Chapter VII: Part 7

A slim, fair-haired woman, with her arms bare and her feet and legs in the same classic condition under her short dilapidated skirts, began to make some eloquent remarks. If there had been a thousand or two like her I do think the seventy police would have had hard work to protect the bailiff. One of our company, a gentleman, remarked to her that she had a fine arm of her own. "Troth, sir," said she, "If I was as well fed as yourself it's finer it would be." We agreed with this gentleman that if this woman was fed and clothed like other people she would certainly be a fine-looking person. She drew near to enquire if we were in any way connected with the police. Her enquiries were especially directed to myself. She was told that I was an American lady, and a few faces that scowled were smoothed into smiles immediately.

There were by this time four women and half a dozen boys present. No one spoke above their breath but our woman of bare arms. In answer to something addressed to her by our party, she said, "Sure they could not take a better time than seed time to droive us out of our senses. Sure God above has an eye and an ear for it. Look here," she said, throwing out her handsome bare arm, "look at the bare fields lying waste because the seed cannot be got to put in the ground; they're cryin' up to God against it. The cratures here have not enough yellow male to keep the hunger off. If they had waited till harvest there would be a color of justice to it." This woman had all the talking to herself, no one else had anything to say. She herself was not among those against whom the processes were served.

We saw the process server leave the ranks of the police and walk down to a wretched little cabin and return in a few moments. The order to march was given, and the police tramped along to the next house, a bit off the road. Two or three little children were in the field, apparently herding cattle. The least one said to his brother in an accent of terror, "Jimsey, Jimsey, the war is come at last."

Along the road, tramp, tramp, off the road through the bogs, every house called at seeming worse than the last. A rumor had been running along before us--ever before us--of an Amazonian army with pitchforks, tongs and the hooks used for drawing the sea weed ashore, armed and ready, some three hundred strong, waiting for the police. We never came up to this army or caught a sight of their rags. Crossing a field we were told of a merciful lady, a Mrs. Major Jones, who gave them seed potatoes and trusted them with meal when they had nothing to eat. As the police halted before some houses we heard the muttered exclamations of the few women near, "Eagh! eagh! oh, Lord, and them in need of charity!"

Well, we never came up with the army of women. The processes were not all served, for some of the houses were empty, and there was no one on whom to serve them; we turned our steps, or our horses rather, homeward to Ballina, the boys calling out in compliment to America, "Three cheers for the noble lady," as we drove off.

The threatened rain came on and came down heavily and we got our share of it before we got under shelter. An elderly gentleman was introduced to me at Ballina who had had a very great opportunity of noticing the working of the law and the struggles of the people. He admitted to me that some might possibly have paid some rent before the agitation began, but kept it back hoping for a permanent reduction, and then when they had it by them had used it for living, and now had nothing to meet the rent with. He said, however, that the most part had not recovered from the effects of the scarcity sufficiently to be able to pay up arrears-- or, indeed, to pay anything on arrears.

We conversed a little about peasant proprietorship. He instanced the case of two persons who had become owners of church land, one of eight acres, another of sixteen. He spoke of the prosperity that had crowned their labors ever since hope came to them and they had something to struggle for. He said they came now decently clad to church and market. He had been in their houses and noticed as much as two flitches of bacon hanging in the chimney. One of them owned a team of horses. A man with a team of horses on his farm is in a different position from a man with only an ass and creels. Absolutely, said he, the man has devoted a portion of his land to apple trees.

It was a touching thing to see the earnestness with which this man spoke of these great evidences of prosperity--horses to work the farm, two flitches of bacon and planting apple trees. In Mayo, in two instances, I have seen a corner left untilled in a field. As there was an ass in one, and a goat browsing in the other, I do not know but what it was the best thing they could do to leave them untilled.

I may as well mention that the wretched people on whom the processes were served lived in Sligo, and the landlords who were pursuing them, as it were between the hay and the grass, were Sligo landlords, of those whom I heard praised so highly in Sligo town. Round Ballina, as round Sligo, there are few tenants on the land near the town; it has gone to grass and has cows instead of tenants. Sir Charles Gore's demesne and residence is very fine, and, as he seems to have a blessing with it, long may he enjoy his good things.

XXXIV.

THE LAND OF FLAMES--A RELIC WITH A HISTORY--CATTLE VS. MEN--THE MEETING OF EXTREMES--"PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE."

Was invited by a friend to visit Rappa Castle to see a celebrated vessel which once belonged to Saint Tighernain, the saint who belongs more especially to the west and the clock which was removed from Moyne Abbey when it was dismantled. This vessel, belonging to the saint called Mias Tighernain--which I would freely translate as meaning Tighernain's own--has been used until of late years, when the clergy interposed and forbid it, for the discovery of stolen goods. Any one swearing falsely on the Mias Tighernain was sure to come to grief. People swearing falsely on the Bible have been known to escape visible consequences. Our car driver, a not very old man at all, told us he was present himself when a numerous household were brought together to be sworn on the Mias Tighernain for the discovery of a large sum of money which had been stolen. The thief was discovered but money was not.

