Mearing Stones Part 4

In the Lochros district, when the weather begins to take up, about the middle of May, the farmers repair to the moss on the north side of the Point, and start cutting the banks. The turf is then footed (sometimes by girls) along the causeway ditches, and when properly seasoned--say about the middle of July--is piled in stacks on high ground convenient to the moss, and covered on top with a lot of old mouldering "winter-stales," to keep the rain off it. "Winter-stales" are sods that have been left over from the previous season's cutting--the wet setting in and leaving the bog-roads in such a state that no slipe or wheeled car could get into them. Of course, most of the carrying in Donegal is done by creel or a.s.s-cart; but in the Lochros district turf is scarce, and the farmers on the Point are obliged to keep horses to draw the turf in from the moss on the north side of the Owenea river, some miles off, and over roads that are none too good for wheeled traffic. In some cases I have noticed the "winter-stales" built up in little beehive-shaped heaps on dry ground, to be carted or creeled away as soon as the weather begins to mend. But it is only the more provident farmers who do this.

HIS OLD MOTHER

"My old mother's ailing this twelvemonth back," said a man to me to-day. "I'm afeard she'll go wi' the leaves."

A DAY OF WIND AND LIGHT, BLOWN RAIN

A day of wind and light, blown rain, with the sun shining through it in spells. Aighe river below me, brown and clear, foaming through mossed stones to the sea. Trout rising from it now and again to the gnats that skim its surface. Glengesh mountain in the middle distance--a black, splendid bulk--dropping to the Nick of the Bealach on the left. Meadows in foreground bright with marigolds, with here and there by the mearings tufts of king-fern, wild iris and fairy-thimble.

LYING AND WALKING

To lie on one's loin in the sun is all very well, but walking is better. It is over the hill the wonders are.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FALLING WATER.]

GLEN-COLUMCILLE TO CARRICK

Sat.u.r.day. It is about half-past seven o'clock in the evening. The rain, which kept at it pitilessly all the afternoon, has cleared off, and we have left the little whitewashed inn at Glen-Columcille refreshed, and in high fettle, for the further six miles that has to be done before we reach Carrick, where we mean to spend the night. We had arrived at Glen two hours before in a weary enough condition physically after our tramp over the hills from Ardara, and we had almost resolved on the advice of the hostess of the inn--a slow, deliberate, slatternly sort of woman--to put up with her for the night; but it is wonderful what a rest and a meal and, incidentally, a slatternly hostess does, and so we finally decided to go on to Carrick. We follow the road up by the telegraph posts, and after a stiffish climb of half a mile or more, reach the plateau head. We are now about five hundred feet over sea level. Turning round to have a last look at the place, we see the chapel--a plain white cruciform building, with a queer detached belfry--the little grey, straggling village street (some of the houses with slate roofs, some with thatch), the crosses standing up like gallan-stones on every side of it, the deep valley-bottom green as an emerald, Ballard mountain silhouetted against the sunset, and the vast Atlantic tumbling through mist on the yellow strand beyond. The air smells deliciously of peat. In Donegal one notices the smell of peat everywhere; in fact, if I were asked to give an impression of the county in half a dozen words I should say: "Black hills, brown rivers, and peat." The road is fairly level now, and we continue our course in a south-easterly direction. A wild waste of moorland stretches on every side of us, brightened here and there by little freshwater lakes, out of which we see the trout jumping in hundreds--Loch Uns.h.a.gh, Loch Unna, Loch Divna, and another quite near the road, where we got, at the expense of wet feet and knees, some lovely specimens of the _lilium aureum_, or golden lily, which grows, I think, on every little shallow and flat and bywater in South Donegal. After an hour of pleasant walking the road begins to drop and the rain to fall again. Slieve League is on our right, but we can only see the lower slopes of it, for the cairn is completely covered with driving mist. The wind has risen, and the rain beats coolingly on our cheeks, and exasperatingly, at times, down our necks. We pa.s.s a shepherd on the road making for Malin Mor, a shawled figure with a lantern, and several groups of boys and a.s.ses with creels bringing turf into the stackers; and farther on a side-car zig-zagging up hill on its way to the Glen. There are two occupants, a priest--presumably the curate of Glen parish going over for Sunday's Ma.s.s--and the driver. It is quite dark now, and the rain increases in intensity. Tramping in a mountainy country is a delightful sport--none better! But it is on such a night and at the end of such a journey as this that one begins to see that it has a bad as well as a good side to it. The rain is coming down in sheets, our clothes are soaked through, the darkness is intense, the roads are shockingly muddy, we are tired out walking, and still we have another stiff mile to go before we see the friendly lights of the inn at Carrick. Two of us--R. M. and myself--stop at a bridge to have a look at the ordnance sheet which has stood us in such good stead all through our journey. Torrential rain beating on a map--even a "cloth-mounted, water-proofed" one like ours--doesn't improve it; but we have qualms about our direction. We think we should have arrived at Carrick ere this, and we just want to make sure that our direction is right, and that we haven't taken a wrong turning in the darkness. After some trouble we manage to get a match lighted. The first misfires on the damp emery, the second blows out, the third is swallowed up in rain pouring like a spout through the branches overhead, the fourth ... . "Carrick! Carrick! Carrick!" The frenzied cries of the advance guard tell us that the town is in view. We put up our map resignedly, shaking great blabs of water out of it, and push ahead. In five minutes we have pa.s.sed the chapel, with its square tower looming up darkly in the fog, and in another two we are safe in the inn parlour, enjoying a supper of hot coffee, m.u.f.fins, and poached eggs.

