£be Catbolic library— 15 
 
 DOWN WEST 
 
 AND OTHER SKETCHES 
 
 OF IRISH LIFE 
 
ROBHAMPTON ; 
 PRINTED BY-JOHN GRIFFIN. 
 
DOWN WEST 
 
 AND OTHER SKETCHES 
 OF IRISH LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE DEASE 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 THE MANRESA PRESS, ROEHAMPTON, S.W. 
 B. HERDER, 68, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. 
 
 1914 
 
\ 
 
 mibil ©bstat ; 
 
 S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D. 
 
 CENSOR DEPUTATUS 
 
 imprimatur : 
 
 •J- PETRUS EPUS SOUTHWARC. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The authoress of the following interesting sketches 
 of the life of the Irish peasantry has asked me to 
 write a brief preface. I do so with pleasure, both 
 because I consider it much to be desired that 
 English people, both Catholic and Protestant, 
 should know the truth about the habits and customs 
 of the Irish poor, and because it is through such 
 life-sketches as these that this knowledge may be 
 gained. 
 
 In spite of the difference of language, there is un- 
 doubtedly greater affinity between the Irish and 
 the Italian peasant than between the Irish and 
 English of the same class ; hence it is difficult for 
 an ordinary Briton, even of the peasant rank, to 
 enter into the mind and feeling of his neighbouring 
 Irish brethren. English people usually consider 
 the Irish as sentimental, perhaps as unpractical 
 dreamers; and doubtless there is much of senti- 
 ment in the character of every Celt. On the other 
 hand there is far less of dead materialism in 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 Ireland than in England, far more respect for re- 
 ligion and religious observances. In Ireland, even 
 among non- Catholics, it is the exception rather than 
 the rule not to attend a place of worship; a man 
 who shirks this duty is a marked man. In England, 
 on the contrary, the majority are, I fear, if not 
 absolutely indifferent, certainly not church-goers. 
 Miss Dease's Irish sketches are true to the life, 
 and give evidence of that charm which comes so 
 forcibly home to the stranger who visits Ireland 
 for the first time and first comes into contact with 
 all classes of its people. The South and West are, 
 of course, pre-eminently remarkable for their cour- 
 tesy and refinement, and for their manner of ex- 
 pressing their mind; but even in the East and 
 North, where the mixture of races is greater, the 
 manners of the peasant are less uncouth than in 
 country districts in England. Generally speaking, 
 it is impossible not to recognize in the Irish peasant 
 one of nature's born gentlemen. Amusing and 
 suggestive reminiscences of what they have said 
 and done are to be found in the works of many 
 writers, but in Miss Dease's work there is greater 
 detail and greater originality than is usual, and 
 without any doubt she is intimately acquainted with 
 the subject she has taken in hand. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 And in matter of fact the true Irish character 
 can only be explained by a Catholic. Its depths 
 are so hidden from outsiders by the reticence and 
 reserve of our people that nothing but its superficial 
 aspect can ever be grasped by those of another 
 faith. For this reason most who have written for 
 English readers have been either misleading or mis- 
 understood. No matter how sympathetic they may 
 have been, they could not divine qualities and 
 ideals that have been systematically hidden from 
 their eyes by those whom they were trying to por- 
 tray. In so far as Miss Dease has lifted the veil, 
 in these very true and charming sketches, she will 
 have conferred a benefit on English and Irish alike. 
 
 Henry Bellingham. 
 
 Castle Bellingham, 
 Ireland. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DOWN WEST f 
 
 devil's money 14, 
 
 between the sandhills and the sea . . 3 1 
 
 a western island 48 
 
 a second-hand mission 62 
 
 the flower mister 75 
 
 a district derelict , 8 $ 
 
 the mearing fence ioo 
 
 vespers — and compline ho 
 
DOWN WEST. 
 
 In the wild tracts of country that lie to the north 
 and west of Galway, there are, in addition to huge 
 stretches of bog and mountain, numberless rocky 
 hillsides, some of which are bare and deserted, 
 whilst others have been cultivated in an almost in- 
 credible way, and white-walled houses stand in 
 such close proximity among their granite boulders 
 that they have earned for themselves the title of 
 congested districts. 
 
 The greater number of these lie near the sea, 
 and are so like each other that familiarity with one 
 gives a general knowledge of them all. 
 
 The country, backed in the distance by the 
 Twelve Pins of Connemara, though bare, wild and 
 stony, is curiously beautiful, for between its grey 
 walls the hillsides are vividly green, with purple- 
 red of sedge-willow, and creamy white of meadow- 
 sweet showing in patches upon it. 
 
 For a mile or more the ground rises gradually 
 
 from the sea, and as one looks up hill the whole 
 
 seems grey, for, to clear the land of stones, broad 
 
 walls have been crowded so closely on it that from 
 
 B 
 
2 DOWN WEST 
 
 below, the top of one often seems to overlap the 
 next, making the hillside appear as though covered 
 with the ruins of a city. From the rising ground 
 these apparent ruins show in their true light, and 
 tiny fields are disclosed. They are wonderfully 
 fertile, every yard of ground being utilized and 
 carefully tended by its owners, who work patiently, 
 early and late, supplementing their limited supply 
 of farmyard manure with much seaweed. Pota- 
 toes and cabbages grow near all the houses, a few 
 rows of turnips edge the patches of corn, whilst 
 strips of beet and mangolds show that the little, 
 skinny cows have more for winter keep than their 
 appearance would lead one to suppose. Number- 
 less streams trickle seaward, from the upland bog, 
 with willows growing in their beds, from which 
 creels for turf and baskets for potatoes are made. 
 
 The sea itself, at first a silver ribbon between the 
 foreground and the coast of Clare, widens out to 
 where a purple haze hangs over the cliffs of Moher. 
 When trie sun shines on the rocks, the quartz in 
 them glints like diamonds against the grey, but at 
 nightfall, when it sinks through flaming clouds to 
 the horizon, a bluish mist creeps up and shrouds 
 the shore like a mantle, with reflected lights upon 
 it from the sparkling waters of the bay. 
 
 Inland the country is more level, brown and 
 boggy, with red and white figures working amongst 
 
DOWN WEST 3 
 
 the turf. The men are clad in white suits, loosely 
 made of coarse, white homespun. The women wear 
 crimson flannel petticoats, with bright-patterned 
 kerchiefs round their throats, whilst a second petti- 
 coat is drawn over the head to the shoulders when 
 an extra wrap is needed. The crimson of these 
 flannel garments makes spots of vivid colour, a 
 typical note in the grey of the landscape. 
 
 In some of the congested districts the houses 
 are certainly crowded together, yet each one stands 
 on its own piece of ground, with a potato garden 
 round about it ; other groups of houses form ham- 
 lets, skirting the roads more or less irregularly, 
 whilst a few, boasting the possession of a mud- 
 walled chapel, are dignified by the name of 
 villages. 
 
 In one of these villages, which is a good speci- 
 men of the general type, the houses are tidily 
 thatched, with roofs well secured by straw ropes 
 against the storms of winter ; their walls are spot- 
 less with whitewash, for lime is cheap, and typhus 
 never far away. There is not the vaguest attempt 
 at order in the laying out of these villages, and 
 though some of the houses are larger than others, 
 they are mostly built on the same plan. As to 
 the place that each one occupies, it must have been 
 determined by the way the wind was blowing on 
 the day its foundations were laid. 
 
4 DOWN WEST 
 
 The chapel stands parallel to the road. The 
 dwellings show their gables or their backs to pas- 
 sers-by, or possibly a part of each with a corner 
 abutting on the highway. They all possess two 
 doors, so that the one standing to the side where 
 the wind blows can be kept shut; for all win- 
 dow the older houses have is a single pane let into 
 the mud of the walls. There are three exceptions 
 to the general rule of architecture : the chapel, of 
 course, and two beehive dwellings, relics of very 
 ancient times, which lie hidden away amongst their 
 neighbours. One-roomed, and almost round, these 
 beehive dwellings are quite windowless, with cone- 
 shaped roofs, tightly bound to the inside edge of 
 the walls. 
 
 Dan O'Malley lives in one of these dwellings. 
 He is very old, claiming himself to be over a hun- 
 dred, or at any rate, " divil a much less "; yet he 
 can still take such care of his garden and his live- 
 stock that his pig Is universally spoken of as the 
 finest in the parish. 
 
 " An' why wouldn't he?" says Dan. " Hasn't he 
 every convenience a pig could ask?" 
 
 Dan is the only man who still makes use of the 
 old Irish prayer that once was universally used 
 when passing the chapel. 
 " Jesus Who bought us ! 
 Jesus Who taught us! 
 
DOWN WEST 5 
 
 Do not forget us, now, nor at the hour of 
 our death." 
 
 According to custom, the chapel stands with 
 locked doors from Monday to Saturday. As a rule 
 customs die hard in the West, but the death of this 
 one would be gladly welcomed, though other re- 
 forms are stubbornly resisted. 
 
 In that very chapel, the Bishop's order forbid- 
 ding drink at wakes, was received with groans of 
 disapproval, one shawled figure declaring audibly 
 that she thanked God her Mick was " dead and 
 buried dacent." 
 
 But to go back to the beehive dwellings. 
 
 The second also houses a solitary inmate, a 
 widow woman whose husband had — considerately — 
 died when comparatively young. 
 
 Dinny, locally known as " The Trick," had not 
 been a popular person, in fact he was generally 
 disliked, except perhaps by Mrs. Dinny. Long 
 ago, with the appalling indiscretion of childhood, 
 we had questioned her on this point. 
 
 " Like him is it?" she had replied; " Musha, 
 agra why wouldn't I like him? Isn't he me 
 husband?" 
 
 Dinny's ill-treatment of his donkey had been the 
 primary reason for our addressing her that day, 
 but it seemed as though our appeal was to be 
 useless. 
 
6 DOWN WEST 
 
 " I'm wore speakin' of it to him," she assured 
 us. " An' mustn't he be the wicked man to ill- 
 treat the blessed beast an' she wearin' the mark of 
 the cross upon her shoulders?" 
 
 Going home we met " The Trick " belabouring 
 his donkey as usual. This time, he explained, it 
 was to make her get out of our way. " 'Tis the 
 contrary beast she is," he remarked; " for not con- 
 tent with half of the road to herself she must needs 
 take one third." 
 
 In spite of his unpopularity Dinny had managed 
 to become a district councillor, and the prominence 
 that this brought to him in death was a great com- 
 fort to Mrs. Dinny. 
 
 " I can't complain," she said, " when God took 
 him, he who got his funeral so comfortable an' so 
 nice, and then the great character they gave him on 
 the paper." 
 
 Now that she is alone, the widow often gives the 
 shelter of her beehive roof to travelling women, 
 poor creatures, who with no homes of their own, 
 get a living for God's sake from those who are but 
 little less poor than themselves. 
 
 There was one who came regularly to the bee- 
 hive dwelling, and it used to be our joy to listen 
 to her prayers as she knelt before the altar in her 
 rags when Mass was over and she thought herself 
 alone. 
 
DOWN WEST 7 
 
 "Me poor Friend, Lord Jesus!" With these 
 words her weekly prayers began. " You've always 
 been the good Friend to me. You've never let 
 go Your hold on me, an' You've never let me want 
 for nothing." 
 
 One Easter time this wandering woman fell sick 
 at Mrs. Dinny's, and daily gifts of the milk and 
 soup, which was all she could take, were gratefully 
 received. Only in Holy Week were these offer- 
 ings refused, and on Good Friday nothing but 
 water passed the invalid's lips. 
 
 " Is it satiate and inebriate me poor carcase," 
 she said reproachfully, " on the day that me God 
 hung on Calvary's cross for me sins?" 
 
 Life in a congested district is so little influenced 
 by contact with the outer world that it would not be 
 surprising to find a smallness of mind, a likeness 
 to each other in the people, yet this is not the case ; 
 their individuality is one of their attractions and 
 the philosophy of their outlook is often amazing. 
 
 It is seldom that a migration takes place in these 
 parts, for those who have land cling to it tenaci- 
 ously, whilst those who have none go, not to some 
 neighbouring parish, but to Scotland or America. 
 Phelim Counihan was an exception to this rule, he 
 was a gamekeeper by profession, a sportsman by 
 instinct, and a farmer only because his father be- 
 fore him had cultivated the land. 
 
8 DOWN WEST 
 
 The house he had inhabited in our parish was 
 not his own, and we missed his quaint, wise sayings 
 when he went away to live in the mountains beyond 
 Currusmaun, taking with him a promise that we 
 would visit him in his new home. 
 
 The road runs straight inland for nearly three 
 miles, sloping gradually up from the shore, and 
 changing from sandy yellow near the sea to a 
 creamy grey in the uplands with patches on it, 
 white and pink, where the local marbles have been 
 broken and used for mending purposes. 
 
 Then the ground rises suddenly, and the fields 
 look vividly green after the dull browns of the 
 wind-swept low lands. 
 
 Cutty's Gulch is not unlike a bit of Switzerland 
 cut away from its mountains. Hills rise abruptly, 
 and a turn in the road enables them to block out all 
 view of the sea. The road is grey, stained here and 
 there where streamlets trickle across it. Huge 
 clumps of osmunda fern clothe the cliffs that over- 
 hang the way, and maidenhair and dark shining 
 hartstongue grow in the crevices. 
 
 A trout stream runs along the valley, and beyond 
 it there are cottages with cultivated patches round 
 them, whilst higher again, the mountain is given 
 over to the cattle and small sheep which pick up 
 a living on the grass and herbs that grow there, 
 in spite of rocks and bracken and spreading 
 heather. 
 
DOWN WEST 9 
 
 At the head of the gulch the Swiss scene ends, 
 and as the road still mounts the incline, one be- 
 comes aware of a wide, flat space that, until 
 reached, seems to stretch away to the horizon. It 
 is a great circular bog with green edges of streams 
 marked upon its brown surface. 
 
 Here again the willow weed grows rankly, and 
 its purple tints, the pink of giant bell heather, and 
 the brilliant yellow of the golden rod, brighten the 
 rather sombre scene. 
 
 In front, though far away, the mountains rise, 
 one behind the other, in varied coloured tiers, till 
 they lose themselves in clouds, and over all is that 
 shimmer like mother of pearl, that is only seen in 
 Connemara, atmospheric yet impossible without the 
 varied purples, greens and yellows of the fore- 
 ground and the grey of the granite on the hills fur- 
 ther away. 
 
 The Counihans' new home lay on the lower 
 slopes of these mountains, and climbing, we paused 
 to look down on the bog we had lately crossed. 
 It seemed much greener from above, with only here 
 and there a dash of brown, for the yellow grasses of 
 autumn had not yet begun to turn their colour, and 
 in the distance we caught a glimpse of the sea, with 
 a grey haze hanging over it, and creeping land- 
 wards. 
 
 We found Mrs. Counihan up to the elbows in 
 
io DOWN WEST 
 
 flour and buttermilk, with the pot oven heating in 
 a bed of turf under the hearth. 
 
 " Who is it I have? Glory be to God, dear and 
 darlin' ! an' how's every bit of you?" 
 
 There were many inquiries to be made about her- 
 self and her health, which in spite of appearances, 
 we were given to understand was not good. 
 
 " I'm gone," she assured us, " gone to nothin', 
 for didn't the poor stomach go leave me at the 
 Chrisemas an' me never the better of it since." 
 
 Phelim was as usual out on the mountain, but he 
 had seen us arriving, and as we turned to go we met 
 him coming towards us. His long, solitary tramps 
 gave him time for thought, and he now gave us 
 his opinion of his late employer, whose extrava- 
 gance had led to utter disaster. 
 
 11 Tis a good few years now since he commenced 
 comin' to this country," said Phelim, " an' I known 
 him well, none better. I've walked the bogs with 
 him, an' I fished the streams with him, an' I never 
 known him but civil and decent. If only he'd had 
 sense — but there, it was pride that had him bet. 
 The best wasn't good enough for him, an' that's 
 foolishness, for where's the use of bein' proud, 
 when there's One above who can humble the 
 highest? I mind one evening he sent for me to the 
 dinner table an' had me there, discoursin' as pleas- 
 ant as you please. But to see the weight of what 
 
DOWN WEST ii 
 
 them gentlemen eat! 'Twould terrify a savage." 
 
 I don't know if it was that evening or another 
 he had watched some dancing at the Lodge, very 
 unlike the rhythmic Connaught jigs to which he 
 was accustomed. 
 
 " Miss Mollie was that limber," he told us. 
 " She'd pick your pocket with her foot, an' she 
 without as much on the two shoulders as you'd take 
 to dust a fiddle." 
 
 He spoke of his work, of the prospects for the 
 coming season. 
 
 " If the weather keeps good, we'll have plenty, 
 please God, but there's a sea mist creepin' in to- 
 night that's bad. A week of that an' every gar-- 
 den'll be blighted." 
 
 * We expressed a hope that it would rise when 
 the sun had set, and that the whole summer might 
 be fine. 
 
 " You're wrong then," he corrected us; " for the 
 way God Almighty has it fixed is best, after. If 
 the weather was always fine the people would go 
 ahead an' never a thought for Him, but now isn't 
 there fifty ' Please Gods ' for to-morrow, when 
 there's barely the one ' Thank God ' for to-day." 
 
 We admired his sentiments and told him he was 
 lucky to be contented. 
 
 " The man who is content," he replied, " has 
 everything the world can give. I never was one 
 
12 DOWN WEST 
 
 to worry. I don't like it. It doesn't agree with 
 me. 
 
 We referred to the prayers ordered by the 
 Bishop for fine weather, but these did not meet 
 with the philosopher's approval. 
 
 " I was never one to worrit God Almighty," he 
 said. " He knows the best, an' can't we trust Him? 
 Never did I know Him to spill a drop more nor He 
 can dry." 
 
 Going down the hill with us he inquired how 
 we had come, and hearing we had ridden our bi- 
 cycles, he gave us his opinion upon them. 
 
 " I'd sooner see you on the back of a good horse 
 any day," he said. " Useful? I don't say but 
 they're useful enough to go fetch the priest or the 
 doctor, or suchlike, but my opinion is they'll end 
 by having the country destroyed. Do you think 
 there's a girl in the barony who could darn your 
 stockings for you? Believe me, not one. But ask 
 her to patch her own bicycle! That's another 
 matter." 
 
 Leaving the mountains, we recrossed the bog, 
 and reaching again the head of the valley we 
 paused, at the turn of the road, to look over bog 
 and lake and lower hills, over rocks and houses, 
 to the crimson glow of the sun, before it fell into 
 the Atlantic, which now, a wide glimmering stretch, 
 formed the horizon. 
 
DOWN WEST 13 
 
 " The man who is content," we repeated softly, 
 " has everything the world can give." 
 
 And who is there in all the world who would 
 not be content during the short, lovely, change- 
 able moments of a sunset down West? 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY. 
 