It is very pleasant to drive along through the fair but tenantless lands that surround Ballina. The county of Mayo is beautifully diversified by mountain and valley, wood and water, glen and stream. The tall hedges of white thorn in their bridal white perfume the air. Myriads of primroses smile at the passer-by from sunny banks. Small golden blossoms, like whin blossoms, cluster thickly here and there, and the starry-eyed daisies, white and sweet with blushes edged, lift their modest faces to the sky. Even the bog waste is nodding all over with a cotton flower, white as a snowflake; they call it _ceanabhan_ in Irish, and the peasantry use it as a comparison when praising the white arms and bosoms of the Mayo maidens. Surely one might say this bright May morning with Tim, "Glory be to God, but it is a purty world!"

When we crossed the boundaries, passed the lodge gates into the demesne lying around Rappa Castle, the residence of Captain Knox, there was a change to still greater beauty. Money will build a grand and stately home in the fair proportions of a castle, but money has to run in the blood for centuries to produce a scene like this. Broad lands swelling and sinking like an emerald sea, trees that stand out singly wrap themselves in aristocratic leafiness, spreading their magnificent arms toward you, saying, "Look at me! I am not of yesterday; the dews of heaven, the fatness of the earth, the leisure of centuries, fanned by breezes, tended by culture, have made me what I am, a 'thing of beauty' to gladden your eyes." They stand in groups upon the slopes and whisper this to one another; they open their ranks to give you delicious glimpses into further away "spots of delight:" they are drawn up in ranks shading mysterious walks that lead away into the grand dim woods. They distract you and bother you with their loveliness till you wish that the English language had a bushel more adjectives.

Rappa Castle where we arrived with a beggarly feeling of having exhausted our adjectives is a large comfortable building not very much like one's idea of a castle. We drove up to the rear entrance--it is always prudent to take the lowest room--and waited on the car while a messenger was despatched with our request. Presently the messenger came back with directions to us to drive round to the hall door. We were received by a respectable servant in plain dark clothes, who looked like a minister or a mild edition of a churchwarden. He ushered us from the entrance hall--a comfortably furnished apartment--across a second, into the crowning glories of a third, where we were requested to wait till Captain Knox made his appearance, which was not a long time.

The owner of Rappa Castle, a landlord against whom nothing in the way of blame is said, was assuredly of as much interest to us as the relics which his house possessed. A tall, fine looking, kindly faced man, rosy with health, courteous and pleasant, came into the room. We told our errand and the Captain went for the Mias Tighernain and placed it in our hands. It is evidently only part of the original dish, the socket where the upper part rested being still there. It is very heavy, formed of three layers of thin bronze bound at the edge with brass--evidently a later thought, and done for preservation. There are three bands of silver across it, which show the remains of rich figuring. There was originally a setting of three stones, one of which still remains and looks as if it might be amber. It is as large as a soup plate. Something is among the layers of metal which rattles when shaken. It is one of the oldest relics in the country. Whoever made it had no mean skill in the art of working metals. According to a certain Father Walsh it was used to wash the saint's hands in at mass. This dish, after lying at the bottom of Lough Conn for a hundred years, came up to the surface and revealed itself. It has been used as a revealer of secrets ever since it came into the hands of the Knox family. We requested afterwards to see the clock of Moyne Abbey, and were taken by the courteous captain across other rooms to the flagged kitchen, where the clock ticked as it has done for three hundred years--or since the Abbey was dismantled, how long before history hath not recorded. The case is of some dark wood beautifully carved. I thought it was bog oak; Captain Knox said mahogany, which would make the case to be much younger than the clock. The Captain assured us that it was the best time-keeper in the world. It only requires winding once a month; used to show the day of the month, but some meddler disarranged that part of the machinery. The dial plate is of some white metal, brilliant and silvery. Captain Knox said it was brass, but I have seen things look more brazen that were not so old.

Nothing could exceed the courtesy of Captain Knox. He made some enquiries about Canada, and deplored the rush of cattle across, which was injurious to the interests of graziers, of whom he was one. It would have been discourteous to express the wish that lay in my mind, that they might come in such numbers as to lower the price of cows and grazing also till the poor man might be able to have a cow oftener and milk to his "yellow male" stir-about till it might be not quite so impossible to replace the cow seized for the rent and the County cess.

