The triangular peninsula which lies 'twixt Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle has been known, time out of mind, as Ennishowen; has belonged to the pirate earls for centuries, who, by reason of their craft, built themselves a fortress years ago on the sea as more convenient than a dwelling on mainland. It was a territory well suited to such masters, for, by guarding its narrow neck, it could be converted into an impenetrable fastness which was protected by sheer cliffs to seaward, whilst its internal features rendered it a foolhardy proceeding to attempt to invade it from the land side. Hence its population was a peculiar one, differing in many respects from the other dwellers in Donegal. When James I. planted Ulster with staunch Protestants, the ousted Catholics fled, some to Connaught, some to the extreme points of the north-western county where nothing flourished but wild birds. A large number took refuge in Ennishowen, where they embraced the trade of fishing, eking out a precarious existence by rearing flocks of geese upon the barren moors, whilst their wives wove frieze for clothing. An independent, warm-hearted, frugal, superstitious colony, extremely poor but decent, accustomed from the cradle to endure all hardships with a cheerful mien, too far removed from the world to know aught of Orangeism. Imbued with the clannish feeling which elsewhere had nearly vanished, they looked to Glas-aitch-é with reverence as to a holy shrine, and fully believed that the bodyguard of Sir Amorey were sleeping by their horses in the sea-caves ready to defend the fortress if peril dared to threaten it. It was evident that if the disease, which Lord Clare was so fond of discussing, should take a serious turn in the north, it would be well for the chiefs to be among their followers, at least those who were friendly with the Government; for a timely word might prevent much trouble--a timely order be of incalculable service. My Lord Glandore, then, carried with him the blessings of the executive, with sundry vague promises of good things in store for him if he showed prudence, and directions as to how his time would be best spent; namely, in cajoling the peasants to put their shoulders to the wheel for the speedy erection of beacons along the seaboard. The recent Gallic escapade (for Hoche's expedition was really nothing more) taught the executive a lesson. Happily the fleet, or a portion of it, had been driven upon the coast of Bantry, whose inhabitants, being disinclined to rebellion, looked on the tricolour with the eye of unconcern. But for the blessed wind, the expedition might have landed on some more friendly spot, and be half-way to Dublin before the Viceroy heard anything about it. The enemy must not have such a chance again. Martello towers must be built within short distances all round the coast. On the apparition of the tricolour a fire must be kindled, which should be the signal for a second on the summit of the next tower, and so on; so that in case of danger a girdle of fires would encircle the island, warning the soldiery in all directions--speeding intelligence to the capital in the twinkling of an eye.
My Lord Glandore was to busy himself with this matter so far as Donegal was concerned, and his sense of self-importance was so far tickled and amused that for awhile he endured, without too much swearing, the temporary separation from his Norah.
So my lady sailed up Lough Swilly, marking the new forts of Rathmullen and Knockalla, of Duneen and Inch, which gave to it a resemblance to a shark's mouth with teeth set raggedly in either jaw; whilst her son and niece started in the twilight before sunrise with a wild ride before them of forty miles and more. First they passed rows of mud-huts in straggling knots beside the way, which became more sparse as they advanced; crazy hovels whose rotten roofs were kept together by hay-ropes--thatch dyed to richness by decay, adorned with dry tufts of oats and barley, wafted in the summertime from some less forbidding spot. Their ears could catch the clicking of a homely loom within as they passed, ere the housewife, low-browed and heavy-jowled, came to her door to gape at the unusual sight of strangers, an amusement in which she was speedily joined by a pack of naked children, then by her goodman, who rose as if out of a dung-heap--a dudheen between his coarse lips, a long coat of faded homespun on his back.
Presently the road became a mere track upon the heather, which, leaving the lough to the left, struck out across the hills inland--a wheel-track over a vast expanse of purple prairie, now deep-indented in the bog, now barely discernible on a plateau of rock--impression of the rude carts of the turf-cutters across the mountains. No human dwelling might be seen for miles; no human figure, save perhaps an elfish child plying knitting-needles on a stone as she watched her herd of geese for fear of foxes--an uncanny, shock-pated pixie who seemed half-sister to the herons that were scrutinising their portraits in the pools.
