Just as we see on the confines of some vast savage territory one
solitary settlement that seems to say, “Here civilisation ends, beyond
this the tracts of cultivated man are unknown,” so there stood on the
borders of a solitary lake in Donegal--Lough Anare--a small thatched
house, over whose door an inscription announced “Entertainment for
Man and Beast,” the more pretentious letters of the latter seeming to
indicate that the accommodation for Beast was far more likely to prove a
success than that intended for mere humanity.
What imaginable spirit of enterprise could have induced Mr. O’Rorke to
have established an inn in such a region is not easy to guess. To the
north of Lough Anare lay a vast untravelled, almost roadless district.
Great mountains and deep valleys, wild plains of heather, enclosing
lakes, with islands, sometimes mere rocks, sometimes covered with an
oak scrub--last remnants of primeval forests--succeeded each other
apparently without end. A miserable shealing, usually padlocked on
the outside, was all that betokened habitation, and a living being was
rarely met with. It is true there was scenery which for grandeur and
beauty might have vied with the most vaunted spots on the island.
Mountain gorges far finer than Dunluce, lakes more varied in shape, and
with margins bolder in outline and richer in colour than Killarney,
and coast-line with which the boasted Glengariff could not for a moment
compete, all destined to remain as unknown as if they lay thousands of
miles away in some Indian sea.
A great proportion of this territory was the property of the University
of Dublin--endowment made in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when probably
all lands without the pale had about the same value; some of it
pertained to a wealthy English noble, who, until the accident of a
governmental survey, had never so much as cared to ascertain his limits,
and who made the first use of his knowledge by announcing for sale the
lands of Mac-na-Morroch, Knochlifty, Eilmacooran, and Denyvaragh; in
all, nigh fifty thousand acres of mountain, bog, callow, and lake, whose
great capabilities, whether for sheep-farming, fishing, for the quarries
of marble, or the immense mineral resources, were vouched for by a roll
of scientific names, whose very titular letters enforced conviction. If
the pen of an imaginative writer might have been employed in depicting
the stores of wealth and fortune that lay here entombed, no fancy could
have exaggerated the natural loveliness of the landscape. All that was
wild and grotesque in outline, with all that was most glowing in colour,
were there; and when on the nameless lakes the setting sun added his
glory to the golden purple of their reflected lights, the scene became
one of such gorgeous splendour as Art would not have dared to imitate.
The little inn we have just mentioned stood on a rocky eminence which
projected from the mountain-side, and could be seen for miles off, more
conspicuous, besides, by a large green flag, with a harp in the centre,
which by the patriotism of Mr. O’Rorke flaunted its folds to the wild
mountain breezes, as though enjoying in the solitude an immunity which
the Saxon might have resented elsewhere. Tim O’Rorke was indeed one who
had “suffered for Ireland.” Four several times had he figured in Crown
Prosecutions, and both fine and imprisonment had been his portion. On
the last occasion, however, either that national enthusiasm was cooling
down, or that suspicions of Tim’s honesty were getting abroad, the
subscription for his defence was almost a failure. No imposing names
headed the list, and the sums inscribed were mean and contemptible.
Unable to fee the great bar, to retain which, perhaps, formed the
grandest triumph of his life, O’Rorke decided to defend himself, and
in the course of his defence launched forth into a severe and insulting
castigation of his party, who, after using up his youth and manhood
in their cause, left him, when old and broken and dispirited, to the
merciless cruelty of his enemies. He read aloud in open court the names
of the powerful and wealthy men who at first stood by him, and then,
with a shameless insolence, contrasted them with the ignoble friends who
remained to him. He recited the proud sums once contributed, and, amidst
the laughter of the court, ridiculed the beggarly half-crowns that now
represented Irish patriotism. The verdict was against him, and once more
was he sent back to Kilmainham, to serve out a two years’ sentence, this
time unalienated by the sympathy of any friends, or the kind wishes of
any partisans. His sentence completed, he made two to three efforts
to reinstate himself in public esteem; he established an eating-house
called “The Rebel’s Home,” he instituted an evening paper entitled the
_Pike_, he invented a coat-button marked ‘98, but somehow friends and
enemies had become wearied of him. It was seen that he was one of those
who neither have the power of good nor evil, that he could be of no use
to his own, no injury to others, and the world dropped him--dropped him
as it does its poor and disreputable relatives, taking no heed of his
gaunt looks nor his tattered raiment, and by its tacit indifference
showed that the mass of mankind can behave on certain occasions pretty
much as would an individual man. Tim threatened, stormed, and
reviled; he vowed vengeance and menaced disclosures; he swore that
his revelations would impeach some of the highest in the land, and
he intimated that up to a certain day he was yet appeasable. Threats,
however, were not more successful than entreaties, and Tim, gathering
together a few pounds, under the plea of departure for Australia,
quitted the scene he had so long troubled, and was heard of no more.