I saw a trial in the papers lately of a woman who was in bed, in her shake-down, when she became aware that the cow--the only cow--was taking a lawful departure. Up she got, in the same trim as that in which Nannie danced in Kirk Alloway, and by the might of her arm rescued the cow. She was condemned to jail, but one's sympathies go with the law breakers here often. At least mine do. I did sympathize with this woman of one cow and a large family. Why should any one have power lawfully, to "lift" the only cow from half-starved children. The defence for this woman was that through trouble she did not know what she was doing. It was a mean, paltry defence; she did know that she wanted to keep her cow, and the law should be altered to enable her to do so. The law that enables men of means to strip these poor wretches of everything that stands between them and their little children and starvation, is a monstrous law for Christians to devise and execute, and is worse for the rich and for the executive of the law than even for the sufferers. All these things flashed through my mind as we conversed with Captain Knox.

On leaving Rappa Castle we paused a little on the doorsteps to take one more look at the beauty of the grounds. I wish I had words to convey to others a little of the delight which the scene gave to me. The trees, branched down almost to the ground, have gotten themselves into so many graceful attitudes. The bending thick-leaved branches look like green drapery, the larch flings its tassels down in long pendants fluttering in the breeze, the spruce and balsam--they are a little unlike ours of the same name, but I do not know any other names for them--rise in pyramids of dark green tipped with sunny light green, the cedars fling their great arms about cloaked with rich foliage, the laburnums shake out their golden ringlets and tremble under the weight of their beauty, the copper beeches stand proudly on an eminence where every graceful spray shows against a background of blue sky. There are vistas opening among the trees giving glimpses of the brightest green and dashes of waters like bits of captured sky.

I gave a glance at the owner, tall and stately, with ruddy, pleasant face and kind blue eye, and acknowledged that he looked every inch an English squire.

With many thanks for his kindness we took our departure. Were glad to hear from both friend and car driver that nothing of cruelty and oppression could be laid to the charge of this man. As I stood beside him at his own door, drawing all of the beauty I could into my soul through my eyes to carry away with me, I thought if I were born into that place with its associations, could I, would I mar any corner of it to make a homestead for starving Thady, ragged Biddy, and the too numerous children? Who knows what transformation might lie in the pride and power of possession!

There was a single laborer working before the castle raking up the gravel walk, I think. "I would he were fatter!" If he were only in as good condition as the beautiful dogs of superior breed which we saw in the castle yard; but the dogs are fed at the expense of the proprietor of this fair domain, the thin laborer at his own. We returned by another way. After we left the grounds we noticed with sad eyes the miserable cabins and barren fields at his gates. People of the upper, middle and comfortable classes are so used to horrible cabins, thin laborers, old women, barefoot, toothless, ragged and wretched, begging by the wayside to keep out of the dreaded workhouse, that the sight makes not the slightest impression. People tell me over and over again that they deserve their poverty, for it is the result of extravagance and drunkenness. This assertion makes one stare and then consider whose faces show the greater evidence of the action of different liquors. It would be an easy matter in a national gathering to pick out the class and the strata of society that is the support of the liquor traffic in Ireland.

XXXV.

WORKHOUSES--THE POOR LAW--A REASONABLE SUSPECT.

Returning from Rappa Castle we must pass the Ballina workhouse. My friend had business there. As it was Board day, and I had about an hour to spare, I thought I would look in and see what I thought of it in the light of a possible refuge for many evicted ones. There were some wretched looking people, applicants for out-door relief, waiting about the entrance when we went in. I have been informed and have seen it confirmed in newspaper reports of the proceedings of Boards of Guardians, that it is a rule of universal application by every means possible to discourage out-door relief in every form. "Let the poor come into the union altogether," is the spirit that actuates the Boards of Guardians, so it was pointed out to me that these applicants for out- door relief had small chance of success.

It was a Board day, and the master of the house, a polite little man, apologized profusely for not accompanying me over the building. He deputed the schoolmaster of the establishment to show me through in his place. I followed the Ballina Schoolmaster of the Union from the entrance along the gravel walk bordered with flowers to the house proper, and into the refectory or eating room. One does not want in every workhouse to look at the same things, when they see they are the same as in the last. I noticed the set of printed rules hung up on a card and lifting it down sat down to read the rules contained on it. They were very strict, and conceived in such a spirit that a naturally tyrannical man could make a pauper's life a very miserable burden to him.

After I read these rules I questioned the schoolmaster, a very nice person, as to the administration of this workhouse. He casually mentioned that able-bodied paupers only got two meals in the day. This was such a surprising statement to me that I said, "Your workhouse then is harder to the poor inmates than the workhouses elsewhere. I have made enquiry in several places as to the diet given, and they invariably told me of three meals, mentioning also that they had meat allowed them three times per week."--They have given you "the infirmary diet," said the schoolmaster, gravely. We conversed a little while on this subject, and as I was to go by train to Castlebar, fearing my time was too short, I did not penetrate into the workhouse any further.

