The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland Part 1

The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland.

by Margaret Dixon McDougall.

A TOUR THROUGH IRELAND

I.

OFF--EXPERIENCES IN A PULLMAN CAR--h.o.a.rDING THE "ONTARIO"--THE CAPTAIN-- THE SEA AND SEA-SICKNESS--IMAGININGS IN THE STORM--LANDING AT BIRKENHEAD.

On January 27th I bade good-bye to my friends and set my face resolutely towards the land whither I had desired to return. Knowing that sickness and unrest were before me, I formed an almost cast-iron resolution, as Samantha would say, to have one good night's rest on that Pulman car before setting out on the raging seas. Alas! a person would persist in floating about, coming occasionally to fumble in my belongings in the upper berth. Prepared to get nervous. Before it came to that, I sat up and enquired if the individual had lost anything, when he disappeared.

Lay down and pa.s.sed another resolution. Some who were sitting up began to smoke, and the fumes of tobacco floated in behind the curtains, clung there and filled all the s.p.a.ce and murdered sleep. Watched the heavy dark shelf above, stared at the cool white snow outside, wished that all smokers were exiled to Virginia or Cuba, or that they were compelled to breathe up their own smoke, until the morning broke cold and foggy.

Emerged from behind the curtains, and blessed the man who invented cold water. Too much disturbed by the last night's dose of second-hand smoke for breakfast at Island Pond. The moist-looking colored gentleman who was porter, turned back to Montreal before we reached Portland. I strongly suspect that a friend had privately presented him with a fee to make him attentive to one of the pa.s.sengers, for he came twice with the most minute directions for finding the Dominion Line office, at Portland. Still his conscience was unsatisfied, for finally he came with the offer of a tumbler full of something he called pure apple juice.

There are some proud Caucasians who would not have found it so difficult to square a small matter like that with their consciences.

It was pleasant to look at the comfortable homes on the line as we pa.s.sed along. Not one squalid looking homestead did we pa.s.s; every one such as a man might be proud to own. All honor to the State of Maine.

The train was three hours late--it was afternoon when we arrived in Portland. Following the directions of my colored friend, I went up an extremely dirty stair into a very dirty office, found an innocent young man smoking a cigar. He did not know anything, you know, so sat grimly down to wait for the arrival of some one who did. Such a one soon appeared and took a comprehensive glance of the pa.s.senger as he took off his overshoes.

"Pa.s.senger for the 'Ontario,'" explained the innocent young man.

"Take the pa.s.senger over to the ship," said the energetic one, decidedly. "We will send luggage after you. How much have you?"

Explained, handed him the checks, and meekly followed my innocent guide down the dirty stair, across a wide street, up some dirty-looking steps on to the wharf where the 'Ontario' lay, taking in her cargo. Large and strong-looking, dingy white was she, lying far below the wharf.

My guide enquired for the captain, who appeared suddenly from somewhere-- a tall man with a resolute face and keen eye, gray as to hair and whiskers, every inch a captain. I knew that his face--once a handsome face, I am sure--had got that look of determination carved into it by doing his duty by his ship and facing many a storm on G.o.d Almighty's sea. I trusted him at once.

Did not sail through the night as I expected, but were still in Portland when morning came. We had fish for breakfast; found mine frozen beneath the crisp brown outside. After breakfast went up on deck. The sky was blue and bright, the air piercing cold. The town of Portland looked clean and beautiful in the fair sunlight. It is a place that goes climbing up hill. The floating ice and the liquid green water ruffled into white on the crest of the swells, are at play together. The ship moves out slowly, almost imperceptibly. Portland fades from a house- crowned hillside into a white line, darkness comes down. We are out at sea.

The gla.s.s has gone down; the storm has come up; the sea tyrant has got hold of the solitary pa.s.senger and dandles her very roughly, singing "The Wreck of the 'Hesperus'" in a loud ba.s.s to some grand deep tune, alternating with the one hundred and third Psalm in Gaelic. The pa.s.senger holds on for dear life and wonders why the winds sing those words over and over again.

