whose ruined "Castle of Roses" still keeps watch over the Caucasus.
This castle of Queen Grace, like so many old towers, is supposed to cover buried treasures, guarded at night by a mounted horseman.
There is, however, another scene in her life which, whilst not productive of such results as the one at Carrig-a-Hooly, must have been picturesque and startling in the extreme.
Imagine the court of the great Elizabeth, with the daughter of Henry VIII. on the throne in all the heyday of her fuss and feathers, robed gorgeously and wearing a great farthingale—beneath the hem of her short skirt one notes the jewelled buckles on her high-heeled shoes,—from her pallid face flash a pair of reddish eyes and above her pallid brow her red hair is piled high and adorned with many of the pearls and jewels which have come into her possession from the robbery of her Scottish prisoner by the rebel lords. Huge butterfly wings of gauze rise from the shoulders but give nothing ethereal to the appearance of the sovereign,—Elizabeth was of the earth earthy. Around her are grouped all the splendid of that golden age,—the grave prime minister, Cecil Burleigh, the gallant Leicester, the boy Essex, the splendid Sir Philip Sidney, together with all the foreign diplomats and beautiful women of the court.
In the space before her stands an equally imperious figure,—the sovereign of this island of Clare. What could have been her dress in those days three hundred years agone? How did they robe the dames of high estate in Ireland then, I wonder, and must continue to wonder, for there is no account left us, but I am sure she was a beauty with fair skin, brown eyes and a glory of red gold hair.
The Queen of England has just offered to make her a countess, and we can imagine the half amazed and wholly amused expression of her majestic countenance when the offer is coolly refused with the remark that "I consider myself just as great a Queen as your Majesty."
Then the Irishwoman went home and did things, short, sharp, and to the point, effective: secured possession of all the fortified castles of the island and all the treasures and men at arms, and there occurred that dismissal already recorded.
It had been agreed on her marriage that either party could terminate the matrimonial arrangement at a year's end by a simple announcement to the other. On the day in question the countess observed from one of the loopholes of Carrig-a-Hooly the approach of her liege lord, and thereupon, to surely forestall such action on his part, hailed him and announced that "all was off" between them, making no mention of a return of any of the castles, men, or treasures be they his or not. She should have been Queen of Scotland. She would promptly have settled the cases of each and every rebel lord from Moray down, and John Knox would have heard a truth or two which would have made his ears tingle,—neither could her Majesty of England have meddled so easily in the affairs of the northern kingdom.
As our car rolls onward round the bay towards Louisburgh, her island of Clare blocks the entrance to the westward. Rearing sharply its cliffs against a glittering sky, it strongly reminds one of the island of Capri and occupies about the same relative position here as that island does in the bay of Naples.
Photo by W. Leonard
The Abbey of St. Dominick
Lorrha
But the blue of these northern waters is to my thinking vastly different from that in the South. There is a sensuous cast to all the colouring around Naples, whilst here both heaven and sea are of a bright fair rain-washed blue. The air is full of health and life, the waters sparkle, and the strong winds force one to jam a cap down over the eyes and go for a brisk walk or sail, returning ravenous for one's dinner; whilst in the south
"With dreamful eyes my spirit lies,
Under the walls of Paradise."
And one's body is very apt to contract a fever during the trance.
Personally in Naples, with all its charm and interest, I always feel that death stalks wide, the mortal part of me is forever in evidence. Here, a new lease of life and health comes with every intake of the glorious air.
The winds blow strongly to-day while over the mountains dense black clouds gloom, through whose shadows one brilliant shaft of sunlight strikes a white sail far out at sea.
On the rocks the kelp gatherers are abroad with their long rakes, gathering a slimy harvest. What a living thing that kelp seems to be. How quiet its slumbers in the dark pool of the rocks while the waters are afar out, but watch it when the tide turns. At the first ripple it startles into life and reaches out its long snake-like feelers towards the coming sea.
Leaving the ocean for a time and turning inland, we pass some bad roads, but finally mount upward until in the heart of the mountains and the wildest section of Connemara their surface becomes smoother and the wings come out on our hubs and the car skims birdlike onward.
