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Show , T I flwfteel In Treland I By IOHN A. BLACK Copyright, 1903, by John A. Black. (Continued from last week.) Kesh has no hotel, but a good woman whose house sands at the end of the row, does what she can to atone for the lack, by keeping "a bed and a sup" for travelers betrayed by map on which Kesh is writ large enough to insure several hotels. "The ould woman is at a meetin' over the dispensary," dis-pensary," souted a wild-looking, barefooted female across the street, who saw me try the door. The kindly face of the village carpenter drew me into his shop where I chatted till the "meetin' " was out. I was soon installed in the chimney corner, watching the good woman getting the "sup." The turf was a bit wet, but soon got warmed up and sent out a fine glow of heat, and set the kettle a-steaming. Margaret poured the water on the tea, and with the tongs picked out a few of the reddest coals, with which she made a little bed in front of the fire, on which she set the teapot while she laid the cloth pardon me, there was no cloth, for I asked to dine at the little table in the corner near the fire. j "Would you have a new dook egg?" -"I would." So another little bed of coals was made, and the new dook egg was soon boiling in a smoke-begrimed cup. The supper had the odor of the turf on it, but it was wondrously appetizing, and accompanied ac-companied by the musical chat of this simple-minded old woman, it was a banquet. After supper Margaret and I sat opposite each other on either side of the glowing turf and chatted of Ireland and America, of Kesh and its people. During lulls in the talk the cricket chirped iu the chimney near me, and I was carried back to the old Jog-house days of my boyhood, when the crickets in the chimney told tis of coming storms and other unwelcome things. Margaret had lived in this house all of her? seventy-one years may she forgive me for telling her age! and her mother before her had lived her live here. She remembered the famine. It was the year her sister went out to America ; "and we never got a bit of a word to tell us if she got there or no." "Ou ai ! it was a sore time.' I mind a man earn-in' another past this house on his back, and put-tin' put-tin' him down by the road yonder and lavin' him to come back for a bite o' something, and while ho was gone the man died by the roadside. Eleven men used to come every day to that door and wait for my mother to give each of them a little meal and broth in a bowl so they could go and. do a bit of work." "You were better off then?" "Xot much different than now; 'always coolin' and suppin'; 'have today and want tomorrow.'" "A good stack of turf and a sack of meal is enough," said I. "It is; and a place to lay my four bones in when I die," said Margaret. The turf had burned low and fallen apart; she took the tongs and "raked the fire," and, taking up the candle showed me a little room where I was to " sleep "snug for the night." The bed had an elaborate elab-orate canopy over it like the bed of a king. Whether my kingly couch made my crownless heard rest un- 0 easy, or whether that new (?) dook egg did it, I am not decided; anyhow, I am afraid of new duck eggs and candpied beds ever , since. When I wheeled away from that httie cottage with Margaret standing in the door, it was with many blessings' and good wishes for my safe journey; jour-ney; and I thought how insincere and professional are the attentions of diamond-adorned dames behind be-hind hotel registers, compared with the simple, natural nat-ural honesty of mine hostess, Margaret of Kesh. Four miles of steady climbing took me to the top of the hills above Ederny, from where I had an easy run into Castlcderg. It is a cold, cloudy, windy day; and I am fJiivering in heavy clothes in July. I can believe the old man crippled with rheumatism rheu-matism who said "it was herdin' cows on these hills in heat and cold that drew the pains into his bones. But every Tyrone man I meet gives his head a little lit-tle jerk half salutation and half apology which brings out "a graund day, sir." One lad who said, "It's a blowin' day, sir," told half the truth. As I slid- silently down toward Blacktown I was making up a fine story to write about the picturesque old town of Tyrone which bore my own name, and hap-ing hap-ing it had a castle, and stirring traditions of black deeds of old. so I might stir up the enevy of some whose names are not on the may of Ireland. But "a haughty spirit goeth before a fall," which came to me when I stopped at a poor, lone public house far up on the hills, like a sparrow on the housetop, house-top, and asked how far it was to Blacktown, and was told that I was in, or at Blacktown. "Sure, there is no town at all," said the old woman. I slid away down to Castlcderg before I stopped. Castlefin, one time an O'Donnell stronghold, stands north of the River Firm, and is approached over a long, narrow, uneven stone bridge, which is very old and exceedingly picturesque. The town itself it-self is of the usual type. A few miles north of Castlefin Cas-tlefin I came out on the rim of a great bowl-shaped valley, whose sides were decorated with hundreds of little irregular-shaped farms and fields, one above the other to the very hilltop, separated by darker lines of hedge and