A Child of the Glens; or, Elsie's Fortunes

by Edward N. Hoare

Doubtless some of our readers are acquainted with the noble "coast road" that skirts round the north-eastern corner of Ireland, extending, it might almost be said, from Belfast to Londonderry. The characteristic features of this noble esplanade (for such it is) are chiefly to be seen between the little town of Larne, where the railway ends, and Cushendall. Throughout this drive of forty miles you are never out of sight or sound of the sea. The almost level road is seen far ahead of the traveller, like a white boundary line between cliff and wave. You wonder at first if the road was made merely to gladden the tourist, for it does not seem likely that there could be much traffic other than that of pleasure-seekers thus along the margin of the sea. The configuration of this part of the County Antrim, however, explains the position of the road, and justifies the engineer who was so happily enabled to combine the utilitarian with the romantic. A series of deep cut gorges, locally known as "The Glens," intersect the country, running at right angles to the coast-line and thus forming a succession of gigantic ridges, over which it would be impossible to drive a road. For this reason it has been found necessary to wind round the mouths of these romantic valleys, which are guarded and shut off from each other by a number of formidable and noble headlands, foremost among which ranks the beautiful Garron Point. Thus a succession of surprises await the tourist. Having fairly made your way between the foot of the towering cliff and the inflowing tide, with no prospect in front but huge and grotesque-shaped rocks, which look bent on opposing all further advance, you suddenly find that you have doubled the point. A blue bay opens before you, shut in at its farther side by the next promontory, at the base of which you can distinctly trace the white streak of dusty road, that sweeps round the bay in a graceful semicircle. To your left—or while you are speaking, almost directly ahead—is the wide opening of one of the "Glens"—sweet, retired abodes of peace, sheltered and happy as they look out forever on the sea. The barren and rocky highlands, terminated by the wild bluffs that so courageously plunge themselves into the waves, become gradually softened and verdure-clad as they slope downward, while the narrow valley itself is studded with trees and pretty homesteads.

The people of "The Glens" are peculiar, primitive, and distinct. In these shut-in retreats the ancient Irish and Roman Catholic element largely prevails. When, in consequence of frequent rebellions, the original inhabitants were well-nigh exterminated, and their places taken by Scotch and English settlers, the natives found a refuge in the wilder and more remote parts of the country. Thus, here and there in Ulster—generally known as "Protestant Ulster"—we come upon little nooks and nests where for two centuries the primitive Irish race has survived. Naturally, living in the presence of their more pushing and prosperous Presbyterian neighbours, these last representatives of a conquered nationality are for the most part of a retiring and suspicious disposition. In quiet country places there is seldom any manifestation of open hostility, and intermarriages and neighbourly feeling have done much to smooth away the edge of bitter memories, but at bottom there remains a radical difference of sentiment, as of creed, which constitutes an impassable, though for the most invisible, barrier.

Michael McAravey was a good specimen of the old Ulster Roman Catholic. He was a tall, powerful man, of nearly seventy at the time when our story opens, while he did not look sixty. His hair was long, iron-grey, and wiry, and it was only when uncovered that the high, bald, wrinkled forehead gave indication of his real age. A rebel at heart, the son of a man who had been "out" in '98, Michael had gone through life with a feeling that every man's hand was against him. Sober, self-reliant, and hard-working, the man was grasping and hard as flint. By tradition and instinct a bitter enemy to Protestantism, he was not on that account a friend of the priest, or a particularly faithful son of the Church. He had his own "notions" about things, and though a professed "Catholic," his neighbours used to speculate whether age or sickness would ever have power to bend that proud spirit, and bring Michael to confession and a humble reception of the "last rites" of the Church. Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl, and the almost inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed marriage" had cast its shadow over the lives of the pair. The Kanes had belonged to the small and rigid body of "Covenanters," and never a Sabbath from childhood till her marriage had 'Lisbeth failed to walk the four rough, up-hill, dreary miles that separated her father's home from the meeting-house that rose alone, and stern as the Covenant itself, on the bleak moorland above Glenariff. But her last Sabbath-day's journey was taken the week before her wedding. Michael had gloomily announced that no wife of his should be seen going to a "meeting-house," and though he never sought to bring her to mass (perhaps in part because it might have involved going himself), his resolution never varied. Nor did his wife contend against it. The habit once broken, she felt no inclination to undertake those long and wearisome journeys. But a Covenanter she meant to live and die. Nothing would have tempted her into the Presbyterian chapel close by. And thus when there came two children to be baptized the difficulty as to religion was compromised, and a triumph allowed to neither side, by the babes being solemnly received into the compassionate and truly Catholic fold of what was then the Established Church. That both these little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey.

Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by young faces. For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two little children, who called them father and mother. But, as it was quite evident that no such relationship as this could exist, so it came to be generally understood that there was no tie of blood at all. What connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery none had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries—if such had ever been ventured upon—had met with much encouragement on the part of "auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife.