ORA ET LABORA

Noon of a summer's day. I see a man in the fields--a wild, solitary figure--the only living thing in sight for miles. He is thinning turnips. Slowly a bell rings out from the chapel on the hill beyond. It is the Angelus. The man stands up, takes off his hat and bows his head in the ancient prayer of his faith... . The bell ceases tolling, and he bends to labour again.

TWO THINGS THAT WON'T GO GREY

I met a woman up Glengesh going in the direction of the danger-post. She seemed an old woman by her look, but she more than beat me at the walking. When we got to the top of the hill I complimented her on her powers. "'Deed," says she, with a deprecating little laugh, "and I'm getting old now. I'm fair enough yet at the walking, but I'm going grey--going fast. A year ago my hair was as black as that stack there"--pointing to a turf-stack out in the bog--"but now it's on the turn. And I tell you there's only two things in the world that won't go grey some time--and that's salt and iron."

RUNDAL

I see a green island. It is hardly an island now, for the tide is out, and one might walk across to it by the neck of yellow-grey sand that connects it with the mainland. It is held in rundal by a score of tenants living in the mountains in-by. Little patches of oats, potatoes, turnips, and "cow's gra.s.s" diversify its otherwise barren surface. There are no mearings, but each man's patch is marked by a cairn of loose stones, thrown aside in the process of reclamation. The stones, I see, are used also as seaweed beds. They are spitted in the sand about, like a _cheval de frise_, and in the course of time the seaweed carried in by successive tides gathers on them, and is used by the tenants for manure.

PuCA-PILES

"What are these?" I asked an old woman in the fields this morning, pointing to a cl.u.s.ter of what we in the north-east corner call paddock-stools, and sometimes fairy-stools. "Well," said she, "they're not mushrooms, anyway. They're what you call Puca-piles. They say the Puca lays them!"

THE ROSSES

Bog and sky: a boulder-strewn waste, with salt lochs and freshwater lochs innumerable, and a trail running up to a huddle of white clouds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOG AND SKY.]

A COUNTRY FUNERAL

Death, as they say, has taken somebody away under his oxter! I was coming into Ardara this morning from the Lochros side, and as I came up to the chapel on the hill I heard the bell tolling. That, I knew, was for a burying: it was only about ten o'clock, and the Angelus does not ring until midday. Farther on I met the funeral procession. It was just coming out of the village. The coffin, a plain deal one covered with rugs, was carried over the well of a side-car, and the relatives and country people walked behind. The road was thick with them--old men in their Sunday homespuns and wide-awakes, their brogues very dusty, as if they had come a long way; younger men with bronzed faces, and ash-plants in their hands; old women in the white frilled caps and coloured shawls peculiar to western Ireland; young married women, girls and children. Most of them walked, but several rode in a.s.s-carts, and three men, I noticed, were on horseback. The tramping of so many feet, the rattle of the wheels and the talk made a great stir on the road, and the movement and colour suggested anything but a funeral. Still one could see that underneath all was a deep and beautiful feeling of sorrow, so different to the black-coated, slow-footed, solemn-faced thing of the towns. As the coffin approached I stood into the side of the road, saluted, and turned back with it the _tri ceimeanna na trocaire_ (three steps of mercy) as far as the chapel yard.

YOUTH AND AGE

An old man came dawdling out of a gap by the road, and he stopped to have a word with me. We were talking for some time when he said: "You're a young man, by the looks of you?" I laughed and nodded. "Och,"

says he, "but it's a poor thing to be old, and all your colt-tricks over," says he, "and you with nothing to do but to be watching the courses of the wind!"

SUMMER DUSK