A CASTLE AT ARDGLASS.
THE “island of Lecale,” as the Elizabethan English called it, lies in
the County of Down, surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on the
fourth bounded by the Quoile and Blackstaff rivers. The northern coast
of the “island” almost closes the mouth of Lough Cuan, now Strangford
Lough, leaving but a narrow strait for boats to pass. On the south it
bounds the Bay of Dundrum, across which rises the huge granite mass of
the Mourne Mountains.
[Illustration: THE DEFENCES OF ARDGLASS
MAP OF LECALE]
The fruitful plain of Lecale, defended and enriched by the sea, drew to
it inhabitants from the first peopling of Ireland. All Irish history is
reflected there. The in-comers of prehistoric times raised the great
stone circles of Ballyno, that stupendous monument to a great hero and
a solemn worship--none more astonishing in Ireland. On a wide slope,
completely shut off and secluded by the higher ground, the rings of
massive stones lie confronting alone the eminence on which is lifted up
against the heavens the imposing mound of Erenagh, loftiest of the line
of earthworks that surround Dundrum Bay. From the time of an immemorial
Nature worship pilgrims have assembled, even as they gathered down to
our own times, where the streams of Struel pour abundantly from the
rock, to seek cleansing in the bounteous waters on Midsummer Day, and
at the festival of Lughnasadh or Lugh’s fair on the first of August.
The Red Branch of Emain sent its heroes to hold the two main passages
into the “island,” and the inlets of the sea where trade was borne.
On the northern port, known to Ptolemy as Dunum, where the river
Quoile widens to Strangford Lough, Celtchair of the Battles made his
entrenchment of Rath Celtchair or Dun Lethglasse, on a hill rising
from the flat ground and swamps of the river. At the head of Dundrum
Bay, where the sea narrows over a stretch of shoals and shallows to
the inner bay, another Red Branch knight raised on a steep rock his
commanding fort, Dún Rudraidhe, and left his name also to the ocean
tide, Tonn Rudraidhe, whose waters were lifted up into one of the Three
Waves of Ireland that sounded their warning to the land when danger
threatened, or echoed the moan in battle of a dying hero’s shield.
Here, in this place of Celtic legend, relics of bronze and pottery and
stone can still be picked up in plenty on the sand dunes. Round the
circuit of the bay half-a-dozen ancient earthworks may still be seen,
connected with strands or harbours by old paths.
With the dawn of a new age the wanderings of St. Patrick gave to
Lecale new memories--the wells which he blessed for the new faith; the
wooden barn at Saul where he set up his church on the slope above the
marsh along which the highway ran from Strangford to Down, and where
the angel called him to die; the Dun of Patrick, or Downpatrick, given
him for a Christian settlement on the old rath of Celtchair, where
according to later legend he was buried, and where a great granite
boulder now marks the traditional grave. Amid the majestic monuments of
pagan heroes the lowly pioneers of the new faith raised their little
buildings. The spit of land that separates the bay of Tonn Rudraidhe
from that of Ardglass is fringed with low rocks black and jagged;
and this point of danger to mariners, now marked by a lighthouse,
was in early Christian times sanctified by a church. A tiny harbour
cuts through the keen-edged rocks to a little strand where a couple
of curraghs might lie: and there by the well the little company built
their church--a small stone building twenty feet by thirteen, with the
two narrow windows, one east and one south, to throw on the altar the
light of the rising and the mid-day sun, and the western door for the
departing day and the hour of benediction till the sun should make his
circuit to the east. The name of St. John’s Point recalls that old
dedication, and the early Irish devotion to their special saint, the
beloved disciple of the Lord. Across the bay might be seen the austere
cell of St. Donard lifted high, near 3,000 feet, on the topmost point
of Slieve-Donard, dominating all Lecale, where an inspired solitary
transformed the ancient pagan tradition to a new use, that as mighty
men of old were in death commemorated by carns on the high hills, so on
the mountain a Christian would shew afar the place of his burial to the
world, and the place of his resurrection.
Lecale was soon filled with religious settlements and schools. Lying
at the entrance to Lough Cuan of the hundred islands, now Lough
Strangford, where a busy population tilled the fertile slopes, and
sent out innumerable boats for the celebrated salmon-fishing, or for
traffic, Lecale was as it were the guardian of their sanctuaries. Close
to Downpatrick lies Crannach Dún-leth-glaisse, “the wooded island of
Dún-leth-glaisse,” now known as Cranny island; there Mochuaróc maccu
Min Semon, whom the Romans called the “doctor” of the whole world,
lived early in the seventh century, and wrote down the calculus
which his master Sinlan, Abbot of Bangor (+610), had first among the
Irish learned from a certain wise Greek. Farther north, some twelve
or fifteen miles from Ardglass, lies Inis-Mahee, where behind the
boulder-strewn shore and the heavy seaweed thrown up by the waters on
meadows and ploughed land over which sea-birds love to hover, past
the harbour and the rude boat-shelter cut in the rock, we enter on a
retreat where the light seems more translucent than elsewhere, the
silence more penetrating and peace more profound, the colour as that
of an everlasting spring--a space of wild wood, resonant with the
song of birds, where the flowers spring thicker than the grass. There
St. Mochaoi (Mahee) raised his wooden church about 450 A.D., first
abbot and bishop. Legend told that as he was cutting wattles for his
building, he heard a bright bird, more beautiful than the birds of the
world, singing on the blackthorn near him, and asked who it was that
made such a song. “A man of the people of my Lord,” answered the bird.