Coming out we encountered the doctor, a very courteous person. Hoping to get further information, confirmatory or contradictory of this most astounding piece of news respecting the food allowance, I referred to it before the doctor, who qualified the statement by informing me that if actually engaged at work for the house they were allowed a third meal. I was thoroughly surprised at this. The conviction forced itself upon me, that the poor having taken refuge in the house from actual starvation, the house considered itself justified in keeping them on short commons ever after.

As I left the building feeling very sad over this information, I could not help wishing that these creatures, guilty of the crime of poverty, had the nourishing fare given to the criminals in our common gaol at Pembroke on the Ottawa. Now the workhouses are by no means crowded; the Ballina workhouse, for instance is empty enough to afford a wing as a temporary barracks for some military. I have been told by what I consider good authority, that for every shilling levied of the distressingly great poor rate eightpence is needed to pay the administrative officials. While thinking of these things, I take up the Castlebar local paper and notice in the report of the proceedings of the Board of Guardians, that a doctor not attending to his duty through being "in a state of health not compatible with much exposure to rough weather or country professional work," was to be allowed for a still greater length of time a substitute at three guineas per week. During the debate on this motion a member reminded the Board that last year they paid L54 for substitute work for one official on the plea of ill- health; another complained that sums of L50 were voted to officials, while paupers were denied shillings of out-door relief. Still another complained that the auditors would disallow the relief given to cases which require relief, while they never disallow sums paid incurred by leave of absence of officials.

The whole administration of the poor law is complained of pretty universally in this style. The poor rate is excessively high, the administration very expensive, and the economy is practised where it is least needed, is the complaint I hear again and yet again.

At the station a great crowd and a rather excited one was assembled. A Mr. Moffany had been arrested as a reasonable suspect, and was to be taken to Kilmainham. The man who was arrested was a small, sickly- looking, by no means interesting specimen of humanity, slightly lame. He was in some sort of shop-keeping business. The crowd on the platform was dense and composed mostly of the poorer class, who were enthusiastic enough for anything. The policemen in charge, civilly and politely, with no fuss or force, got their suspect into a second class carriage and got in beside him. The suspect put his head out of the window and addressed the crowd, expressing his willingness to suffer for the good cause, and said he was not likely to come out of the prison alive owing to his state of health. He advised them to be law-abiding and to go home quietly.

Oh, the cheering there was; the endeavors to get near enough to shake him by the hand; the surging to and fro of the crowd, the half-crying hurrahs of the women; the waving of handkerchiefs and caps was something to be remembered. As the train moved off slowly the people ran alongside cheering themselves hoarse, shouting words of encouragement and blessing, of hope and farewell till the train quickened its speed and left them behind.

XXXVI.

DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS--TURLOUGH--THE FITZGERALDS--FISH--THE ROYAL IRISH WATCHDOGS.

The day on which I had to return to Sligo from Castlebar an immense crowd was gathered at the station, and I wondered what was the matter. It was a gathering to see emigrants start for America. The emigrants took the parting hard. If they had been going to instant execution they could not have felt worse. Three young girls of the party had cried until their faces were swollen out of shape. The crowd outside wept and wailed; some clasped their hands over their heads with an upward look to heaven, some pressed them on their hearts, some rocked and moaned, some prayed aloud--not set prayers, but impromptu utterances wrung out by grief. The agony was so infectious that before I knew what I was about I was crying for sympathy.

I was not to say sorry for them, for I knew the fine, healthy, strong girls were likely to have a better chance to help their parents from the other side of the water than here, and the young men might make their mark in the new world and make something of themselves over there. Still it was hard to witness the agony of their parting without tears.

When the carriage moved off, the cry "O Lord!" with which the passengers started to their feet and the relatives outside flung up their hands, was the most affecting sound I ever heard. It was a wail as if every heart-string was torn. A countryman explained to me that the Irish were a people that wept tears out of their hearts till they wept their hearts away. By the conversation of the emigrants, I found that one girl had turned back. "She failed on us, my lady," said her comrade. "Her heart gave up when she saw the mother of her in a dead faint and she turned back. One has but the one mother and it is hard to kill her with the bitter grief of parting before the time."

People who have travelled much, and are loosely tied to any spot on earth, ridicule the affection of these mountain people for their cabin among the hills, but love of home is a glorious instinct, and if the country of these people could afford them a little bit of the soil for a home--liberty to live and toil--they would be both loving and loyal. All the poor want is permission to live in a corner of their own country.

Castlebar is reached by rail. The station is a little out of town. Castlebar is the first town where my few belongings were fought for. The victor in the strife was a most determined old man. I thought he had a car, but he had only his sturdy old legs. He shouldered my big bag, little bag and bandbox and trudged off. I ventured to ask him had he not a car. "Sorra a car, miss. After all your sitting in the cars sure it will do you all the good in life to walk a bit." They think to flatter elderly women by calling them Miss individually.