 Shane McGarragher and his wife stood together 
 at the kitchen door, she in the fawn shawl and vel- 
 vet-banded petticoat that denoted Sunday, he in 
 his workday suit of mottled bainin. 
 
 " Tis full early yet for you to be goin'," he 
 said, looking down at her, but she answered with- 
 out raising her eyes. 
 
 11 It is so, but then it is mission- time." 
 
 Her face, under the soft frills of her white cap 
 was drawn and lined, but neither age nor illness 
 were written upon it. Unlike her neighbours Mrs. 
 McGarragher had never been obliged to fight with 
 want and hardship, but unlike them too, a cross 
 heavier than poverty had lain upon her many a 
 year. 
 
 Her husband looked at her once again sharply, 
 then turned away his head. He had staked every- 
 thing, everything to his very soul, to win and make 
 her happy, and one glance at her face was enough 
 to proclaim to all the world the measure of his 
 success. 
 
 There were moments like the present when he 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 15 
 
 would have given all he possessed to see an an- 
 swering smile on the lips he had loved for nigh 
 on thirty years, and yet the joy of his possessions 
 was the only joy that life still held for him. 
 
 He watched her for a moment as she went from 
 him down the stony path, his eyes fixed mechani- 
 cally on the hand that held her prayer-book, till 
 the clean kerchief folded about it was only a speck 
 of white against the crimson of her skirt. Then, 
 whilst she still went downwards, he turned and 
 climbed the mountain-side. 
 
 There, unseen from below, he could look not 
 only on to his own thriving possessions, but into 
 the valley, where on a road that wound like a rib- 
 bon through the green, the rest of the parish were 
 wending their way to church. His eyes followed 
 the figure of his wife, solitary not only on the hill- 
 side, but even after she had reached the road. He 
 noted, with hands and teeth clenched in fierce 
 impotence, how the others passed her by, some with 
 scarcely a greeting, none with more than the barest 
 " God save ye." And yet he knew as well as if he 
 had heard them speaking, that at sight of her, two 
 other words had come to them, and under their 
 breath they had murmured, "Devil's money." 
 
 Looking away from the church-going stream, 
 sharply, as just now he had turned from his wife, 
 he fixed his eyes resolutely on his crops. The 
 
16 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 potatoes, whose stalks grew tall and green and 
 healthy, gave promise of the crop that lay under 
 the soil, ripening for a rich harvest. 
 
 •There was no taint of blight here : it was a sight 
 to do good to the heart of any farmer. Yet as 
 Shane McGarragher looked, the wind came whis- 
 pering through the plants, and the sounds that it 
 bore to his ears formed once again those two hate- 
 ful words, " Devil's money." 
 
 Far below, too far for any whispering voice to 
 reach him, lay the cornfield that was the pride of 
 his heart. The ears were already heavy with grain, 
 soft still, and of the tender grey green that must 
 harden and darken before the gold comes. 
 
 For a full minute the watcher forgot everything 
 in calculating how many bags of grain that field 
 would yield. Then from its edges, where wild 
 flowers grew amongst the tangled grasses of the 
 headland, a bird soared up, a lark who sang as it 
 flew, and whose joyous notes trilled and rippled 
 as it rose higher and higher into the deep blue of 
 the sky. 
 
 "Devil's money," it sang; "devil's, devil's, devil's 
 money." 
 
 With a curse McGarragher turned to the moun- 
 tain: there, where sweet short herbage showed in 
 green patches amongst the heather, some of his 
 cattle were lying in the sun, fine healthy beasts, 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 17 
 
 whose glossy black coats told of care in the breed- 
 ing as well as in the feeding of them. 
 
 Further off a group of ponies showed that their 
 owner was a man who could afford to keep a good 
 beast till it came to its full value. There had been 
 no forced sales of promising foals in this lot. Then, 
 for no reason, they started off at a gallop, manes 
 and tails streaming, chasing each other past the 
 sleepy cows, and hunting before them the little 
 calves, who joined in the frolic with awkward gam- 
 bols and uncouth lowings; and the beating hoofs 
 and the lowing voices, wafting back to the watcher 
 by the rock, spoke yet again the selfsame words, 
 11 Devil's money, devil's money." 
 
 As the ponies' footfall died away, another sound 
 made itself heard. Looking down, McGarragher 
 saw a tall figure clad in brown toiling upwards. 
 He understood who it was before his eye told him 
 what his instinct already knew — this brown figure 
 was about his Master's business. 
 
 From his hiding place Shane could see him 
 throw back his cowl and wipe his brow, for the 
 sun was fierce on the stony path. He could hear 
 Rory's low growl turn to a furious barking as a 
 strange hand moved the latch of the kitchen door. 
 He could almost have laughed to himself, so safe 
 did he feel in his place of vantage, till, with a 
 long look all about, around and below him, the 
 Friar started to mount higher still. 
 C 
 
18 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 With sudden, unreasoning panic McGarragher 
 felt that he could not meet and resist this Friar. 
 There was no reason why he should not refuse to 
 heed him, just as he had refused to listen to other 
 priests, but something told him that to-day it must 
 be flight or else capitulation. 
 
 After all these years must he give up his secret 
 at last? From below he was securely hidden, but 
 anyone coming up the path would see him plainly, 
 and there was no other place of hiding at hand, only 
 at his feet the potatoes grew tall and thick and 
 laden with heavy foliage. Between each ridge of 
 them, dug by his own hands, there was a deep, 
 black furrow. He fell on his knees, and dragged 
 himself into shelter, and as he felt the earthy walls 
 at either side of him, he remembered death, and 
 the time when every man must be laid in just such 
 a bed as this. 
 
 The sandalled feet fell lightly on the soft turf, 
 and it was only the swish, swish of the brown serge 
 habit against the potato plants that told of the com- 
 ing of the Friar. When he reached the rock where 
 Shane had been standing, he too stood, as the other 
 had done: so also did he look down on the scene 
 below him. Nearest of all was the trim home- 
 stead he had just visited. Everything about it 
 spoke of the same prosperity that the fields above 
 it showed. Beyond the rich cornfields there was 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 19 
 
 another house — a medley of falling walls, of prop- 
 ping posts and rotting roofs, showing green and 
 brown and every colour except the clear rich gold of 
 freshly laid-on straw. Further off were other dwel- 
 lings, none so trim as the first, none so wretched 
 as the last, and furthest of all, where the valley 
 widened out and the road divided in two, a ring 
 of brown rock, a circular stretch of sand, marked 
 the head of a little bay, an offshoot of the wide, 
 glistening sea that stretched out and out and away, 
 till at last it rose to the far horizon. 
 
 The Friar gazed around him leisurely and long. 
 It was a scene of peace and beauty, yet he sighed. 
 The thought of a soul that shunned and neglected 
 God in the midst of such surroundings was a blot 
 upon the landscape. And where was the man who 
 owned this soul? His wife had said that he would 
 surely be in one or other of his fields. Perhaps 
 he had gone up the mountain and might yet return. 
 The Friar opened his breviary and laid it on the 
 rock before him. 
 
 So thick were the plants that light came dimly 
 through, but the sun, coming out from behind a 
 cloud that had drifted across it for a moment, sent 
 a long slanting shaft between the stalks. Outside, 
 where there was no shade, it played upon some- 
 thing — a human foot, the foot of a strong young 
 man, bare except for the strap of leather that lay 
 
20 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 across the instep from sole to sole of the sandal. 
 Its owner was a young man, strong of limb, well 
 educated, a priest. And he thought — he knew — 
 that God was worth the choice he had made. The 
 Office was only half said when something impelled 
 the reader to turn his head. There, close beside 
 him, so close that by merely stretching out his arm 
 he could have touched the upturned face, was the 
 head of a man. His body was crouched amongst 
 the furrows. One hand held apart the plants that 
 would otherwise have kept his secret. 
 
 For one second their eyes met, the priest's and 
 the fugitive's. A moment later Shane McGar- 
 ragher was on his knees, the plants all crushed and 
 broken around him, his face hid closely against 
 the rough, harsh serge of his companion's habit. 
 
 Early as his mother was in starting for the mis- 
 sion, Johneen had been earlier still. When he 
 came to an angle wall of the ruined outhouses that 
 sheltered the crumbling dwelling which was next 
 their own, he turned off the path, and standing 
 where no passer-by could see him, he called gently 
 " Ailes," and again, " Ailes." 
 
 No further repetition was needed, for at the 
 second sounding of her name, a girl came quickly 
 to the door of the hovel. From the crown of her 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 21 
 
 glossy head down to her bare, brown feet, she was 
 spotlessly neat and clean. Hopeless poverty had 
 made the outside of her dwelling what it was, but 
 inside, despite its bareness, there were more signs 
 of cleanliness and care than could be found in half 
 the kitchens of the parish. 
 
 11 I'm not comin' the day, avick," she said, go- 
 ing over to Johneen, and speaking low. " Oh, he's 
 terrible bad on me. J doubt but he'll be gone 
 by sundown." And the tears sprang into her eyes 
 at the thought of her father's flickering life. " But 
 shouldn't I be the happy girl after he had the mis- 
 sioner, and since ever then, he's that contented, only 
 waitin' on the will o' God to go. Johneen avick, 
 you well know the bad hate he had to your father." 
 Johneen nodded. That there had been something 
 between the dying man and his father he had 
 known for years, and lately, since the girl 
 Ailes had grown up, he had guessed that the hate 
 was not onesided. 
 
 " Well then, 'tis gone." There were mingled 
 notes of sorrow and of gladness in the girl's rich 
 voice. Sorrow for her coming loneliness, gladness 
 at so peaceful an end to the poor, wasted, ill-spent 
 life. 
 
 " What matter now, agrah," says he to me. 
 " Rich or poor, musn't we all come to be the same 
 before God's judgment? Him an' me, one and 
 
22 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 t'other. Tis for the sins of us, and not the cattle 
 or the crops that God Almighty will be askin' 
 then." 
 
 " If that's so," said Johneen, " he'll not be 
 troublin' that 'tis me as will be mindin' you, an' 
 him gone?" 
 
 The girl looked up in quick surprise. 
 
 " But your father, avick?" she questioned. 
 
 " Look to here, astore." Johneen pulled a 
 steamship envelope from under his jersey. " I've 
 worked these years for my father, but I'm a 
 man now, an' 'tis you as needs me most. I've 
 two tickets here, one for you an' one for me. 
 There's many another who has made his fortune 
 over the water, with no more than the work of his 
 
 two hands at the start. When — when ." He 
 
 looked towards the door of the cabin where Andy 
 Leary lay dying. " We'll get married, please God. 
 I'll make you a home in America better even than 
 what my father would forbid me bringing you to 
 here." 
 
 The girl began a feeble protest. Was she worth 
 to him all that he was willing to give up? Father, 
 mother, home, comforts, rough maybe, yet plenti- 
 ful? He would have said yes, yes a thousand times, 
 for he loved the daughter of his father's enemy 
 with the same strong love that had bound his father 
 all these years to his own wife, but there was not 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 23 
 
 time for protest or reply. A feeble, moaning voice 
 called the girl back to her post of duty, and with 
 the chapel bell warning him that Mass-time was 
 drawing near, Johneen went out to the bohreen, 
 and away down to join the stream of church-goers 
 on the public road. 
 
 Ailes had moistened her father's lips, had set- 
 tled his tossed pillows, and time and again she had 
 replaced the beads in his weak, nerveless fingers. 
 He lay in the fourpost bed beside the open hearth, 
 and for all his weakness it was he, and not Ailes, 
 who first saw the coming of a visitor. A tall man, 
 but bent low, and bent with what? Was it age, 
 or sorrow or shame? A figure that for eight and 
 twenty long years had never crossed that threshold. 
 A figure that the dying man had hated with deep, 
 jealous, unreasoning hate, until the mercy of God 
 and the light of death had drowned or burnt that 
 hate away. The newcomer bared his head, and two 
 steps across the poor kitchen brought him to the 
 bedside. 
 
 " Are you livin' yet, an' can you tell who's this 
 I am that's speakin', Andy Leary?" 
 
 "Aye." 
 
 The hate was dead, but at sight of the face and 
 figure round which it had raged so long, the 
 freshly-healed wound of it gave a throb as though 
 of returning life in the dying man's heart, and he 
 clutched the cross of his beads as his defence, 
 
24 DEVIL'S money 
 
 Deliberately then Shane McGarragher knelt on 
 the earthen floor, as just now he had knelt upon 
 the mountain- side, but here he knew he had two 
 listeners. It was to Ailes, the girl who would live, 
 as well as to the man with death upon his face, that 
 he made his confession. , 
 
 " I've come to tell you that 'twas me stole the 
 money you lost comin' from the fair o' Glanorena, 
 'twill be eight and twenty years, come Holland- 
 tide. 'Twas true, then as now, I'd never been next 
 or nigh the town that day, but comin' home from 
 heapin' the sea-wrack there below, I crossed the 
 main road by Cheasalty's mearin'. 
 
 " There was a lump o' paper lyin' in the dust., 
 I took it up, an' there was twenty golden pounds 
 within in it. I looked up and down, an' not a 
 soul was on the road. 'Twas late, an' a long 
 piece in to the barracks, so I took the money 
 home with me, yet with never a thought but 
 to bring it to the sergeant in the mornin'. Then, 
 goin' home, the devil himself came to me and says 
 he, ' If you'd that bit o' money to buy Shamus 
 Mor's plot o' tillage you'd get the loan upon it of 
 what'd raise a cow an' a couple o' calves to eat 
 the grass that's wastin' on the mountain above. An' 
 you with that, why wouldn't Daniel Morrisroe take 
 back the answer he's given you, time an' again, an' 
 you askin' him for Mary. 'Twas that what done 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 25 
 
 it. Just for Mary I took it, an' they say well who 
 called it ' devil's money/ though never a one at 
 all went nigh fixin' your loss on me. They thought 
 'twas me immortal soul I'd sold, an' faith they were 
 like to be right. 'Twas yourself told me in the 
 mornin' how they got you in the ditch below, an' 
 you with no more sense in you, but what the drink 
 had taken from you. Aye, you told me that, an' 
 me with the twenty pounds the police had the coun- 
 try searched for, lyin' under me own hearthstone. 
 Aye, 'twas ' devil's money ' right enough, an' it 
 prospered as the devil's work does thrive. You 
 lost heart after that money went from you, an' the 
 taste for the drink had you fair destroyed. I 
 ruined you, body an' soul. I killed the wife on 
 you. I made this lassie here know want an' hard- 
 ship before ever she grew to be a woman. As you 
 got poor, so I got rich. I bought the land you had 
 to sell, an' we hated each other, you, because you 
 was poor, an' I was rich; me, because I knew well 
 your money had made a thief of me, an' the devil 
 had me immortal soul because of what I'd done. 
 An' now with you dyin' I come to ask you to for- 
 give. No livin' man, without he were a saint, 
 would do what on me two knees I'm askin' you, 
 but if the love o' God, Who'll judge us both, you 
 an' me, is in your heart, for His sake, for God's 
 sake, I'm askin'." 
 
26 DEVIL S MONEY 
 
 There was silence unbroken in the dark, bare 
 room. Had the dying man heard and understood? 
 The one who knelt never looked at the girl, and 
 the dim eyes, the only sign that life was still in the 
 prostrate figure, said nothing to him. There was no 
 hate or anger in them, but neither could he read 
 forgiveness. 
 
 Then McGarragher thought his story had not 
 reached the tired, worn-out brain, but in truth, that 
 was not the reason for the silence. 
 
 It was so wonderful, such an easy, yet such an 
 unthought-of solution to this eight-and-twenty-year 
 old mystery. It was the tragedy of four lives. 
 Shane himself and his wife, who had never guessed 
 the truth of his secret, O'Leary whom he had 
 robbed, and O'Leary's wife, who had died from 
 want and hardship — a tragedy so badly expressed 
 that the power of speech had gone from the dying 
 man as he listened. 
 
 " 'Tis not for nothin' I'd be askin' you this," 
 went on McGarragher, and a listener might have 
 noticed from his voice how nearly he himself was 
 spent. " The girl there shall have every penny. 
 The house an' bit that was my own before, that will 
 do the old woman an' me. Johneen must go," and 
 here his voice failed him. " He's not the only one 
 the sins of a father has driven overseas. An' the 
 rest, the fields, the beasts, your own farm, all that'll 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 27 
 
 be for Ailes. Andy, Andy, an' you goin' before 
 God's judgment give me the word, the one 
 word — - — " 
 
 He broke off, and the girl, looking in dazed 
 astonishment from one face to the other, saw the 
 bitterness of death on the living face, but on the 
 other, only peace. 
 
 " Father." She bent low over him and raised 
 his head, but even in her own ears her voice 
 sounded strange. " Father avick, won't you speak. 
 Tell him what you're after tellin' me. Say the hate 
 is all gone. Say you forgive." He moved his 
 hand, it was nerveless now, and even the weakest 
 movement was laboured. Ailes put out her own 
 firm fingers, and his closed weakly around them. 
 Again he moved and the girl's hand went with his. 
 His enemy, kneeling beside him, had stretched out 
 his own hands, in passionate appeal — a third effort, 
 and the three hands touched. He could not speak, 
 but now there was full understanding in the dim 
 eyes, and Ailes, raising her hand, with his above 
 it, laid them both on those of Shane McGarragher, 
 but even as she did so, she felt the tiny pulse of 
 life under her fingers weaken, and the dying lips 
 moved. 
 
 " Mercy." That was all. Mercy for them both, 
 the dying and the living. But as Andy Leary's ill- 
 spent life flickered out, his hand lay in his enemy's 
 
28 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 clasp, and between them was the hand of the girl 
 who had witnessed all, the confession and the pro- 
 mise of restitution, the entreaty and the fulfilment 
 of forgiveness. 
 
 The girl laid down her father's head and closed 
 the eyes that now were dulled for ever. She moved 
 quietly to and fro, working mechanically, too dazed 
 to realize as yet the truth of what she had heard, 
 and all the while Shane McGarragher knelt on, 
 motionless, at the dead man's side. He had come 
 straight down from the mountain, fearful of a 
 moment's delay lest his courage should give way. 
 Up in the potato field he had, at last, asked for- 
 giveness for what he had done, and the answer had 
 been: "First go and reconcile yourself to your 
 brother." 
 
 And now, as the softening power of death had 
 brought him so easily the forgiveness he had 
 scarcely dared to hope for, he knelt there whilst 
 the floodgates of bitter regret and unavailing re- 
 morse swept over him and took from him all power 
 of thought or speech or movement. Then, at 
 length, Ailes came to him. She spoke, but what 
 she said conveyed no meaning to his brain. She 
 laid her hand upon his shoulder, and, mechani- 
 cally obeying her, he staggered to his feet. He had 
 not paused before to think how this restitution 
 could be made. He had not thought what it would 
 
DEVIL'S MONEY 29 
 
 be to live in poverty where he had been a rich man, 
 to be known as a thief by all the neighbours maybe 
 and now — a shudder of horror ran through him at 
 the thought— maybe to go to jail for robbery. 
 