Sabbath pa.s.ses, day melts into night, night fades into day, the storm tosses the ship and sea-sickness tosses the pa.s.senger. The captain enquires, "Is that pa.s.senger no better yet?" Comes to see in his doctoral capacity, looks like a man not to be trifled with, feels the pulse, orders a mustard blister, brandy and ammonia, and scolds the patient for starving, like a wise captain and kind man as he is. All the ship stores are ransacked for something to tempt an appet.i.te that is above temptation; but the captain is absolute, and we can testify that eating from a sense of duty is hard work. It was delightful to get rid of an occasional apple on the sly to one of the ship's boys and be rewarded with a surprised grin of delight.

It is grand to lie on cushions on the companion-way and watch long rollers as they heave up and look in at the door-way. They rise rank upon rank, looking over one another's shoulders, hustling one another in their boisterous play, like overgrown schoolboys, who will have fun at whoever's expense. Sometimes one is pushed right in by his fellows, and falls down the companion-way in a little cataract, and then the door is shut and they batter at it in vain. Then there is a great mopping up of a small Atlantic.

The storm roars without, and within the pa.s.senger lies day after day studying the poetry of motion. There is one motion that goes to the tune of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," but this rocking is so violent that as one dashes from side to side, holding on to the bars above and the edge of the berth, one is led to pity a wakeful baby rocked wickedly by the big brother impatient to go to play. The tune changes, and it is "Ploughing the Raging Main," and the nose of the plough goes down too deep; then one is fastened to the walking beam of an engine and sways up and down with it. A gigantic churn is being churned by an ogre just under our head, and the awful dasher plunges and creaks. Above all the winds howl, and the waves roll, and sometimes slap the ship till she shivers and leaps, and then the "Wreck of the Hesperus" recommences.

Things get gloomy, the variations of storm grow monotonous, nothing delights us, no wish arises for beef tea, nothing makes gruel palatable.

Neither sun nor stars have been visible for some days; the only sunshine we see is the pa.s.sing smile of the ship's boys, who are almost constantly employed baling out the Atlantic.

It was the ninth night of storm. They say every ninth wave is larger than the rest; the ninth night the wind roared louder than ever, the Almighty's great guns going off. The ship staggered and reeled, struggling gallantly, answering n.o.bly to the human will that held her to her duty, but shivering and leaping after every mighty slap of the mad waves. I got one glimpse at the waves through a cautiously opened door.

I never thought they could climb upon one another's shoulders and reach up to heaven, a dark green wall of water ready to fall and overwhelm us, until I looked and saw the mountains of water all around.

Land in sight on the 8th of February, the Fasnet rock, then the Irish coast; the great rollers drew back into the bosom of the Atlantic: the winged pilot boats appeared; the pilot climbed up the side out of the sea; we steamed over the harbor bar and stopped at Birkenhead on the Cheshire side to land our fellow-pa.s.sengers the sheep and oxen.

I might have gone up to Liverpool but was advised to remain another night on board and go direct to the Belfast packet from the ship. I considered this advice, found it good and took it.

II.

FROM LIVERPOOL TO BELFAST--IRELAND'S CONDITION DISCUSSED--EVICTIONS--A SUNDAY IN BELFAST.

From Liverpool to Belfast, including a cup of tea, cost in all four dollars and fifty cents. It seems ridiculous to a stranger that the cars and cabs always stop at a little distance from the steamers, so as to employ a porter to lift a trunk for a few yards at each end of the short journey by cab.

The kind steward of the "Ontario" came over to the packet to look after his pa.s.senger; had promised to see that pa.s.senger safely conveyed from one steamer to the other, but, detained at home by sickness in the family, came back to the ship a few minutes too late, and then came over to explain and say good-bye. There could not possibly be a more courteous set of men than the captain and officers of the steamship "Ontario."

On the Belfast packet two ladies, one a very young bride on her way from her home in South Wales to her new home in Belfast, were talking of the danger of going to Ireland or living in it at the present disturbed time. A gentleman in a grey ulster and blue Tam o'Shanter of portentous dimensions broke into the conversation by a.s.suring the handsome young bride that she would be as safe in green Erin as in the arms of her mother. Looking at the young lady it was easy to see that this speech was involuntary Irish blarney, a compliment to her handsome face. "You will meet the greatest kindness here, you will have the heartiest welcome on the face of the earth," he continued.

"But there is a great deal of disturbance, is there not?" asked her companion.