Fortunately the day has become divine and sunlight and shadow chase each other in fascinating lights and shadows over the mountains. Up in the higher valleys where the white cottages are few and far between, the vast black turf fields stretch to where the brown mountains rise to the blue skies. Here and there the scarlet skirt of a peasant woman at work in a distant field glows against the brown earth, while donkey carts, each with a solitary old dame perched on a pile of turf, pass us now and then, the little beast which draws them paying us no attention, save by a pointing of the ears. This is not a holy day, so there are no fairs and fewer cattle on the highroads, hence fewer races, though now and then we do have a spirited brush, and several old women shake their fists at us as we pass by. Coasting down the hills which surround the lovely lake of Doo Lough, we come finally down by the shores of the harbour of Killary or Killary Bay, where the fleets of the nation may and do enter far inland in safety.
Lunching at Leenane in a comfortable and clean inn made an already pleasant day seem all the more enjoyable.
The road, from Leenane on, lay westward by the waters of the Sound, and then south and up until a superb panorama of sea and land was spread out before us.
Those who go yearly to some genteel watering place know little of the outer sea, never comprehend the majesty of the ocean as it rolls in on Ireland's western coast, a vast wash of wild waters, glorious and majestic, roaring around jagged cliffs, which appear actually at war with it, while the winds murmuring over bogs and lowlands one instant are in the next roaring outward to greet the ocean. All around here there is no sound of human life, and a strange sad sort of sunlight falls over the mountains and shimmers downward into the sea.
The desolation of this coast is intense to-day but how far more terribly desolate it must have appeared to the poor sailors on those hulking ships of the Armada, hurled to their destruction hereabouts. I doubt not but that the last thoughts of the poor wretches as they sank in these thundering surges were of the vine-clad sunny hills of far Andalusia with the tinkling of guitars and the music of the Danza they were never again to hear.
As we leave the sea and turn again inward, the scenery becomes wild in the extreme. Sombre mountains surround lonely valleys with here and there a lonely lake reflecting the sky. The roads on the whole are good, save for many ridges formed by the backbone of the old stone bridges. If the car does not slow down one is thrown out of one's seat, and some of these ridges would destroy if passed at full speed.
The higher we mount the more joyous the motion until we seem to be skimming like a swallow. One nasty angle almost causes our undoing, but it is passed in safety by the quick action of our chauffeur, who certainly understands well how to handle a motor, though I think he was thoroughly frightened that time; we came very near shooting down into the lake.
Orders are strict that no risk of destroying animals is to be run unless the safety of the car necessitates it, but to-day we did kill a poor pussy who jumped from a wall directly in our path, and not a yard away. It was done in a flash, and kitty's joyous days were over. Poor thing! as with us life was the best she had, and it is gone. The incident quite clouded the day for some time.
At another time a fine dog, a collie, sprang at us and was thrown down and the motor passed over him. I looked back, quite expecting to see his mangled body lying on the highway, but instead of that saw him take a stone wall in a fashion creditable to the best hunter in Ireland, and none the worse for his experience. But that does not often occur.[4]
Photo by W. Leonard
Leap Castle from the Court
It does not strike the traveller as singular that—while English is spoken by all—he hears so much of the ancient tongue in remote sections; there is the natural home for it: but I confess I was much astonished during a recent visit to Canada to find that, after one hundred and fifty years, from Montreal east, French is the language of the people. While in the larger cities English is of course spoken, it is not the prevailing tongue, and in all the small towns and rural districts French is the tongue, and thousands of the people cannot speak English at all. In one of the greater cities if a man would obtain a position in the police or fire departments he must be able to read, write, and speak French, but a Frenchman is not obliged to read, write, and speak English. All the estimates for public improvements are in French alone, though the bidders are all English or Americans, generally the latter. Of course, they must be translated into English by the bidders, and what an opportunity is here presented for breaking a contract by a claim of incorrect translation. In fact, it would seem to an outsider that Canada is much more loyal to France than to England, even after a century and a half of Saxon rule. Giving due allowance to the treaty with France and to the power of the Church of Rome, such a state of affairs at this date is singular to say the least.