Though the Antrim glens had been the scene of such courtship as it is possible to conceive of between Michael McAravey and Elizabeth Kane, they had for many years ceased to be the place of their abode. Previous to the opening of our tale, McAravey had fallen into the tenant-right and goodwill of a farm held by an elder and unmarried brother, and hither he had accordingly moved with his wife, now past middle-age, and the two little ones that called her mother. To find the spot where the McAraveys now lived—a spot yet more retired and more lovely than any in the glens properly so called—we must once more return to the great "coast road." Having reached Cushendall, the scenery becomes more imposing, and the high background almost deserves the name of a mountain. Here, at length, the rugged and towering coast-line successfully defies further violation of its lonely majesty. Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and turning its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope of a flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of Ballycastle. The extreme northeast point of Ireland is thus cut off, and thus the ordinary tourist is cut off too, from one of Nature's most fairy-like retreats. On looking back from Ballycastle you at once perceive the necessity for your bleak and tedious mountain drive. The eye immediately catches and rests fascinated upon the gigantic and literally overhanging precipice of Fair Head, as it rears its peculiar and acute-angled summit against the sky. One look, and you are convinced that no road could wind its way round the base of that frowning monster. But let us strive to penetrate this cut-off region either on foot across the moors, or by the rough mountain road that suffices for the wants of the few and scattered residents. Standing (sometimes not without difficulty) on the pitched-up edge of the mighty headland, and gazing on the remote sea beneath, you feel oppressed by the sense of Nature's vastness and your own insignificance. Nor does the dreary extent of rock and pool-dotted moor that stretches inland to the very horizon afford any relief to such feelings. So you turn away in search of rest and shelter. Then but a comparatively few downward steps and you find that the tempestuous wind has ceased to wrangle with you; already you are beneath the shadow of the great rock. Descending further, the bleak aspect of Nature is transformed. The heather gives place to dwarf shrubs; the bare, weather-beaten rocks are clothed with blackberry bushes, or hidden amid luxurious bracken. Dark hollies clinging to detached rocks present varied and life-like forms. The air has suddenly become still. The butterflies hover over the foxgloves. The wild strawberry is at your feet. The sloeberries ripen around you. The sea before you might be the Mediterranean, so gently does it ripple up to the very edge of the hundred tiny plants that force their way amid the sand. Great rock bastions shut you in on either side, and behind, the green slope you had descended rises upward till it meets the blue sky beyond. You might be in the south of England rather than in the "black north" of Ireland; and you are struck with the probably accidental suggestiveness of the name—Tor Bay. It was here that McAravey's lot was cast, and here that Elsie and Jim used in their leisure hours to gather the strawberries and stain themselves with sloes.

CHAPTER II.

Not that Elsie and Jim had many leisure hours. Like all else in the little household, they had their work to do. McAravey's "farm" was but a little patch of ten acres, part of it not even yet quite won back from rock and bracken. On this he toiled as only a man can toil who works for himself, and is assured of his interest in the soil on which he drops his sweat. That he had no grown-up son (as might have been) to aid his declining strength was a hidden sorrow to the old man. He worked on, however, and bravely did his uncomplaining wife assist him. Neither of them had ever known an hour of either ill health or idleness, and they were guiltless of any conscious or intentional cruelty when they early and sternly disciplined their young charges to the same laborious life. The duties of the children were manifold. Jim herded McAravey's two or three cows, or acted as scarecrow in the little patch of corn, each precious grain of which was grudged to the passing birds. Elsie scoured the house, and carried out milk to one or two somewhat distant neighbours. But the most arduous labour of the children was one that they shared together. When the weather suited—after a stormy night, or when there was a spring tide—they would stand for hours on the beach, often wet to the waists, dragging the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes. This occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous. More than once had little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in his rake. The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of those rough kilns that abound along the coast, and reduced to kelp, which is used in the manufacture of soap and glass, and from which iodine is extracted. Thus, almost from infancy, the children had been inured to labour, and alas! for them the sunny hours of idle rambling amid the tangled foliage of the glen were few and far between. Neither child had received any education. The only school was nearly four miles off, up on the open moorland. It was only in summer that the children could possibly attend, and even then their visits were infrequent and irregular. On all religious subjects their young minds were dark as night. Even a few days at school had taught them that such things as reading and writing existed, and Jim especially had developed in him vague ideas as to the power and wealth that might be obtained if once he could master these mysterious subjects. But religion was only known to them as being provocative of party quarrels and domestic disagreements. Harsh and brief as was the general style of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the difference that through life had separated husband and wife. Even then it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a bone of contention. Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a Saviour's love from any other quarter. There was no place of worship in the glen. The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there no Sunday-school was held. As for the Church, into the fold of which the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of, being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district. Here the Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much, but was never very large. The parish was enormous, and the Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion. Yet it was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought together on a fine Sunday morning in summer. The clergyman, too, persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he and the clerk taught in the church before service. But from this means of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend. In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people, and but few children of any sort. Thus spiritual darkness reigned supreme throughout this beautiful domain. Twice during five years in a professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev. Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay. The people had received him with a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive and somewhat small nature.

"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.

"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs. McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.