For years he had continued to exist in some fashion or other--poaching
the chief source--in the wild spot we have just described; and it was on
the rock in front of his door, with a short pipe in his mouth, that
he now lay stretched, on a fine autumn morning, lazily gazing down the
valley, where at a great distance off he could detect a small speck
upon the road, intimating that rarest of all events, the approach of a
jaunting-car. He threw his glance upwards to see that his flag disported
its folds to the air, and to the sign over his door--“The Vinegar Hill,
by T. O’Rorke, Entertainment for Man and Beast”--to be sure that all was
in order, and he then smoked quietly on and watched the road.
By a landslip which had occurred several years before, and whose effects
had never been remedied, the road was blocked up about a mile from the
little inn, and travellers desirous of its accommodation were obliged
to continue their journey on foot. Whether from the apathy of hope
deferred, or calculating on the delay that must thus intervene, Mr.
O’Rorke saw two persons descend from the car, and, each taking his
carpet-bag, set out to walk, without the slightest movement on his part
to provide for their reception; and this, though he was himself
cook, waiter, and housemaid--all that the inn possessed of master or
attendant.
Mr. O’Rorke’s experience of travellers included but two categories,
each of them rare enough in their visitations. They either came to
shoot grouse or convert the natives. All who were not sportsmen were
missionaries. A certain amount of peril attended both pursuits. The
people were a wild, semi-civilised set, who saw with jealousy a stranger
amongst them, and certain hints, palpable enough not to be mistaken,
intimated to the lovers of sport, as well as the distributers of tracts,
that their pursuits were dangerous ones; and thus, in time, the numbers
decreased year by year, till at last the advent of a traveller was a
rare event.
The two who now ascended the rocky pathway had neither guns nor
fishing-tackle--as little had they of missionaries in their aspect--and
he watched them with a lazy curiosity as they approached.
“Are you Mr. O’Rorke?” cried the first who came forward, who was our
acquaintance Sir Gervais Vyner.
“Yes, my name is O’Rorke.”
“And the owner of this inn, I take it?” asked Grenfell, somewhat
haughtily.
“The same.”
“Is this your usual way of receiving strangers, my friend, or is your
present manner an especial politeness to ourselves?”
“Can you let us have a dinner, and make up a couple of rooms?” broke in
Vyner, hastily. “We should like to stop here a few days.”
“You can see the rooms, whether they’ll do for you or not; such as they
are, you can have them, but I can’t make them better.”
“And for eating, what can you give us?”
“Mutton always--fish and game when there’s the season for them--and
poteen to wash them down.”
“That is the illicit spirit, isn’t it?” asked Grenfell.
“Just as illicit as anything else a man makes of his own produce for his
own use; just as illicit as the bread that is made of his own corn.”
“You’re a politician, I see,” said Grenfell, with a sneering laugh. “I
half suspected it when I saw your green flag there.”
“If I hadn’t been one, and an honest one too, I’d not be here today,”
said he, with an energy greater than he had shown before. “Have you
anything to say against that flag?”
“Of course he has not. Neither he nor I ever saw it before,” said Vyner.
“Maybe you’ll be more familiar with it yet; maybe the time isn’t far off
when you’ll see it waving over the towers of Dublin Castle!”
“I’m not aware that there are any towers for it to wave over,” said
Grenfell, mockingly.
“I’ll tell you what there are! There are hills and mountains, that our
fathers had as their own; there are plains and valleys, that supported a
race braver and better than the crafty Saxons that overcame them; there
are holy churches, where our faith was taught before we ever heard of
Harry the Eighth and his ten wives!”
“You are giving him more than the Church did,” said Grenfell.
“I don’t care whether they were ten or ten thousand. He is your St.
Peter, and you can’t deny him!”
“I wish I could deny that I don’t like this conversation,” said Vyner.
“My friend and I never came here to discuss questions of politics
or polemics. And now about dinner. Could you let us have it at three
o’clock; it is just eleven now?”
“Yes, it will be ready by three,” said O’Rorke, gravely.
“The place is clean enough inside,” whispered Grenfell, as he came from
within, “but miserably poor. The fellow seems to have expended all his
spare cash in rebellious pictures and disloyal engravings.”
“He is an insupportable bore,” muttered Vyner; “but let us avoid
discussion with him, and keep him at a distance.”
“I like his rabid Irishism, I own,” said Grenfell, “and I intend to post
myself up, as the Yankees say, in rebellious matters before we leave
this.”
“Is that Lough Anare, that sheet of water I see yonder?”
“Yes,” said O’Rorke.
“There’s a ruined tower and the remains of seven churches, I think, on
an island there?”
“You’d like to draw it, perhaps?” asked O’Rorke, with a cunning
curiosity in his eye.
“For the present, I’d rather have a bathe, if I could find a suitable
spot.”
“Keep round to the westward there. It is all rock along that side, and
deep water close to the edge. You’ll find the water cold, if you mind
that.”
“I like it all the better. Of course, George, you’ll not come? You’ll
lie down on the sward here, and doze or dream till I come back.”