As for the attempt in Ireland to revive the ancient Celtic amongst these people, personally I do not think it will be successful, nor do I understand the move; while it is well to keep it alive for students and savants, what possible good can it serve the desperately poor and ignorant of the land, how can they use it? At least so it appears to a looker-on. (I have not been able to extract a good reason for the move from any of its many advocates with whom I have conversed on this tour.)
Surely English is destined to be the language of men, not only in Ireland but all over the world, and to my thinking this is the greatest work accomplished by that nation. After all, is it not a case of the survival of the fittest, and can any one deny that that tongue is already the most widely spoken and more rapidly spreading than any or all others?
Go where you will you will find that next to the language of each country it is the one in use, and I believe that in generations to come it will wipe out all the trouble caused by the inhabitants of Babylon in their desire to get above high-water mark.
For professors and students it would be well to maintain these ancient tongues as long as possible, but surely the poor of Ireland could be benefited to a greater degree by other means than an attempt to restore to daily use the ancient, almost forgotten, and fast dying tongue of their forefathers.
As for the travellers in this land to-day it is confusing and irritating to be confronted by a sign-post of absolutely no value, intelligible only to those who know the Celtic tongue. The peasants cannot read them and do not require them, hence, to all concerned, they mean as much here as the verst posts do to a stranger in Russia.
As for the milestones, they tell a story hereabouts concerning what happened between two towns separated some eighteen miles from each other. The figures on the stones having become almost obliterated by time and weather an order was given to a workman in one of the towns to recut the lot. He took them up one by one and placed them in the proper order in his stoneyard, but when completed it is evident that, before the work of replacing them began, he must have celebrated the event in the usual manner. Certainly the fact remains that he began at the wrong end of the pile, placing the one marked "17" where the first stone should have been, and so on with the lot, the result being that sundry gentlemen the worse for wear coming from one town discovered that their utmost endeavours to reach home only took them farther afield—where they finally brought up is not related. As for the man from the other town, when at the end of the first mile "17" stared at him from the stone he became convinced that the devil was after him and shook his first at a solitary magpie which had just flown over his head. I must confess that I doubt these tales. However but for our maps we should have been completely astray in western Ireland for all the use the sign-posts were to us.
There is a charming little town at Recess, but unless you are a sportsman, not much of interest.
Letters from home necessitate B.'s return, and we must call at Kylemore Castle before we start. Distanced from Recess some thirteen miles, a journey thither and back would with horses necessitate a whole day's time, but with a motor it's only just around the block so to speak.
The morning is sunny and fair, and we drink in the rushing sea-breeze as we roll away over gentle hills and valleys between the higher mountains, and though the hills are treeless the whole panorama is attractive.
Our driver reports his petrol low, with none to be had at Recess, hence we must fill the tank at Kylemore sufficiently to get us to Galway if it can be done.
Kylemore Castle stands in a sheltered valley close by the sea though not in view of it. It faces a lovely lake and is really built on the side of the mountain which rises directly behind it to the height of two thousand feet.
Across the lake the view is blocked by a similar range. While the shrubbery is fine and the grass very luxuriant and green around the mansion, all the hills and mountains are absolutely treeless.
Photo by W. Leonard
Leap Castle
The place, but lately purchased by the Duke of M., was built by Mr. Henry at an expense, on the estate, of a million sterling. Reverses forced its sale, and it was bought by its present owner. There is nothing ancient, the house having but some fifty years to its credit, but it is capable of being, and, in the present owner's hands, will be made a charming dwelling-place, and certainly, swept by the winds of the North Atlantic, it must be at all seasons very healthy. Filled with a large company or with a few congenial people it should be an enjoyable spot.
Its gardens are very extensive and one passes through endless conservatories full of flowers and fruits. As we round a corner close to the stable, we encounter the quaint figure of a woman with straggling grey locks, tumbling down over a pallid face. In a dress of rags and barefooted, she is dancing a crazy jig all by herself. There are weird gleams in her eyes as they rove over the sombre mountains, seeking kindred spirits, I fancy, as she croons in a monotone the notes of some quaint melody which still drifts across her brain. She shows as she catches sight of our party that she is no respecter of persons as she grabs the Duke by the coat and won't let go, imploring him to "lock up the castle and I'll be round a Monday." When he implores her to put off her coming for a day or so she declines and sticks to "Monday." I cannot but doubt in some degree her insanity, at least it has not destroyed her womanly vanity, for when I tell her I want to take her picture, she at once attempts to smooth her hair and dress, and striking what she thinks will be a becoming pose, tells me to "go ahead," and after the snap remarks, "You had better take another for fear that is a failure."