“Hail,” said Mochaoi, “and for why that, oh bird that is an angel?” “I
am come by command to encourage you in your good work, and because of
the love that is in your heart to amuse you for a time with my sweet
singing.” “I am glad of that,” said Mochaoi. One hundred and fifty
years passed as a moment while he listened to the heavenly song; and
when the bird vanished and he lifted up his bundle of wattles to carry
home, a stone church stood there before him, and strange monks. They
made him abbot once more; and there at last “a sleep without decay of
the body Mochaoi slept.” The foundations of the little church with
walls over three feet thick, the remnant of the round tower, the traces
of other buildings on the west of the island hill, the well closed
in, the triple ring of earthen entrenchments faced with stone that
encircled the slopes of the island like a cashel, the port with its
rough stone work into which “ships from Britain” sailed--these still
tell of the days when Inis-Mahee was a school of religion and learning
for all the district, where the famous St. Finian of Moville came to
study. From the round tower the whole lough could be seen as far as
Lecale and the passage to the sea. There must have been then, as there
was later, much intercourse between the sea-going people of Mahee and
Ardglass. For Ardglass was the port of the neighbouring monastery whose
site we may still trace at Dunsford. A Protestant church was planted
over it in Reformation times; but an old cross slab may still be seen,
and from the graveyard there has been rescued an ancient stone font,
and carried to the new church of the older faith; and here too an
ancient Celtic cross from an old cemetery, of the type of those found
at Clonmacnois, has been set over the church door.
Lecale was a rich land to plunder when the Danes descended on it. Not
a creek that they did not visit. Their raids were followed by later
raids of their Norman kinsmen, when in 1177 de Courcy came marching
to the conquest of Ulster, dreaming himself the knight foretold by
Merlin, and willing “to accommodate himself in dress, in gesture, in
his shield, and even his white horse, to the prophecies; so that he
looked more like a Merry-Andrew than a warrior.” The seizing of Lecale
and Downpatrick was his first adventure; before a year was over (1178)
he had attached Mahee to an English monastery, peopled it with monks
from the other side of the sea, and along with Roger, the new lord of
Dunsford, endowed it with large tracts of land about Dunsford and in
Lecale. In spite of new wealth the spirit and fortunes of Mahee died
for ever under foreign rule.
[Illustration: CROSS SLAB AT DUNSFORD.]
By de Courcy and his followers the island of Lecale was ringed with
castles from the great keep of Dundrum (“it is one of the strongest
holds I ever saw,” said Lord Leonard Grey) to Downpatrick at the
passage of the Quoile. The memory of one of his Norman knights is
preserved in Dunsford church, a grave-slab with a fine cross and sword
cut deeply on it, perhaps the tombstone of “Rogerus de Dunsford.” The
strong rush of waters that poured through the narrow neck of Lough
Cuan at every incoming or outgoing tide, once guarded on either side by
earthen entrenchments that may still be seen, was now held by a Norman
keep at Strangford; but the towers of the coast line from Ardglass
to Down--Kilclief, Walsh’s castle, Audley castle, Quoile castle,
and the rest--each set at the head of a little bay, were evidently
planted there for trade; and all probably on the sites of older Irish
communities. Thus at Kilclief, while Norman cross slabs tell of de
Courcy’s plantation, there is in the churchyard a long forgotten
tombstone marked with a Celtic cross of the type of Clonmacnois. How
many were thrown out to build fences, or to be broken on the roads!
The activity of trade along the coast even as late as the eighteenth
century may be seen by the remains at Quoile harbour near Down, the
custom-house, the great stores, the houses of merchants and officials
of the harbour.
In the 106 miles of coast that lie between Kingstown mole and Belfast
bay, Ardglass is the one harbour where a ship can enter at all stages
of the tide without a local pilot. It must ever have been a chief
harbour of eastern Ulster--a port open at all times of the tide and
sheltered from every wind save one, when boats could take refuge in
the southern port of Killough, “the haven of Ardglass,” linked with
it by an old path along the shore. A wall was thrown round the little
town of Ardglass strengthened by seven towers, four of which may still
be seen; and within these defences a central castle was set on the
rocky edge of the port, where boats could be pulled up to the very
door. The harbour was the outlet for the trade of the rich agricultural
and wool-producing lands of Down, Tyrone, and Armagh, and traffic
was carried on in wines, cloth, kerseys, all kinds of fish, wool,
and tallow. There is evidence of trade with France in the beautiful
altar-vessel found at Bright, of gilt bronze and many shaded enamel,
fine Limoges work of about 1200 A.D.
