Returned to Newport in a very undecided frame of mind whether to go to Ballycroy or not. There was a Land League meeting to be held there, and I might see that; but then I had been at two Land League meetings, and they are pretty much alike. Of course it is well to see a great assemblage of people, for they always are of interest as showing what condition the people are in, and what sentiments find an echo in their hearts. But the length of the way, the uncertainty of a place to stop at had some weight, and I found myself unable to decide. To clear up my brain I asked for a bit of fish for dinner, but such a thing could not be obtained at Newport. The fish caught there are exported. They might get a fish by going down to the boat for it, and paying dearer for it than the Dublin price. I asked for fish at Westport with the same result. If you mention salmon they will say, "Oh, yes," and if not stopped, rush off and buy a can of American salmon for you. I got something to eat—not fish, and not very eatable—and wrote a little while, with the same stupid sensation bothering me that I had felt during my interview with Mr. Smithwick, and decided to put off all decision and go to bed, which I did.
In the morning, having found that Newport was the nearest point by which to reach Achill Island, I determined to go there, and if I thought I could endure the journey to diverge at Mulrany and drive to Ballycroy on my return from Achill Island.
XXXIX.
BY THE SHORE OF CLEW BAY—ACROSS ACHILL ISLAND—A LONELY LOVELY RETREAT.
The drive from Newport, Mayo, to Mulrany was very pleasant. The roads winds along Clew Bay, that bay of many islands, for quite a distance. Clew Bay was resting, calm as a mirror, blue and bright, not a lap of the wave washed up on the shore of Green island or Rocky Point the day we drove past. No fisher's boat divided the water with hopeful keel. The intense solitude of bays and inlets as well as the loughs looks like enchantment. It reminds one of the drowsy do-nothingness of "Thompson's Castle of Indolence," only here the indolence is not the indolence of luxurious ease but of hunger and rags. If the knight of arts and industry will ever destroy monopoly, and these silent waters will be alive with enterprise:
"When many fishing barks put out to fish along the coast."
there will be a happy change in the comfortless cabins that dot the shores of Clew Bay.
The islands of Clew Bay, being treeless and green, have a new look, as if they had just heaved up their backs above the waters and were waiting for the fiat that shall pronounce them good. I looked with longing eyes in the direction of Clare Island, that has one side to the bay and one side to the broad Atlantic which lies between me and home. On Clare Island is the remains of Doona Castle, the principal stronghold, of the heroic Grace, where she held the heir of Howth captive till ransomed, and till his father learned to understand what Cead mille failte means at dinner time.
Here, by Tulloghan Bay, I was told to look across the bay, where the heather-clad mountains rise above the broad heather-clad bog, where the road to Ballycroy winds along between the bay and the mountains, past houses of mortarless stone, hard to be distinguished from the heath; for over there in a certain spot occurred the shooting affray which has made young Mr. Smith, the son of the then agent for the Marquis of Sligo, a man of renown.
The hard feeling between the exterminating Marquis, the agent who executed his will and the tenantry was intense. Four men were lying in wait here with the intention of shooting Mr. Smith, who was expected to pass that way. He drove along accompanied by his son. The would-be assassins fired; they were concealed above the road; the shots passed harmlessly over the heads of the two Smiths. Young Mr. Smith, who is an exceptionally good shot—can hit a small coin at an immense distance— saw the men run and fired after them, killing one, fired again, wounding another, and would have fired again, but was prevented by his father.