Mountain succeeded mountain with a great heaving like that of the ocean hard-by, sometimes in an unbroken wave of black and russet; sometimes rent into a gorge where it had been torn by a strong convulsion, with overhanging crags of grey and twisted trees bent awry by the sea-blasts. Sometimes in the hazy distance might be detected a string of circular stains of a blacker colour than the rest--tarns in the moorland, home of the silver trout. Bushy and reedy some--some tawny with the paled glories of dead water-lilies. Then would the scene change to a bleak spread of stones--flat stones of monster size, with rifts like rivulets between, choked thick with feathery herbage. It was as though the rubbish left from the creation of the world had been carted and shot out there--a secluded medley of unconsidered trifles, of no value or consequence to the human race. Then again would the stones give place to water--morasses of peat sodden with salt ooze which quaked under the weight of the traveller, the hoof-marks of his horse bubbling with slimy wash as he splashed on his uncertain way; troops of scurrying fowl starting up before him, protesting loudly as they fled at the irruption into their cherished solitude.
Shane and Doreen arrived by-and-by at the summit of a hill-crest, from which the northern half of the promontory lay spread like a map before them. Just below was a white speck--the village of Carndonagh--beyond, a row of lakes, tiny mirrors set in the hill-flank--on either side the jagged lines of Loughs Foyle and Swilly, varied with many a peaked headland and jutting point and shelving bay scooped out of the living rock. In front, a flat stretch on which cloud-shadows were playing hide-and-seek--a bopeep dance of subtly-chequered tones; and away still farther, looming through the mist, the bluffs of Malin Head, the extreme limit, to the north, of Ireland. As they looked, the mists melted in eddying swirls of gold, unveiling an expanse of immense and lonely sea, dotted with fairy islets strewn in a ravelled fringe--the long span of the blue-green Atlantic, marked with a line of white where it seethed and moaned and lashed without ceasing against the foot of the beetling cliff.
'What a lovely spot!' Doreen exclaimed, as she sniffed the brisk breeze; 'how wild--how desolate--how weirdly fair! Not the vestige of a dwelling as far as eye can reach--except that speck below us.'
Unpoetic Shane had been busy counting the wildfowl, watching the hawks, marking the sublime slow wheeling of a pair of eagles far away in ether heavenward. At the call of his cousin he brought his thoughts down to earth, and cried out:
'By the Hokey! a nice coast for the French to land upon. I wish them joy of it if they try. If they do we shall be in the thick of it, for look! You can just discern Glas-aitch-é---that dot in the sea, no bigger than a pin's point--between Dunaff and Malin. A fleet would have to pass close by us that was making either for Lough Swilly or Lough Foyle. But come--a canter down the hill, and we will see what we can get to eat. This sharp air gives one a plaguy appetite!'
Doreen spoke truly, for Ennishowen is weirdly fair. The atmosphere of winter gave the desolation she had passed through a special charm. The ponderous banks of rolling steel-grey clouds, which had only just been conquered by a battling sun, gave a ghastly beauty to its wildness. Dun and steel-grey, sage-green and russet-brown, with here and there a bit of genuine colour--a vivid tuft of the Osmunda fern. Such chromatic attributes were well in harmony with the intense stillness, broken only by the rustle now and then of whirring wings, or the sharp boom of the frightened bittern. But beyond Carndonagh the face of nature changed--or would have, if it had been summer--for bleak elevated moorland and iron gorge vary but little with the season, whilst lower-lying districts are more privileged. During the warm months the track between Carndonagh and Malin is like a garden--an oasis of rich, damp, dewy verdure from the ever-dripping vapours of the Atlantic--an expanse of emerald mead saturated with the moisture of the ocean. Every bush and bank breaks forth in myriad flowers. Each tarn is edged with blossom, each path is tricked with glory. It is as if Persephone had here passed through the granite-bound gates of hell, and had dropped her garland at its portals. White starry water-lilies clothe the lakelets. The bells of the fuschia-hedges glow red from beneath a burthen of honeysuckle and dog-roses; orange-lilies and sheets of yellow iris cast ruddy reflections into the streams, while purple heather and patches of wild heartsease vie with each other in a friendly struggle to mask the wealth of green.