With the revival of Irish life in the fourteenth century, and the
gatherings of English merchants to Irish fairs, commerce increased and
flourished. Richard II. gave the port of Ardglass and its trade as
a rich reward to the Gascon commander, Janico d’Artois, his bravest
leader against Art MacMurchadh (1398). It is said that a trading
company with a grant from Henry IV. built the famous “New Works.” Close
to the harbour ran a range of buildings two hundred and fifty feet
long, with three square towers, walls three feet thick, pierced on the
sea-side by only narrow loop-holes, and opening into the “bawn” with
sixteen square windows, and fifteen arched door-ways of cut stone that
gave entrance to eighteen rooms on the ground floor and eighteen above.
It is still possible to trace the line of the New Works, the doors and
windows, and the remains of the towers. There seems to have been a
local school of art continued from the earlier centuries: fragments of
a Virgin and Child of old Dunsford made by Irish hands of Irish stone
from Scrabo at the north end of Strangford Lough, broken and scattered
for ages, have been recovered and pieced together and set on the wall
of the new Dunsford church, where it now stands in its old grace and
dignity as the only example in Ulster, perhaps in Ireland, of such
a pre-Reformation statue not utterly destroyed. All the churches of
Lecale, old men told a traveller about 1643, had before the burnings of
Captain Edward Cromwell been lightly roofed, probably with fine open
wood-carving, and highly adorned with sacred statues and images.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF ARDGLASS, SHOWING THE “NEW WORKS.”
(From Grose.)]
From a few fragments we can only guess what wealth was once stored
up in Lecale. Wars of Irish and English raged round a harbour so
important, as the chiefs of Ulster pressed down against the strangers
over a land which had once at Dun Lethglasse held a chief fort of old
Ulster kings. O’Neill burned Ardglass of the d’Artois house in 1433:
in 1453 Henry O’Neill of Clannaboy was driven back from the town by
the help of a Dublin fleet. At the close of the fifteenth century the
English almost disappeared out of Lecale. Garrett the Great, Earl of
Kildare (1477-1513), claimed Ardglass and the lands about it as heir
through his mother to d’Artois, and gained supremacy there--a part
of the far-seeing policy by which the house of Kildare was gradually
widening its influence from sea to sea, from Ardglass to Sligo and
the lower Shannon. His son Garrett Oge had, by grant of Henry VIII.
(1514), the customs of Strangford and Ardglass, to be held by service
of one red rose annually; and still after four centuries heirs of the
Fitzgerald house remain at the entrance of Strangford Lough. After
the revolt of this Garrett’s son, Silken Thomas (1535), the English
marched through the country, burning Lecale. The fall of the Kildares,
allies and relatives of the O’Neills, brought a revival of the O’Neill
wars for Ardglass, and of the English campaigns. Lord Leonard Grey has
left a description in the State Papers (III. 155) of his expedition in
1539: “and so with the host we set forward into the said country and
took all the castles there and delivered them to Mr. Treasurer who hath
warded the same ... the said Lecayll is environed round about with the
sea and no way to go by land into said country but only by the castle
of Dundrome.... I assure your lordship I have been in many places and
countries in my days and yet did I never see for so much a pleasanter
plot of ground than the said Lecayll, for the commodity of the land
and divers islands in the same environed with the sea which were soon
reclaimed and inhabited....”
It was in this “reclaiming” that the Deputy ravaged the east coast,
took Dundrum, and the castles of Lecale and Ards; profaned S. Patrick’s
Church at Down, turning it into a stable and destroying the monuments
of Patrick, Brigid, and Columcille, and “after plucked it down, and
shipped the notable ring of bells that did hang in the steeple, meaning
to have them sent to England: had not God of his justice prevented his
iniquity by sinking the vessel and passengers.” Queen Mary restored
Ardglass to the next Earl, Gerald, son of Silken Thomas, the boy who at
his father’s capture had escaped “tenderly wrapped” in a turf-basket,
and after long perils and sorrows and exile in Rome, Italy, and France,
had at last returned, an obedient Angliciser under the Catholic queen
(1553). Under Queen Elizabeth, who was in Irish belief illegitimate
and a usurper, Shane O’Neill (1558-1567) cast out the English, and
“forcibly patronised himself in all Lecale.” Ardglass seems to have
come into the hands of the Irish, and trade was busy, for in Shane’s
great cellars at Dundrum he was said to have commonly stored two
hundred tuns of wine.