 " Shane," — the girl's voice was soft, but so de- 
 cided, that he had to make the effort to listen to her 
 words — " do you mind that I was in it whilst you 
 told him all?" 
 
 Even yet he could not speak, but his head moved 
 in sign of assent. 
 
 " You told him," went on Ailes, with a gesture 
 towards the bed, " that I would have it all, the 
 farm above, the beasts, the crops. Well, listen 
 here. I wouldn't take one penny piece that'd tell 
 the neighbours how — how Johneen's father was a 
 thief." Her voice sank low, but in her listener's 
 ears it rang clear and firm, and her words smote 
 him hard, cut him like a knife. " No one knows 
 this thing, but only me an' you?" 
 
 It was a question, and in silence again McGar- 
 ragher answered, " Not a one." 
 
 " Then let it be," went on the girl. " 'Twas twixt 
 you and him it lay. Let it go where he has gone, 
 an' may the Lord have mercy on his poor soul." 
 
 The man was stupid still, and stupidly he turned 
 his eyes on Ailes. 
 
 " I've got to give it back," he said, in the tone 
 of one who had learnt a lesson, ■" I stole the money, 
 an' the missioner said " 
 
30 DEVIL'S MONEY 
 
 " Give it to Johneen, then," whispered Ailes, and 
 now her eyes fell, and she looked away as she spoke. 
 
 " To Johneen?" McGarragher knew nothing of 
 what there was between his son and the daughter 
 of the man he had so deeply injured. 
 
 " To Johneen — and me," she said, and looking 
 up, he read the truth in the rich, red colour that 
 flooded her bent face, in the shy eyes that now 
 looked for a moment in his own. 
 
 " You — and Johneen ! " he faltered, scarcely dar- 
 ing to understand aright. 
 
 " Johneen — and me," replied Ailes, and she saw 
 that at last her meaning was made plain. 
 
 " God of mercy! " cried the man, and he stag- 
 gered forwards, stumbling so heavily, that strong 
 and quick as Ailes was, she could not stop him be- 
 fore he fell. 
 
 For eight and twenty years his life had been one 
 long offence to God, only, without ceasing, his wife 
 had prayed for him, and this was what he got in 
 place of punishment. 
 
 To Ailes it was horrible to see the anguish of 
 the sobs that rent him as he lay, prone and help- 
 less, across the feet of the dead man whom he had 
 wronged, but Shane himself knew that there was 
 sweetness even in the bitter spring of his anguish, 
 and this touch of sweetness was a reflex of the 
 mercy of God. 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA. 
 
 It is nowhere easier to lose one's way than amongst 
 sandhills. Even in the comparatively small stretch 
 that lies between Dangonnel and Tullaroan land- 
 marks are difficult to recognize, and wandering 
 there one day in search of the old Abbey, we found 
 ourselves circling round instead of keeping on- 
 ward. Below us on the shore, a man was driving 
 a donkey laden with dripping seaweed, and as they 
 were following a path leading in our direction, we 
 waited to ask our way till they were within hail. 
 11 The Abbey is it? Faith then, 'tis a contrary way 
 to be goin' from this." The old man, shrivelled 
 and bent, pulled himself upright on his stick to 
 answer our questions. " May be 'twould be best 
 for yees to come along of me to the high road 
 above, and I'd set you on the way. Without that 
 ye'll be wantin' to go climb them banks till ye see 
 Con Tierney's fishing cot lyin' on the shore, then, 
 when ye come to the last toepad on the right, ye'll 
 not take it, but wheel to the left a bit further on 
 an' ye'll see the ruin foreninst yees; only there's 
 an ugly gripe an' a couple o' walleens " 
 
32 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 But we decided the longer way round was cer- 
 tainly more desirable, and turning, followed Peter 
 Keane, as we learnt the old man's name to be, in 
 the direction we had come. He was the holder of 
 five acres of land, for which he paid fifty shillings 
 a year to the agent. Landlords are merely names 
 in those parts, all are absentees, most of them hav J 
 ing never even set eyes on the place or the people 
 who supply the incomes that are spent elsewhere, 
 indeed it might well have been at Tullaroan that 
 the man, when asked if there were many absentees, 
 replied with conviction, " Absentees is it? Troth 
 then the place is full of them." 
 
 From our guide we learnt that there was a 
 Mrs. Keane, and that a " long " family had been 
 reared in the cabin which was pointed out to us 
 " over beyond." They were all dispersed now, ten 
 sons, and a gartlaher. " An' ye may be talkin' 
 of the screeches her mother let when that one was 
 for to go! Didn't they hear them every step of 
 the way from this to Dangonnel?" 
 
 " But had she to go?" we asked. " Couldn't you 
 have kept her when you only had the one daught- 
 ter?" 
 
 " Kept her? Kept her is it? Wouldn't we have 
 kept her, an' heart welcome, only she had no taste 
 for poverty and hardship, the creature, an' what 
 else had we to offer her? There was no had in it, 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 33 
 
 but just her own free will. ' Bless me, mother,' 
 says she, ' an' let me go,' says she, ' but don't ask 
 me to stop any longer in slavishness an' want.' So 
 we took the cross that herself had bought the time 
 the mission was in Bullhaun, and the gartlaher knelt 
 down till we raised it up over her head, an' called 
 down the blessin' of God upon her, mornin' an' 
 evenin' at home an' abroad ; an' after that she quits 
 out of it, an' legs it down the road, an' never an 
 eye did we lay on the one of them from that good 
 day — nor never will." 
 
 " Do they write to you?" we enquired. 
 
 " Well then they do, an' never forgets us at the 
 Chrisemas. How could we live, else?" 
 
 That might be said, I think, in every family 
 along the coast. How could any of them live on 
 their barren bits of holdings if it were not for the' 
 money that comes to them from abroad? 
 
 On reaching the highway, we waited to receive 
 instructions before parting with our guide, but hav- 
 ing come so far he announced his intention of ac- 
 companying us all the way. 
 
 " G'wanomerat ! " He emphasized his parting 
 word to the donkey with a whack of the stick, 
 mercifully in a place where there was a comfortable 
 padding of seaweed. Evidently the animal under- 
 stood this adjuration, for it proceeded immediately 
 to "go along home out of that," whilst its master 
 led us once more in the direction of the sea. 
 D 
 
34 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 A dull haze hung over the islands that blocked 
 the full stretch of the Atlantic, but between them 
 the waves showed grey and leaden, with angry 
 ridges of white foam. The islands themselves are 
 merely stretches of rock, bleak and rugged, with- 
 out vegetation or sign of human life. In the 
 bay, where gulls and terns had come for refuge, 
 there was a big heaving swell on the incoming tide, 
 and even where we stood, the dash of water 
 sounded on the rocks with sullen roar. 
 
 The founders of the Abbey had done well in 
 choosing their site, if they wished to live remote 
 from the world. With the sandhills behind, and the 
 broad seas before, the rest of Ireland seemed no 
 nearer than the country across the ocean, and one 
 really felt the graveyard to be on the brink of 
 eternity. 
 
 The builders of old did not lay their foundations 
 in the sand: they chose the only head of rock for 
 many miles, and piled their masonry upon it, at 
 the point where it juts furthest into the sea. Then 
 the westerly gales blew in, flying sand gathered in 
 layers round the walls,' and when graves came to 
 be needed, it was in the sand, hardened by time, 
 and bound to firmness with bent-grass roots, that 
 the bodies were laid to rest. Nothing remains of 
 the monastery that pnce was there, little even of 
 the Abbey itself. There are two gable ends pierced 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 35 
 
 with early Norman windows, where ivy has grown 
 up, and sea and land birds meet and quarrel and 
 finally nest ; and between these ends, with a broken 
 wall around it, is a great grey altar slab, weather- 
 stained and worn, but with the five crosses of conse- 
 cration still imprinted upon it. 
 
 Newer graves seem to have been dug over the 
 old ones, but all are now smothered in weeds and 
 nettles. Some of the mounds have bare crosses 
 over them, some, slabs and heavy ugly monuments, 
 but many, nay most, of the graves are nameless. 
 
 One reason for our visit was to seek the originals 
 of some epitaphs we had seen in a magazine, said 
 to have been copied from tombs at Dangonnel; 
 on paper they were delightful, but truth compels 
 us to acknowledge that they did not exist on stone. 
 
 One of the best ran as follows : 
 
 " Here lies Luke O'Neill, who was drowned off 
 Boffin, and buried at sea, without ever a coffin." 
 
 The nearest to this that we could find was a 
 slab put up to the memory of one Patrick Melia, 
 of whom it was recorded that he was washed off the 
 fishing smack, Rose of Carna, and his body was 
 never found; underneath, in newly- carved letters, 
 was added, " And of Anne Melia, his wife, who 
 also lies buried here." 
 
 Outside the ruin, and almost hanging over the 
 sea, is a great lichen-covered stone, so old that its 
 
36 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 lettering is illegible; here we sat to rest ourselves 
 and to listen to our old guide's talk. 
 
 A commonplace modern headstone was beside 
 us, with a long inscription on it, lavish of 
 adjectives. 
 
 " That's the schoolmaster's grave, an' he's as 
 proud out of it, as you please," we were told. 
 " Never a Sunday all summer through but he comes 
 walkin' out from Tullaroan to see is it still in it. 
 He'll know the road well, when they come to bring 
 him along, feet first, on the sticks." 
 
 With languid interest we read the praises of the 
 late lamented Mr. and Mrs. MacManus, as set forth 
 by their sons, but before the end our perseverance 
 was rewarded. 
 
 " This stone is erected by Thomas John 
 MacManus in memory of the above, also of their 
 posterity back to 1641, when the family vault in- 
 side the Abbey, was closed to them." 
 
 But the nameless graves were those that Peter 
 Keane could tell us most about. 
 
 " It's a many I've seen comin' here," he said 
 cheerfully. " The Lord have mercy on their souls ! 
 There's not much place left in it now. That's 
 where me an' herself '11 lie, over beyont, where the 
 Widow Duggan does be buryin' her husbands." 
 
 " Husbands! but how many?" we asked in sur- 
 prise, with sudden thoughts of a female Bluebeard. 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 37 
 
 " There was Thomas Finlay, — but he's gone 
 these twenty years — an' Neal McCabe, an' poor Jim 
 Duggan himself — God give him rest, for its little 
 of it he got from his wife. Three of them she has 
 there, an' maybe she'll get a fourth yet, before she's 
 done. Up to this, no sooner does God Almighty 
 take one, than she takes another." 
 
 " Isn't she getting rather old? But perhaps she's 
 pretty still?" 
 
 " Pretty? — ach, you may be talkin'— a low-sized 
 dark little patch." 
 
 ." Then has she a farm or a fortune?" 
 
 " Divil a penny did she bring the one of them, 
 only the old cabin above. I'll tell ye, now what 
 got them for her. 'Twasn't looks that done it, an' 
 'twasn't money that done it, but she just had the 
 1 comether ' in the eye." 
 
 Was ever the nameless charm we all know so 
 well defined more aptly? 
 
 " Poor Jim, 'twas the unchancy choice he made; 
 an' I know that same, him bein' a friend 1 of me 
 own. She was only after buryin' Neal McCabe over 
 beyont when big Tom O'Hale came on her, an' she 
 goin' home out of this. He asked her would she 
 have him when Seraft was comin' round, but, 
 ' Wirra, wirra, Tom dear,' says she, ' why didn't 
 you speak sooner?' says she. For wasn't she after 
 
 1 Anglice — a relation. 
 
3# BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 fixin' up the match with Jimmy Duggan when he'd 
 been to shave the corpse." 
 
 Such ghastly precipitance iwas rather startling, 
 but Peter took it very calmly. 
 
 " That'll be six years come Hollandtide 1 and 
 'twas only in the Big Wind a while back that he 
 went. I won't deny but that he did ought to have 
 roped the roof down safer, but Jim was a bad hand 
 on the ropewalk, from him a gossoon, then again 
 he couldn't well fix it himself — for he'd been com- 
 plainin' this long while, backwards and forwards, 
 of a heavy lightness in the head, had Jimmy. When 
 the storm came in under the old thatch, it went for 
 to lift the roof of the cabin, and herself was actu- 
 ally mad when she seen it rise up, and it with no 
 ropes but the old ones, where she'd bid Jimmy 
 bind it. So out into the black night she sent him, 
 an' up on the roof she bid him lie, to keep the 
 straw from flying till ever the storm was done. 
 'Twas perished he was, an' she lettin' him down, 
 an' never a stir out of him till she had him fixed 
 up in bed. There was an ormous 2 draw on the chest 
 of him; an' me goin' in in the mornin'." 
 
 " ' You'd best be sendin' for the priest,' says I, 
 seein' how it was." 
 
 Go yourself,' says she, ' if you think that's the 
 way it is with him.' " 
 
 1 Anglicc, Shrovetide. 2 An enormous. 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 39 
 
 "'iWhat'll I get him, Father dear?' says she, 
 after the priest attendin' him. 
 
 " ' His coffin/ says Father Mullarkey, ' for it's 
 all he'll be needin'.' " 
 
 " He'd got the new ammonia, had Jim, an' got 
 it double, God help him. Well with that, what 
 does herself do, but get the cup of blessed water, 
 an' puts it to his hand, an' away with her to fetch 
 home a habit for him, out of M'Keowin's in the 
 town. There wasn't one with Jim only himself, 
 an' she with the door-key in her pocket. Well, he 
 was dead an' gone an' she comin' in, God rest him. 
 They do be sayin' she has the habit put by in chance 
 she gets another man; still I doubt but she did 
 bury him in it after all." 
 
 He was so loath to blame her that it seemed, 
 in spite of everything, as though the " comether " 
 was still there ! 
 
 There was another grave beyond the burying- 
 place of the widow's husbands, with nothing to 
 distinguish it from those around, but Peter told a 
 real romance of the sea about it. 
 
 North of Tullaroan, between the gravelly shore 
 of Killawurity and the sands of Dangonnel, a high 
 mass of cliff stands boldly facing the Atlantic. 
 Even at low tide the waters swirl and eddy round 
 its feet, but when the waves come dashing in, 
 breaking against the granite walls and thundering 
 
4Q BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 through the caves that pierce their rugged sides, 
 they form a sight not easily forgotten. 
 
 There are great blocks too, detached from the 
 cliffs themselves, cruel jagged points, that in a 
 storm are hidden by the angry waves. 
 
 Since we have known the cliffs of Tullaroan, a 
 lighthouse has stood upon their heights, warning 
 passing ships to keep away. Sailors travelling that 
 coast know they cannot seek the shelter of the bay 
 without a local pilot to guide them through the 
 narrow channel, seemingly so fair and wide, yet 
 holding death at every point but one, in the merci- 
 less rocks that lie beneath the water. 
 
 The village stands sheltered by the headland, 
 and when the fishing boats are out, it is only an 
 abode of women and of children. Thus it was on 
 the night that Owen Colohan lost his life. He hap- 
 pened, for some reason, to be at home just then, 
 but there was not another seafaring man in the 
 place, except Dan McGlinchy. Daniel, in his day, 
 had been a first-rate seaman, but he was one of 
 those who do not care for work, and when the others 
 went away to fish, he preferred to remain behind, 
 ostensibly to mind his lobster-pots, but incidentally 
 to be within convenient reach of a public-house. 
 A storm had sprung up early in the afternoon, and 
 when evening fell, it was raging so wildly that 
 not an eye was closed in all the village; women 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 41 
 
 and children had to keep awake to pray for those 
 who were at sea. 
 
 Fierce as was the gale, there was always a hope 
 that their own were away beyond it ; but that some- 
 one was in danger became known in the village 
 early in the night. 
 
 Sounds of distress came moaning through the 
 darkness, and at intervals, the light of fireworks 
 told those on shore that a ship had tried to run 
 for the Bay of Dangonnel, but missing the channel, 
 now lay close to the hidden reef, and God only 
 knew how long they could keep from drifting on 
 to it. 
 
 Still, a man who knew the coast could even yet 
 have saved the ship, and fragile as a curragh is, 
 it has been known to live where other boats were 
 useless. There were curraghs in plenty on the 
 strand, the question was who would dare to risk 
 his life on such a quest? A narrow question, em- 
 bracing only two men, Owen Colohan, strong, with 
 a lad's strength, and Dan McGlinchy — than whom 
 no one better knew the coast. 
 
 Which would it be? 
 
 "Toss," said Dan, hoarsely: "heads!" 
 
 A coin was thrown, turned in the air, and fell. 
 Some one struck a light, and the boy bent forward. 
 The flick of the match lit up two anxious faces. 
 Owen's young, keen, cleanly, little touched by the 
 
42 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 passing of eighteen blameless years. And the other 
 — there was one black sheep in the parish, and his 
 face it was that now showed grey and livid before 
 the match died down. For an instant their eyes met 
 above the coin that lay, with head upturned; then 
 young Owen's hand went lightly to it. 
 
 "Tails," he said quietly: " 'tis me! " 
 
 Then in the dark they moved towards the cur- 
 raghs, loosened one and carried her across the shin- 
 gle. A lantern was set in her bows, and close be- 
 side it was the bottle of holy water, without which 
 no man from thereabouts will ever put to sea. 
 
 Quick as the toss had been, some besides the 
 two concerned had seen what happened. If the 
 lad chose to go why should they prevent it? Dan 
 had his wife and children, all still young, and 
 Owen's mother was an ageing woman, God help her ! 
 — Owen knew that she was among the crowd that 
 was gathered round, and having tested both his 
 oars, he turned to say one word to her. There 
 was no fear "in his face, for the call of the sea was 
 upon him. She would have let him leave her with 
 a whispered blessing from her strained, white lips, 
 although she felt that death was almost certain. 
 Then, with sudden instinct — or did some murmur 
 warn her of what he had done? — she seized his arm. 
 
 " Is it you to go?" she questioned, with sudden 
 fierceness. " Clean and honest, is it you?" 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 43 
 
 " Let me go, mother." But he left her cry un- 
 answered. 
 
 " Is it you?" she repeated, clenching her strong 
 hands about his arms. " Don't dare to go before 
 the throne of God with a lie upon your lips." 
 
 And all this while the precious moments were 
 slipping by. 
 
 " Let me go, mother agrah ! he has his wife and 
 the childer at home." 
 
 " And no good he is to them ! Owen avick, 
 come back out o' that." She was pleading now, 
 but yet she held him strongly. " I wouldn't say 
 you nay had it been the will o' God." 
 
 Then he bent his head and whispered in her ear, 
 and even those about them could not hear the words 
 he said. Afterwards the people learnt them, and 
 Peter told us what they were. He was ready to 
 go: less than a week before he had been to the 
 priest, when the station was in Shane Devine's, but 
 Dan — Dan wanted time. She loosed her hands and 
 turned upon McGlinchy. 
 
