Now they use and abuse it in the most deleterious way imaginable. They buy the tea at exorbitant rates, often at five shillings a pound, and usually on credit, paying a part of one bill on running up another, put it into a saucepan or an iron pot, and boil, or rather stew, it over the fire, till they brew a kind of hell-broth, which they imbibe at odd moments all day long! Oddly enough, this is the way in which they prepare tea in Cashmere and other parts of India, with this essential difference, though, that the Orientals mitigate the astringency of the herb with milk and almonds and divers ingredients, tending to make a sort of “compote” of it. Taken as it is taken here, it must have a tremendous effect on the nerves. Mr. Olphert thinks it has had much to do with the increase of lunacy in Ireland of late years. From his official connection with the asylum at Letterkenny, he knows that while it used to accommodate the lunatics of three counties, it is now hardly adequate to the needs of Donegal alone.
Everything about Ballyconnell House is out of key with the actual military conditions of life here. It is essentially what Tennyson calls “an ancient home of ordered peace.” In the ample hall hang old portraits and trophies of the chase. The large and handsome library, panelled in rich dark wood, is filled full of well-bound books. Prints, busts, the thousand and one things of “bigotry and virtue” which mark the dwelling-place of educated and thoughtful people are to be seen on every side. Mr. Olphert showed us a cabinet full of bronzes, picked up on the strand of the sea. Among these were brooches, pins, clasps, buckles, two very fine bronze swords, and a pair of bronze links engraved with distinctly Masonic emblems, such as the level, the square, and the compasses. When were these things made, and by what people?
So far as I know, Masonry in the British Islands cannot be historically traced back much, if at all, beyond the Revolution of 1688.
Mr. Olphert and his son walked about the place with us. They have no fears of an attack, but think it wise to keep a force of police on the premises. The only demonstration yet made of any kind against the house was the march from Falcarragh some time ago of a mob of young men, who promptly withdrew on catching sight of half-a-dozen policemen within the park gates. As to getting his work done, some of his people had steadily refused to acknowledge the “boycott,” and they were now strengthened by the attitude of those who had surrendered to the pressure, and were now sullen and angry with the League which had given them nothing to do, and no supplies.
At Falcarragh we met a person who knew much about the late Lord Leitrim, who was murdered in this neighbourhood on the highway some years ago. He spoke freely of the murderer by name, as if it were matter of common notoriety. Of the murdered man, he said that he had made himself extremely unpopular and odious, not so much by certain immoralities freely alleged at the time of his death, as by vexatious meddling with the prejudices and whims of his tenants. “He used to go into the houses and pull down cartoons and placards, if he saw them put up on the walls.” “No! he had no party feeling in the matter; he used to pull down William III. and the Pope with an equal hand.” It seems that in this region, too, a local legend has grown up of the birth at a place called Cashelmore of a “Queen of France.” The case is worth noting as throwing light on the genesis and accuracy of local traditions. The “Queen of France” referred to proves, on inquiry, to have been Miss Patterson, who married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the first Emperor, afterwards created by him King of Westphalia! This Avas the lady so well known in America as Mrs. Patterson Bonaparte of Baltimore, who died at a great age only a few years ago. I have no reason to suppose that she was born at Cashelmore at all or in Ireland. But her father, reputed in the time of Washington to be the richest man in the United States, who came from the North of Ireland and settled in Baltimore as a merchant, may very well have been born there.
To my great regret Father M‘Fadden of Glena, or Falcarragh, was absent from home. As we drove homeward we met on the way a young lady on a smart jaunting-car, with a servant in livery. This was the daughter, our driver told us, of Mr. Griffiths, the Protestant clergyman, past whose residence our road lay. His church stands high upon a commanding cliff, and is a feature in the landscape. We met the parson himself also, walking with a friend. The road from Bedlam to Derrybeg goes by a region of the “Rosses,” reputed the most woe-begone part of the Gweedore district. This is the scene of a curious tale told about Father M‘Fadden of Gweedore, by his ill-wishers in these parts, to the effect that he advises English Members of Parliament and other “sympathising” visitors who come here to make a pilgrimage to “the Bosses,” where, no matter at what time of day they appear, they invariably find sundry of the people sitting in their huts and eating stewed seaweed out of iron pots. I cannot vouch for this tale, but certainly I have seen no people here of either sex, or of any age, who look as if they lived on stewed seaweed. Another person at Falcarragh told us, as an illustration of the influence exerted by Father M‘Fadden of Gweedore, in this parish, over which he has no proper authority, that, in obedience to an intimation from him, the persons whose seats in the chapel had been occupied on two successive Sundays by the policemen now stationed here, yesterday refused to allow the policemen to occupy them, the only exception being in the case of a man who had been arrested at the same time with Father Stephens, and who had been so well treated by the police, that he felt bound to repay their courtesy by offering one of them his seat.
CHAPTER III.
DUNGLOE, Tuesday, Feb. 7.—We rose early this morning at Gweedore; the sun shining so brightly that we were forced to drop the window-shades at breakfast, while I read my letter from Rome, telling me of the bitter cold there, and of a slight snow-fall last week. Here the birds were singing, and the air was as soft and exhilarating as that of an April morning in the Highlands of Mexico or Costa Rica.
Our host gave us a capital car, with a staunch nag and a wide-awake jarvey, thanks to all which I found the thirteen miles drive to this place too short. No doubt it will be a great thing for Donegal when “light railways” are laid down here. But I pity the traveller of the future here, if he is never to know the delight of traversing these wild and picturesque wastes in such weather as we have had to-day, on a car, well-balanced by a single pleasant companion, drinking, as he goes, deep draughts of the Atlantic air! Truly on a jaunting-car “two are company and three are none.” You have almost the free companionship of a South American journey in the saddle, jumping off to walk, when you like, more freely still.
We drove near the house of the “beauty of Gweedore,” but she was not visible, though we met her mother (by no means a pulchra mater) as we crossed the Clady at Bryan’s Bridge.