Thirty years after Shane’s death (1597), a plan for out-rooting the
Irish and planting an English race was drawn up by a clergyman of “the
Church of Ireland,” James Bell, Vicar of Christ Church in Dublin, and
dedicated by him to Lord Burghley. He was the faithful representative
of a political establishment, deep-stained with the blood and sorrow
of the Irish. Here is his proposal, preserved in the British Museum:
“The Crown should divide the land into lots of 300 acres, at £5 yearly
rent, for _English_ undertakers, who should maintain 10 men (English)
and 10 women, who now live in England by begging and naughty shifts;
while single to have two acres, married, four acres of the 300--which
was to be circumvallated by a deep trench or fosse.... If upon Tirone’s
lands 2,000 English families be planted, her Majesty’s profit would at
once be £10,000; besides, having 4,000 soldiers at hand without pay,
for every two of the ten men should serve in turn three months each
year--the act would be _motherly_ and honourable for her Highness. To
the bishops, there should be given, in fee simple, 1,200 acres, at
£20 a year, upon every 300 acres of which the ten men and women are
to be maintained, upon the like conditions; the inferior clergy, down
to parson and curate, to have 600 acres upon proportionate rent and
service. If her Majesty’s heart be moved by this device, there shall
not be a beggar in England; a work of great profit, great strength,
and great glory to the Queen, great love to her subjects, and singular
mercy towards her meanest subjects, in that she giveth house and
lands in Ireland to those that, in England, have not a hole to hide
their heads in. The trench round about would barr Irish rebels coming
suddenly trotting and jumping upon the good English subjects.” In the
proposed commonwealth no room for sustenance was left for the Irish
people of the land, fenced off from every place of food. Loyal to her
Majesty, James Bell was yet more loyal to the material predominance
of his Church. Among farmers owning three hundred acres with ten
families of labourers, the Church of Ireland was to have a stately
position with its inferior curates owning twice as much as their best
neighbours, and the bishops four times as much. It was but an act of
gratitude. “I will not say as Joshua and Caleb said, if the Lord have
a favour unto us; but I will say, the Lord having a special love unto
us, God hath given Ireland to her Majesty--a country most sweet, most
wholesome, and most fruitful to dwell in; so full of springs, so full
of rivers, so full of lakes, so full of fish, so full of cattle, and
of fowl, that there is not a country upon the face of the earth more
beneficial to the life of man.”
Thus plans of settlement and plantation were abroad when Mountjoy led
his army over Lecale. The castle of Dundrum surrendered to him (1601).
“His Lordship ... rode to Downpatrick, and thence by St. Patrick’s
Well to Ardglass, being six miles, in which town two castles yielded
to the Queen, and the warders, upon their lives saved, gave up their
arms. A third castle there had been held for the Queen all the time of
the Rebellion, by one Jordan, never coming out of the same for three
years past, till now by his Lordship’s coming he was freed.” This
was the castle on the port, which was evidently provisioned from the
sea, the only stronghold left in Ardglass for the English, and called
Castle Jordan from its defender. After this subjection of Ardglass,
Sir Richard Morrison, with five hundred foot and fifty horse, was left
at Downpatrick as governor of Lecale, while Mountjoy carried on war
against Tyrone.
A picture of life in a Lecale castle at this time has been left to
us by Captain Josias Bodley, of Mountjoy’s army. From Armagh to
Newry he journeyed through a famished country where for a whole year
Chichester’s and Morrison’s troops had been employed in completely
devastating the land, so that O’Neill should get provision neither
for man nor horse; and the poverty he saw in Newry shows their
success. Thence skirting the Mourne Mountains he stopped at the island
stronghold of Magennis in the lake at Castlewellan, and passing through
a land of ancient cromlechs and souterrains, of earthworks ringed
and conical, and of early Norman castles, entered Lecale. The scene
of the final merry-makings, the Governor’s Castle at Downpatrick,
was probably the fort which stood at the foot of the hill, the last
remains of which, a tall square tower, were removed a few years ago.
It was evidently not unlike the castle at Ardglass, and life was the
same in both of them. The stairs led first to the guard-room, with
its dresser laden with dishes, and a wide fire-place where heavy pots
hung from iron crooks, and cooks were busy with interminable cooking
of the fish and fowls and game for which Lecale was famous, pasties
of marrow and plums, Irish curds, and other dishes from France, there
designated “Quelq’ choses” (“kickshaws”), which were reckoned “vulgar”
by the English officers, as being perhaps too little substantial.
Thence the stairs led to the large hall where in the huge fire-place
logs were burning, even as in Castle Shane of Ardglass to-day, “the
height of our chins, as the saying is.” The hall was comfortable, for
of a night one may sit in the Ardglass room with the unglazed windows
in the thick walls on every side, and the door open to the winding
stairs, and no flicker of candles betrays a draught: the wind seems
carried up the turret staircase through the roof. The company in the
hall amused themselves with smoking, cards, backgammon, and dice.
There was much drinking of healths--many political pledges no doubt as
in modern Ulster, bitter tests to Irish companions when the English
officers might call on a newly-submitted chief such as Magennis to
join in a “loyal” toast: Bodley had apparently taken part in some
scenes of scruple and silence on the part of honourable men, “of all
things the most shameful,” he says. For any special entertainment the
servants crowded into the same room as the masters--the cook’s wife,
the scullion, and all; and played to amuse them a game still common
in the north. There came, too, the Irish Mummers or Rhymers, making
their Christmas rounds with torches and drums, wearing the traditional
pointed caps, and carrying their profits in the base money, one part
of silver to three of brass, which Elizabeth forced upon Ireland in
favour of her avaricious Treasurer there, Sir George Carey. Of this
money, such as it was, the Rhymers were “cleaned out” by the officers
in a game of dice, and sent on their long walk home across Lecale
two hours after the winter midnight, “without money; out of spirits;
out of order; without even saying ‘Farewell’”--a strange contrast to
the old Irish welcome to travellers and wandering players--a gallant
hospitality at the Christmas time of English officers, for whom no
season of mercy was sacred, and no obligation of honour, straight
dealing, or courtesy binding so far as Irishmen were concerned.