"Oh, the newspapers exaggerate dreadfully--shamefully, to get up a sensation in the interest of their own flimsy sheets. There is some disturbance, but nothing like what people are made believe by the newspaper reports."

Old lady--"Why are Irish people so turbulent?"

Tam O'Shanter--"My dear lady, Ireland contains the best people and the worst in the world, the kindest and the cruelest. They are so emotional, so impulsive, so impressible that their warm hearts are easily swayed by demagogues who are making capital out of influencing them."

Old lady--"Making money by it, do you mean?"

Tam O'Shanter, with a decided set of his bonnet--"Making money of it!

Yes, by all means. They have got up the whole thing to make money. But here in Belfast, where you are going," with a bow to the bride, "all is tranquil, all is prosperous. In fact all over the north there is the same tranquillity, the same prosperity."

Here, a new voice, that of an enthusiastic supporter of the Land League, joined in the conversation, and the controversy becoming personal the ladies disappeared into the ladies' cabin. There was an echo of drunken argument that was likely a continuation of the land question until the wind increased to a gale. The little boat tossed like a cork on the waves; there was such a rattle of gla.s.s, such a rolling and b.u.mping of loose articles, such echoes of sickness, above all, the shock of waves and the shriek of winds, and the land question was for the time being swallowed up by the storm.

Belfast, with its mud and mist, was a welcome sight. The dirty-faced porters who lined the quay and beckoned to us, and pointed to our luggage silently, seemed to be a deputation of welcome to _terra firma_. At a little distance from the line of porters the jaunting cars were stationed to convey pa.s.sengers to the hotel. It did look ridiculous to see full-grown people take the long way round in this fashion.

At noon Sat.u.r.day, the 19th of February, I had the blissful feeling of rest connected with sitting in an easy chair before a coal fire, trying to wake up to the blissful fact of being off the sea and in Ireland.

On Sunday it was raining a steady and persistent rain; went through it to the Duncairn Presbyterian Church because it was near, and because I was told that the minister was one skilled to preach the gospel to the poor. Found myself half an hour too early, so watched the congregation a.s.semble. The Scottish face everywhere, an utter absence of anything like even a modified copy of a Milesian face. Presbyterianism in Ulster must have kept itself severely aloof from the natives; there could have been no proselytizing or there would have been a mixture of faces typical of the absorption of one creed in another.

Judging from the sentiments I have heard expressed by the st.u.r.dy descendants of King Jamie's settlers, the sympathy that must precede any reasonably hopeful effort to win over the native population to an alien faith has never existed here. There is a great social gulf fixed between the two peoples, with prejudice guarding both sides. The history, the traditions of either side is guarded and nourished in secret by one, openly and triumphantly by the other, with a freshness of strength that is amazing to one who has been out of this atmosphere long enough to look kindly on and claim kindred with both sides. Still there is a perceptible difference between these Hiberno-Scotch and their cousins of Scotland. Their faces have lost some of the concentrated look of a really Scottish congregation. They are not so thoroughly "locked up;"

the _cead mille failte_ has been working into their blood imperceptibly. The look of curiosity is kindly, and seems ready to melt into hearty welcome on short notice.

It is not the minister of the Duncairn Church who preaches, but a returned missionary, who tells us by what logical hair-splitting in the regions of Irish metaphysics he confounds Hindoo enquirers after truth, and argues them into the Christian religion. Pity the poor Hindoos upon whom this man inflicts himself. In the afternoon I strayed into a small Sabbath-School where the Bible never was opened; heard a stirring Gospel sermon at night, and joined in a prayer-meeting and felt better.

III.

BELFAST--TEMPERANCE--"THE EVE OF A GREAT REBELLION"--THE POOR HOUSE-- THE POLICE--COUNTY DOWN--MAKING ENDS MEET--WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO TURN UP.

Belfast seems a busy town, bustle on her streets, merchandise on her quays. Did not meet one man on the streets with the hopeless look on his face of the poor fellow who carried my trunk in Liverpool. There must be distress however, for the mills are not running full time, and there are entertainments got up for the benefit of the deserving poor. I saw no signs of intoxication on the streets, yet the number of whiskey shops is appalling. Had a conversation with a prominent member of the Temperance League, who informed me that temperance was gaining ground in Belfast.

"Half of the ministers are with us now; they used to, almost entirely, stand aloof." But where are the rest?