I had an introduction to a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Castlebar. He was son to a gentleman who was kind enough to claim kindred with me in Antrim. When I alighted from the cars I noticed a sub-constable with quiet face taking note of all arrivals, and saw that he was good enough looking to be an Antrim man. Found I was right and entered Castlebar protected by a member of the force. Paid the victorious old heathen who had walked off with my luggage the price of a car, partly for his bravery and partly for his impudence. The approach to Castlebar from the station, about a mile, is bounded on one side by Lord Lucan's demesne, shut in behind a high wall, over which the tall trees wave their arms at you. Another domain, Spencer Park, I think, is on the other side, and as it is only shut in by a hedge, one gets delicious peeps at it as one goes along.

Went, with my new acquaintance, who got leave and put on plain clothes for the occasion, to the small Presbyterian Church in Castlebar. There were about a dozen present. Presbyterianism does not, as a rule, flourish in Mayo, though there are a good many small congregations and many mission schools.

My friend of "the force" got leave of absence for a day and having got into plain clothes drove with me to Pontoon Bridge between Lough Conn and Lough Cullin. As we passed the poor-house he told me of the awful crush that took place round its doors, where the relief was served during the scarcity. The press and struggle of the hungry creatures were so dreadful that no serving could be attempted for some days. I could not help pitying the force standing in mud ankle-deep trying to beat back the frantic people, to make serving the relief possible. But, oh! the despair of the people who had to go and come again because the press was so great. It seemed to a civilian like me that the matter was badly planned and by heartless people, or two or even three places would have been appointed for the distribution of the relief and not send them home without. I often wonder if I am too tender-hearted, too easily moved. The want of feeling toward the very poor strikes me forcibly wherever I turn. I think that it was not so to such a perceptible degree before the poor-houses were built. I solemnly think the Poor Law system educates people into hardness of heart.

The road out from Castlebar was very beautiful but thinly populated. All gone to grass near the town, hardly any cottages at all. Our first visit was to Turlough where there is a round tower with an iron gate quite close to the ground. The other two which I had seen before at Devinish and at Killala had their doors about eleven feet from the ground. The top of this round tower was broken and it had been mended by the Government. There is a story among the peasantry to the effect that it never had been finished at all. They say it was the work of the celebrated _Gobhan saer_, an architect who seems to have had a hand in every ancient building almost. The finishing of the rounded top of this tower was done by an apprentice who was likely to rival his great master. He, in a sudden fit of jealousy, before it was quite finished pulled away the scaffolding and the too clever apprentice was killed.

There is a ruined abbey adjoining the round tower. It is roofless and open, yet still an iron gate opens from one part to another. Here in this abbey has been the burying-place of many of the sept of the Fitzgeralds, and it was interesting to pass from tablet to tablet and read of the greatness that had returned to dust. The most remarkable dust which moulders here is the celebrated George Robert Fitzgerald, a man who was handsome, well educated, who had spent much of his time at the French Court. In Ireland he felt himself as absolute as King Louis (le petit grand). In pursuance of a private feud he arrested his enemy, and with a slight color of law murdered him. The act was too glaring, he was tried and to his great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this man in the country side.

Continued our drive to Pontoon. As soon as the land became rugged, boggy and comparatively worthless the tenant houses became more plentiful. Saw some sheep about, which is always a cheering sign amid the utter poverty of the people. On the way to Pontoon, on the top of a rock stands one of the famous rocking stones of the Druidical time in Ireland. A party of soldiers in their boisterous play determined to roll it down from the rock. This they were unable to do, easy as the matter looked, but they destroyed the delicate poise of it, and it rocks no more.

The rocks become bolder and the scenery wilder as you come to the shores of Lough Conn. Lough Cullen, or lower Lough Conn, has bare round- shouldered rocks sleeping round it, reminding one of the rocks on the Ottawa about the Oiseau. The Neiphin Mountain towers up among the rocks far above them all, looking over their heads into the lake. Lough Conn is three miles long, and in its widest place three miles wide. Where the upper and lower lakes meet it is narrow as a river, and over this the bridge is placed. The marvel here is that a strong current sets in from Lough Conn to Lough Cullen half the time, and then turns and sets from Lough Cullen to Lough Conn. The bridge is called Pontoon because a bridge of boats was made here at the time of the French invasion.

Saw some fishermen fishing in the lakes. There were many boats here and there lying on the sandy shore, or anchored out in the lake. These fishermen had no boats; they had waded out waist-deep, and stood fishing in the water dressed in their shirts. As the fishing is strictly monopolized, I should not wonder if these breekless, boatless fishermen were poaching.