Yesterday, having gone to the kitchen of the castle for her "bit of meat," she found a new cook, who, not knowing about her, ordered her out, whereupon she seized a knife from the table and there ensued a handicap, go as you please, all over the place, with the cook in the lead and Biddy a close second. After that she got her meat in peace.
As we return from an inspection of the grounds she is being conducted off the terrace by the butler. But Biddy has a mind of her own and no one save this butler could get her away, if it suited her to remain, which it generally does. We are told she is deeply in love with him and that there is a photo extant with Biddy on her knees, clasping his legs and imploring him to marry her. Now the butler is a most stately personage; he has the cast of countenance of the great Louis of France, the same beak-like nose and downward sweep of the face lines running from it, the same haughty pose of the head, in fact, deck him in a high wig, court suit, and ruffles, and great red heels and you have Louis le Grand; take them away and you have the butler, the object of Biddy's devotion, to whom it makes no difference whether he be king or butler. But Biddy in her rags is after all the most picturesque thing about Kylemore; her eyes are bright if she is crazy—but where in all the world will you find brighter eyes than amongst the beggars of Ireland, and they seem equally pleased whether one gives or not (Biddy did not beg, neither did she hesitate to take what we gave her). Like all beggars, many of them are rogues, but, ah, risk that, for you may by your half crown relieve for the time real heart-breaking misery, and such poverty as you cannot conceive of. Go to Achill if you would be convinced of that.
Yesterday while watching a train pass at Recess a boy approached and just looked at me, but with a look of such hungry suffering that a shilling was promptly forthcoming. Then I questioned him, and found that he had been ill and could at best make but a sixpence a day, that his brother drove the car for the hotel, getting as wages only the uncertain tips of the visitors, which, never many, in this remote spot are indeed few and far between in this bad season. His father had worked in the neighbouring marble quarries, but pestered and beset by a law-suit over his little hovel had, as the boy expressed it, "gone dotty," and could work no more. The mother did what she could and a sister was a cripple. So that all they had to live upon was what he and his brother could earn.
Just as he finished a ducal train rolled by. His Grace was transporting his family and effects from one great castle to another. Surely the contrasts in life are heartrending, yet I doubt not that this Duke will and does do all he can to relieve the sufferings of the poor on his estates—sufferings intensified and made all the more horrible by the unprincipled leaders of the leagues in this land, and masters of strikes in ours and others.
But to return to Kylemore, the interior of the castle at present is in a state of transition, so that it is impossible to describe it. Built against the side of the mountain, some of its staircases are literally laid on the solid rock. Many of the rooms are spacious and stately and in the hands of the present owners will doubtless be made very handsome.
The glimpses of mountains and lake from its windows are entrancing. On the whole I think one might come to love Kylemore very dearly. It has cost vast sums of money as it stands and much more will be expended before the end, if indeed the end ever is reached in these great places where the expenditure of money is concerned. This one will require a fortune to maintain.
Of the two Irish seats of the Duke of Manchester I should much prefer Kylemore to Tanderagee. While the latter is beautiful in its park and great trees, the former is a place of endless possibilities. Shooting and fishing are abundant and of the best, whilst to the lovers of the picturesque the mountains are an eternal joy, and close by is the jobling and sobbing of the sea. Its quaint people are an endless source of amusement and study. To enjoy it one must dwell there, and I depart with regret at our short sojourn or rather call.
Moat at Ffranckfort Castle
Our petrol has run out and there is none in this locality. However, the chauffeur manages to buy some from the man at the station and with a sputter and roar we are off and away through the mountain glens, turning for a last glimpse of Kylemore, and her little church, both gleaming white amongst the forests by the lake, and guarded by the brooding mountains.