THE LAND OF FLAMES--A RELIC WITH A HISTORY--CATTLE VS. MEN--THE MEETING
OF EXTREMES--"PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE."
Was invited by a friend to visit Rappa Castle to see a celebrated
vessel which once belonged to Saint Tighernain, the saint who belongs
more especially to the west and the clock which was removed from Moyne
Abbey when it was dismantled. This vessel, belonging to the saint called
Mias Tighernain--which I would freely translate as meaning Tighernain's
own--has been used until of late years, when the clergy interposed and
forbid it, for the discovery of stolen goods. Any one swearing falsely
on the Mias Tighernain was sure to come to grief. People swearing
falsely on the Bible have been known to escape visible consequences. Our
car driver, a not very old man at all, told us he was present himself
when a numerous household were brought together to be sworn on the Mias
Tighernain for the discovery of a large sum of money which had been
stolen. The thief was discovered but money was not.
It is very pleasant to drive along through the fair but tenantless lands
that surround Ballina. The county of Mayo is beautifully diversified by
mountain and valley, wood and water, glen and stream. The tall hedges of
white thorn in their bridal white perfume the air. Myriads of primroses
smile at the passer-by from sunny banks. Small golden blossoms, like
whin blossoms, cluster thickly here and there, and the starry-eyed
daisies, white and sweet with blushes edged, lift their modest faces to
the sky. Even the bog waste is nodding all over with a cotton flower,
white as a snowflake; they call it _ceanabhan_ in Irish, and the
peasantry use it as a comparison when praising the white arms and bosoms
of the Mayo maidens. Surely one might say this bright May morning with
Tim, "Glory be to God, but it is a purty world!"
When we crossed the boundaries, passed the lodge gates into the demesne
lying around Rappa Castle, the residence of Captain Knox, there was a
change to still greater beauty. Money will build a grand and stately
home in the fair proportions of a castle, but money has to run in the
blood for centuries to produce a scene like this. Broad lands swelling
and sinking like an emerald sea, trees that stand out singly wrap
themselves in aristocratic leafiness, spreading their magnificent arms
toward you, saying, "Look at me! I am not of yesterday; the dews of
heaven, the fatness of the earth, the leisure of centuries, fanned by
breezes, tended by culture, have made me what I am, a 'thing of beauty'
to gladden your eyes." They stand in groups upon the slopes and whisper
this to one another; they open their ranks to give you delicious
glimpses into further away "spots of delight:" they are drawn up in
ranks shading mysterious walks that lead away into the grand dim woods.
They distract you and bother you with their loveliness till you wish
that the English language had a bushel more adjectives.
Rappa Castle where we arrived with a beggarly feeling of having
exhausted our adjectives is a large comfortable building not very much
like one's idea of a castle. We drove up to the rear entrance--it is
always prudent to take the lowest room--and waited on the car while a
messenger was despatched with our request. Presently the messenger came
back with directions to us to drive round to the hall door. We were
received by a respectable servant in plain dark clothes, who looked like
a minister or a mild edition of a churchwarden. He ushered us from the
entrance hall--a comfortably furnished apartment--across a second, into
the crowning glories of a third, where we were requested to wait till
Captain Knox made his appearance, which was not a long time.
The owner of Rappa Castle, a landlord against whom nothing in the way of
blame is said, was assuredly of as much interest to us as the relics
which his house possessed. A tall, fine looking, kindly faced man, rosy
with health, courteous and pleasant, came into the room. We told our
errand and the Captain went for the Mias Tighernain and placed it in our
hands. It is evidently only part of the original dish, the socket where
the upper part rested being still there. It is very heavy, formed of
three layers of thin bronze bound at the edge with brass--evidently a
later thought, and done for preservation. There are three bands of
silver across it, which show the remains of rich figuring. There was
originally a setting of three stones, one of which still remains and
looks as if it might be amber. It is as large as a soup plate. Something
is among the layers of metal which rattles when shaken. It is one of the
oldest relics in the country. Whoever made it had no mean skill in the
art of working metals. According to a certain Father Walsh it was used
to wash the saint's hands in at mass. This dish, after lying at the
bottom of Lough Conn for a hundred years, came up to the surface and
revealed itself. It has been used as a revealer of secrets ever since it
came into the hands of the Knox family. We requested afterwards to see
the clock of Moyne Abbey, and were taken by the courteous captain across
other rooms to the flagged kitchen, where the clock ticked as it has
done for three hundred years--or since the Abbey was dismantled, how
long before history hath not recorded. The case is of some dark wood
beautifully carved. I thought it was bog oak; Captain Knox said
mahogany, which would make the case to be much younger than the clock.