The quantum of fish in the waters, the scarcity of fish on the shore is often referred to as a proof of the people's laziness. The fishing is so severely monopolized that fish diet and fishing are to the people almost lost arts. I heard of the delicious oysters found on the coast, but one would require to go to England or Dublin to test their flavor. Lobsters could be purchased in their season at Montreal, but not at the seaports in Mayo. I asked for a bit of fish at Castlebar, where I remained some time, and once succeeded in buying a small herring, for which I paid 2 1/2 pence.

To return to Pontoon; we stood on the bridge in the sunlight and drank in the scene--broad blue waters, spotted with islands, guarded by the munitions of rocks, watched over by the eternal mountains, bald and wrinkled, every wrinkle scored deep on their brows, heather on the cliffs, ivy creeping some places, ferns waving their delicate fronds in another; bare, desolate grandeur here, tree-crowned hill tops waving their magnificence before you there. This was the scene spread out on either hand.

We came back over the bridge to the police barracks, sitting on a rock with its back to a grove of trees, and reached by a flight of stone steps. I was introduced to the sergeant in charge, a fine specimen of the Donegal men. Tall and straight, strong and kindly are the men of Donegal. The sergeant took us to a hill back of the barracks where was a very lonely vale surrounded by steep hills wooded to the top. Down the perpendicular sides of this hill a waterfall dashes in the rainy seasons, but it was only a tinkling splash at this time. The sergeant and I had some conversation about Donegal, and of course Lord Leitrim. This noblemen has graven his name with an iron pen and lead on the rocks for ever.

We bade adieu to the kindly sergeant and drove back to Castlebar in the quiet evening. Opposite the Turlough round tower is the charming residence of a Fitzgerald, one of the race whose dust moulders in an aristocratic manner in the ruined abbey of Turlough. This gentleman, not thinking himself safe even under protection, has left the country. Only fancy a squad of police marching from their barracks in the dusk, five or ten miles as the case may be, pacing round a gentleman's house in rain or snow, sleet or hail, no shelter for their coercion heads, no fire at which to warm their protecting fingers; pace about from dusk till dawning, march back to barracks and to a few hours' rest. I was silly enough to suppose that the protected family would provide a bowl of hot coffee for their protectors through the silent watches of the night, or a glass of the handier and very popular whiskey, but dear, oh no! the most of them would not acknowledge the existence of the Royal Irish protectors with a word or a nod no more than if they were watch dogs.

XXXVII.

CASTLEBAR--WASTING THE LAND--CASTLE BOURKE--BALLINTUBBER ABBEY.

Castlebar is not a large town at all. It is, like all other towns which I have yet seen in Ireland, swarming with houses licensed to sell liquors of different kinds to be drunk on the premises. In one street I noticed on the side of the car on which I sat every house for quite a little distance was a licensed whiskey shop.

The country people bring in ass-loads of what they have to sell. Very few horses are to be seen in the hands of country people. Their trading is on a decidedly small scale. The number of women who attend market barefoot is the large majority. The ancient blue cloth cloak is the prevailing hap. Upon a day my friend and I went out to see the glories of Ballintubber Abbey. It was not possible for him to go in plain clothes so soon again; so I had the appearance of an obnoxious lady of the land, protected by a member of the force.

We drove out of Castlebar some seven or eight miles in the opposite direction from where Pontoon Bridge lies. Our road lay for miles through the country wasted of inhabitants by the Marquis of Sligo after the great famine. Here and there a ruin where a cabin has been speaks that it was once inhabited. The people tell that Lord Sligo's people were rented the land in common by the settlement. All but two of one settlement had paid; as those two could not pay, the whole were evicted. My informant thought the settlement deserved eviction when they did not subscribe and pay for the two who could not pay. He never seemed to think they might not be able to do so, nor that it was cruel to evict all for the sake of two.

Lord Lucan made a great wasting also at that time. Between the land near the town devoted to private demesnes, laid out for glory and beauty, and the lands wasted of inhabitants, you can travel miles and miles on more than one side of Castlebar and see scarcely a tenant; a herd's cabin, a police station, being the only houses. As soon as we come to barren land over-run with stones, tenant houses become thicker.

We passed a cabin of indescribable wretchedness; a woman who might have sat for a picture of famine stood at the door looking at us as we passed. She had a number of little children, of the raggedest they were, around her. Some time ago the father of these scarecrows was suspected of having stolen some money, and a posse of the much enduring police were sent out to search in the dead of the night. The family were in bed. The bed was a few boards laid on stones, on which was spread a little green hay, and among the loose hay they slept. The terror of the little creatures pulled out of bed, while the wretched lair was searched and they stood on the floor naked and shivering, was described to me by one who assisted at the search. The bed was overturned, but the money was not found. We drove on through the "stony streak" out to a clearer grass country to Castle Bourke, a lonely looking ruin sitting among her own desolations. It once covered a great deal of land, and there is evidence of additions having been made to it at different times. This Castle Bourke was one of the castles of the Queen of the West, the celebrated Grace O'Malley. This castle is one of those given to Grace by her husband of a year, Sir Richard Bourke.

