Every bit of clearing was well and carefully labored. The high, broad stone fences round hillside fields were all gathered from the soil.
At one place, I was told that the brother of the occupant had sent him, from America, money to make the house a little more comfortable. He roofed it with slate. The rent was raised from L2 9s 4d to L13 10s. I may remark here that the tenants complain that the present Earl, through his agent, Capt. Dopping, is even more oppressive in a steady, cruel manner than the late Earl.
The late hard times—the cruel famine—has led to the sacrifice of all stock, so that some of these people have not a four-footed beast on their holding.
As we wound along among the hills my guide spoke of getting another man to accompany us, who was well acquainted with the way to Derryveigh, and we stopped at his place accordingly. He came to the car to explain that he was busy fanning up corn, or he would be only too glad to come. In a subdued whisper he told my guide of Capt. Dopping having been at his house, with his bailiffs and body-guard of police—threatening the wife, he said. He then told of the sacrifices he had made of one thing and another to gather up one year's rent. He had to pay five shillings for cutting turf on his own land, and one shilling for a notice served on him. Poor little man, he had a face that was cut for mirthfulness, and his woefulness was both touching and amusing. So we left him and went our way.
Along the road, winding up and down among the hills, by sudden bogs and rocky crags still more desolate and lonely looking, we came upon a cultured spot, now and then, where a solitary man would be digging round the edges of the rocks. Again we were among wild mountains heaving up their round heads to the sky and looking down at us over one another's shoulders. It brought to my mind the Atlantic billows during the last stormy February. It is as if the awful rolling billows mounting to the sky were turned into stone and fixed there, and the white foam changed into dark heather. After driving some time the landscape softened down into rolling hills beautifully cultivated, and sprinkled here and there with grazing cattle.
We are coming to Gartan Lake, and where there is a belt of trees by the lake shore stands the residence of Mr. Stewart, another landlord. He, when cattle became high-priced, thought that cattle were much preferable to human beings, so he evicted gradually the dwellers who had broken in the hills, and entered into possession, without compensation, of the fields, the produce of others' toil and sweat. His dwelling is in a lonely, lovely spot, and it stands alone, for no cottage home is at all near. He has wiped out from the hill sides every trace of the homes of those who labored on these pleasant fields and brought them under cultivation. Since the Land League agitation began he has given a reduction of rents, and the whole country side feel grateful and thankful.
There is no solitude so great that we do not meet bailiffs at their duty, or policemen on the prowl.
We are now nearing Derryveigh. There are two lakes lying along the valley connected with a small stream. My guide informed me that both lakes once abounded with salmon. The celebrated St. Colombkill was born on the shores of the Gartan Lake. Being along the lake one day he asked some fishermen on the lower lake to share with him of the salmon they had caught. They churlishly refused, and the saint laid a spell on the waters, and no salmon come there from that day to this. They are plentiful in Upper Gartan Lake, and come along the stream to the dividing line, where the stream is spanned by a little rustic bridge; here they meet an invisible barrier, which they cannot pass. I told my guide in return the story of the Well of St. Keyne, but he thought it unlikely. So there is a limit to belief.
Since Mr. Adair depopulated Derryveigh, and gave it over to silence, the roads have been neglected, and have become rather difficult for a car. The relief works in famine time have been mainly road-making, and there are smooth hard roads through the hills in all directions, so the people complain of roads that would not be counted so very bad in the Canadian backwoods. However, the difficulty being of a rocky nature, we left the car at the house of a dumb man, the only one of the inhabitants spared by Adair. He and his sister, also dumb, lived together on the mountain solitudes. She is dead, and a relative, the daughter of one of the evicted people, has come to keep house for him. He made us very welcome, seeing to it that the horse was put up and fed with sheaf oats. I and my guides, for we were now joined by the man who had had the oats to fan— he had got his brother to take his place and came a short cut across the hills to meet us—so we all three set out to walk over Derryveigh.
It was a trying walk, a walk to be measured by ups and downs, for the Derryveigh hamlets were widely scattered. There they were—roofless homes, levelled walls, desolation and silence. And it is a desolation, indeed. Broken down walls here and there, singly and in groups, mark the place where there was a contented population when Mr. Adair bought the estate. He had made plans for turning his purchase into a veritable El Dorado. The barren mountains are fenced off, surely at a great expense, that no sheep or lamb might bite a heather bell without pay. It was to be a great pasture for black-faced sheep. The sides of the mountains, which are bog in many places, are scored with drains to dry up the bog holes and give the sheep a sure footing. I did not see many sheep on the hill or many cattle on the deserted farms. It is an awfully lonesome place; desolation sits brooding among the broken-down walls. My guide, a lonesome-looking man, enlivened our way by remarks like these: "This was a widdy's house. She was a well-doin' body." "Here was a snug place. See, there's the remains of a stone porch that they built to break off the wind." "That was Jamie Doherty's, he that died on the road-side after he was evicted. You see, nobody dare lift the latch or open the door to any of the poor creatures that were put out."