ditch, forming a great mosaic of green, with here and there a yellow bit, lately plowed, and here and there a "plantin' " as they call the wooded spots, and hundreds of little cottages and groups of cottages. It is such scenes as this, said I, that get printed on Irishmen's minds so that they never can forget the Emerald Isle. A rather steep, winding road lifts me up into Raphoe, a very old town, once an important place. The cathedral, its bishopric taken from it, deserted, neglected, going to ruin, stands apart in a field, like an old mother turned, out to perish a pitiful picture of misfortune and man's ingratitude. St. Columba founded a monastery here; and older yet is the 6tone circle on the hills above the town, where the Druid priests used to light the sacred fires in pagan times. . A shiver or two got me an invitation to sit by the kitchen fire in the hotel, and here I spent the evening. Instead of a four or six-hole range, there is an open grate of coals between an oven and a water tank. Ou this little patch of coals the cooking cook-ing is done, which explains the long wait between your order and the appearance f the dinner. The hill road past the stone circle to Pluck is too hard, so I take the one around the foot of the hills, between meadows and fields of corn. It is a ; fine, warm day. Xo sound do I hear except the hum and throb of life in air and earth and water, and here and there the swish of the keen-edged scythe in the grass ; or the rattle of the mowing machine the noisy disenchanter ! as I 'ride along between the hedges and ditches, all gay with crowfoot and daisies, and here and there a bit of whin. Everybody Every-body looked happy except the lad whom the old man breaking stone greeted with, "I heerd you was look-in' look-in' for a clergyman to tak the plidge the mornin', James," and James had his turn at being happy last night. I am on familiar' ground now; I have gone along these' roads and through these villages, with my father and the rest of the Donegal group in their fireside travels before the blazing logs whose glowing heat always drew out the "ould country" talk. Errigle and Muckish, those two shaggy kings of the north, rearing "their heads high in the clear air over yonder, were as familiar to the eyes of my fathers as the peast stack in the yard; and to some of them their lofty heads were the last sight of dear old Donegal they ever had, as they watched them from the outgoing ship. Up yonder jusf un- I der that bit of white fleece a detached fragment ! of yesterday's clouds, becalmed in the stillness of this glorious day is the spot where they lived; where some of us live now. I leave my wheel in the plain below and go up by jaunting car. "Welcome to Ireland"; "and how well you're mended since two year ago!" "and how are the wains?" "a' we're al' rightly"; thus the greeting goes on. And then the "chat" begins over the tea, and goes on till time to "come down to your supper" sup-per" of stir-about which satisfies the body and soothes' the mind ; the talk grows lower as the turf burns out, and the pauses longer, till I am roused b.YX "You're sleepy, man ! Come alang to your resi.!" And while I sleep the "wee folk" spirit me away over land and sea, and hurry me back again to let me wake up under the thatch in "Oould Donegal." Done-gal." From here lexplored the hill country to the north, visiting Gartan, the birthplace of St. Columba Co-lumba ; Glen Veagh Castle, Kilmacrenan, and Doon Well. A dap on a jounting cur on these lovely mountain moun-tain roads in upper Donegal was among my most enjoyable experiences. Far up on these silent hills-among hills-among the 'turf cutters, seemed like another world to me; and when we stopped to speak to one, it seemed as if we were conversing across a "great gulf," such a spell had this vase, voiceless desolation desola-tion worked upon me., As I stand up here in Donegal and look" away to the south and east and west, all Ireland lies before be-fore me a goodly land and fair to look upon. What broad, rich plains! What green hills and valleys! What noble mountains! What beautiful lakes and rivers! Aud how these long-suffering, oft-despoiled people have waited, "more than they that watch for the morning," for the day when they might again possess this, their own, their native land! "The night is far spent; the day is at hand." And what if some should look for another day, when these people should not only possess their land, but themselves also, and be free; and contented con-tented and rich. There before me lies an island, by nature "flowing with milk and hoVey," inhabited by a people by nature highly endowed. On these two premises I build the prophecy of Ireland's greatness in that day the day of emancipation; and the gates of no power shall prevail against it! Before I go down from Donegal let me acknowledge acknowl-edge my indebtedness to a long line of Irish men and women, boys and girls, stretching up and down and across Ireland, wherever I have journeyed, who have charmed me by their goodness of heart, cheered me by their unfailing good nature, and served me with true Irish hospitality "Good luck to you!" If I forget thee, O Erin, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I remember not thee, Donegal, let ray tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. EXD. |