There are still the remains of three buildings; one, said to be the prison, was loopholed through the solid stone, some loopholes being quite close to the ground, some straight through, some slanting, so as to cover a man come from what direction he might, or what height soever, even if he crept on the ground. Most of the castle, as well as these buildings attached, had their roof on the floor, but in the square tower of the castle proper still remains a stone staircase of the circular kind.

As you go up this stair lit by narrow slits in the wall formed in hewn stone you find an arched door at three different places admitting to three arched galleries roofed and floored with stone. These have their loophole slits to peep out of, or fire out of, stone spouts through which molten lead or boiling water could be poured on the besiegers. In one gallery a trap door let down to an underground passage which came out at the lake some distance off. By this they could send a messenger to raise the O'Malley clans, or by it could escape if necessary.

The goats of Mayo are inquisitive, and would persist in climbing the circular stair and exploring the galleries. Whenever they found this secret passage, for pure mischief they fell down and were killed, to the great loss of their owners; so the secret passage is filled up, for which I was very sorry.

We must take our car again and rattle back over the road to Ballintubber Abbey. Ballintobar (town of the well) near this was one of the sacred wells of St. Patrick. The abbey gates were locked, and it was some time before the key was forthcoming. The church part of the abbey is entire except the roof and the lofty bell tower. The arch that supported the tower was forty-five feet in height, but I do not know how high the tower was which it supported. At last the key was found and we were admitted into the church. The chancel is still roofed, and here in these solemn ruins, watched over by the crows and the jackdaws, the few inhabitants still left assemble for mass. There is a rude wooden altar and a few pine benches; the ivy waves from the walls; the jackdaws caw querulously or derisively; the dead of the old race for centuries sleep underneath, and now in a chancel the remnant gather on a Sabbath. I cannot describe it as an architect or antiquarian, and these classes know all about it better than I do, but I want to convey as far as I can the impression it made upon me to others as delightfully ignorant on the subject. The roof is made in the same way as all arched roofs of old castles which I have yet seen, of thin stones laid edge-wise to form the arch and cemented together. The country people tell me that a frame of wood was made over which they formed the arch and then poured among the stones thin mortar boiling hot. On the inside of the arch run along ribs of hewn stone cemented into their places, running up to meet in a carved point at the extreme top. These groinings spring from short pillars of hewn stone that only reach part way down the wall to the floor and run to a point. These consoles are highly ornamented with sculpture. The mouldings round the doors, and the stone window frames and sashes, are wonderfully well done, and would highly ornament a church of the nineteenth century.

I think we undervalue the civilization of the far past of Connaught. Those who erected such churches, such abbeys and such castles were both intelligent and possessed of wealth in no small degree. The ingenuity of the cut stone hinge on the stone that closes the tomb in the chancel, the carving on the tomb of the Prince of the O'Connor line, the staunch solidness of every wall, the immense strength of every arched roof, show skilled builders, whether they worked under the direction, of the Gobhan Saer or another man. The plans of the castles, for offence, defence or escape, show them to have been built by men of skill for men of large means and great power.

XXXVIII.

OVER-POPULATION OF THE WEST--HOW PEOPLE FORM THEIR OPINIONS--MR. SMITHWICK AND JONATHAN PYM--A DEARTH OF FISH.

Left Castlebar with regret and went down to Westport. I find at every step since I landed the information that in going round Ireland I should have begun at Dublin. In Dublin I could have procured a guide book. I have sought for one in every considerable town from Belfast round to the edge of Galway without obtaining it. If I had started from Dublin I should have taken a tourist's ticket there. Well, I am not sorry for that, for it is rather hard on me when I get into the beaten track where I encounter tourists--some of them are trying specimens of humanity. However, I am made to feel as if I was patting the wrong foot, instead of the best foot foremost.

I got into Westport in the fair sunlight in the early part of June. Between Castlebar and Westport the land is part stony, part bog, part better land under grass. Mountains with hard names, that one makes haste to forget, are to be seen all round from whatever side of the car you look. They are all over--a good deal over--one thousand feet high. A few lakes are spread out here and there also. I am as ignorant of their names as of those of the lakes I saw crossing Maine. Westport, like Castlebar, has a mall. Castlebar mall is a square of grass with some trees drawn up on one side. It is fenced in with chains looped up on posts--a fence that nobody minds except to step over and they track the grass with paths running in every direction. Westport's mall is a long space with trees standing sentry by a river, walled in as if it were a canal.

