Where the Atlantic meets the Land

Front matter

WHERE THE ATLANTIC MEETS THE LAND Copyrighted in the United States All rights reserved Where the Atlantic meets the Land BY CALDWELL LIPSETT LONDON : JOHN LANE, VIGO ST BOSTON: ROBERTS BROS., CONTENTS PAGE THE UNFORGIVEN SIN, I THE LEGEND OF BARNESMORE GAP, .... 34 'MORE CRUEL THAN THE GRAVE,' .... 47 THE AIR-GUN 62 THE GIANTS' CASTLE, ....... 9 1 THE NIGHT OF THE HOME RULE BILL, . . . IOO, A BORDER WAR I3O A NIGHTMARE CLIMB, I4I A PEASANT TRAGEDY, 1 58 ORANGE AND GREEN ' . -173 ANDY KERRIGAN'S HONEYMOON, .... l88 A PAUPER'S BURIAL, 199 THE GAUGER- LEP 211 THE GILLIE, .... • . . . 222 'THE FINAL FLICKER,' 24° A DIVIDED FAITH, 25° THE UNFORGIVEN SIN Bella Sweeny and Terry Gallagher had a holiday, and were spending it upon the rocks at Kilcross. He was a groom and she was a maid at ' the big house,' some miles inland, and this was her first visit to the place.

He had been there several times before, and was doing the honours of the scenery. They had been ' coortin' ' for some time, and he sat with his arm round her waist, in silence for the most part punctuated by occasional references to the local names for heads of the landscape : he kept severely to facts, with the practical mind of the peasant class from which he sprang. The point at which they found themselves was the innermost end of the long line of black faced cliffs, where the rocky strata suddenly ceased and gave way to the sandy lowlands. The rock upon which they were seated was a single flat slab, which extended a hundred A yards into the sea, forming a natural break water for the little cove behind them. To their right there stretched inland a couple of miles of yellow glistening strand, which merged gradually in the tufted bent -grass and rounded hillocks of the dunes which sloped to meet it at high-water mark.

At the furthest point of sight in this direction the rocky strata cropped up again in the shape of an immense reef which stretched out half a mile into the sea, and now at low tide lay like a gigantic alligator on the surface of the water. When the tide was full its jagged points were completely covered, and only a thread of surf was left to warn the fisher man of its hidden dangers. ' This rock that we 're a-settin' on,' said Terry, ' is called the Yeough Flag, from the fishes they catch off ov it : an' yon big wan out there is Carrick Fad : an' that wan is the Connaught man's Rock, where a boat's load from Connaught was wrecked wan winter's night an' all han's lost' He pointed as he spoke to a spot in the sea beside them, where a mat of long golden brown wrack floated flush with the surface, and the swell broke gently with a soft gurgle and a few air-bubbles.

Part I The Lovers

A GROUP of peasants was straggling along the hilly road returning from the fair in the summer twilight. It was composed of about an equal number of men and women : the women trudged along on their naked feet, with their heavy market-baskets over one arm, and their boots slung by the laces over the other : the men lazily dragged their heavily shod feet after them, with the trailing gait born of much walking in ploughed fields and clinging soil ; they carried one hand in their trousers pocket, the other twirling an ash-plant, with which they switched off the heads of all the thistles they met. In front of them wandered a few young bullocks, badly bred and unkempt, mooing pitifully from time to time. In their midst was a donkey-cart with four sheep and a couple of in pigs confined between its cribs ; the sheep were tied together in pairs with twisted hay-bands round their necks, their legs also were hobbled with hay-bands ; the pigs ran about loose, and routed ceaselessly among the straw at the bottom of the cart.

The donkey plodded patiently along by himself, for the most part unnoticed ; but when it was necessary to turn aside into a by-road or avoid one of the huge stones that had tumbled off a neighbouring ditch, one of the men guided him by the simple but effective means of seizing the tail-pieces and levering round both cart and staggering donkey together. ' A bad fair agin, the day/ said one of the elder men in a high, querulous tone, directed impartially to the group at large. ' Ay, 'deed so,' replied another, ' times is main bad the now. Bastes is gone clane to nothin' ; two pun I was bid the day for a year-ould heifer — that 's her runnin' in front wi' the white patch roun' her tail ; I min' the time when I wouldn't have luked at sivin for her ; two pun, min' that now/ and he spat disgustedly. ' Pigs is the on'y thing as fetches any price at ahl, an' who 's to be at the cost of fattenin' thim ? ' ' Michael Dolan wudn't be overly well plazed at yon sight,' interjected the first speaker, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hindmost of the group.

The couple thus alluded to were the youngest of those present. They were in the stage known as ' coortin',' and ever since leaving town some half-hour before they had been unobtru sively dropping in the rear of their party. They were now walking along with their arms round each other's waists, and her head drooped upon his shoulder. Contrary to the rule among the Northern peasantry, who are for the most part hard-featured and uncomely, perhaps owing to the admixture of Scotch blood in their veins, the girl had the true Celtic type of beauty, straight features with black hair, and large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, a tall figure, and a firm and well-developed bust. But the young man beside her over-topped her by a head, straight-limbed, with a broad sun-tanned face and a wide laughing mouth ; the damp of the plough-land had not yet got into his bones nor the bend of the scythe into his knee-joints.

