The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland

by Norah

"Oh; yes, I would," said the other, "when I paid for it." I did not like to question this man, for he did swear so, but I ventured to ask if Mrs. Boycott were equally as much disliked as her husband. "Never heard a word against her in my life. The people had no reason but to like her. Hard word or hard deed she left no memory of behind her."

We drove past the residence where Captain Boycott lived, a fine spacious house finished in plaster to imitate stone. The grounds near the house were nicely laid out, but that is the universal rule in Ireland. Drove through a gateway into the yard. In a stable loft in the yard some policemen were lodged. The driver hallooed at them, and one came down the stone steps to see what protective duty was asked of him. I asked him to show me the ruins, and he complied in the kindest manner. Across the barnyard and through a shed we made our way into the castle ruins. There are many nooks and crannies, as is the case in these ancient ruins generally, but the main body of the castle was divided into two large apartments, with the roof on the floor of course. I noticed the track of recent fire along the old walls. He said it was made by the officers who were down there on protective service for Capt. Boycott. They had one apartment and cooked there, and the police the other. These quarters open to the sky, and having stones on the floor, did not look comfortable.

We went up the circular stairs to the ramparts at the top. There is a walk round the top behind the battlements. Looking down at the remains of a fireplace in what was a lofty second story, my guide told me there was a name and a date there. The name Fitzgerald, I forget the date; so this must have been one of the Geraldine castles.

There is a fine view from the battlements. Lough Mask, which is very shallow here, a little water and a great many stones overtopping it in profusion, lies before us, and an extensive country, partly fertile, in round hills and green valleys, partly crusted over with stones.

A policeman, not my guide on this occasion, told me, illustrative of the disposition of Captain Boycott, that the hut in which the police were sheltered was very damp—water, in fact, was running on the floor under their bed. They had a small coal stove, and on the coal becoming exhausted before they got a further supply, one of the men being down sick, they ventured to ask Captain Boycott for the loan of a lump or two of coal to keep their stove going till their supplies were received, and he refused them. They were obliged to protect his ass and water cart down into the lake to draw water from out beyond the edge where the water was deep, and, therefore, could be dipped up clean. He would not allow them to get any of the water for their own use after it was drawn, or lend them the ass to draw for themselves. They had either to wade out in the lake or dip up as they could at the edge. I made a slight mistake in saying that the castle was entirely roofless; there was part of an arched roof where the fire had been. I asked the policeman if they had any night patrol duty now. Oh, yes, he said, we patrol every night, although we never see anything worse than ourselves.

Left Lough Mask, its castled ruins and modern mansion behind us, and drove through the gates again. I felt convinced that the people were not filled with an unreasoning hate against Captain Boycott. They thought they had reason, deep reason, and they scrupulously excepted Mrs. Boycott from any censure bestowed on him.

Along the road we drove, until from an eminence we could see Lough Mask in its beauty, with its bays and islands spread out beneath us. This view gave us a part of the Lough where the water covers the stones. This particular evening the water was as calm as a mirror and as blue as the sky above it, and the trees on the hills and bays around it in their greenness and leafiness, round-headed and massive, were all bathed in sunlight. We came to fields a little more barren-looking, where bare stone fences took the place of the rich hedgerows, turned up a road that lay between these stony ramparts, and drove along for a little time.

I was wondering in my own mind about Captain Boycott. Did he, in his own consciousness, think he was doing right in his system of fines? He knew how small and miserable the wages were: he knew of the poor, comfortless homes and the "smidrie o' wee duddy weans" that depended on the poor pennies the father brought home; he knew that he came out well fed and leisurely to find fault with a peasant who was working with a sense of goneness about the stomach. Did he think that increasing the hunger pain would make him more thoughtful, more orderly? Would he have done better if he had been suddenly brought to change places with his serf? If he could not help fining the people until he fined off the most of their wages, were they to blame for refusing to work for him? Was the Government right in taking his part when it had neither eye nor ear for his people's complaint? I was questioning with myself in this helpless fashion, when I heard my driver inquire in Irish of a bare-footed country girl if we were near the spot where Lord Mountmorris was murdered.

This question, and the surprise with which I became aware that I understood it, made me forget Captain Boycott for the time being and wake up to the present time. We had stopped our car and were waiting on the girl's answer, which she seemed in no hurry to give. At length lifting a small stone she threw it on the road a car's length behind us, answering in Irish that there was the spot where he was found. The murderer was hidden in the field opposite. The road was bare of the shelter of hedge or ditch, bush or tree. It was late; he was coming home alone, his police escort for some reason were not with him that particular night. Lord Mountmorris was murdered, and some one has a mark on his hand that all the water of the Lough will not wash off.

We drove along the road, a bleak and bare road, with a hill on one side of it and a steep slope down on the other, until we came to a small plantation, a lodge gate, and drove up an avenue with small plantations of young trees here and there, some grass lands, a few beasts grazing about, some signs of where flower beds and flower borders had been better cared for once on a time than now, and came to a comfortable, roomy square house finished in plaster. This was castle something, the residence of the late Lord Mountmorris. With a blessing, content and three hundred a year one could fancy that person sung of by Moore, "With the heart that is humble," being able to make out life nicely here. When a man has a title to his name with all the requirements which it implies and demands, one could imagine a constant and wearing struggle going on.