 " Have you done your Easter? Are you ready 
 to meet your God?" 
 
 As far as animal courage went Dan was no 
 greater coward than his neighbour, but now, in the 
 dim light, the Widow Colohan saw there was awful 
 terror in his eyes. Then she went again to Owen. 
 
 " Go then, avick," she said. " God love you, 
 now and forever." 
 
44 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 For a minute or more they watched the tiny light 
 cresting the huge waves, then, as it disappeared 
 in the darkness, the agonizing "keen" of a heart- 
 broken mother was taken up by the winds and car- 
 ried sobbingly to Heaven. 
 
 Meanwhile the ship was drifting nearer to 
 destruction. Hope had almost died away, when 
 Owen's light, the merest speck, gave it sudden life 
 again. Twenty pairs of eyes were strained into 
 the darkness, twenty pairs of ears sought for sound 
 of human voice. 
 
 " Lower a rope ! " The captain's order was obeyed 
 almost before it had been spoken. The dot of 
 light was close to now, tossing up and down in the 
 black chasm of waters. Owen dared not go too 
 close, and over and over again they flung the rope 
 towards him, but never near enough for him to 
 grasp it. When at last it hit the curragh the force 
 of the blow made the frail craft shiver, but Owen 
 had it safely held. Keeping only a single oar, he 
 made the line fast about his body. 
 
 " Heave to," — very faintly they heard his call. 
 The cord tightened; the spray flew from it on his 
 face ; a second pull, and he felt the curragh glide 
 from under him. He was hanging in space against 
 the side of the ship, clasping his oar with both his 
 hands to protect himself from crashing against the 
 timbers. Once he flew out, but as he came back, 
 the oar received the shock. 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE ST A 45 
 
 A second time the lurching vessel flung him from 
 her — and those on deck heard a splintering crack, 
 a crash, and the burden at the rope end hung limp 
 and inert, as hurriedly they drew it in. His chest 
 was bare and wet, but not with the cold sea waves. 
 A warm, crimson flood told its own tale, and the 
 broken oar that had failed in its task was floating in 
 splinters on the waves below. Once again the 
 thought of safety passed away from the crew ; then 
 the lad opened his eyes. 
 
 " Hold up my head," he said. 
 
 They did his bidding pityingly, not yet daring to 
 hope that he could guide them. 
 
 " Turn sharp to the right," he went on faintly. 
 " Keep straight on. Now to larboard, but quickly. 
 Put up a bit of sail if you can." 
 
 It almost seemed that he was wandering — but 
 desperate men try desperate remedies, and with the 
 sail up, the ship bounded through the darkness. 
 
 " Can you see the lights of the village yet?" he 
 asked, and when they answered " No," he bade 
 them keep ahead. 
 
 " We see them now." 
 
 " Then turn, turn ri^ht about to face them." 
 
 A moment later the sailors did not need to be 
 told that they were saved. The great jagged rocks 
 that had threatened their destruction stood up now 
 a solid breakwater between them and the storm. 
 
46 BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 
 
 He was still breathing when they laid him in his 
 mother's arms, and all the long hours, whilst a 
 barefooted lad of Dan McGlinchy's was away over 
 the mountains for the priest, she half knelt, half 
 sat, holding him to her and wiping the lips from 
 time to time, through which his life-bloo'd was 
 slowly draining. With the dim light of early dawn, 
 the priest came in and spoke the words of absolu- 
 tion over him. It was peace already, and very 
 soon came rest. 
 
 And they had buried him there only a few feet 
 from where we sat listening to his story. 
 
 One question we had to ask, and that was — 
 whether the time he gave to Dan McGlinchy had 
 been made use of to good purpose. 
 ■ "Didn't herself see to that?" said Peter. "I 
 was only a gossoon meself that time, but the old 
 folk did use to be sayin' he went to the priest that 
 very mornin'. Anyways 'twas a good day for his 
 wife and childher, for wasn't he the changed man 
 with the fret he had had; an' many's the blessin's 
 the widow woman got for the hand that she had 
 in it." 
 
 " ' Didn't my Owen give his life for that one to 
 get time?' says she, 'an' 'tisn't me that'll see him 
 lose his immortal soul after.' " "Me Mother, God be 
 good to her, used to be sayin' that she'd seen her 
 huntin' Dan along the road home, when she seen 
 
BETWEEN THE SANDHILLS AND THE SEA 47 
 
 him next or nigh the public-house, an' never would 
 a station be from this to Killawurity but the Widow 
 Colohan was in it, an' who would it be takin' her 
 along on the ass' back but Dan himself, an' he be- 
 side her with the priest as well." 
 
 We crossed the stile leading back to the sand- 
 hills and turned for a last look at the graveyard 
 by the sea. It stood out against the sky with 
 the waters lying on either side of it. The sun, 
 sinking towards the horizon, was vainly struggling 
 to pierce the heavy clouds, but it only succeeded in 
 showing a faint light, just enough to recall the 
 radiance beyond. 
 
 Behind us Peter Keane had gone on his knees, 
 and a glimmer of brightness seemed to fall upon 
 his upturned face. His shapeless hat and the 
 blackthorn stick lay on the grass before him, his 
 head was bare, his hands joined, and his lips moved 
 in supplication to Heaven, for the souls who still 
 were waiting. 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND. 
 
 There is an island out in the western seas, that in 
 the distance looks like the side of a great whale, 
 heaved out of the depths, and sunning itself on 
 the waters of the Atlantic. 
 
 Drawing nearer, fissures appear in the grey rock, 
 and in them is a show of vegetation, but taken as 
 a whole, it is a great, grey slab, washed for more 
 than half the year by a leaden sea, only a shade 
 less dark in colour than the rock itself. There is 
 no quay on its shores. Elsewhere along the coast 
 the Congested District's Board has made harbours 
 and built piers, more or less useful for the fishing 
 fleets, but our island has not been favoured thus. 
 True there is not a man upon it who owns a fish- 
 ing ketch, but whether the fact that no boat draw- 
 ing more water than a curragh approaches the 
 shore is the cause or the effect of the deficiency is 
 hard to say. 
 
 A steamer from Gal way passes once a week: a 
 little, puffing, plunging mail-boat, which anchors 
 in the sandy bay to the east and disgorges her 
 cargo into coracles that crowd to meet her. 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 49 
 
 They are quaint little craft, these island cur- 
 raghs, made of interlaced laths thin enough to be 
 pliable, and covered with a tarred coating of 
 tightly-drawn canvas. There is no difficulty in 
 moving them, they are so light that a man can carry 
 one on his shoulders, and when out of use they lie 
 in rows, turned upside down, well beyond high- 
 water mark. A flat, wooden dipper is fastened in 
 the bows, as one knock against a jagged rock would 
 open the frail, canvas- covered sides, and the safety 
 of the crew depends on the use of this bailing dish. 
 Not perhaps the whole safety, for in every boat, 
 close beside the dipper, and as universal as that 
 indispensable article itself, hangs a bottle of holy 
 water, blessed by the priest for fishermen whose 
 hope is in God Himself, more surely than in their 
 own skill, or in any merely human means of rescue 
 from a watery grave. 
 
 The curraghs range themselves broadside along 
 the steamer, near enough to catch the sacks and 
 barrels they have come to fetch, yet out of danger 
 in case of a sudden lurch from the larger vessel. 
 As each curragh receives its cargo it shoots out of 
 the line, the next one taking its place, and makes 
 for the shore, bobbing like a cork on the crest of 
 the swell at one moment, and hidden the next in a 
 trough of shimmering blue-green water. 
 
 Flour and salt and Indian meal, barrels of porter 
 E 
 
50 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 not a few, and bundles of every shape and size were 
 thus thrown out on the day of our arrival, amidst 
 such noise and bustle that it was some moments 
 before we realized why we understood no word of 
 the islanders' talk. They were speaking in Gaelic, 
 a language of which we barely knew a dozen words. 
 
 That was on the day of our arrival, when in a 
 moment of agonizing terror, we, as well as parcels, 
 provisions and porter, were cast out of the mail 
 boat into a waiting curragh, passing from blue-clad 
 arms, reminiscent of fish and tar, to white-clad ones 
 to which the aroma of kelp and turf- smoke clung, 
 and under us were green and glimmering depths. 
 
 Before the day came for us to be cast back on 
 to the deck of the steamer our ignorance was some- 
 what less. The language itself remained beyond 
 our powers of comprehension, but the greetings 
 were too graceful and too touching to be alto- 
 gether unlearnt. 
 
 Soon when we met our friends, — and after the 
 first day we had many friends on the island, — we 
 were able to greet them as we ourselves were 
 greeted. 
 
 " God and Mary with you. Also Patrick." 
 
 " Blessings on you." 
 
 " Greetings to you." 
 
 11 God be with you." 
 
 Of when we entered a house, " God bless all 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 51 
 
 here " soon came to our lips as naturally as the 
 words that were expected in the field or on the 
 shore: " God's blessing on the work." 
 
 The best Irish speaker was also the most inter- 
 esting person on the island. He had travelled and 
 read and thought; he was a bachelor and a philo- 
 sopher, and as befits an old sailor, a handyman all 
 round. If we spoke of boats and nets and sails, 
 then so did he, but when we questioned him his 
 tongue was loosened and he talked on an infinite 
 range of subjects. Our landlady had told us we 
 spoke the Beurla, but the old sailmaker indignantly 
 denied our right to call the English language by 
 this title. 
 
 " Beurla," he explained, " means a language — 
 any language — but when the English came they told 
 the Irish that Gaelic was nothing but a dialect. 
 English was the language of the world, and to curry 
 favour with the conquerors some Irish pretended 
 to believe this story, and so the abuse crept in." 
 
 There was a rival teacher even in the small place, 
 a young man who also claimed to have travelled. 
 
 11 So far as Galway, maybe," said our old friend, 
 with the contempt of a man who has been twice 
 round the world, for one who vaunts a three hours' 
 journey. " He has the Irish, an' why wouldn't he, 
 born and bred and reared on the island? but sorra 
 beauty of the old tongue has he in it. God help 
 them that's too ignorant to know their own loss." 
 
52 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 Learning that the younger man was a Patriot, 
 we discreetly avoided politics; nevertheless, un- 
 asked, he expounded to us his views on Home Rule. 
 
 " Will it make much difference on the island 
 when we get it?" we inquired. 
 
 " Difference is it? You may be talkin' ! " 
 
 Instinctively we felt he was assuming his plat- 
 form manner. " When we have Home Rule, won't 
 every man in the place do as he likes? An' if he 
 don't, we'll make him do it." 
 
 Whatever the extent of the island's benefits will 
 be, certainly English rule, as shown to us on session 
 day, is carried out under difficulties. 
 
 The court, a room about fifteen feet square, was 
 crammed with eager listeners, and it was only 
 through the intervention of a huge and kindly 
 policeman that we were able to make our way at 
 all. Once inside we were told to seat ourselves 
 on stools within the railing which enclosed the two 
 magistrates, one local and one imported, the people 
 they were examining, and the interpreter. 
 
 " Do you understand English?" was the first 
 question, asked of an old man with a beard like 
 a venerable goat. 
 
 " Not one word, your worship," rolled out the 
 answer, which called forth an excusable exclama- 
 tion from the magistrate who was trying to get 
 through two hours' work in the short hour allowed 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 53 
 
 him by the steamer on which he had to return to the 
 mainland. 
 
 The goat-like offender's words could not be 
 taken as literally true; nevertheless, though 
 scarcely any of the islanders, except the very old 
 women, " have no English," few if any of them 
 could undertake in a foreign tongue the special 
 pleading needful in the cases of trespass — where 
 no boundary marks are visible — or of assault, fol- 
 lowing on the arrival of a fresh supply of porter, 
 which principally occupy the bench. 
 
 The case of the day was one of the latter. Even 
 the windows were blocked with eager faces when 
 it was brought up for hearing. 
 
 " Was the language — that was uttered — upon this 
 occasion, of a nature — calculated to prove defama- 
 tory to the — young lady's — good character?" The 
 bland stipendiary examined the solitary witness 
 himself. 
 
 " I'm sure I couldn't say, your honour," came 
 the answer, without hesitation. 
 
 " Bad scran to him and his English ! " We were 
 close behind the interpreter, so had the benefit even 
 of his asides. 
 
 " Was it bad, ugly names he was calling her?" 
 He put the amended form of question aloud. 
 
 This threw more light upon the case, and the 
 witness replied with precipitation, for understand- 
 
54 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 ing, he was now only too anxious to tell us all he 
 knew. 
 
 " Troth an' he did that right enough, your hon- 
 our. He called her a " 
 
 !But the magistrate too was roused, and quickly 
 he interposed. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," he cried, motioning 
 to the man to stop. " It is quite unnecessary for 
 you to repeat the words he used." 
 
 The fate of what had once been a cuckoo-clock 
 next occupied the attention of the bench. The 
 mangled remains, gathered up in a woman's apron, 
 were laid before the magistrates, and the accuser 
 and accused were called to have their say. 
 
 Bartle Costelloe began by denying the offence, 
 but being put on oath, he changed his plea, and 
 said if he did give the clock a tip, in any case it 
 was no good. 
 
 "It was good enough for you yourself to send 
 into Galway for four pennyworth o' copper wire to 
 make a pendulum," interrupted the owner, angrily. 
 
 " 'Twas no good, your worship," repeated Bartle, 
 unmoved. " 'Twas moth-eaten, that it was, an' 
 you'd want to warm it at the fire e'er ever you'd 
 make it go." 
 
 Then came Colman Flagherty's statement. 
 
 " It was me own clock, your worship, that's be- 
 fore you now, an' isn't it a show after him? 'Twas 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 55 
 
 a wag, that's what it was, an' doesn't Bartle come 
 in, an' it hangin' on the wall. ' What's the bright 
 face thing?' says he. ' What is it but me wag o' 
 the wall,' says I. An' with that he went for it, 
 me darlin' bright face coo-coo an' he pegged it 
 on the floor, an' kicked it round the kitchen. ' Bar- 
 tie,' says I, ' you'll pay for this.' ' When I have to 
 pay for it,' says he, ' I'll kick the stuffin' out of it.' 
 He did indeed your worship, an' worse, savin' your 
 honour's favour, ' I'll kick the devil out of it,' says 
 he. An' with that he sets to, an' he kicked it, back 
 body an' sides, an' makes bits of the lovely face 
 an' glass of it. Not a hand did he leave on it, no, 
 nor an arm neither." 
 
 Finally the magistrates decided to impose a fine, 
 with compensation for the clock. 
 
 " Have you the money to pay?" the offender was 
 asked. 
 
 " Musha, devil a penny, not till the kelp boat 
 comes in," replied Bartle, unconcernedly. " I must 
 introud upon your honour for it, until then." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," retorted the magistrate, 
 testily. " If you can't pay you must go to jail for 
 a week." 
 
 We thought the sentence somewhat severe, but 
 the magistrates knew their people best. From a 
 dozen pockets and more, including that of the clock 
 owner himself, came the sum required, in coppers 
 
56 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 and sixpences. So the fine was paid, and the 
 magistrate steamed back to Galway without his pri- 
 soner. Ten days later the boat came from Glas- 
 gow to take away the kelp, and Bartle Costelloe 
 was the owner of ready money. Then the loan was 
 repaid to the last farthing, probably with the in- 
 terest of a glass of whiskey for each one concerned. 
 
 Business at the public-houses, however, was slack 
 during our stay, and from an old man in a lone 
 cottage across the island we learnt the reason. 
 
 " I haven't been into town this long time," he 
 told us. " We had admission here, this while back." 
 As " the town " consisted of a public-house and 
 half a dozen cottages we were able to put our own 
 connection between these apparently irrelevant 
 sentences. 
 
 " Did many take the pledge?" we asked. 
 
 " Many I you may be talkin'. Didn't we all take 
 it?" The remembrance was seemingly not alto- 
 gether a happy one. 
 
 " Did they take it for long?" 
 
 " Some did and some didn't. I took it for life. 
 I usually does take it for life," he added, candidly. 
 
 Judging by the fervour of the congregation on 
 Sunday, the work of the mission had been success- 
 ful. As the long sermon was preached in Irish, we 
 had time to notice the rapt attention on the upturned 
 faces of the listeners who sat and stood on the mud 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 57 
 
 floor whilst the priest spoke, never hesitating for a 
 word, for over half an hour. The women, red- 
 petticoated, shrouded in fawn-coloured shawls, 
 were to one side. The men and boys stood at the 
 other. It looked as though they wore some uni- 
 form, so universal was their clothing. A navy blue 
 jersey, a cream-coloured sleeveless xoat, made of 
 the island flannel, a wide sash round the waist, pre- 
 ferably of red and yellow stripes, and trousers of 
 white or speckled homespun. Almost everyone on 
 the island wears a curious kind of footgear called 
 ' pampooties," which is a corruption of the Spanish 
 word for slippers. They are made of cowhide, 
 moulded to the shape of the foot when wet with sea- 
 water, and bound together with a narrow strip of 
 leather, and so fastened round the ankle. The hair 
 is left on the outside of the hide, and though the 
 " pampooties " are soft and pliant to the foot, they 
 are a great protection when the ground is rough and 
 stony. And all the island is not one smooth rock. 
 To the east there is a fringe of white coral, car- 
 ried hither on the gulf stream and ground down 
 on the rocks and sand and shingle, whilst westward 
 the land rises into high cliffs which, straight and 
 cleanly cut, drop down hundreds of feet into the 
 Atlantic. Then the silvery waters stretch away to 
 the horizon, for there is nothing but air between 
 our western island and America. 
 
58 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 The poorest family on the island had made their 
 home about halfway between these cliffs and the 
 village. The father, belonging to the numerous 
 tribe of Costelloe, was the only man we came across 
 who did not work on his own bit of land. He cer- 
 tainly had a bit of garden where cabbages and 
 potatoes played hide and seek amongst the rocks, 
 but as his wife expressed it, " the weight of his 
 time " was spent working for others of his clan. 
 
 " The least thing in life gets his mind riz," she 
 explained to us on the last day of June, when we 
 made her acquaintance. "He quit workin' for 
 John Michael — an' a bad day that was for me — 
 when Owen John Owen made mention o' a coat 
 an' trousers, and now he's in Owen's the feedin' 
 he gets wouldn't serve a wran, much less a chap 
 like Stephen." 
 
 There was no begging, but our offer to make 
 some baby clothes was gratefully accepted. Two 
 days later a wild-looking boy handed us a note 
 which recalled our promise. 
 
 " May it please your honour," it ran, " Mrs. Cos- 
 telloe has the twinnies. Send the cloths for God' 
 sake. The is nakked. Yours truly Stephen Cos- 
 telloe." And the date was inscribed as " Julia the 
 2." 
 
