This sportfulness did not
impose upon me nor the rocks either, for the marks of the Atlantic in a
rage were graven on their brows in baldness and in wrinkles.
Along the road as we drove back I noticed the white cottages of coast
guardsmen who have married the maidens of the hills. They were there in
their patches of ground, delving with the spade, scattering sea weed
manure, the landlords here allowing them to gather all the sea weed that
drifts to their shores. Decent looking men these, in their blue uniforms
and thoughtful sea-beaten faces, with hardy little children around them,
playing or helping. The rocks rise among the fields with the same
startling abruptness as they do along the shore, looking still more like
ruins of old castles. Round these rocks and among them, in every nook
and cranny where there is a spadeful of earth, is delved carefully by
these mountain husbandmen.
As I looked at the rocks and crags, and the workers among them, I could
hardly help thinking they dearly earned all that grew upon them,
although there would be no half-yearly rent hanging over them. In one
little clearing some children were scattering manure. One, a sturdy
little maiden, but a mere baby of about seven years of age, had a fork
cut down to suit her size, and was handling it with infantile vigor,
laying about her with great vim. It was such a comical sight that we
stopped the car to watch her. As soon as she saw she was watched, she
dropped the fork and scampered off to hide. A pretty little child, hardy
and healthy and nimble as a goat.
Of course on this coast there are tall, white light houses, two of them
keeping guard over the rocks. Here and there are coast guard stations,
white and barrack-like, only holding blue jackets instead of red or
green.
The tenants along here praised their landlords. One of them, the Marquis
of Donegal, was spoken of as a merciful lord all through the hard years.
He had forgiven them rent which they could not pay, and lowered the rent
when they did pay, returning them some of the money, and the poor people
spoke of him with warm gratitude.
I notice that the people here have a good many sheep. They are not so
very wretched as the mountaineers I saw in northern Donegal. Poor they
must be, to dig out a living from among these rocks and keep up a lord
besides, but their lord has had a more human heart toward them than
other lords over whose lands I have been.
XIII.
GREEN CASTLE - A LOOK INTO THE FORT - THE OLD AND THE NEW - MARS IN
WAITING - A KIND WORD FOR THE LANDLORDS - IN TIME FOR AN EVICTION - FEMALE
LAND LEAGUERS - THE "STUPID" IRISH - THE POLICE.
Went on an exploring expedition to the ruins of Green Castle. One
authority told me it had been the castle of the chief of the clan
Doherty, once ruling lord here in the clannish times. Another equally
good authority told me it was built by De Burgo in the sixteenth century
to hold the natives in awe. Whoever built it, the pride of its strength
and the dread of its power have passed away forever. It is a very
extensive ruin and covers a large tract of ground. It looks as if three
solid, high, square buildings were set, not very regularly, end to end,
the outer wall of one built in a semi-circle, and towers raised at every
corner and every irregularity of the wall. Of course the roof was on the
floor, turrets and towers have lost part of their height and stand, rent
and ragged, tottering to their fall.
A good deal is said about the Norman style of arch and the Saxon style
of arch found in old buildings. I am convinced that the arches of Green
Castle, and its architecture generally, had been formed on the pattern
of the rocks at Port-a-dorus and the other heaps along the coast. The
same massiveness, the same wedge-like stones piled together to form
arches prevail in both.
Seaward the castle sits on a steep rock, like the rock on which Quebec
sits for height, but cleaner scarped, and more inaccessible I should
think. To stand on the shore and look up, the castle seems perched on a
dizzy height, its ruined battlements and broken towers rising up into
the sky. The pretty green ivy forms a kindly hap and a garment of
beauty, both for rock and ruin. Long live the ivy green.
There is a clean, smooth new fort standing beside the ruined old castle
like a prosperous, solid, closely-shaven, modern gentleman beside
dilapidated nobility. Its fat, broad tower looks strong enough and solid
enough and grim enough for anything. Inside of the fort everything is
clean, regular and orderly, as becomes a place under the care of British
soldiers. The house, or quarters I suppose they should be called, are
clean and bright, whitewashed (I almost said pipe-clayed), to the
highest point of perfection. There are fortifications above
fortifications here, and plenty of cannon pointed at an imaginary foe.
There are cannon balls in scientific heaps waiting to be despatched on
errands of destruction. Long may they wait.
I saw the outside of the magazine, cased over with so many feet - oh, a
great number - of solid masonry, padded over that with a great many feet
of earth, containing a fabulous amount of powder - tons and tons of it.
Saw also the slippers which the worshippers of Mars put upon their
martial feet when they enter into his temple - slippers without a
suspicion of shod, hob nail or sparable, with which the heels of the
worshippers of Ceres in this country are armed.