The rhymers may have sung as they took their way the fame of the
hero-warrior of their people: “Were but the brown leaf which the wood
sheds from it gold, were but the white billows silver, Finn would have
given it all away.” They may have recalled the lament of the old Irish
poet who saw the havoc made by “outlanders” of the ordered hospitality
of Irish society. “At the end of the final world [there will be] a
refuge to poverty and stinginess and grudging.” They could not see in
the far future the open castle of Ardglass.
Cards, dice, drinking, and smoking filled up the time of the English
visitors, with strolls of curiosity to the Wells and Chair of St.
Patrick at Struel, or the huge entrenchments of Celtchair of the
Battles. For the night there was a single sleeping-room above the hall,
a bed-chamber “arranged in the Irish fashion” with a good and soft bed
of down for the owner, and thin pallets thrown on the floor for the
company. The dogs of Captain Constable shared the room with the rest,
after the Yorkshire manner, leaping on the down bed and howling at
their rejection.
When Morrison left Downpatrick there came Captain Edward
Cromwell--descendant of Thomas Cromwell, minister of ill-fame to
Ireland under Henry VIII.--to be Governor of Lecale (1605): “this son
of earth and foul spot on the human race,” by whose army the cathedral
of Down was burned, and in that conflagration sacred monuments and
very ancient writings; and many other churches too, very few of which
have been since then restored. The very tombstones were used in
building houses and fences; while the people watching lamented the
devastation of what had been to them and their fathers “the place of
their resurrection,” so that they might go in the fellowship of their
saints “to the great assembly of Doom.” To Edward Cromwell the people
gave the name “Maol-na-teampull” for his impiety, and numbers of men
born in that terrible year of ruin reckoned their age over sixty years
after from the days of his sacrilege, as if from a national visitation.
In those days perhaps the Irish inhabitants were driven off the fertile
land to the very rim of the sea, to set their cabins, as may still be
seen, on the last refuge of the shingle itself round the Dundrum bay,
or to cluster together on some bare crag.
After the wars of Mountjoy and of Cromwell and the plantations of their
officers the fortunes of Lecale, as of all Ireland, declined. With
the final ruin of the O’Neills the clouded title of the Fitzgeralds
revived, in a dim shadow of their old pride. A branch of the family
built, in the eighteenth century, a sober mansion over the “New Works”
that had been raised when Ireland claimed her right to trade, and
around the towers that marked ancient centuries of battle. Even there
the old Fitzgerald fires of patriotism and indignation at inhuman
wrong broke out anew. The character of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is as
little comprehended as the spirit of his country. A Protestant brought
up in the days of penal laws and Protestant ascendancy; a member of
the great house of the Duke of Leinster in Ireland and the Duke of
Richmond in England; trained in an army fighting for “the Empire”
against American “rebels”; his life till twenty-seven was chiefly
spent in France, America, and England, amid military and aristocratic
society--conditions that have made many a man cosmopolitan,
denationalised, and indifferent. The liberal traditions of his father,
the first Duke of Leinster, had practically died with him when the
boy was only ten. Ardently devoted to his family, there was not one
of them, or one of his early friends, to whom he could speak of his
national beliefs. And out of all this came the lover of the poor and
the oppressed, the friend of all men, the intrepid martyr to the
freedom of Catholic Ireland, dying alone in prison with a prayer for
the salvation of all who died at the hangman’s hands for the sake of
Ireland. No wonder that the people of Ardglass still show the tower
chamber in the old castle which was searched for Lord Edward, the room
in the great house where he was said to have hidden, the rude bridge
that gave him shelter from the yeomanry, and the desolate site of Bone
castle where he slept for one night, in an ancient possession of his
family.
[Illustration: VIEW OF ARDGLASS FROM RINGFADD]
In the course of the gloomy years that followed the old house fell into
decay. Last June (1911) the whole derelict property, long deserted
by its landlords, both land and village, was sold for the benefit of
English mortgagees and bought by local people. Nothing more “loyal”
could be imagined than the apparent community of Ardglass--nothing
more to the heart of the party in Down and Antrim of superiority and
supremacy which claims sole right to a place in the sun. The Imperial
flag flew from a high-lifted residence, on the site of two of the old
forts. The FitzGerald house and demesne were bought by a golf club,
reputed to be faithful above all to English interests. The old castle
was bid for by a spirit-dealer of the right persuasion, as a suitable
storage place for whiskey. Not a breath as to the destiny of Ardglass
and its fishermen disturbed the peace of Orangemen and stalwart
Protestants of the ascendancy.