 Though the materials procurable were limited, 
 a couple of hours' sewing enabled us to answer this 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 59 
 
 appeal in a sort of way, and when we reached the 
 cottage by the cliff s we were invited to enter. 
 
 In the dark and smoky room we could just dis- 
 cern two tiny heads resting on a bundle of rags be- 
 side their mother in the four-post bed, and despite 
 our protests, the father insisted on holding first one 
 and then the other to the light of the doorway for 
 our inspection. 
 
 It was almost literally true that they were " nak- 
 ked." One wore a skimpy wrapper, made of flan- 
 nelette, and she was exhibited the first. To the 
 other's share a diminutive shirt had fallen. The 
 mother had an old shawl about her shoulders, evi- 
 dently the only moveable covering in the house, for 
 had the rags been touched they would certainly 
 have fallen to bits. Looking round him, Stephen 
 could find nothing to serve his purpose but a piece of 
 paper, the coloured cartoon from an ancient number 
 of the Weekly Freeman. The picture had already 
 been used to wrap a parcel in, and now, most dex- 
 terously, he twisted its crumpled folds round the 
 baby's limbs. It was at once pathetic and ludi- 
 crous to see the tiny body wearing for all garment 
 the gaudy daub of paper, on which Mr. Redmond's 
 portrait was unmistakable. 
 
 " This is the Mary one, your honour," explained 
 Stephen, proudly. " An' she's doin' nicely, praises 
 be; but the Biddy one" (with a look towards the 
 
60 A WESTERN ISLAND 
 
 other, and a half sigh), "we're thinkin' she's only 
 waitin' on the will o' God, the creature." 
 
 Returning from the Costelloes, we were struck 
 anew by the beauty and variety of the wild flowers 
 that grew in every crevice of rock ; even on the face 
 of the cliffs there were clumps of sea-pinks, and 
 big, blushing convolvulus, whilst the deep, brilli- 
 ant crimson of the wild geranium showed every- 
 where above the creeping briar-rose. 
 
 Besides innumerable others there are two plants 
 growing wild on the island that are not found un- 
 cultivated elsewhere, the flowering leek and a small 
 hop. Antiquarians maintain that these are the des- 
 cendants of plants which once flourished in the 
 gardens of the monks who in bygone ages lived and 
 prayed and studied here. The ruins of their cells 
 and chapels still remain. It seems as though the 
 nameless attraction of the island was felt and ap- 
 preciated all those centuries ago — or perhaps it may 
 be that some fragrance from those lives of mortifi- 
 cation and praise of God still lingers, and creates 
 the atmosphere ,of fascination. 
 
 Added to this there is freedom in the very air 
 one breathes ; such sweet, soft air, which even when 
 it rises to a gale never buffets one like eastern 
 winds. When breakers are dashing on the rocks 
 below, and Black Fort, and the distant cliffs of 
 Moher are white with foam, the wind, even in its 
 strength, is soft and invigorating. 
 
A WESTERN ISLAND 61 
 
 Thus it was on the day before we left. The 
 cliffs, usually grey and dreary, were clad in the 
 white of foam, whilst breakers dashed and roared, 
 swirling in caverns at our feet, and beating with 
 thunderous cadence underground. There was a ray 
 of sunshine — the watery sun that comes after a 
 storm — and the mountains of water glimmered sil- 
 very and green before they broke to white and fell 
 away in foam. 
 
 So our real goodbye was said in presence of 
 this magnificence. Next morning all was changed. 
 Sunshine bathed the coast of Galway, glistened on 
 the blue-green of the bay, lighted the greyness of 
 the island, and all the world looked glad. 
 
 No one said goodbye to us as we took our seats 
 regretfully, for the last time, in Coleman Corne- 
 ally's curragh. The parting wishes of our friends 
 have no exact translation in English. The French 
 au revoir and the auf wiedersehen of the Father- 
 land express their meaning more nearly. 
 
 " God have you in his keeping," they said, " un- 
 til you return to us once more." 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION. 
 
 We called her the Friday woman, for she had made 
 it a custom to come to us for her dinner on the 
 fifth day of every week ; and in course of time her 
 right to the name of Mrs. Gillivan was almost for- 
 gotten. She was a tall old woman, and wore one 
 of the big black cloaks that are no longer the 
 fashion, except in Waterford and parts of Galway. 
 It fell, I remember, in severe lines about her, 
 shrouding the stains that besprinkled both her blue 
 check apron and her red flannel petticoat. Her 
 feet, hardened by much walking, were bare, but 
 she always swathed her ankles in many- coloured 
 rags. The outlines of her face, once beautiful, 
 but hardened now by exposure — and maybe by 
 other things — were shaded by the frill of her cap 
 which, though not spotless, was usually fairly 
 clean; and in bad weather a small head-shawl com- 
 pleted her attire. 
 
 She always came empty-handed to the door ; but 
 if anyone had gone down the avenue whilst she 
 was eating her dinner, they would have found a 
 bundle under the laurel bushes near the gate, with 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION 63 
 
 a small lidded tin can beside it. These comprised, 
 as far as I know the Friday woman's earthly 
 goods ; at least they were all she brought with her 
 on her rounds. " And what roof have I, saving 
 only the roof of Heaven?" was the sole reference 
 I ever heard her make to a home. 
 
 I knew the reason for her homeless state; but 
 there are things that must be ignored, and this was 
 one of them. I also knew that, because of this 
 reason, the poor Friday woman had, in practice 
 at least, given up her religion for years. So it 
 surprised me not a little when she spoke of the 
 mission, lately given at Ballaun, as though she had 
 taken part in it. The mission had closed on the 
 previous Sunday, and since then we had had al- 
 most incessant rain. The sun was struggling out 
 for the first time that day as the Friday woman 
 took her seat on the second of the three steps lead- 
 ing to the porch; and when her dinner was over I 
 saw by the way she laid down her plate, after wip- 
 ing it carefully on a not over-clean apron, that she 
 had no intention of taking her leave at once. 
 
 Sitting on the parapet of the terrace, I made an 
 uncomplimentary remark on the recent weather; 
 but the Friday woman looked reproachful. 
 
 " Isn't it God's weather?" she said, in an apolo- 
 getic tone; " though maybe it isn't His best," she 
 added. " But last week ! oh wasn't that the 
 
64 A SECOND-HAND MISSION 
 
 week! an' we having a mission over beyond in 
 Ballaun." 
 
 " Yes, they had ime weather for the mission," 
 I agreed; "and was the attendance good?" 
 
 " Good ! you may say it was good. And, why 
 wouldn' it be good, with the beautiful missioner 
 we had in it? 'Tis thronged it was, no less." 
 
 I saw her hand go instinctively to the bosom 
 of her ragged dress; but as her fingers touched 
 the thing they sought, they fell again to her lap. 
 I knew she was longing for her after-dinner smoke, 
 but this was another thing to be ignored. Polite- 
 ness bade us both be silent concerning the cher- 
 ished clay pipe that, when not between her lips, 
 lay close above her heart. 
 
 " 'Twas the second day of the mission," she went 
 on, " that I went into Corny Farrell's, looking for 
 a light for my pi — , for an air of the fire, when who 
 should come in, an' me sittin' there, but the mis- 
 sioner himself. A lovely man, God bless him ! an' 
 a beautiful father confessor. I'd had no idea to 
 stop in the place, God forgive me; but the mis- 
 sioner — Father Angelus they called him — would 
 have me stop, good, bad, or indifferent. You've 
 heard daughter, what's kept me back these years?" 
 Her voice sank to a whisper, for this was the near- 
 est approach to the ignored topic that had ever 
 passed between us. I nodded a silent affirmative. 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION 65 
 
 14 'Twas the purpose of amindment," she went 
 on, almost as though she were talking to herself; 
 " the firm purpose of amindment. He kept on at 
 me, howsomedever, till I got vexed like, an' God 
 forgive me for that too. ' Amn't I old enough to 
 mind me own soul?' says I." 
 
 " ' You're not, then,' says he, sharp like. ' True, 
 you are old enough an' near enough to death not 
 to go tempting Providence this way. Where'll you 
 go to, you misfortunate creature,' says he, ' an' you 
 to die in your sins?' 
 
 " ' I'm an old woman,' says I, an' me fairly riz, 
 1 I'm an old woman, an' I likes a warm corner.' 
 O cushla dear, I did say that to him. And with 
 that he ups an' the two eyes of him went through 
 me, for all the world like a pair of skewers. 
 
 " * A bad old man is bad enough,' says he, ' but 
 a bad old woman is the very devil.' That's what 
 he said, no less — ' the very devil.' An' me sixty- 
 seven years of age." 
 
 The ever useful apron that had lately performed 
 the task of a dish-cloth, was now called into use 
 as a pocket handkerchief. Then suddenly she 
 looked up at me. 
 
 " It's the grand father confessor he is, acushla," 
 
 she said, " the grand father confessor, and me not 
 
 next or nigh the Sacraments — God forgive me that 
 
 same ! — these sixteen years. Confession indeed I'd 
 
 F 
 
66 A SECOND-HAND MISSION 
 
 often had long ago, and contrition; but satisfac- 
 tion — oh daughter dear, I'd never had such satis- 
 faction before." She drew a long breath, and 
 paused before continuing. 
 
 " 'Twas night, and me finished, for wasn't it only 
 right that the likes of me should go last of all?" 
 
 " ' Is there e'er a one in the chapel yet?' says he, 
 and he leavin' the box. 
 
 " ' Sorra one but meself, Father dear,' says I. 
 
 " Who's that?' says he, for 'twas dark an' black, 
 with nothing but the weenchy glimmer from the 
 altar-lamp above us, and the cloak was over me, 
 head and face. He riz it back with his hand, that 
 tender, an' oh! the beautiful words he says: ' It's 
 you is it?' says he; ' go, then, me child, me poor 
 child,' says he, ' go and sin no more.' " 
 
 Once again the apron was called into use, and 
 there was silence. 
 
 I should like to have heard something of the 
 next morning, but so much was vouchsafed that I 
 felt I could not ask for details that were not freely 
 offered. I know the chapel at Ballaun, bare and 
 benchless, with all but the sanctuary floored with 
 mud. I have seen it on a Sunday morning, and so 
 can fancy what the crowd would be during a mis- 
 sion, — barely room to kneel, little air to breathe; 
 yet filled with a patient, waiting throng, from the 
 grey dusk of dawn — until Mass, 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION 67 
 
 " What sort of priests were they who gave the 
 mission?" I asked. 
 
 " The grandest kind," she answered, " and 
 Father Angelus the grandest of any." 
 
 " I meant to ask what order he belonged to," 
 I explained meekly. " Was he a Redemptorist — 
 or a Passionist?" 
 
 " I'll tell you the kind he was," she replied. 
 " The two feet of him was bare, and there was no 
 hair on him, but he wears his full whisker." 
 
 The answer was explicit enough, for no one could 
 fail to recognize a Capuchin, and I knew then that 
 temperance had taken its full share in the mission 
 time. 
 
 " I suppose the other missioner was the best 
 preacher," I ventured to say. Favour is usually 
 divided so at missions. If one missioner is sought 
 after more in confession, the other is considered 
 the better at preaching. But even this Mrs. Gilli- 
 van would not allow. 
 
 " Not at all," she said quickly, compassionating 
 my ignorance. " He was good enough, I dare say; 
 but he was only the second-best priest all round this 
 time. Father Angelus, he was the great speaker. 
 Oh, daughter dear, 'twould do your heart good to 
 hear the sermon he gave on Hell." 
 
 " I think I'd rather hear him preach about 
 Heaven," I said. " Wouldn't you sooner hear of 
 God's mercy than His justice?" 
 
68 A SECOND-HAND MISSION 
 
 " Wisha, haven't we His mercy with us every 
 day?" she replied, contemptuous at my stupidity. 
 " It's not the likes of us that needs to be put in 
 mind of the mercy of God; for where would we 
 be at all without it? But the fires of Hell I God 
 help us I Don't we forget them in our sins?" 
 
 11 Was it on the closing night Father Angelus 
 preached on Hell?" I asked. 
 
 " Not at all," replied the Friday woman. " 'Twas 
 the other priest that spoke that night ; but wait now 
 till I tell you how Father Angelus had the fellows 
 caught." She chuckled to herself at the remem- 
 brance, and once again her fingers sought her pipe. 
 
 11 ' Hold up your rosary beads,' says he — an' devil 
 a man, but very few, had beadses with them to 
 hold up. ' Is that all?' he says, and again he says 
 it. Then ' hold up your pipes,' says he — and every 
 hand of man or boy in all the throng was held up 
 as he did, though not a know did they know the 
 reason why he asked it. ' Shame,' says he, and 
 you'd a heard a pin fall, only there wasn't room, 
 acushla, in the throng, for even a pin to stir. 
 4 Shame,' says he, in a still sort of voice. * There's 
 ne'er a one forgets his pipe, but the rosary beads 
 that helped your fathers to keep their faith in God, 
 troth! I suppose they're too heavy for the likes 
 o' yous to carry.' 
 
 " I was the last to get home of an evening, and 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION 69 
 
 there wasn't a beads left on the stalls, and me pas- 
 sing that night, though goin' in I'd seen them there 
 in heaps." 
 
 " Was it last Sunday that the mission closed?" 
 I asked her. 
 
 " Aye, but 'twas the feast was the grand day," 
 she replied. " I mind well; for the second-best 
 priest had great things to tell us about the Saints. 
 Didn't he tell how one of the poor gentlemen took 
 a terrible fall, an' he ridin' a horse baste?" 
 
 " Which gentleman?" I asked, not understand- 
 ing the sudden turn the conversation had taken. 
 
 " Well, I disremember which one it was," she re- 
 plied. " Whist now, but it was Saint Paul, for 
 Saint Peter is the gentleman that has the locking 
 of Heaven's gates. Didn't they lock him in jail 
 himself too, the rascals ; only between him and the 
 angel they had them finely caught, after." 
 
 "I — I don't exactly remember about Saint 
 Paul," I said, not wishing to appear too ignorant, 
 yet anxious to extract a further resume of the 
 sermon. 
 
 " Didn't the horse go trip," explained the Friday 
 woman, " and Paul got pitched, right on top of 
 his head, and when he got up he couldn't see a 
 stim. So he got converted after, and became the 
 great Saint entirely." 
 
 " And Saint Peter," I questioned; " won't you 
 tell me what was said of him? " 
 
7o A SECOND-HAND MISSION 
 
 " 'Twas him they put in prison, away in foreign 
 parts," she continued, quite eager to impart her in- 
 formation. " I couldn't tell you why, but I know 
 he was tired, poor gentleman, tired an' weary, and 
 when he went for to take off him he fell asleep on 
 the straw they'd left there in prison. Well, after 
 a time in comes an Angel. ' Peter! ' says the An- 
 gel. 'Sorr!' says Peter, wakin' up. 'Put on your 
 trousers, Peter,' says the Angel, ' and follow me.' 
 And with that the two of them quits out, and away 
 with them. And when the low rascals that had 
 had him caught, came in, wasn't he gone from 
 them, clean and clever." 
 
 She chuckled to herself over the discomfiture of 
 Saint Peter's captors. 
 
 " Wasn't that the grand trick to play them?" she 
 said; and as she spoke I saw her feet appear be- 
 low her ragged skirt, and I knew that our interview 
 was drawing to a close. 
 
 " Well now, I've been keeping you," she said, 
 " an' I'd best be movin' on." 
 
 I felt some word of congratulation was neces- 
 sary, and I tried to say how truly glad I was of 
 what she had told me about herself. 
 
 " I am sure you must feel very glad yourself, 
 Mrs. Gillivan," I concluded. " And — and very 
 happy now." 
 
 " It isn't happy, acushla," she explained. 
 
A SECOND-HAND MISSION 71 
 
 " There's two parts in me, and one is just Heaven 
 
 in me heart. But the other ," she paused a 
 
 minute and pulled back her cloak. " There's me 
 pledge badge," she said. "Taken for life, an' with 
 God's help I'll keep it. But there's only one way, 
 daughter, and it's a terrible hard way for me, after 
 seven- and- thirty years under the free air of God." 
 
 She saw I did not understand, and went on 
 quietly. 
 
 " In summertime, with God's help, I'll keep 
 temptation from me, but when the days is cold, 
 and the nights are dark and long, and there is light 
 and warmth where the whiskey is, daughter, I 
 couldn't live without the drop that's brought me 
 where I am to-day ; so I promised Father Angelus, 
 on the first of winter to the poorhouse I'd go. 
 God help me ! The thought of it has me well nigh 
 killed. ' I'd sooner die,' says I to him; ' I'd sooner 
 die on the roadside, now the peace of God is on 
 me!' 
 
 " ' You weighted down the cross of Christ,' says 
 he ; ' but you don't care now to lift it from Him, 
 even though He'll pay you with a crown of glory 
 in Heaven.' 
 
 " For sixteen years that's what I'm doin', weight- 
 ing down His cross; and think, daughter, think, 
 He's after forgivin' me I " 
 
 Her face, on a level now with my own, was white 
 and drawn. 
 
72 A SECOND-HAND MISSION 
 
 " Sixteen years/' she murmured, "if it is His 
 will. Sixteen winters to be spent in the poorhouse, 
 just to pay Him what I can." She shuddered even 
 at the thought, and yet she faced it willingly, know- 
 ing that therein lay her hope of safety from offend- 
 ing God again. " It's a long while, daughter," she 
 went on; "a long while. Sixteen years an' me 
 an old woman this minute. May be — I wouldn't be 
 asken' it of Him, but He's very good, — an' maybe 
 He'd not be countin' every one." 
 
 I picked up her stick and put it in her hand. 
 
 " God's good, acushla," she said; " God's good, 
 an' may He shower His blessings upon you, this 
 minute and forever." 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER. 
 
 When Cuthbert Cramlington brought his botanical 
 wanderings in Connemara to a close by taking some 
 land on the slopes of Currusmaun, and building 
 himself a three-roomed cottage in the highest 
 corner of his property, he showed himself pos- 
 sessed of the soul of an artist. 
 
 Some branch of gardening had been his pro- 
 fession. He was a Fellow of the Royal Horticul- 
 tural Society, a botanist, in his old age a man of 
 independent, though probably slender means : and 
 he had chosen for his home, in the heart of the 
 wilds, a site of beauty almost unimaginable, at least 
 when the lights and shades of summer sun and 
 clouds were on it. 
 
 The ground fell steeply from his doorway, 
 covered before his coming with intermingled heath 
 and bracken, till, at the foot of the mountain, reeds 
 and watergrasses showed vividly green where the 
 river widened to a lake, a long, winding lake that 
 followed the curves of the surrounding mountains. 
 These, near at hand, were grey and green, grey 
 with granite rocks and patches of gravel, green 
 
74 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 with grass and fern and heather not yet in bloom, 
 but further off, as tier after tier of mounds and 
 peaks rose to the far horizon there was every shade 
 of that most beautiful of greys, formed by the soft 
 western air on the purple of heather or of loose- 
 strife, the yellow of gorse, and the blue of scabious, 
 with grass and turf and granite ; and where clouds 
 in places cast shadows on the sunshine there was 
 the delicate shimmer of mother of pearl. 
 