The Captain assured us that it was the best time-keeper in the world. It
only requires winding once a month; used to show the day of the month,
but some meddler disarranged that part of the machinery. The dial plate
is of some white metal, brilliant and silvery. Captain Knox said it was
brass, but I have seen things look more brazen that were not so old.
Nothing could exceed the courtesy of Captain Knox. He made some
enquiries about Canada, and deplored the rush of cattle across, which
was injurious to the interests of graziers, of whom he was one. It would
have been discourteous to express the wish that lay in my mind, that
they might come in such numbers as to lower the price of cows and
grazing also till the poor man might be able to have a cow oftener and
milk to his "yellow male" stir-about till it might be not quite so
impossible to replace the cow seized for the rent and the County cess.
I saw a trial in the papers lately of a woman who was in bed, in her
shake-down, when she became aware that the cow--the only cow--was taking
a lawful departure. Up she got, in the same trim as that in which Nannie
danced in Kirk Alloway, and by the might of her arm rescued the cow. She
was condemned to jail, but one's sympathies go with the law breakers
here often. At least mine do. I did sympathize with this woman of one
cow and a large family. Why should any one have power lawfully, to
"lift" the only cow from half-starved children. The defence for this
woman was that through trouble she did not know what she was doing. It
was a mean, paltry defence; she did know that she wanted to keep her
cow, and the law should be altered to enable her to do so. The law that
enables men of means to strip these poor wretches of everything that
stands between them and their little children and starvation, is a
monstrous law for Christians to devise and execute, and is worse for the
rich and for the executive of the law than even for the sufferers. All
these things flashed through my mind as we conversed with Captain Knox.
On leaving Rappa Castle we paused a little on the doorsteps to take one
more look at the beauty of the grounds. I wish I had words to convey to
others a little of the delight which the scene gave to me. The trees,
branched down almost to the ground, have gotten themselves into so many
graceful attitudes. The bending thick-leaved branches look like green
drapery, the larch flings its tassels down in long pendants fluttering
in the breeze, the spruce and balsam--they are a little unlike ours of
the same name, but I do not know any other names for them--rise in
pyramids of dark green tipped with sunny light green, the cedars fling
their great arms about cloaked with rich foliage, the laburnums shake
out their golden ringlets and tremble under the weight of their beauty,
the copper beeches stand proudly on an eminence where every graceful
spray shows against a background of blue sky. There are vistas opening
among the trees giving glimpses of the brightest green and dashes of
waters like bits of captured sky.
I gave a glance at the owner, tall and stately, with ruddy, pleasant
face and kind blue eye, and acknowledged that he looked every inch an
English squire.
With many thanks for his kindness we took our departure. Were glad to
hear from both friend and car driver that nothing of cruelty and
oppression could be laid to the charge of this man. As I stood beside
him at his own door, drawing all of the beauty I could into my soul
through my eyes to carry away with me, I thought if I were born into
that place with its associations, could I, would I mar any corner of it
to make a homestead for starving Thady, ragged Biddy, and the too
numerous children? Who knows what transformation might lie in the pride
and power of possession!
There was a single laborer working before the castle raking up the
gravel walk, I think. "I would he were fatter!" If he were only in as
good condition as the beautiful dogs of superior breed which we saw in
the castle yard; but the dogs are fed at the expense of the proprietor
of this fair domain, the thin laborer at his own. We returned by another
way. After we left the grounds we noticed with sad eyes the miserable
cabins and barren fields at his gates. People of the upper, middle and
comfortable classes are so used to horrible cabins, thin laborers, old
women, barefoot, toothless, ragged and wretched, begging by the wayside
to keep out of the dreaded workhouse, that the sight makes not the
slightest impression. People tell me over and over again that they
deserve their poverty, for it is the result of extravagance and
drunkenness. This assertion makes one stare and then consider whose
faces show the greater evidence of the action of different liquors. It
would be an easy matter in a national gathering to pick out the class
and the strata of society that is the support of the liquor traffic in
Ireland.