It occurred, however, to a good Irishman and antiquary, a Protestant
from Belfast, that there might be a nobler use for the Castle of
Ardglass. He bought the castle. He replaced the vanished floors and
ceilings with beams and boards of Irish timber. A few broken pieces of
masonry were repaired. The inside walls were left in their rough state,
merely dashed with white. At the door was laid the anvil of an Irish
smith to be held between the knees, a stone with the centre cut out
and fitted with iron. The great fire-places were filled with logs from
a local plantation. Over the flaming fires huge pots steamed, hanging
from iron crooks. Old Ulster ironwork for kitchen use hung round the
hearth. A dresser, such as Captain Bodley might have seen, was stocked
with pewter plates and old crockery, brought, like the ironwork, by
willing givers who possessed any relic of Ireland of former days.
Tables of Irish oak, and Irish carved benches of the old fashion, and
Irish cupboards and settles furnished the rooms. They were lighted by
Irish-made candles in the iron taper-holders of over a hundred years
ago, by a very remarkable bronze chandelier of the eighteenth century,
and by a still more striking floreated cross and circle of lights,
made in the penal days by some local metal-worker with the ancient
Irish tradition of ornament still with him. In the chief room a few old
prints and portraits hung on the walls, amid new banners representing
O’Neill, O’Donnell, and the black Raven of the Danes; most prominent
of all, Shane O’Neill himself, standing proud in his full height in
regal saffron kilt and flowing mantle, a fine design by a young Irish
artist of Belfast. A tiny round-apsed oratory opened off this chief
room. It was hung with golden Irish linen; between the lights on the
altar stood a small crucifix of the penal times, and interlaced Irish
patterns hung on the walls. The columbary in one of the towers, perhaps
unique in early castles, with its seventy-five triangular recesses or
resting-places for the pigeons built in the walls, and entries to north
and south--one a square opening with sill inside and alighting slab
outside, the other a space cut below the narrow window exactly the size
through which a bird might pass--was again stocked with pigeons given
by a local admirer, and the tower named after St. Columba. From a pole
flew the flag of O’Neill, the Red Right Hand, in memory of old days. In
three months the deserted ruin was transformed into a dwellinghouse,
where Mr. Bigger and his helpers could sleep and cook and live. The
workmen in a fury of enthusiasm worked as if a master’s eye was on them
at every minute.
[Illustration: CASTLE SÉAN, ARDGLASS.]
The design of the new owner was to bring the people of Ardglass and
the Lecale of Down into touch with the Irish past, and give them some
conception of the historic background of their life. For it must be
remembered that through all conquests and plantations the people of
the soil of Lecale have still remained of the old stock, an Irish
people who have a natural country to love. For them there need be none
of the perplexities which must confront those who in their successive
generations of life in Ireland still consent to be designated by _The
Times_ as “the British Colony on the other side of St. George’s
Channel.” I was present on the Saturday night when the ruin was opened
to the people. There was no moon, and a gale was blowing down the
Irish Sea--a wind from the north. A little platform was set against
the sheltered west wall of the castle. A beacon flamed on one of the
towers, and the ceremony began with a display of limelight pictures
on the wall. I was in the middle of an audience packed as tight as
men could stand in the castle yard and across the wide street. There
had been no public announcements and no advertisement. But word had
passed round the people of Lecale, and it seemed as if thousands had
gathered under the resplendent stars. “I do not mean to show you,”
said Mr. Bigger, “China or Japan; I mean to show you Ardglass.” The
audience went wild with delight to see their fishermen and women, their
local celebrities, the boats laden with fish, the piles on the pier,
the Donegal girls packing them, the barrels rolled out to the tramp
steamers. But the delight reached its utmost height at views of the sea
taken from a boat out fishing, the dawn of day, the early flight of
birds, the swell of the great waters. The appeal of beauty brought a
rich answer from the Irish crowd.
Then there was Irish dancing and singing on the little platform, with
the grey wall of the castle as a background and the waving ivy branches
and tree shadows in the limelight, a scene of marvellous light and
shade. But the great moment of all came when a huge Irish flag was
flung out on the night wind from the Columba tower. I have never seen
so magic a sight. Lights blazed from the castle-roof, rockets flamed
across the sky, and in the midst suddenly appeared like a vision
among the host of stars (for no flag-staff could be seen against the
night-sky) a gleaming golden harp hanging secure in immensity, crossed
and re-crossed by balls and flames of fire, so that it seemed to escape
only by a miracle.
How did Ardglass and Lecale take this revival of its older fame? That
sight was not less striking than the vision on the tower. Every cottage
in the village had candles set in its windows. The fisher-boats in the
harbour were alight; they flew flags too, and Irish flags, as many
as could get them. For hours crowds climbed and descended the narrow
winding staircase in the castle turret, lighted by candles fixed in old
Ulster iron holders. They thronged the rooms, themselves the guardians
of all the treasures lying on the benches and shelves and suspended on
the walls. When they drew aside the light curtain before the oratory
and entered in, they prostrated themselves, kneeling in prayer, and
came out with tears in their eyes. Young men looked at Shane O’Neill,
and looked again, and took off their hats. As in other Irish gatherings
where I have been, sobriety and good manners distinguished the crowd,
very visible and audible to me from my little hotel fronting the
castle where the visitors flocked for refreshment, under my window
opening on the one street of the village. Strangers dispersed about
eleven o’clock, but men of the village sat round the fire of the old
guard-room for hours after, singing songs of Ireland endlessly. There
was no host, and no master of the ceremonies. The castle was left
absolutely to the people. Anyone who would came in. They sang, and
sang, the sorrowful decadent songs of modern Ireland--songs of famine,
emigration, lamentation, and woe. But still they sang of Ireland.