“Too happy, if I can make sleep do duty for books or newspapers,” yawned
out Grenfell.
“Do you want a book?” asked O’Rorke.
“Yes, of all things. What can you give me?”
He returned to the house, and brought out about a dozen books. There
were odd volumes of the press, O’Callaghan’s “Celts and Saxons,” and
the Milesian Magazine, profusely illustrated with wood-cuts of English
cruelty in every imaginable shape that human ingenuity could impart to
torture.
“That will show you how we were civilised, and why it takes so long to
do it,” said O’Rorke, pointing to an infamous print, where a celebrated
drummer named Hempenstall, a man of gigantic stature, was represented in
the act of hanging another over his shoulder, the artist having given to
the suffering wretch an expression of such agony as no mere words would
convey.
“This fellow is intolerable,” muttered Vyner, as he turned away, and
descended the rocky path. Grenfell, too, appeared to have had enough
of his patriotic host, for he stretched himself out on the green sward,
drawing his hat over his eyes, and giving it to be seen that he would
not be disturbed.
O’Rorke now retreated to the kitchen to prepare for his guest’s
entertainment, but he started with astonishment as he entered. “What,
Kitty, is this you?” cried he; “when did you come?”
The question was addressed to a little girl of some ten or eleven years
old, who, with her long golden hair loose on her shoulders, and her
cheeks flushed with exercise, looked even handsomer than when first we
saw her in the ruined Abbey at Arran, for it was the same child who had
stood forward to claim the amber necklace as her right.
“My grandfather sent me home,” said she, calmly, as she threw the long
locks back from her forehead, “for he had to stay a day at Murranmore,
and if he’s not here to-morrow morning I’m to go on by myself.”
“And was that all you got by your grand relation, Kitty?” said he,
pointing to the necklace that she still wore.
“And isn’t it enough?” answered she, proudly; “they said at the funeral
that it was worth a king’s ransom.”
“Then they told you a lie, child, that’s all; it wouldn’t bring forty
shillings--if it would thirty--to-morrow.”
“I don’t believe you, Tim O’Rorke,” said she, boldly; “but it’s just
like you to make little of what’s another’s.”
“You have the family tongue if you haven’t their fortune,” said he, with
a laugh. “Are you tired, coming so far?”
“Not a bit; I took the short cut by Lisnacare, and came down where the
waterfall comes in winter, and it saved more than four miles of the
road.”
“Ay, but you might have broken your neck.”
“My neck was safe enough,” said she, saucily.
“Perhaps you could trust your feet if you couldn’t your head,” said he,
mockingly.
“I could trust them both, Tim O’Rorke; and maybe they’d both bring me
farther and higher than yours ever did you.”
“There it is again; it runs in your blood; and there never was one of
your name that hadn’t a saucy answer.”
“Then don’t provoke what you don’t like,” said she, with a quivering
lip, for though quick at reply she was not the less sensitive to rebuke.
“Take a knife and scrape those carrots, and, when you’ve done, wash
those radishes well.”
The girl obeyed without a word, seeming well pleased to be employed.
“Did she leave any money behind her?” asked he, after a pause.
“No, none.”
“And how did he treat you?--was he civil to you all?”
“We never saw him.”
“Not see him!--how was that? Sure he went to the wake?”
“He did not. He sent us ‘lashins’ of everything. There was pork and
potatoes, and roast hens and ducks, and eggs and tea, and sugar and
whisky, and cakes of every kind.”
“But why didn’t he come in amongst you to say that you were welcome, to
wish you a good health, and the time of the year?”
“I don’t know.”
“And your grandfather bore that?”
She made no answer, but her face became crimson.
“I suppose it was all right; he wanted to show you that it was all over
between him and you, and that when she was gone you didn’t belong to him
any more.”
Two heavy tears rolled along the hot and burning cheeks of the child,
but she never spoke.
“Your old grandfather’s well changed, Kitty, from what I knew him once,
or he wouldn’t have borne it so quietly. And what did you get for your
journey?”
“We got all her clothes--elegant fine clothes--and linen--two big boxes
full, and knives and forks, and spoons and plates, that would fill two
dressers as big as that. And this,” and she lifted the amber beads as
she spoke, with a flashing eye--“and this besides.”
“He knew you well; he treated you just the way they treat the wild
Indians in the Rocky Mountains, where they buy all that they have in the
world for an old brass button or a few spangles. In his eyes you were
all poor savages, and no more.”
“I wish I never set foot in your house, Tim O’Rorke,” said she, throwing
down the knife, and stamping her bare foot with anger. “‘Tis never a
good word for man or woman comes out of your mouth, and if it wasn’t so
far to go I’d set off now.”
“You’re the making of a nice one,” said he, with a sneering laugh.
“I’m the making of what will be far above you one day,” said she, and
her large blue eyes dilated, and her nostrils expanded with passion.
“Go down to the well and fill that pitcher,” said he, calmly. And she
took the vessel, and tripped as lightly on the errand as though she had
not come seventeen long miles that same morning.