They walked in silence, content to be together ; your rustic has not too many words to spare to waste any even in his courting. But the blood coursed none the less hotly in the veins of both. The rich, who have more room in their houses, and fewer constraints to trouble them, do most of their love-making indoors. The poor have to do theirs in the open air, chiefly, as now, in the long evenings coming home together from market. The middle classes are more restricted by space and convention on both these sides, which perhaps partly accounts for their higher morality. An Irish labourer's cottage of two rooms has to accommodate a whole family, the younger children often sleeping in the same bed with their parents. From thus herding together, and from the necessities of country life in connection with animals, the children are brought up in familiarity with aspects of life which never come under the notice of those bred in towns.

And yet the Irish women have a high reputation for chastity ; and justly, for they rarely take a lover outside of their own class. Within that class they are protected by their religion ; if anything goes wrong between a man and a maid, the priest always hears of it, and marries them on the spot before worse can happen. L Generations of this restraint have bred an ingrained habit of continence among the people, so that now in the Roman Catholic districts of Northern Ireland an illegitimate child is an almost unknown disgrace. ' What did ye buy in town the day, Paddy ? ' asked the girl, with the intonation of a tender speech. The limits of her vocabulary did not admit of a nearer approach to lovers' talk than the practical details of housekeeping that bore on their projected marriage. ' Them two pigs in the ass-cart, an' the saints alone knows whether I '11 be fit to kape thim through the winter.

A shillin' a day, an' not ivery day at that, isn't enough to kape a man, let alone a wife an' two suckin' pigs. I only git two shillin' when I 'm ploughin' or mowin', an' them machines is cuttin' us all out ; they git all the wurruk these times. I 'm thinkin' I '11 jine to lam the use av them be next year ; there 's no man hereabouts as knows the thrick av it, an' I 've a consate that siveral av the farmers would jine an' buy a mowin' machine right out instead av hirin' them thramp wans, av they had a man as cud use it.' ' But yous is the boy as has the head,' said the girl admiringly. ' I 'm glad I 'm to be married to yous. I '11 niver want for bit nor sup, I '11 hold ye.' ' It 's that same that 's botherin' me this minit Norah darlin'. Whin are we to be married ? It ud be ahl right wi' the house an' the wee bit farrum ; but me brother Mick is that set agin you I don't know what 's kim over him.

An' I 'd as lave not ang-er him. For Mick 's right fond av me the whole time, whin ahl 's said an' done.' ' Ay, troth is he ; he thinks the sun rises an' sets an yer elbow whin yous is not by.' ' I 'm clane moidhered what to do. What did you buy, swateheart ? ' ' I 'm worse agin nor yous. I on'y got five shillin' for spriggin' an' stockin's as tuk me a fair fortnight. But I scraped enough ha'pence together for a churn ; an' I said as how yous wud bring it home the nixt time ye had the ass-cart in town.' In these marriages it is the woman's part, where possible, to supply the household utensils necessary to set up house together, the man's to find the live stock and keep a roof over their heads by his labour. ' It 's comin' on saft, let 's take shelther/ said Paddy presently. ' Ah, what signifies that dhrap ?

It '11 on'y be a shower.' ' An' yous in yer new jacket an' hat wi' the red feather till it; it'll be ahl shpoilt As it isn't goin' to last, it 's ahl the more raison not to git wet to the pelt for nothin'. Let 's git in behin' this ould wall for a wee taste ; its gran' shelther, an' the bracken 's right saft to set an.' The girl resisted for a time, but finally, when she felt a large drop splash on her nose, her fears for her finery triumphed over her native modesty, and she let herself be persuaded against her will. Paddy calmly 'tossed' the loose stone wall, making a gap of a height sufficient to let her pass over it, and they took refuge under the ruined gable of an old church beside the road. The bracken grew thickly up to the foot of thecrumbling wall ; the overhanging ivy cast them into deep shadow. ' Ah, quit ! ' exclaimed the girl presently, in a tone half-angry, half-alarmed. ' Quit now, I 'm tellin' ye !

What for are ye squeezin' me so tight? For the love av Mary, Paddy darlin', what are ye doin' ? I didn't think it av ye,' and her voice died away in a murmur of passion. When the shower was over, they rose and resumed their journey in silence, walking apart, one on the grass on either side, with the road way between them. When they had thus travelled a mile, the girl said timidly — ' Pathrick.' 'Ay.' ' It 's my turn to confess to Father Brady come Sunday.' For another five minutes there was a silence, then the man said shamefacedly — ' Norah.' 'Ay.' ' There 's no call to say nothin' to the praste about yon. I '11 tell him to call us for the first time in chapel on Sunday. Come an' giv us a kiss, darlin', an' make frinds agin. Troth, it 's all wan, whin we jine to be married so soon.'