The Letters Of
The Letters Of "Norah" On Her Tour Through Ireland By Margaret Dixon Mcdougall - Page 19 of 106 - First - Home

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It Is Said That The Present Owner Of Old Sir Annesly's Estate, Who Is Not A Lineal Descendant, However, Feels As Bunyan Describes The Two Giants To Feel, Who Can Grin And Gnash Their Teeth, But Can Do No More.

All this and more I hear, as the sun comes up and the frost disappears, and we sail over bright waters.

One might enjoy sailing over Lough Swilly, the whole of a long summer day. Everything pleasant comes to an end, and we land at Fahan, and while waiting for the train my attention is drawn to the fair island of Inch, with its fields running up the mountain side, and the damp black rocks through which the railway has cut its way at Fahan. The train comes along, and we go whirling on past Inch, Burnfoot Bridge, and into Derry. A Presbyterian doctor of divinity is in our compartment, and some well-to-do farmers' wives, and again and yet again the talk is of the land and the landlords. Instance after instance of oppression and wrong is gone over.

But Derry reached, I must say good-bye to some agreeable travelling companions, and take the mail car to Moville for a tour round Innishowen; Innishowen, celebrated for its poteen; Innishowen, sung about in song, told about in story.

"God bless the dark mountains of brave Donegal, God bless royal Aielich, the pride of them all - She sitteth for ever a queen on her throne, And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen. A race that no traitor or tyrant has known Inhabits the valleys of green Innishowen."

From Derry to Moville is, as usual, lovely - lovely with a loveliness of its own. Fine old trees, singly, in groups, in thick plantations; beautiful fields; level clipped hedges; flowers springing everywhere, under the hedges, in little front gardens, up the banks. The land is dreadfully overrun with gentry's residences fair enough to the eye, some of them very beautiful, but one gets to wonder, if the land is so poor that it is spueing out its inhabitants, what supports all these?

The wide Lough Foyle is in sight of the road most of the way, and a sea- bound steamer carries me away in thought to Canada. The air is nipping enough to choke sentiment in the bud. It is bitter cold, and I have the windward side of the car, and shiver at the nodding daffodils in blooming clumps at every cottage as we pass along. There are some waste unreclaimed fields, and the tide is out as we drive along, so that long stretches of bare blue mud, spotted with eruptions of sea weed, fit well with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the curves of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along, and the brown-sailed little boats scudding before the breeze.

The Lough is on one side, and a remarkable, high steep ridge on the other, yellow with budded whins, green with creeping ivy, and up on the utmost ridge a row of plumed pines. When I noticed their tufted tops standing out against the sky, I felt like saying, "Hurrah! hurrah for Canada!" the pines did look so Canadian looking. I soon was recalled to realize that I was in my own green Erin, and certainly it is with a cold breath she welcomes her child back again.

We knew we were nearing Moville: we saw it on a distant point stretching out into the Lough. I forgot to mention that the land began to be full of castles as we drove along the road. We passed Red Castle and White Castle and when we reached Moville, Green Castle was before us a few miles further down. Further down I wished to go, for a very distant relative was expecting me there - Mr. Samuel Sloan, formerly of the Royal Artillery, who had charge of Green Castle Fort for years; but now has retired, and lives on his own property. I like people to claim kindred with me; I like a hearty welcome, the _Cead mille faille ghud_, that takes you out of hotel life and makes you feel at home. I was so welcomed by my distant kinsman and his excellent wife that I felt very reluctant to turn out again to hotel life.

Next day after my arrival we got a car and made an excursion down along the coast to Port-a-dorus. I thought I had seen rocks before, but these rocks are a new variety to me. They occur so suddenly that they are a continual surprise. Along the coast, out in the water, they push up their backs in isolated heaps like immense hippopotami lying in the water, or petrified sharks with only a tall serrated back fin visible. There would occur a strip of bare brown sand, and outside of that row upon row of sharp, thin, jagged rocks like the jaw teeth of pre-Adamite monsters. In other places they were piled on one another in such a sudden way, grass growing in the crevices, ivy creeping over them, the likeness of broken towers and ruined battlements, that one could hardly believe but that they were piled there by some giant race.

When we had driven as far as the car could go we left car and driver, and scrambled over the rocks like goats. Rocks frowned above us, between us and the sky, rocks all round in black confusion. As we climbed from slippery rock to slippery rock, over long leathery coils of thick sea weed, like serpents, on, on through the _Dorus_ to the open sea, noticing the dark passages, the gloomy caves, the recesses among the cliffs, the narrow passes, where one could turn to bay and keep off many, it was natural to think of rebels skulking here, with a price on their heads, after the '98, or of lawless people stilling illicit _poteen_ to hide it from the gaugers.

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