The next day was Sunday. The parish priest, many years among his
people, shared in the joy of the festival, in the new interest come to
break the long monotony of their life, and in the widening and lifting
of their emotion. He preached twice on the restoration to them of their
castle, and on their duty to hold it sacred, and to act with courtesy
and good breeding when they entered it. He gave the children freedom
from Sunday School that they might see the Irish flag flown from the
tower at noon; and boys and girls poured laughing down the street. All
that day, from morning till night, without a pause, lines of village
and country folk filed up and down the turret stairs, holding to the
rope, kept taut by its old stone weight, that served as balustrade.
Protestants were intermingled with Catholics, as one could see by the
badges of their societies, in a common enthusiasm for the memories
of the country which was theirs. Two admirable little girls of nine
and fourteen installed themselves as handmaids and hostesses of the
castle, and might be seen all day carrying water to the cauldron,
making tea, giving hospitality to visitors--their first free service
to Ireland. At night, men and women of the village came into the
guard-room and banquet-hall, and sang and sang of Ireland. They did
not even smoke. One after another sang till one o’clock. One or two
sentimental ditties turned up, on Shannon’s shores and Killarney’s
lakes, of the feeble artificial sort favoured by so-called “National
Schools,” but these found little encouragement. Many evenings since,
the guard-room has been filled with villagers, and singing and old-time
lore abound. Many bring presents and leave them with scarce a word;
and the old oratory has not been left without gifts and flowers.
Nowhere has a pin been disturbed, or a trifle broken or injured. The
battlements and the glorious view are a delight to all. They examine
and point out to each other the old devices, the flint weapons and
the bronze, the Celtic emblems and memorials, and the Elizabethan and
Volunteer arms that lie about. The people have a new pride put in them,
and are learning to be their own Conservators and Board of Works.
The Bishop of Ossory has lately given us all to understand that the
Church of Ireland, boasting itself to be the highest, perhaps the
sole, regenerating force in the country, is at this crisis altogether
absorbed in anxious contemplation of the supposed danger from the
people of Ireland to its property. A material preoccupation, at such
a pitch, induces a multitude of unreasoning timidities, fantastic
safeguards, and voluntary solitudes. It is true, indeed, that it was
only “property” in a spiritual sense which the people of Ardglass had
got that day. But in that higher sense they had been given that which
every Irishman lacks--something of their own. No Englishman can picture
to himself that lack. He has never had it. But with us it is an old
story. If the people ask to learn Irish--“Here is arithmetic; that
will suit you better.” They would like something of Irish history--“I
assure you that it is German grammar which you really wish to ask for.”
If the talk is of schools or fisheries--“The English Treasury will see
that you do not waste money on school-house or steam trawler.” Their
very names are not their own. A Belfast bank the other day refused the
life-long signature on a cheque of a well-known Irish writer because
he signed, in English letters indeed, but with his customary Irish
spelling of Padraic, and required instead the conventional English
Patrick. Who can tell the needless restrictions and trivialities and
imposed fashions that check expansion, experiment, and freedom of
mind? A dreary emptiness has been stretched over the vivid natures of
Irishmen. What is there left for them to love? Is it any wonder they
desire something they may call their own? It may be that “Loyalists”
imagine that a longer continuance of such destitution will end at last
in a lively passion for Englishmen and the Empire. Or, perhaps, it is
the Unionist idea that an enforced apathy indefinitely continued will
produce the fate that comes on men doomed to imprisonment for life in
solitary confinement, when after long years thought and speech are
gone, and idiot prisoners may mingle harmlessly together.
While the castle was repairing at Ardglass, an Irish visitor watched
the fishermen leaning on the sea-wall. Every half-hour one might drop
a word. They were passing the time as only fishermen know how. As to
the castle, they looked as oblivious to it as to everything else. After
watching for some time, the Irish visitor casually passed one of them,
dropping an indifferent remark: “What’s the meaning of all this?” “It’s
comin’,” said the fisherman. “We’re too long held in chains”--and fell
back into silence.