I had a wish to meet with a Mr. Smithwick, a land agent, from whom I might receive a good deal of information. I had information from himself that he should be at Newport upon the day after I arrived at Westport. I fought successfully against myself, and got up at an uncomfortably early hour and went to Newport by mail car. Newport, Mayo, is six Irish--seven and a half English--miles from Westport and is at the head of Clew Bay. The road lies through a nice rolling country, entirely desolate and empty.

The only passenger by the car besides myself, was a gentleman, English I presume, who, after he became tired of silence, began a conversation with me, taking for his subject the over-population of the West. I looked to the side of the car where we sat--it was a country of fine grassy hills with not one wreath of smoke curling up from a solitary chimney as far as the eye could reach. I leaned over the well of the car and looked to the other side--to the limit of the horizon, behold, the land was empty of house or home or human being. I looked over the horses' ears--there was the same scene of utter desolation. I turned round with difficulty and looked behind us--saw the same grassy hills swelling up in green silence without man or beast. I said softly, "Lift up thine eyes, sir stranger, and look northward and southward, eastward and westward. Is not the land desolate without inhabitant, where then is the over-population?" The strange gentleman looked, not at the empty hills and the silent green valleys, but at his fellow-traveller with emotions of fear. To doubt that this fair and desolate Mayo is over- populated is to show signs of lunacy or worse. Fenianism, Communism, or even Nihilism, is possible if there is no lunacy to account for such strange ideas.

Mildly, but with resolution like Samantha's, I urged on the gentleman to look at the prospect, and he was like one awakening from a dream, for the country from Newport to Westport, seven and a half miles, is without inhabitants. I believe Lord Lucan was chief exterminator over this stretch of country. Brought up at the little inn at Newport, and the stranger and I had breakfast together. We conversed about over- population. He had travelled much, and when he recollected what his eyes saw instead of what his ears heard of a false cry, he admitted that a loneliness had fallen upon this part of the west.

After breakfast he went his way, with a new subject for thought, and I, deserted in a wilderness of a commercial room, took out some paper and began to write. There was no sound but the steel scratch of a pen that grew monotonous. After a long time--some hours--of solitude, the door opened and a gentleman entered with some luggage and a young woman followed him. I gathered up my scribblings and put them away. The gentleman took off his overcoat, and shining out of the breast pocket was a bright revolver. I grew afraid, though, generally speaking, I am too busy to think of being afraid. There was a trans-Atlantic look about the gentleman, a Mississippi appearance about the too conspicuous revolver, and, I admit, I thought of some Fenian leader and wondered what Stephens was like. I heard the gentleman order lunch and afterward he left the room.

When he returned he introduced himself as Mr. Smithwick. He was not at all the kind of gentleman I had expected to see. By some perversity he had become fixed in my imagination as a very tall gentleman with fair curled hair. Now this was sheer foolishness, but it had a disastrous effect on the interview. My mind, instead of gathering itself up into an attitude for receiving information about the land question, would go off wool-gathering in speculation whether this was the very Mr. Smithwick or not. The gentleman said with all politeness that he was willing to give me all the information in his power on any subject on which I wanted information.

There is something not canny in the west. I had felt it before, but never as I did then. I could not possibly disentangle my ideas enough to be clear as to what information I did want. I was under some spell. I could only look at Mr. Smithwick, wondering if he was he, and smile at my own stupidity. Time passes quickly; the gentleman remained but about an hour and a half at most, and he had to have luncheon out of that and attend to some little business in town besides. Before I got to be myself he was gone. We did talk a little about reclaiming bog land. He put the cost per acre for trenching, laying stones in the drains, sand and manure, at L21 per acre. Reclaiming bog land has been done by tenant farmers all over the country, who were evicted afterward when they fell behind in rent in the bad years, and did not get any compensation for the land so reclaimed. Mr. Smithwick did not think the relief money in all cases reached those for whom it was intended; believed it was partly intercepted on the way. Did not have a high opinion of his countrymen of the poorer class. Thought them a useless set who did not do the work of their farms properly; did not even make a drain properly if done for themselves; made it in a proper manner if made on another man's land, because there he was overseen, and if he slighted his work he would not get paid for it. In short, "Paddy anywhere but at home is a splendid man, but at home he is worthless."

Mr. Smithwick deplored the present agitation among the people; deplored it as an agitation got up, not for people's benefit, but to feather the nests and fill the pockets of agitators. He informed me that he himself had to carry a pistol wherever he went. In speaking of rents Mr. Smithwick informed me that the lands were really rented low; that the people could pay, and were quite able to pay, were it not for the advice of agitators; said he was getting no rent at all these years. The total cessation of rent coming in was a great deprivation to landlords, who depended on their rents for the means of living.