Mary Glyn lives under Slieve-nan-Or, the Golden Mountain, where the last
battle will be fought in the last great war of the world; so that the
sides of Gortaveha, a lesser mountain, will stream with blood. But she
and her friends are not afraid of this; for an old weaver from the
north, who knew all things, told them long ago that there is a place
near Turloughmore where war will never come, because St. Columcill used
to live there. So they will make use of this knowledge, and seek a
refuge there, if, indeed, there is room enough for them all. There is a
river by her house that marks the boundary between Galway and Clare; and
there are stepping-stones in the river, so that she can cross from
Connaught to Munster when she has a mind. But she cannot do her
marketing when she has a mind; for the nearest town, Gort, is ten miles
away. The roof of her little cabin is thatched with rushes, and a garden
of weeds grows on it, and the rain comes through. But she is soon to
have a new thatch; for she thinks she won't live long, and she wouldn't
like the rain to be coming down on her when she is dead and laid out.
There is heather in blow on the hills about her home, and foxglove
reddens the clay-banks, and loosetrife the marshy hollows; and
rush-cotton waves its little white flags over the bogs. Mary Glyn's
neighbours come to see her sometimes, when the sun is going down, and
the hurry of the day is over. Old Mr. Saggarton is one of them; he had
his learning from a hedge-schoolmaster in the old times; and he looks
down on the narrow teaching of the National Schools; and he was once in
jail for nine months, having been taken in the very act of making
_poteen_. And Mrs. Casey comes and looks at the stepping-stones now and
again, for she is a Clare woman; and though she has lived fifty years in
Connaught, she is not yet quite reconciled to it, and would never have
made it her home if she could have seen it before she came. And some who
do not live among the bogs and the heather, but among the green pastures
and the grey stones of Aidne, come to Slieve Echtge and learn unwritten
truths from the lips of Mary and her friends.
The duty of giving is taught as well as practised by these poor
hill-people. 'For,' says Mary Glyn, 'the best road to heaven is to be
charitable to the poor.' And old Mrs. Casey agrees, and says: 'There was
a poor girl walking the road one night with no place to stop; and the
Saviour met her on the road, and He said: "Go up to the house you see a
light in; there's a woman dead there, and they'll let you in." So she
went and she found the woman laid out, and the husband and other
people; but she worked harder than they all, and she stopped in the
house after; and after two quarters the man married her. And one day she
was sitting outside the door, picking over a bag of wheat, and the
Saviour came again, with the appearance of a poor man, and He asked her
for a few grains of the wheat. And she said: "Wouldn't potatoes be good
enough for you?" and she called to the girl within to bring out a few
potatoes. But He took nine grains of the wheat in His hand and went
away; and there wasn't a grain of wheat left in the bag, but all gone.
So she ran after Him then to ask Him to forgive her; and she overtook
Him on the road, and she asked forgiveness. And He said: "Don't you
remember the time you had no house to go to, and I met you on the road,
and sent you to a house where you'd live in plenty? and now you wouldn't
give Me a few grains of wheat." And she said: "But why didn't You give
me a heart that would like to divide it?" That is how she came round on
Him. And He said: "From this out, whenever you have plenty in your
hands, divide it freely for My sake."'
And this is a marvel that might occur again at any time; for Mary Glyn
says further:--
'There was a woman I knew was very charitable to the poor; and she'd
give them the full of her apron of bread, or of potatoes or anything she
had. And she was only lately married; and one day, a poor woman came to
the door with her children and she brought them to the fire, and warmed
them, and gave them a drink of milk; and she sent out to the barn for a
bag of potatoes for them. And the husband came in, and he said: "Kitty,
if you go on this way, you won't leave much for ourselves." And she
said: "He that gave us what we have, can give more." And the next day
when they went out to the barn, it was full of potatoes--more than were
ever in it before. And when she was dying, and her children about her,
the priest said to her: "Mrs. Gallagher, it's in heaven you'll be at 12
o'clock to-morrow."'
