BY LETITIA McCLINTOCK.
In a tiny hovel on the mountain-side just above the romantic glens
of Banagher, in the wildest part of the country Londonderry, lives
Paddy O’Heany, aged a hundred and three years. Paddy is an intelligent
old man who must have enjoyed his existence thoroughly, and taken a
vivid interest in the stirring scenes of his early life. No clod of
the valley is he even now, not like many old people who cannot be
aroused to any enthusiasm about either past or present events. Being
in quest of an actor in the terrible scenes of ’98, and having tried
several very old people without result, we hoped to find in Paddy a
story-teller.
“Paddy,” said our friend Mrs. S----, “is the oldest inhabitant in the
parish; he was a youth of nineteen at the time of the Rebellion, and
can relate graphic tales of adventures in which he took part. One of
them, the history of Jack McSparron, will make your blood run cold;
but there, I’ll say no more; you shall judge for yourself. Paddy was
one of the United Irishmen; has been, it is said, a Ribbonman and a
Fenian since then, and is now, in all probability, a Land Leaguer. At
any rate, his sympathies are with the Land League, so that you must be
careful what you say if you want him to talk; but I need not give you
any hints, you will know how to draw him out.”
Looking down from Paddy’s cottage door upon the richly wooded glens of
Banagher, the traveller is struck by the extent and beauty of the view.
Below lies a ruined church, a little to its right the glens—four dark
lines of wood branching off from a common meetingpoint, and running
up the mountain in different directions, and to the left the quaint
country town of Dungiven. Above the town rises the majestic mountain
range of Benbraddagh; while yet farther to the left, and like pale,
smoke-tinted phantoms, are the hills of Magilligan, and the shadowy
coast-line. This was the view we saw from Paddy’s low doorway, and with
a little reluctance we turned away from contemplating it, to enter the
smoky cabin.
Paddy was a fine old man with thick, grizzled hair, a better-formed
profile than many of his class, and a hale, hearty voice. He was
totally blind, but his keen face was so full of intelligence that it
was easy to forget that he could not see. His daughter, herself a very
old woman, moved his arm-chair near the door, and we sat beside him
facing the scene above described. The turf smoke, of which the kitchen
was full, blew past us to find its outlet at the door. A turf stack was
built against the end of the dresser just behind Paddy’s chair. A calf
was walled off by a little rampart of boards from the rest of the room,
and the cock and hens had already flown to their roost directly above
our heads. The atmosphere and neighborhood might have been objected to
by squeamish people, but in the pursuit of knowledge what will not one
dare?
The old woman stood behind her fathers chair ready to jog his memory if
necessary. A present of tobacco, tea, and sugar touched the patriarch’s
heart; he was quite willing to take the desired journey into the
regions of the past.
“Do I mind the time o’ the Uniting? Is that what the lady wants to
know? Ay, bravely I mind it. I mind it far better nor things that
happened yesterday. I was ane o’ the United Men mysel’, an’ I was sent
wi’ a big wheen o’ the boys to keep the pass on the White Mountain when
the army was expected from Derry to destroy us. I had my pike, an’ the
maist part o’ the boys had guns.”
“Were you not afraid to meet the soldiers?”
“Feared? Was I feared? Troth an’ faix I was, sorely feared; but it wad
ha’ been as much as your life was worth to let on that you were feared.
I mind us leaning against the heather, an’ the big rocks an’ mountains
rising up all roun’ us, an’ the cold night an’ the darkness comin’ on,
an’ feen a word was spoke amang us, for we be to keep the pass.”
“Well?”
“Weel, at long an’ at last, Jack McSparron came running back (he was
put to watch); ‘an’,’ says he, ‘the army’s comin’ now; there’s the
tramp o’ the horses,’ says he. Wi’ that we to the listening, an’ we all
heered the tramp o’ the cavalry; an’ the company o’ the United Men just
melted away like snow off a ditch. Jack an’ one or two others tried to
keep us thegether, but it couldna be done; the boys was too feared. I
ran wi’ the rest, an’ I never stopped till I was in my father’s house
sittin’ into the chimney-corner aback o’ my mother. After that there
was soldiers passing we’er door nearly every day, an’ they said they
were marching to burn Maghera to the ground.”
“Why was Maghera to be burned to the ground?”
“I dinna rightly know, but I think the United Men was strong in it. But
counter-orders came that it was na to be destroyed, an’ then the army
came back to Dungiven.”
“Were you acquainted with Jack McSparron?”
“Is it Jack McSparron that was flogged in Dungiven Street? Ay, I mind
that weel.”
His withered hands clutched the arms of his chair as he bent forward,
with his sightless eyes fixed, and the fire of eagerness in his keen
face. He was gone upon a journey into the distant past, and a scene of
horror passed before his mental vision.