 These mountains lay to the south and west. 
 Eastward the land spread out in wide stretches of 
 brown and yellow bog, with glittering divisions that 
 the river and its tributaries made, and a single 
 winding thread of grey, just the road that led, after 
 many miles, to Galway. 
 
 The unusual sound of the old man's name proved 
 too much for his new neighbours, and as, with 
 open-eyed amazement, they saw the garden beds 
 appearing on the rough mountain side, they chris- 
 tened him anew, the Flower Mister. 
 
 Close beside the Cottage nature had provided the 
 most perfect setting for a rock and water garden, 
 a deep glade, wide enough to be sunny during the 
 midday hours, cool enough for ferns to grow luxuri- 
 antly beside the mountain stream that trickled over 
 a bed of dark green moss, here gathering into 
 smooth brown pools, there falling into a miniature 
 cascade, and making tiny rills of white and yellow 
 foam. 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER 75 
 
 In the garden round the house all kinds of an- 
 nuals and herbaceous plants grew up, but the 
 Flower Mister kept his rock garden only for blooms 
 of local growth. He had taken toll of all the 
 countryside to deck this dell in natural loveliness. 
 Heather blossoms, big and small, harebells, ming- 
 ling the brightness of their blue with the creeping 
 growth of yellow rock roses, the deeper blue of a 
 late flowering gentian, the common yellow asphodel 
 in clumps, pale primrose orchises, smelling sweetly, 
 tiny violet heads of butterwort with their starlike 
 leaves, the long, slender stalks and delicately- veined 
 white flowers of grass of Parnassus, and all the 
 botanical treasures of bog and lake and mountain- 
 side, had yielded themselves to one who knew the 
 place to find them. 
 
 Outside the dell he had planted shrubs and trees 
 as well as flowers, lilacs and laburnums, apples, 
 pears and plums, and as they grew they formed 
 shelter for the blossoms that showed more brilli- 
 antly every season in the soft air, and the soil made 
 congenial to them by the Flower Mister's care. 
 
 For years after his coming to Currusmaun he had 
 owned to no interest, no tie outside his garden. 
 Then, to the surprise of all, a new flower had come 
 to bloom upon the mountainside. 
 
 Rose, the well-named daughter of such a father, 
 was the child of Cuthbert Cramlington's old age, 
 
76 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 but what the story of his life had been, he never 
 revealed. On coming to Ireland he had left her 
 to be brought up by an aunt, and when at last she 
 was sent to rejoin him, it seemed as though his in- 
 animate children, the flowers, had crowded out his 
 little daughter from his heart. 
 
 He was more like a grandfather than a father 
 to the pretty seventeen-year-old white rose, and 
 though they were good friends enough when they 
 met, she was no rival to the garden where he spent 
 his time from dawn to dusk. 
 
 The summer was coming in when Rose made 
 her appearance on Currusmaun. The mail-car 
 dropped her at the riverside, where her father had 
 remembered to send Martin Faughran to meet her. 
 It was all new and very lovely to the town-bred 
 girl used to something so very different, and before 
 they had mounted the steep bohreen, which, true 
 to its name, was indeed no wider than a cow, she 
 had secured a promise, eagerly given by Martin, 
 that he would take her on the lake at the first op- 
 portunity. His father tended the salmon weirs that 
 lay east and west of the lough, so Martin was able 
 to combine business and pleasure when keeping his 
 promise to the Flower Mister's Rose. She was utterly 
 unlike the other girls about, and whilst they gazed 
 in wonder at her simple muslin frocks and wide- 
 brimmed shady hats, she returned their interest 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER 77 
 
 with frank curiosity at their bare heads and feet 
 and short scarlet petticoats. The boys' opinion of 
 Rose Cramlington was unanimous, though the fact 
 that Martin Faughran had made himself her silent 
 watchdog prevented them from showing her their 
 admiration. 
 
 She was really little more than the child her 
 father took her for, and something of childhood 
 lingering in Martin's own heart made him under- 
 stand her ; so with innate, unconscious chivalry he 
 determined that womanhood should not be thrust 
 upon her by any word or look of his companions. 
 The Flower Mister was too deeply engrossed in his 
 garden to heed the comings and goings of his 
 daughter. In the morning she played at house- 
 keeping for a while, and then, so long as the days 
 were fine, she went away, down to the lake, to the 
 clumsy flat-bottomed boat in which the Faughrans, 
 father and son, went fishing and tending the weirs. 
 
 Now and again at distant intervals a minister 
 came from some far-away place to hold a service 
 for the English coastguards, and though the Flower 
 Mister had never frequented these meetings, his 
 daughter attended them, and they were the only 
 times when Martin Faughran relaxed his guard. 
 
 It was towards the middle of autumn. The gar- 
 den was one blaze of colour, and the mountain 
 rivalled it, though soberly, with the splendour 
 
78 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 of its heather. Rose had gone to the coastguard 
 station at Nautamene, and coming back she met 
 Michael Faughran on the road. He was Martin's 
 brother, yet at Currusmaun he was something of a 
 stranger, having been brought up by an uncle in 
 Gal way, where as he grew up he found employment, 
 and where he had learnt to dress and talk and act 
 in a manner strange to dwellers on the mountain- 
 side. 
 
 None of all this had come to us of our own know- 
 ledge. The only time we saw the Flower Mister he 
 was an old, old man, wanting only four years of a 
 hundred, and very near his end. A little old man, 
 large-headed, bowed under the weight of years, 
 and very deaf, with white hair, bare and falling in 
 curls on the collar of his coat and mingling at the 
 sides with his flowing beard. Horn-rimmed 
 glasses, tied with a black string round his head, 
 enabled him to see and tend his seedlings. 
 
 His garden, an oasis of beauty in the wild gran- 
 deur of bare mountains, was so amazing that we 
 accepted the even more amazing story (told in mere 
 bald facts by the woman whom we took to be his 
 housekeeper) as unquestionably true, though indeed 
 it seems scarcely less incredible than the legends of 
 ploukas and phantoms that the old folk tell. 
 
 She told of Mr. Cramlington himself, of the 
 coming of Rose — " a pretty, tender little piece " 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER 79 
 
 she called her — of Martin Faughran, and lastly, of 
 the meeting with Michael on that autumn Sunday 
 afternoon. 
 
 " There was no harm in the gartlaher," she told 
 us, as we stood at the garden gate, where we had 
 stopped to ask an explanation of the marvel that 
 we had come upon without warning in our rambles. 
 " An' she never thought but that this lad was like 
 the others. I couldn't tell yous what passed between 
 them, only doesn't the fellow stoop over the gate, 
 an' she goin' from him, an' — savin' your honour's 
 favour — he takes a kiss from off her cheek. 'Twas 
 the devil, no less, that brought out the Flower Mister 
 at that minute. Anyways — God forgive him that 
 same — he turned on the child, for indeed she was 
 little better, an' put her from him for what he had 
 seen. 'Twas the bad, cruel act, an' only that the 
 devil himself was in him, I doubt he ever could 
 
 have done it. And she : . Well she had her 
 
 father's own spirit within in her, God help the mis- 
 fortunate child, an' she takes him at his word an' 
 off with her. And Michael, only proud and pleased 
 to get her anyways. They waited for the mail- 
 car on the cross-road beyond, herself and Michael 
 — the sorrow take him — and drove all the night 
 through into Gal way, and in the morning" they got 
 married by the Government some way, for no priest 
 nor parson would have done it that quick and them 
 differing in faith, 
 
80 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 " And then?" we asked, hardly crediting our 
 ears. 
 
 "He took her off to America where he was going 
 himself, in any case ; and many's the long day she's 
 had to repent her what she did. They never wrote 
 theirselves after, but the neighbours did be saying 
 that things went against them, God help the crea- 
 tures, and may He forgive Michael who ought to 
 have known better." 
 
 "Did she not try to explain to her father?" 
 again we questioned. 
 
 " There never was much nature between them,, 
 and I don't believe, daughter, that one line ever 
 passed from that day. God only knows is she liv- 
 in' yet. Me mother, God be good to her immortal 
 soul, she did let him know, time and again, a part 
 of the news that came, but there wasn't a show out 
 of him that he heard a word she said." 
 
 It hardly seemed possible that the beautiful 
 scene around us could have witnessed such a 
 tragedy, and yet be fair and peaceful as it was. 
 Poor Flower Mister, what a burden to carry in sil- 
 ence for over thirty years. Poor father and poor 
 little neglected stricken daughter. Then we re- 
 membered another who must have suffered in that 
 tragedy. 
 
 " And Martin?" we asked. 
 
 " Sure it was the death of him, daughter." 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER ' 81 
 
 Baldly the woman stated the simple fact. " Mar- 
 tin, he never held his head up after she goin'. 
 'Twas not three months before the hots and colds 
 got him, and though they talked of it only bein' a 
 turn, I seen death between his two eyes from the 
 very start. His mother wouldn't have it, nor his 
 father neither, though the clothes, they'd gone on 
 him, they'd lap on him now, he that was so good 
 on the body: and he was the third boy for the 
 Faughrans to lose. Mustn't God Almighty have 
 had the powerful wish for the family to leave them 
 that troubled? Well, 'twas not till Father Hugh 
 Jane 1 came back from his holidays that they 
 would allow at all what was on him. He always 
 had a horrid likin' for Martin, had Father Hugh' 
 Jane. You can fancy the feeling he had, for when 
 he saw the way it was with him, didn't he take 
 the three colours. ' Martin,' says he, an' I heard 
 him with me own ears, ' it's heart- sorry I am to 
 see you that reduced.' 
 
 " * It can't be helped, Father dear,' says Martin. 
 " Isn't it God's will, whatever way it takes us?" 
 
 " Tis a bitter long road from this to Killawur- 
 rity, but Father Hugh Jane, he came every step 
 of it once in the week, after, so long as the poor boy 
 was in it. 'Twas of a Tuesday the change showed 
 out in Martin. The cough had left him terrible 
 
 1 Anglice : Eugene. 
 G 
 
82 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 weak and poor, but he had his senses up to the 
 time he went. The night came in on him hard 
 enough, till about ten o'clock, when he seemed to 
 be restin' and 'twas an hour or more e'er ever he 
 spoke again. 
 
 " 'Why aren't yees prayin'?' says he, all at once. 
 
 " ' What prayers will we say, astore?' says his 
 mother. 
 
 " ' The prayers for the dyin'. What else?' says 
 he. 
 
 " So we all set to, and worked at the prayers con- 
 siderable, and he seemed to enjoy that most com- 
 fortable. 
 
 " ' Where's the candle?' says he. 
 
 " ' There's two on the table, avick," says his 
 mother. 
 
 " ' The blessed candle, mother,' says he. ' 'Tis 
 dark where I'm goin' without I have the blessed 
 light, to show me the gates of the kingdom of God.' 
 'Twas myself that lit it, but the two poor hands 
 of him was that weak he couldn't clasp it, and I 
 held them steady between my own." 
 
 She had forgotten us, in the scene that filled 
 her mind, and there was something in her face that 
 told us, all at once, why every detail of that death- 
 bed, past now for over thirty years, was still as 
 fresh as ever in her mind. 
 
 " ' I'm goin',' says he. 
 
THE FLOWER MISTER 83 
 
 " ' The blessin' of God be about us ! ' said his 
 father, and he with the tears running down upon 
 his face. 
 
 " ' They said that Martin never spoke again, but 
 I seen the 'Amen' that lay upon his lips. Daughter, 
 it was penetratin'." 
 
 Then, after a moment's pause, she spoke again 
 in a different tone, and her words confirmed our 
 previous conclusion. 
 
 "I was only a gartlaher that time," she said, 
 " and 'tis the good man of my own I've had this 
 many a year, thanks be to God, and Martin, he 
 never had a thought for any one, only the Flower 
 Mister's Rose. May the Lord have mercy on his 
 soul." 
 
 Many changes come to places and to people in 
 the course of four years' time, and lately we have 
 visited Currusmaun again, but the oasis has almost 
 disappeared, and the place is fast returning to its 
 original wild. 
 
 The Flower Mister is dead. The woman who had 
 loved Martin Faughran was away in her own home 
 over the mountain. The house is roofless and the 
 garden neglected, abandoned, torn up in parts, with 
 cattle grazing ruthlessly amongst the remains of 
 what had once been flowerbeds. A carved ma- 
 hogany bedstead, which we had seen and admired 
 
84 THE FLOWER MISTER 
 
 at the time of our first visit, had been broken up 
 and used to stop a gateless opening, and so prevent 
 the beasts from straying on the road. Some hardy 
 plants still persist in blooming here and there, and 
 the trees and shrubs that were big enough to escape 
 the cattle, have grown and spread unchecked. 
 
 No one knows or cares for what is fast becoming 
 ancient history, no one can tell us if the exiled Rose 
 is living or dead. 
 
 Over all the sun shines pitiless and unchange- 
 able, but magnificently beautiful, over the grand 
 scene of bog and lake and mountain that the Flower 
 Mister must have loved, though his heart was hard 
 to human pity, and let us hope that it was some 
 comfort to him until his lonely end. 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT. 
 
 BEYOND the village of Tullaroan the coast line is 
 so much indented that it does not belie the name of 
 Connemara, which in Irish means the bays of the 
 sea. High, narrow peninsulas and deep, land- 
 locked bays alternate, and the road runs steadily 
 northward at the heads of these bays. Passing 
 through a belt of fairly good land, dotted here and 
 there with houses, it makes towards rocks and 
 heather and true congestion, but it leaves to the left 
 a great tongue of land, physically no different from 
 its neighbours, yet which is becoming practically 
 deserted. 
 
 It is four to five miles in length and less than 
 half as much in width, even at its widest point., 
 A backbone of grey rock runs along it, for it is in 
 reality a spur from one of the great Twelve Pins, 
 and the ground is hunched up in places so as almost 
 to justify the title of mountain which is given toi 
 it locally. Between the rocks there are stretches 
 of bog land on which the few inhabitants depend 
 for all their fuel. There are lakes, too, sunk into 
 the rock or sheltered with sedges, and thus smooth 
 
86 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 enough for waterlilies to thrive, starring the still 
 surface with white and yellow blossoms. 
 
 The heights are heather- clad, but with plenty 
 of rough grass for the cattle and ponies that wan- 
 der over them, and in the hollows the land is culti- 
 vated industriously, potato plots and patches for 
 corn being built up on the side of the mountain 
 or drained, with deep furrows, from the bog. 
 
 On the peninsulas that lie to north and south, 
 such arable plots are attached to yellow-roofed cot- 
 tages, but on Gortneighra it is not so. There are 
 houses indeed near most of its gardens, but they 
 stand in silence undisturbed, grey and roofless, 
 their bare gables pointing drearily to the sky. The 
 tillers of the soil live under shelter of the mountain, 
 facing the open sea. As one by one the families 
 die off or drift away to America, those who remain 
 strive with feeble, greedy hands first to seize, and 
 then to till their scattered holdings. 
 
 " We've something better nor twelve acres at 
 home here, but the weight of that is on the moun- 
 tain," was the reply one woman gave when asked 
 the extent of her husband's holding. " Then 
 there's four acres pf bog away in Bracklagh, an* 
 a couple or three more in Aghnagar, where we grow 
 the potatoes in Martin Leary's garden." The 
 amount of land and the names of the townslands 
 would differ, but otherwise she unconsciously des- 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 87 
 
 cribed her neighbours' property as well as her own. 
 Her household, following the universal rule of the 
 district, consisted of herself and her husband, and 
 one child, in this case a son, who remained at home 
 under protest, either because his brothers and sis- 
 ters would not pay his passage to America or be- 
 cause some lingering feeling of filial duty forbade 
 his deserting the old couple at the last. 
 
 " At least you have a good son in Michael," we 
 said to Mrs. Devine. 
 
 " I have indeed. I have, astore." She looked 
 round the kitchen as she spoke. " But then 
 the father an' meself, we always have the fear upon 
 us." 
 
 And in every home on Gortneighra that same 
 fear dwells, fear of the all-powerful, irresistible 
 magnetism of America. 
 
 " Delia came home to us, 'twill be seven years 
 come Hollandtide, and she was for stayin' while 
 Michael got his turn, over beyond. 'Twas Sunday 
 the passage come." Her eyes went over to the 
 dresser by the hearth. " An' he couldn't walk, for 
 leppin' an' he goin' in to Mass. He couldn't leave 
 the passage neither, but twenty times a day he'd 
 have it from the pocket, just for to be looking at 
 the writin' on it. Me heart was broke entirely an' 
 him goin' from us, but 'twas then the father took 
 a turn that frightened the lives out of us and 
 
88 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 Michael had to set the passage on the dresser be- 
 yond, for sorra foot could he be leavin' us that 
 while. Then on the first p' spring me fine Delia 
 went out to milk the cows, by the way, but she not 
 comin' in, an' the calves bawlin' for a taste o' milk, 
 out I goes meself, an' there the cans was, lyin' 
 empty on the mountain, an' herself quit out of it, 
 an' off again to the States. ' Mother,' says she, 
 an' she writin' home after, ' I couldn't stop in it,' 
 says she, ' but tell Michael to content himself,' says 
 she." 
 
 Good advice, and easily given, though she did 
 not practice her own precept. 
 
 " And did Michael content himself?" we asked. 
 
 " Well he stopped in it," the mother replied, 
 with caution, " but content! Dear an' darlin'," she 
 went on, with sudden earnestness, " there's times 
 he has me scandalized and scalded with the Fear 
 that is upon me. Never a time did I leave this 
 house summer nor winter these seven years, but 
 comin' in 'tis to the dresser I do be goin' straight." 
 She moved across the room as she spoke and lifted 
 up a small tin box. " There's the passage," she 
 said, holding out a smoke-grimed envelope, with 
 fingered sides, and edges frayed. "There it lies. 
 Oh I've had hundreds o' minds to throw it in the 
 fire, but I didn't after, an' maybe it has him more 
 content. There's nights I do hear him, an' me gone 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 89 
 
 to bed, creepin' over to the dresser an' takin' it 
 down. He'll sit by the hearth there, an' read every 
 word on it, his own name an' all; an' after I'll 
 find it back in the one spot again." 
 
 What castles must the boy have built, in the red 
 heart of the dying embers, sitting in the darkened 
 kitchen, the passage to his land of dreams lying 
 open in his hands. All the toil and dulness and 
 hardship of daily life forgotten, swallowed up by 
 glowing visions that might be fancies, turned to 
 golden reality any day, were it not for his own ren- 
 dering of just six words of God : 
 
 " Honour thy father and thy mother." 
 