But when death comes, it is not enough to have been charitable; and it
is not right to touch the body or lay it out for a couple of hours; for
the soul should be given time to fight for itself, and to go up to
judgment. And sometimes it is not willing to go; for Mrs. Casey says:--
'The Saviour, one time, told St. Patrick to go and prepare a man that
was going to die. And St. Patrick said: "I'd sooner not go; for I never
yet saw the soul depart from the body." But then he went, and he
prepared the man. And when he was lying there dead, he saw the soul go
from the body; and three times it went to the door, and three times it
came back and kissed the body. And St. Patrick asked the Saviour why it
did that: and He said: "That soul was sorry to part from the body,
because it had held it so clean and so honest."'
When the hill-people talk of 'the time of the war,' it is the war that
once took place in heaven that is understood. And when '_Those_' are
spoken of, the fallen angels are understood, the cloud of witness, the
whirling invisible host; and it is only to a stranger that an
explanation need be given.
'They were in heaven once,' Mary Glyn says 'and heaven is the first
place there was war; and they were all to be done away with; and it was
St. Peter asked the Saviour to help them, when he saw Him going to empty
the heavens. So He turned His hand like this; and the earth and the sky
and the sea were full of them, and they are in every place, and you know
that better than I do, because you read books. Resting they do be in the
daytime, and going about at night. And their music is the finest you
ever heard, like all the fifers, and all the instruments, and all the
tunes of the world. I heard it sometimes myself, and there is no music
in the world like it; but not all can hear it. Round the hill it comes,
and you going in at the door. And they are quiet neighbours if you treat
them well. God bless them, and bring them all to heaven.'
And then, having mentioned Monday (a spell against unseen listeners),
and said, 'God bless the hearers, and the place it is told in'--and her
niece, Mary Irwin, having said, 'God bless all we see, and those we
don't see,' they tell--first one speaking and then the other--that: 'One
night there were _banabhs_ in the house; and there was a man coming to
dig the potato-garden in the morning--and so late at night, Mary Glyn
was making stirabout, and a cake to have ready for the breakfast of the
_banabhs_ and the man; and Mary's brother Micky was asleep within on the
bed. And there came the sound of the grandest music you ever heard from
beyond the stream, and it stopped there. And Micky awoke in the bed, and
was afraid, and said: "Shut up the door and quench the light," and so we
did.' 'It's likely,' Mary says, 'they wanted to come into the house, and
they wouldn't when they saw me up and the lights about.' But one time
when there were potatoes in the loft, Mary and her brothers were pelted
with the potatoes when they sat down to supper. And Mary Irwin got a
blow on the side of the face, from one of them, one night in the bed.
'And they have the hope of heaven, and God grant it to them.' 'And one
day, there was a priest and his servant riding along the road, and there
was a hurling of them going on in the field. And a man of them came out
and stood in the road, and said to the priest: "Tell me this, for you
know it, have we a chance of heaven?" "You have not," said the priest.
("God forgive him," says Mary Irwin, "a priest to say that!") And the
man that was of them said: "Put your fingers in your ears, till you have
travelled two miles of the road; for when I go back and tell what you
are after telling me to the rest, the crying and the bawling and the
roaring will be so great that, if you hear it, you'll never hear a noise
again in this world." So they put their fingers then in their ears; but
after a while the servant said to the priest: "Let me take out my
fingers now." And the priest said: "Do not." And then the servant said
again: "I think I might take one finger out." And the priest said:
"Since you are so persevering, you may take it out." So he did, and the
noise of the crying and the roaring and the bawling was so great, that
he never had the use of that ear again.'
Old Mr. Saggarton confirms the story of the fall of the angels and their
presence about us, but goes deeper into theology. 'The soul,' he says,
'was the breath of God, breathed into Adam, and it is the possession of
God ever since. And I could never have believed there was so much power
in the shadow of a soul, till I saw _them_ one night hurling. They tempt
us sometimes in dreams--may God forgive me for saying He would allow
power to any to tempt to evil. And they would destroy the world but for
the hope they have of being saved. Every Monday morning they think the
day of judgment may be coming, and that they will see heaven.
'Half the world is with them. And when you see a blast of wind, and it
comes sudden and carries the dust with it, you should say, "God bless
them," and throw something after them. For how do you know but one of
our own may be in it?
'There never was a funeral they were not at, walking after the other
people. And you can see them if you know the way--that is, to take a
green rush and to twist it into a ring, and to look through it. But if
you do, you'll never have a stim of sight in the eye again.'