“Those times were worse nor these,” he said; “there were murders, too,
in parts o’ the country, but there was another way o’ working then. I
told you that the army came over frae England, an’ they took up the men
that was for the Uniting, an’ there was short work wi’ _them_. Ay, ay,
I mind the day Jack was flogged in Dungiven Street because he wouldna
tell the names o’ the men that was banded wi’ him. One o’ them was a
meeting minister, it was said; an’ there was farmers an’ laboring men,
too. For the whole country about Dungiven was strong for the United
Irishmen as they called them. I was wi’ them mysel’, but I was never
took.”
“There were some Presbyterians among them?”
“Eh?” and his hand went up to his ear.
“The lady’s axin’ if there wasn’t Presbyterians wi’ the United Men,
father,” said his daughter.
“Troth, was there, ma’am! it was allowed that there was ministers an’
farmers an’ shopkeepers o’ them. Jack was a Presbyterian himsel’.”
“How was he taken prisoner?”
“I dinna just mind, but I think it was at a meeting they had at a house
in Feeny. The alarm was given that the soldiers was coming, and all
fled an’ got away but Jack. He was a fine boy of nineteen years of age,
the support o’ his mother. He was stiff in his turn, too, far stiffer
nor I could ha’ been, for he swore he’d die afore he’d tell upon his
comrades. Ay, he was stiffer nor me.”
“True for you, father,” laughed the old woman, leaning over Paddy’s
chair; “you’d ha’ told sooner nor be scourged.”
We recalled Paddy’s naïve history of his flight from the pass on the
White Mountain and mentally agreed with her. Paddy, however, was an
Irishman pure, while Jack McSparron was descended from the Scottish
Covenanters, and had inherited from them the fortitude of an Ephraim
MacBriar.
“Go on, Paddy; your story is most interesting.”
The old man smiled, but he was hardly thinking of his visitors, the
picture brought back by memory so engrossed him.
“Jack wouldna’ gie the names o’ his comrades, an’ he was sentenced to
be flogged till he would tell. I mind Niel Sweenie, that was a comrade
boy o’ mine, an’ me went to Dungiven to see the flogging. We seen
Jack in a cart an’ his mother wi’ him, an’ all the way along the road
she was laying her commands upon him to die before he’d betray his
comrades. The army was marching all round the cart, an’ people frae
all the farmhouses an’ cottierhouses was following. Then we got into
Dungiven. I mind the crowds that was looking on, an’ me an’ Niel among
them.
“Jack got so many lashes, an’ then they’d stop an’ the officer would ax
him if he would tell now, an’ the old woman would call out, ‘Dinna give
in, Jack. Die like a man, my son. Think o’ the curses o’ the widows an’
orphans that wad follow you;’ an’ the poor boy would make answer, ‘Ay,
mother, I’ll die before I tell.’”
“Dear, dear, but that mother was the hard-hearted woman!” interrupted
Paddy’s daughter, glancing at her grandson, who happened to pass the
door at that moment with a creel of turf on his back.
Paddy did not heed her interruption; he was embarked on the full tide
of recollection—the horrible scene lived again before him. “They gave
him a great many lashes,” he continued; “I dinna mind how many hundred
it was, an’ each time they stopped he was asked if he would tell, an’
his mother still bid him die like a man, an’ his answer was still the
same. At long an’ at last the officer called out ‘Stop! would you kill
a game bird?’ an’ he was took down an’ put in the guard-room for the
night.
“Niel an’ me was invited in to tak’ a look at him, an’ we seen him
lying on his face on a table wi’ an ointment shirt on that the soldiers
had thrown over him. The officers gave orders that the whole country
was to see him if they liked. I think they wanted to scare the United
Men.
“He was to be took to Limavady the next day for the sentence to be
carried out there, so the whole country took a holiday again to see the
rear o’ the flogging. Jack an’ his mother was in the cart, an’ the army
marchin’ wi’ them, an’ me an’ Niel an’ a crowd o’ neighbors following
along the road to Limavady.
“The mother called out to us, ‘I’m going wi’ his living funeral,’ says
she; ‘but I’ll gie him the same advice I did yesterday,’ says she.
“When we reached Limavady he was tied up, an’ we were watching for the
lash to fall, when there was a great shout an’ we seen a man galloping
up the street as hard as his horse could go, waving something white
over his head. It was a pardon come from Dublin for Jack McSparron.”
“I am glad the pardon came, for he was an heroic youth, rebel though he
was.”
“Ay,” cried the old man, “_he_ wouldna’ be an informer. There’s few o’
his sort left in Ireland now, more’s the pity—more’s the pity!”
The fire in his voice told us plainly where his sympathies really were.
Not, certainly, with murdered landlords, bailiffs, or non-land-league
farmers!
“Did Jack live to be an old man?”
“Ay, did he. He died it’ll be sixteen year past next Candlemas. There’s
a daughter o’ his married on a farmer not very far from this. The
McSparrons in this parish is all proud o’ being his friends. When ane
o’ them shows himsel’ a gude comrade or neighbor, the people says, ‘Ay,
he’s o’ the blood of Jack McSparron.’”