 But although Mrs. Devine's story could, with 
 variation, be told of every house on the peninsula, 
 the American drainage is not the only reason for 
 the dereliction of the district. Scotland claims a 
 goodly number of boys from Gortneighra, not for 
 a few months as harvesters or potato-pickers, but 
 permanently as navvies or as dock-hands in Glas- 
 gow. To the mothers at home this is an exile no 
 less hopeless than the other, with as little pros- 
 pect of return and no likely end but death. ' 
 
 " Deed, an' it is Johneen that's gone," a woman 
 told us, when the news of her son's death had come 
 to her from a Clyde shipyard ; ? ' an' why wouldn't 
 it? The first gossoon ever I had, an' the best. Nice, 
 is it? You may well be sayin' he was nice, an' 
 
9° A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 there's the whole of it. He wasn't too nice for 
 God Almighty. I reared me children well, none 
 better, an' what good ever would they have been, 
 to themselves to myself, if they hadn't Ma'am'd 
 me, and Sir'd the father; but John, if he rose up 
 out o' the grave, he'd Ma'am me, like the youngest 
 little babby this minute, — if I wished it. Well, 
 'twill be two weeks to-morrow the letter come, but 
 he's gone another week an' more than that. I'll 
 tell you how I know it. I was sleepin' inside in 
 the bed there, 'twas a Tuesday night, somewheres 
 about two o' the morning. Well I was waked with 
 the horridest cold skelp on the elbow, for all the 
 world like ice, an' wakin', I thinks o' me mother. 
 You know the mother always means trouble. ' Who 
 is it?' says I, an' I rose up out o' the bed, an' went 
 down on me two knees on the flags. ' Me father an' 
 me mother,' says I, ' me sisters and me brothers,' 
 says I, ' himself that's dead an' gone, and me own, 
 me two ladies, an' Micky over in Killawurrity,' — for 
 never a day passes, but that boy brings me a can o' 
 spring water home to me here. — Then I says three 
 Hail Marys for the whole of yous, an' whether it 
 was help in this world or in the next, that was 
 wantin' of me, I left it for the Mother of God to 
 ask it. An' after, 'twas that very night the call came 
 to poor Johneen, may the Lord have mercy on him, 
 an' shelter the souls of all belongin' to us." 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 91 
 
 We said " Amen " to her prayer, but suggested 
 that if John was so good perhaps he was better 
 off now than he had been in Scotland. 
 
 " Maybe so, daughter," replied his mother. 
 11 Still an' all one can't but be wishful that them 
 one has a feelin' for, should have their full weight 
 o' good years to take with them when they go." 
 
 Then too, there is an idea, not noised abroad, yet 
 very firmly held, that Gortneighra, in parts at least, 
 is unlucky. Only one woman who lived high on 
 the mountainside spoke to us of this curious fancy. 
 She was complaining of the " backwardness " of 
 her cottage and of the rough way that led to it 
 from the bohreen below, and we wondered, seeing 
 that the place was newly built, what had made them 
 choose so inconvenient a situation. 
 
 " True for you it isn't long we're in it." She 
 pointed down the slopes to where a deserted house 
 was crumbling to ruin. " Within in those four 
 walls, the children was born, bred an' reared, every 
 one o' them. Six fine boys there was, God bless 
 them, an' two little gartlahers, but 'twas the mis- 
 chancey place, whatever, an' only we moved out 
 of it I doubt the lad we have itself would have 
 been taken." 
 
 ; * How was it ' mischancey?' " we asked, some- 
 what mystified. 
 
 " Well, He who gave, took them from us, may 
 
92 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 His holy will be done! First 'twas Martin, he got 
 hurted with the little horse baste, an' never left 
 the settle-bed after, till they carried him out on the 
 sticks. Then Brian took a nervous fever an' lay 
 fifteen months before going to his long rest, an' 
 Nance she took it from him, an' we laid the two 
 under the one daisy quilt. 'Twas after that the 
 father got a notion there was something not right 
 in the place, an' when Bridie, away in America, 
 got them basilicas 1 an' came home to us, only to go 
 on to God, he spoke of it to a wise woman who 
 comes travellin' the roads, an' she says, says she, 
 * Go out of this,' says she, ' an' make a home above 
 in the mountain.' 
 
 " So he built the house, just as you see it, only 
 it bein' an ugly place for cattle he thought to 
 leave one room roofed there below, for the cows 
 to shelter o' nights. But didn't the beams give 
 in, an' the finest mwheelin in the two parishes 
 buried below them? He didn't ought to have left 
 a foot o' the roof standin', sure he didn't. 'Twas 
 the whole place was mischancey, that's what it 
 was." 
 
 Vainly we tried to reason against such supersti- 
 tion, but nothing could disturb her rooted convic- 
 tion. 
 
 "Why should it be mischancey, is it? Well I'll 
 
 1 Anglice: bacilli. 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 93 
 
 tell you that," she retorted, driven to bay. "You've 
 heard tell o' the fallen angels? I'll be bound you 
 did." She pointed impressively to the ruin. 
 " 'Twas there below that one o' them fell." 
 
 It was useless to assure her that the manner of 
 the angels' fall was not what she imagined it to 
 be. 
 
 11 I couldn't say for the rest of the country," she 
 persisted; "but I know a power o' them fell in 
 Connemara." 
 
 Our conversation took place on an inland road 
 that winds over the mountain and through the bog, 
 and eventually leads to town. It was market-day, 
 and in talking, we found a neighbour had warned 
 her that her husband had succumbed to the tempta- 
 tions of the public-house, and she was on her way 
 to meet, and help him home. 
 
 " But why are you going this way?" we asked. 
 " Isn't it four miles nearer to go by the coast road? " 
 
 " It is so, your honour," she replied; " but I'll 
 tell you the way it is with him. 'Tis a fashion we 
 have, comin' out of town, to call in to the chapel 
 as we pass it by, but when there's drink on himself, 
 he wouldn't go for to insult the Son o' God goin' 
 in to His house, so 'tis over the bog he will be 
 comin', an' not up the chapel street at all." 
 
 He got drunk, badly drunk, but he chose to add 
 four miles to his troublesome homeward journey, 
 
94 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 sooner than pass the church which he knew him- 
 self unfit to enter. 
 
 The woman spoke in a curiously impassive way. 
 Evidently this errand was one that had claimed her 
 time so often she was more or less accustomed to 
 it. Yet some of the women do recognize the hard- 
 ness of their lives, though they never seem to com- 
 plain. 
 
 " You don't come from these parts," another 
 woman said one day, not questioning, but merely 
 stating a fact. 
 
 " What makes you say that?" we asked. 
 
 She looked up in our faces a moment : " You're 
 purty an' fair," she said, quietly; " an' them eyes 
 o' yourn has never seen trouble." 
 
 It was pitiful, yet I suppose it is the very hard- 
 ness of their lives that makes them look so securely 
 to Heaven. 
 
 " Aye, I'm at the beads," an old woman said, 
 whom we found crouched under a great rock, 
 minding a couple of calves and a goat or two. 
 " They're me whole dependence, till sometimes I 
 do wonder if it's not too free I'm makin', takin' 
 the attention of the Blessed Mother so often from 
 her Son." 
 
 The attention of Almighty God must often be 
 called to Gortneighra by the prayers of survivors 
 for those who are gone, as in the diminishing popu- 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 95 
 
 lation one must also count the toll taken annually 
 by the sea. It is only in part of spring and sum- 
 mer that the people on the peninsula turn farmers ; 
 there are long months of the year when, were it 
 not for the harvest of the sea, the place would in- 
 deed be what its Gaelic name implies, a hungry 
 little bog; and the fishing-boats do not always 
 bring home the crew that they took out. Even the 
 kelp costs an occasional life in its gathering. There 
 is an empty house on Inisgrotty — an island only 
 when the tide is up — where some years ago one of 
 the only young families of Gortneighra was living. 
 Then in a sudden storm the father and three sons 
 were drowned, and the mother, with four little 
 girls, went away to her own people near Ough- 
 terard. Only the granny was left behind, an old, 
 old woman, spotlessly clean, with never a speck on 
 her cap and every shining silver hair in its place. 
 The Morrisseys gave her an outhouse to live in, 
 whitewashing it for her and putting a bolt to the 
 door. 
 
 Her spinning-wheel is on the wall, and she sits 
 on the threshold of her windowless dwelling, card- 
 ing wool for the neighbours or knitting the yarn 
 that she has spun for them. 
 
 We asked her last year if she was to get the old 
 age pension. 
 
 " I have three score an' a half of years, aye, an' 
 
96 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 well nigh four score," she said; " an' the priest, he 
 bid me put in for it, whatever, but how would a poor 
 old creature be gettin' it? Hasn't the King got 
 plenty of others to be thinkin' of besides the likes 
 o' me? God help the poor man, how could he give 
 to all that's lookin' for it?" 
 
 Later, however, she did get her pension. 
 
 " Is it how am I, astore?" So she answered our 
 inquiries. " The grandest ever I was. Daughter 
 dear, amn't I on the King's list? God bless and 
 protect him ; an' all that's troublin' me now is, why 
 didn't I go see him an' he in Recess! If I'd 
 known what he was to do for the poor, wouldn't 
 I have stepped every step of the road to give him 
 thanks an' welcome?" 
 
 Many from Tullaroan and Gortneighra had gone 
 to see the King when, about ten years ago, he 
 visited the marble quarries near Recess, and we 
 asked Mrs. Aherne why she had not been of the 
 number. 
 
 " Well now, to tell you no lie," she explained; 
 " I never was one for the boys! 'Deed, an' I 
 might have gone to see the Queen, but the King — 
 ach! I make no differ on men! " 
 
 She had no story to tell of the loss of her son 
 and grandsons. 
 
 " God took them, astore," was all she said. 
 " 'Twas a terrible wild night an' many a prayer 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 97 
 
 was said for them at sea, God rest the whole of 
 them ! an' while His holy will is done we can't com- 
 plain." 
 
 Mrs. Cahalan, who has lost husband, and brother 
 and sons, had more to tell, and told it graphically. 
 
 " They were all in it, the three lads and the 
 brother's son," she said, " an' they went for to ride 
 a breaker, away behind the coastguard station on 
 Banaghown, but the boat, she was old an' shook, 
 an' the seas cut her clean in two 1 , as though you 
 took a knife to her. They got little Johnnie over 
 beyond the bay, an' Bartle, and Peter's Paddy 
 weren't they laid as quiet as you please on the 
 churchyard in Dangonnel, but Andy they never 
 got." She wiped her eyes on her apron: " Oh! 
 daughter, it went through me so much to see the 
 father an' he searching the shore for his son, the 
 fine makings of a boy, upstandin' an' warm, an' 
 he better nor sixteen years of age. I had no walk 
 meself that time or maybe I'd have found him. 
 They do come back to a mother, whiles, when even 
 for the father there's no sign. God's will be done 
 anyways. Maybe He took them from sin an' 
 sorrow." 
 
 We did not ask of the father's fate, though we 
 knew that he and his brother-in-law had gone like 
 the boys, but after a pause, she told us herself. 
 
 " I never thought to let one belongin' to me on 
 H 
 
98 A DISTRICT DERELICT 
 
 the water after. But what can the poor do, but 
 be satisfied? 'Twas a storm that took the father 
 an' poor brother Peter along with him. The coast- 
 guards got them away in Coolagurragh, and they 
 sent a letter home to Christy. 
 
 " ' What's the news, avick?' says I, an' him 
 readin' it, for didn't I think it was the gartlahers 
 away in America who'd wrote? ' Sorra news, 
 mother,' says he, shortlike, an' he out with him. 
 
 " ' 'Twas evenin' an' him comin' in. 
 
 " ' Mother,' says he, leavin' his hand on me shoul- 
 der, ' 'tis the great old woman you are.' 
 
 " ' Is it, avick,' says I. He always had the sooth- 
 erin' ways, had Christy. 
 
 " ' Tis indeed,' says he, ' an' you'll see us all out 
 yet.' 
 
 " ' God forbid, astore,' says I, ' He wouldn't be 
 askin' that of me with the pains I do be gettin'' 
 in me bones. Times now they do be a holy terror.' 
 
 " 'You seen Bartle out, mother?' says he. 
 
 "'I did, avick; may he have glory everlasting.' 
 
 " ' An' Andy, mother, you seen him out?' 
 
 " ' True for you,' says I. ' God rest them all,' 
 an' then I set to wonderin'. 
 
 " ' An' little Johnnie, mother,' says he, an' his 
 voice was choked-like, an' he speakin'. 
 
 " ' What is it, Chris?' says I. 
 
 " ' Mother, you seen father out, an' uncle Peter.' 
 
A DISTRICT DERELICT 99 
 
 11 Oh wirrah! wirrah! wirrah! I never thought 
 to hear the likes." 
 
 She sobbed again to think of what was passed, 
 but soon regained her composure, (with the won- 
 derful resignation and conviction that God knows 
 the best, which is the greatest test of faith that 
 can be made. 
 
 She still had Christy, and her perfect confidence 
 in him had chased away the usual Fear. " He 
 promised straight an' honest he'd (never go from 
 me till he put me under the clay with his own 
 hands," she said; " an' please God it won't be too 
 long he'll have to wait now." 
 
 He would not break his promise, but he was wait- 
 ing, waiting and longing for the wider, gayer life 
 of over the seas. 
 
 How will it be as the years go on? One wonders 
 and cannot guess. Will a few remain, helped from 
 America, to live in comfort and be content, or will 
 the present drainage continue till the lowlands are 
 bare as the uplands, till every house is roofless and 
 deserted, till cultivation reverts to bog and moun- 
 tain, and the cattle of the grazier and the free wild 
 birds become the only living things on all the 
 peninsula of Gortneighra? 
 
THE MEARING FENCE. 
 
 " I WILL not." 
 
 The words were spoken quietly and firmly, so 
 quietly and so firmly that had not the men facing 
 Denis Deegan been blind with passion they would 
 have seen that argument was useless. 
 
 " You will then, — you. I'll see to it that you 
 will." Timothy Conor's voice was choked with 
 fury. " An' if you won't, by God then, I'll make 
 you." 
 
 " I will not," repeated Deegan, quietly. " An' 
 whilst I'm living, Timothy Conor, you'll never make 
 me give up one sod of what my father left to me, 
 and what, if I were dead, my boys would hold, just 
 as I hold it to-day." 
 
 " You don't hold it," blustered another Conor, 
 Black Thady Conor they called him in the district. 
 " Your mearin' never went a yard west o' the cut- 
 tin', an' if it did, who's to prove it? Isn't it only 
 reason that the two places got their divide by the 
 hand o' God?" And he pointed to the sluggish 
 stream known locally as " the cuttin'," and that 
 did indeed seem to cut the wide expanse of bog 
 on which the four men stood, into two natural parts. 
 
THE MEARING FENCE 101 
 
 But west of this stream ran a strip of land dis- 
 tinguishable from that around it, because in the 
 midst of a wilderness of turf and heather it made 
 foothold for low-growing bushes which showed 
 that under the sod was something of a firmer nature 
 than the soft bog mould .spreading for miles on 
 either side. 
 
 Within man's memory no question had arisen as 
 to the exact boundaries of the holdings owned by 
 Deegan and the Conors. The land had been of no 
 value. It was not even needed for the cutting of 
 turf, because there was plenty nearer the uplands, 
 so it seemed likely that the strip along the mearing 
 would remain unclaimed. 
 
 Owing to the natural division, it had been the 
 Conors' cattle that, when an exceptionally dry sea- 
 son came, picked the few tufts of grass from the 
 roots of the myrtles and willows on the piece of 
 land now in debate. But when question arose of 
 making a road upon it, Denis Deegan's right had 
 been accepted by the county. He was an honest 
 man, quiet and hardworking, and to back his word 
 he had an old ordnance survey map, on the border 
 of which his father had described the boundary of 
 his holding as being fourteen perch west of the 
 cutting. On the map itself an official pencil had 
 drawn a blue line the right distance from the 
 stream on that side, and on the others along the un- 
 
102 THE MEARING FENCE 
 
 disputed boundary of Deegan's holding. The sur- 
 veyor had initialed his work, and his successor did 
 not dispute it, but when it came to the Conor's 
 ears that Deegan was to get two ten-pound notes 
 for that strip of land, they also had laid claim to 
 it, maintaining that their cattle would never have 
 grazed upon it, had it not been theirs. 
 
 Beyond this they had no evidence, and their only 
 hope of getting what they called their right was 
 to persuade Denis Deegan to renounce his in their 
 favour. Really convinced their claim was right, 
 they started to argue and explain, then they had 
 lost their heads and their tempers, and finally, when 
 to all demands and threats Deegan's calm refusal 
 was repeated, they called on God to witness that 
 the land would be theirs even if blood were spilled 
 in getting it. 
 
 But Deegan, no man's enemy, and everybody's 
 friend, let pass their threats and went home, satis- 
 fied that the twenty pounds promised as compensa- 
 tion by the county for the use of that bit of bog 
 would soon be his. 
 
 The Conors were a rough lot, three old bachelor 
 brothers, with no one to come after them ; yet every 
 bit as covetous of land as if each had a big family 
 to provide for. They came of good stock, and 
 though Deegan knew he had earned their enmity, 
 he had no real fear of its consequences. Only his 
 
THE MEARING FENCE 103 
 
 wife, to whom he recounted his passage-at-arms by 
 the mearing, was afraid. Sober, the Conors might 
 persecute and annoy in a thousand petty ways, but 
 
 drunk ! and lately all three brothers had been 
 
 drinking hard. 
 
 It was by no means ithe first dispute tfiat had 
 arisen over this bit of land since the idea of the 
 road had been discussed, but as the County Council 
 was to make the order for payment on the morrow, 
 Deegan considered it the last that mattered. In 
 twenty-four hours the money that was his by right 
 would be his by deed, and as he sat, according to 
 his custom, when night had fallen, with his family 
 about him, he spoke confidently of all the welcome 
 notes would do. 
 
 His place was at one side of the big, open hearth, 
 and the three younger children had drawn their 
 stools close beside their father's knee. The spin- 
 ning-wheels stood idle. Kit, the eldest boy, was 
 busy whittling a pin to make some slight repair 
 to one of them, while his mother and Bridie were 
 carding the fleece that lay between them. 
 
 It was Bridie who first heard the footsteps out- 
 side, and she turned wonderingly to her mother. 
 The dog sleeping by the fire growled uneasily, and 
 then, as a hand was laid upon the latch, burst into 
 noisy barking. They all looked up as the door 
 opened. Denis Deegan was not a man given to 
 
104 THE MEARING FENCE 
 
 caile housing, and it was seldom people came un- 
 asked at such a time of night. 
 
 With the fresh rush of the outer air the fumes of 
 raw whiskey came reeking into the kitchen, and 
 Mrs. Deegan, with a quick presentiment of coming 
 trouble, bent down and took the youngest of the 
 children to the shelter of her arms. 
 
 There were four men standing on the threshold. 
 Three Conors, so Denis and his wife knew well, 
 and another, bribed with a bottle of whiskey, and 
 brought to make the others' identity less clear. 
 Every one of the intruders had the disguise of par- 
 tially hidden features. 
 
 "We've come." The voice was thick and 
 hoarse, but the Deegans knew it was the stranger, 
 not one of the Conors who spoke. " We've come 
 to get that bit of paper you call the proof that an 
 honest man's bit o' land is yourn, give it up now, 
 or keep it — an' there's no room in this parish for a 
 land-grabber." 
 
 "Give it up?" repeated Deegan, in his quiet 
 voice. " I — will — not." 
 
 There was the flash of a cold steel muzzle, but 
 the hand that held the old-fashioned gun was shak- 
 ing and clumsy. Waveringly it aimed at Deegan, 
 and seeing this, the boy Kit sprang to his feet. 
 He meant to dash the weapon, seemingly their only 
 one, from the hold of the black-faced man, but the 
 
THE MEARING FENCE 105 
 
 threatener was drunk, and unused to the handling 
 of firearms, and between whiskey and sudden panic 
 he went even further than the Conors intended. 
 Before the boy could reach his hand there was a 
 spurt of flame, a loud report, and when the cloud 
 of smoke had cleared away, the kitchen was empty, 
 save for the family who owned it. 
 
 For a moment they sat stunned and still. Mrs. 
 Deegan saw that her husband's face was deathly 
 white, as his head fell back against the woolsack 
 in the corner, but even then she was too dazed to 
 move, and slowly her eyes travelled down to see 
 the reason of his faintness. 
 
 One foot had been shot away, and a big, dark 
 pool of blood was circling on the kitchen floor. 
 
 The child nearest to his father's knee put out 
 his little hands and tried to put the blood back into 
 the wounded limb. But seeing the cruel red that 
 dyed his fingers, he shrank back crying, and hid 
 his curly head against the rough frieze coat, cling- 
 ing with his arms around the unmoving figure, till 
 it was all that Bridie could do to separate them. 
 
 It was Kit's voice that roused Mrs. Deegan, for 
 the horror of it all had nearly taken her senses from 
 her. 
 
 " I'd best be goin' for the priest." 
 
 Then she was at her husband's side, trying to 
 staunch the blood that ran and ran and carried his 
 
106 THE MEARING FENCE 
 
 life away with it. She put her arms about him/ 
 where he sat in the chair, and there was wild fear in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Denny, Denny astore, listen here to me." The 
 anguish in her voice smote the dulled ears and the 
 white lids fluttered a moment, and he looked at her. 
 
 " Denny, you'll forgive them ! You won't go 
 before your God with sin upon your soul. Oh, for 
 Christ's sake say you forgive them what they've 
 done!" 
 
 She bent, so that the merest whisper would have 
 reached her ears, and for ithe moment the terror 
 lest he should die without forgiving those who 
 caused his death, left no room for the fear of her 
 own approaching loss. He looked up at her, but, 
 she doubted he had understood her words. 
 
 " May — Christ — forgive us all," he said. She 
 turned to one of the frightened children. " Run, 
 alanna," she whispered, " an' bring the holy picture 
 hangin' by the bed within." 
 
 It was a gaudy representation of the death of our 
 Lord upon the Cross, but its vivid colouring held 
 the fast dimming eyes, and made the dying man 
 understand his wife's appeal. 
 
 " Denny, avick, you must forgive them before 
 you die ! For Christ's sake, Who died for us and 
 forgave us all our sins." 
 
 He moved his head so that it rested on her shoul- 
 
THE MEARING FENCE 107 
 
 der, and his eyes were level with the picture of 
 our Saviour that she held. 
 
 " Aye," he said, and again, " Aye "; and then, 
 " God forgive them ! " 
 
 She felt him heavy and helpless in her arms, but 
 there was a wonderful light of gladness in her face 
 as she motioned to Bridie for help to lay him down. 
 
 Like Christ Himself Denny had forgiven his 
 murderers, for hadn't he prayed to God for them? 
 and she had the sure and certain hope that his own 
 sins would be forgiven him. Once, twice, she 
 thought he was gone, for despite their efforts to 
 stop the bleeding, it kept bursting out again at in- 
 tervals. Then a horse's footfall reached their ears 
 and a moment later the priest entered the house. 
 Father Merlehan was fortunate in having learnt the 
 principles of first aid to the injured (a branch of 
 useful knowledge which is not included in the 
 national school curriculum) and a few deft touches 
 remedied the worst defects in Mrs. Deegan's ban- 
 daging. Then he went on one knee beside the 
 wounded man. 
 
 " Denny avick, it's the priest that's come to you." 
 
 He did not move nor answer his wife, but when, 
 after moistening his lips, the curate asked if he 
 knew who was speaking, a weak pressure of the 
 hand answered, " Yes." 
 
 Later, when the priest rose to give place again 
 
108 THE MEARING FENCE 
 
 to Mrs. Deegan, she bent over her husband and 
 laid her face down to his, but she felt his lips were 
 cold as clay. 
 
 " He's gone. He's gone. God help us all I " she 
 moaned, with the first thought she had given to 
 their own loss. 
 
 The priest laid his hand on the still flickering 
 pulse. 
 
 " There's life yet," he said; " the soul came first 
 — and God bless you for that, Mrs. Deegan! — but 
 we'll save the body too this time, please God." 
 
 He perfected his hasty arrangement of bandages 
 and gave directions, which, though not yet daring 
 to hope, the woman followed blindly. 
 
 The hours passed and still the priest stayed on, 
 in his character of doctor now, for the real doctor's 
 home was miles and miles away over the moun- 
 tain. At last the greyness of coming dawn told 
 that the hour when vitality is lowest was at hand.. 
 
 Suddenly, outside a cock began to crow. The 
 watchers held their breath, as the sick man turned 
 his head. 
 
 Slowly and uncertainly his heavy eyelids rose. 
 He sighed and looked for a moment at his wife. 
 She laid her hand upon his forehead and bent down 
 as he tried to speak. 
 
 " I'm tired, astore." They could hear the words, 
 
THE MEARING FENCE 109 
 
 though his voice was very weak. " I think I'll 
 sleep." 
 
 And the sun, looking in through the shutterless 
 windows saw yet another soul (brought back by 
 nature's remedy from the valley of the shadow of 
 death. 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE. 
 
 Father Flavin yawned long and loudly, and his 
 chin nodded down to where the snuff rested in lit- 
 tle rills upon his chest. But his head did not stay 
 still : it nodded again, up and down, and the spec- 
 tacles slipped to an impossible angle on his nose. 
 Unconsciously the knotted old hands had kept hold 
 of the Office-book, but after a time, they too re- 
 laxed, and the thumbworn breviary fell with suffi- 
 cient force to arouse the dozer. He started then, 
 and opened his eyes, and stooping, gathered up the 
 book and its scattered contents and opened the 
 leaves at the Office of the day. 
 
 Vespers had been said, of that he had no doubt : 
 it was only before beginning Compline that he had 
 paused for a moment, and the involuntary interlude 
 of slumber was the result. 
 
 Certainly it was terribly hot. Even in the shade 
 of the garden trees where the old man sat it was 
 unlike anything an ordinary summer produces with- 
 in reach of such Atlantic breezes as usually swept 
 the parish. The season was altogether unpreced- 
 ented; no summer in the memory of man had 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE in 
 
 brought with it such burning sun, so universal a 
 drought. There had been a good deal of sickness 
 too, one way and another. More than one young 
 girl had gone out to the weary task of water-draw- 
 ing with hair only covered, as is the custom, by a 
 loose handkerchief or the corner of a shawl, and 
 had come in to rest a wildly aching head on a pil- 
 low, from which it was never to be raised again. 
 
 Then, too, the stagnant pools had been irresisti- 
 ble where the wells were dry, both to children and 
 to workers, in whom common sense and self-control 
 were equally wanting, and the consequences had 
 been, not only frequent visits of the union cart, but 
 also sudden inroads of fever, that carried off a 
 patient before doctor could be summoned or van 
 requisitioned. Only the priest had been sent for, 
 and his ministrations were all that had been needed 
 or obtained. 
 
 Father Flavin decided that he would not attempt 
 the psalms for the closing of the day just yet. It 
 was early still, as the glaring heat in the garden! 
 testified. He would wait and rest now, and when 
 evening came, he would pray. So now, with book 
 laid safely on the bench beside him, his head 
 dropped down again in sleep. 
 
 The birds twittering about him — lazily, for they 
 too felt the heat — did not disturb him: they were 
 old friends all and their voices were a soothing 
 
H2 VESPERS—AND COMPLINE 
 
 lullaby. Biddy, calling to the boy to " go, for the 
 love o' God an' fetch another taste o' water from 
 the chapel tank beyond, for them ducks that was 
 fairly perished with the drought," Biddy disturbed 
 him no more than the birds. Indeed, her requests 
 for water had become almost ^s incessant as the 
 chirping of the sparrows or the quacking of the 
 thirsty ducks. But later, another voice, not that of 
 the boy, reached his slumber-dulled ears, a voice 
 that alternated from entreaty to indignation, and 
 the sleeper moved uneasily, feeling there was some- 
 thing going on in which he ought to have his say. 
 Then he went back to dreaming, and he saw again, 
 in sleep, a scene that had been enacted under his 
 waking eyes only a few weeks before, and that had 
 dwelt with him since, as something infinitely ten- 
 der, infinitely consoling, a token of love that repaid 
 much weary service and many a dark ride through 
 wet and storm on winter nights. 
 
 He had been in the garden, then as now — indeed, 
 one of Biddy's perennial grievances was the fact 
 that, as she expressed it, " every moment he's in 
 the house, God help him', he's in the garden " — 
 resting, too, after a long and sad day's work. 
 
 Three children had died of fever in the same 
 house. True, three little souls had gone to Heaven, 
 unafraid, for Father Flavin had reminded them 
 that Jesus was waiting; yet three little bodies had 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 113 
 
 lain still in a lonely house, where a lonely mother 
 sat and watched till daylight brought the digger 
 of three little graves. 
 
 Then, as now, a voice had reached him, and 
 through the gathering dusk of a short summer's 
 night a shadowy figure had risen up beside him, 
 a figure whose bare feet had made no sound on the 
 softness of the turf, and a low, husky voice had 
 asked him to raise his hands in absolution over a 
 head that death was claiming for its own. 
 
 " Where was the dying man?" He had not been 
 able to keep a tone of utter weariness out of his 
 voice as he questioned; the answer came, huskily 
 again, but quickly, reassuring though amazing. It 
 was no man who sought him, but a woman, the 
 woman who now fell on her knees a pace away 
 from him. Yes, she was dying. She knew it, felt 
 it, and as the shawl slipped to her shoulders ands 
 the moon shone on her grey, drawn face, Father 
 Flavin could not say her nay. 
 
 She had left the children — God give them rest 
 in glory, sure they didn't need her now ! — and had 
 come for the comfort of which, a few hours earlier, 
 when the priest had been in her own house, she 
 had not felt the need. The sickness, this summer, 
 had been quick and very sure. 
 
 " Why had she not sent for him?" The priest 
 spoke almost sharply. " Surely the fever had not 
 made every man in the parish a coward?" 
 I 
 
H4 VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 
 
 " Because " — the answer came simply, for the 
 woman had no thought that her act was anything 
 but the most natural. She had never heard, in 
 modern Gaelic, at all events, the word heroine. 
 11 Because, hadn't his reverence spent himself en- 
 tirely that day? an' weren't the children, God rest 
 them, lyin' round the kitchen these hours? The 
 doctor had said to go into such a house, an' you 
 drunk or tired was certain death." 
 
 And so when she felt it creeping on herself she 
 unspancelled the ass, and started two miles and 
 more of a rough bog road, and here she was. "The 
 ass, savin' his honour's favour, was standin' at the 
 gate." 
 
 She was quite peaceful. Wasn't she " goin' to 
 God Almighty to be with the childer an'' himself 
 who'd lost his life three years ago at sea?" Only 
 she was very weary, and when, in a voice more 
 husky than her own, the priest had said the prayers, 
 had anointed her, there in the garden (creeping in 
 for what was needed, like a thief in the night, for 
 fear of Biddy), she had insisted, nay, she had 
 even spoke angrily to the priest to let her go her 
 own way. So perforce she Jiad her will, though 
 unknown to her the old man had followed even 
 into the shadows of the hillside, till the doorway, 
 of her own house had swallowed her up. Then the 
 tears that had hardened into a ball in his throat, 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 115 
 
 came to his eyes, and flowed down the ruts and 
 furrows of his cheeks. 
 
 And in his sleep, as he dreamt over again the 
 story of the woman whom he had buried with her 
 children by her side, the tears came as before and 
 choked him, till between them and the voices which 
 were still wrangling in the kitchen, he awoke. 
 
 It was the usual thing, an altercation between 
 Biddy and someone, who, for all answer to a de- 
 claration that their sick call was urgent, was met 
 with the information that the curate was out. He 
 would be in for dinner, and the messenger might 
 rely upon her, Biddy's, word that " Mrs. Costello 
 wouldn't go — God be good to her ! — till the turn o' 
 evening." That was the time they went mostly, 
 without they lasted to the dusk before the dawn. 
 
 But the voice of the messenger told the now fully 
 awakened listener which of the many Costellos was 
 seeking his priestly ministrations. 
 
 Mary from Loughee, they called her. For over 
 fifty years ago she had come over the mountains 
 to marry one of the sea-going Costellos. And from 
 that same parish had come the priest who, an ex- 
 ception to usual diocesan procedure, had long 
 laboured, first as curate, then as pastor in the home 
 of Mary's husband. 
 
 Father Flavin had only lately had a curate, and 
 the habit of making use of younger bones was one 
 
H6 VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 
 
 he did not easily acquire. In other parishes the 
 curate was fully occupied. Here, assistance was 
 certainly welcome on Sundays, and during the week 
 the school attendance had risen considerably, for 
 according as the speaker was only an irregular at- 
 tendant or a systematic " mitcher," Father McMur- 
 rough was either "a bit wicked," or "horrid mad 
 entirely." 
 
 But except when Biddy absolutely forbade it, 
 and refused to disclose her hiding-place for hat 
 and stick, Father Flavin clung ,to his old habits, 
 and did his visiting and most of his sick-calls him- 
 self. 
 
 Then the curate complained there was nothing to 
 do, and so his bicycle carried him further afield. 
 Had he been at home now, or had the sick call come 
 from anyone but Mary from Loughee, Father 
 Flavin would willingly have let the young man go 
 in his place. But he was not at home, and it was 
 Mary. 
 
 It was seldom, very seldom now, that he was 
 peremptory with Biddy, but when he was, there was 
 not a word to be said. It was no use speaking 
 of the heat, no use reminding him that he was tired, 
 no use even using the last and biting weapon of 
 a reference to his age. He was going. That was 
 all. The pony was away being shod. This was 
 a triumphant fact. Very well, he would walk, and 
 walk he did. 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 117 
 
 Certainly it was not very far, and the road all 
 the way led downhill. But the sun was very, very 
 hot, and the white dust seemed almost to burn his 
 feet as he dragged them along, for he was tired, 
 and he was old, although in Biddy's hearing he 
 would own to neither. 
 
 There was no coolness, even in the Costellos' 
 kitchen, with its hearth bare of firing. Here again 
 it seemed as if Biddy was right. The sick woman 
 certainly would not go before the turn of the night, 
 and judging by the strength of her voice, there was 
 great probability of her lasting till the dusk of the 
 morning. She received the Food for the journey 
 on which she was about ;to start, fully conscious, 
 and followed the prayers that the priest read slowly 
 and clearly. Time was when Jie had read them 
 quickly enough, but now with the tired aching of 
 his own head and limbs, he seemed to find ease 
 and comfort in the familiar words: "Depart, oh 
 Christian soul! " 
 
 Ah, well ! and why not? Another sentence came 
 to his mind. 
 
 11 The night cometh, when no man can work." 
 What use would he be if the night came upon him 
 — would it not be easier to pass out into light ever- 
 lasting? Somehow to-day, for the first time in all 
 his life, the wish to go on living burnt low within 
 him. 
 
 "Well, Father James." Mary from Loughee 
 
n8 VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 
 
 spoke thus to him with a familiarity that none of 
 his other parishioners used. " So, after all, 'tis me 
 to go the first of us ; but you have a good six years 
 more than I have to carry to the grave, an' maybe 
 it won't be long till God Almighty has a place ready 
 for yourself as well." 
 
 " Maybe not, Mary, maybe not. I believe you're 
 right. I'm getting an old man." 
 
 " Getting an old man ! " In all eyes but his own 
 he had been an old man for years, and yet he re- 
 mained so active that now, as he went out, into the 
 great heat, not one of the Costellos thought of it 
 being more than such an old, old man could bear. 
 
 The road coming had been downhill. There- 
 fore returning it mounted, mounted 'wearily, and 
 all the while the sun burned and burned, through 
 the thin fringe of hair, and the blood was pumped 
 too violently through the old veins for an old heart 
 to bear. 
 
 At long, long last, he regained the garden. Biddy 
 had for a moment forsaken her lookout, and so she 
 missed him. His lips were parched: he wanted 
 a drink so badly, but — but — . Involuntarily his 
 limbs relaxed, and he sank back on the seat he had 
 quitted not so long before. 
 
 He had said his Vespers. Yes, that he remem- 
 bered, but not Compline, and — it was curious, for 
 the sun had certainly been shining a few moments 
 ago — it was getting dark. 
 
VESPERS— AND COMPLINE 119 
 
 He began the familiar psalms, holding his book 
 open from long continued habit, but praying from 
 memory only. 
 
 The darkness was gathering. Still he went on 
 with his Office. He was very, very tired, but God 
 knew he meant no inattention. Then there were 
 voices. Biddy's again and Father McMurrough's. 
 
 " But he has come back. He is sitting there in 
 the garden." 
 
 He knew the quick, incisive young voice that 
 had earned for its owner the reputation of being 
 "a bit wicked." He saw the short, slight figure, 
 the long black coat, grey now with dust; and as 
 his eyelids fell he caught the glimmer of the sun- 
 set, shining on bicycle-clips. Then it was dark. 
 But again he opened his eyes. He saw a startled 
 young face. The quick flash of a purple ribbon 
 from a dusty pocket. A figure kneeling beside 
 him with bared head. An upraised hand. 
 
 But his Office. He was forgetting it. 
 
 " Salva nos, Domine, vigilantes, custodi nos dor- 
 mimtes" Yes, he would soon be ready to sleep. 
 
 " Ut vigilemns cum Christo, et requiescamus in 
 pace." His words must have been audible, for ai 
 voice answered him: "Amen." 
 
 Then again it was dark, quite dark. But he had' 
 said his Compline. 
 
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