_NOTE._
Bodley’s visit to Lecale, preserved in a Latin MSS. in the British
Museum, has been printed with a translation in the Old Ulster Journal
of Archæology II. 73. The account is concerned with six officers of
high rank and fame in the veteran army of Elizabeth. The writer,
Captain Bodley, brother of the founder of the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, was commanding officer at Armagh, commissioned to raise
fortifications or entrenchments for the army--“a very honest fellow
with a black beard,” he describes himself. His companion Captain
Toby Caulfield, who had fought at Carlingford and Kinsale, was the
first Governor in 1602 of the new fort of Charlemont, and Governor in
1603 of the counties of Armagh and Tyrone, where he made good use of
his opportunities, a skilful appropriator of lands, who secured for
himself grants in nine counties, and the wealth on which the earldom
of Charlemont was established. Captain John Jephson had rescued the
remnant of the British army caught in the pass of the Curlew Mountains
in 1599: he gained the Mallow estate by marriage with the daughter of
Norreys, President of Munster. Captain Adderton, whom they picked up
on the way, had distinguished himself in the Wicklow wars, and was now
Governor of the newly-built fort of Mount-norris, on the road from
Armagh to Newry.
Their host at Downpatrick, Sir Richard Moryson, one of the chief
friends of Mountjoy, had fought in Leix and at Kinsale, was now
Governor of Lecale, and this same year (1603) was promoted Governor
of Waterford, and later (1607), President of Munster. With him was
Captain Ralph Constable, who had followed all his campaigns from
Kinsale to the Blackwater.
Four of the six, Moryson, Bodley, Jephson, and Caulfield, had been
comrades in the campaigns of the Low Countries a few years before, and
were among the companies of soldiers which were drafted over from the
Netherlands to Ireland to strengthen the armies of Essex and Mountjoy.
They were men who prospered in Irish wars--keen soldiers, and as keen
dividers of lands and offices in the new country, deeply concerned in
plantations and confiscations.
_An Account of a Journey of Captain Josias Bodley into Lecale in
Ulster, in the Year 1602 (properly 1603)._
Good God! what have I taken on me to do? Truly I am an ass, otherwise
I would never have undertaken so heavy a burthen; but no matter, I
shall do what I can, like Coppinger’s female dog, who always took her
own way.
I have taken in hand to recount what happened in a journey which
Captain Caulfield, Captain Jephson, and I made to Lecale, to visit
our friend Sir Richard Morrison, and divert ourselves there. And I
shall narrate everything in due order; for order is a fair thing,
and all love it, except the Irish men-at-arms, who are a most vile
race of men, if it be at all allowable to call them “men,” who live
upon grass, and are foxes in their disposition and wolves in their
actions. But to our business: The aforesaid Master Morrison sent
very kind letters to us, inviting us to keep the Nativity (which the
English call “Christmas”) with him; but as Sir Arthur Chichester,
the Sergeant-Major of the whole army, had convoked us with all our
companies at that very moment to fight with Tyrone, who was then
in the woods of Glenconkein with much cattle and few fighting men;
we could not go at that time to Lecale, but joined the said Sir
Arthur, and remained with him for sixteen or seventeen days in the
field, without doing much harm to Tyrone: for that Tyrone is the
worst rascal, and very wary and subtle, and won’t be beaten except
on good terms. However, we fought him twice in the very woods, and
made him run to his strongholds. So after leaving about that place a
well-provided garrison, we each departed, with full permission and
good will.
We now remembered the said invitation of Sir Richard and, after
deliberation (for, in the commencement of affairs, deliberation should
be used by those adventuring bold attempts, as Seneca says), we
thought it good to go thither, although it was now eight days after
the Nativity: because we did not doubt our being welcome though it had
been Lent. This was resolved on in the city of Armagh, where there is
a Governor, a very honest fellow with a black beard, who uses everyone
well according to his poor ability, and would use them much better if
he had more of the thing the English call “means.”
We set out from that city for the town commonly called Newry, which
was one day’s journey. There, to speak the truth, we were not very
well entertained, nor according to our qualities; for that town
produces nothing but lean beef, and very rarely mutton; the very worst
wine; nor was there any bread, except biscuits, even in the Governor’s
house. However, we did our best to be merry and jocund with the bad
wine, putting sugar in it (as the senior lawyers are used to do,
with Canary wine)--with toasted bread, which in English is called “a
lawyer’s nightcap.” There we found Captain Adderton, an honest fellow,
and a friend of ours, who, having nothing to do, was easily persuaded
to accompany us to Lecale.
So the next morning we four take horse and set out. We had no guide
except Captain Caulfield, who promised he would lead us very well. But
before we had ridden three miles we lost our way and were compelled
to go on foot, leading our horses through bogs and marshes which were
very troublesome; and some of us were not wanting who swore silently
between our teeth, and wished our guide at a thousand devils. At
length we came to some village of obscure name, where for two brass
shillings we brought with us a countryman who might lead us to the
Island of Magennis, ten miles distant from the town of Newry: for
Master Morrison had promised he would meet us there.
The weather was very cold, and it began to roar dreadfully with a
strong wind in our faces, when we were on the mountains, where there
was neither tree nor house; but there was no remedy save patience.
Captain Bodley alone had a long cloak with a hood, into which he
prudently thrust his head, and laughed somewhat into himself to see
the others so badly armed against the storm.
We now come to the Island of Magennis, where, alighting from our
horses, we met Master Morrison and Captain Constable, with many
others, whom, for the sake of brevity, I pass by. They had tarried
there at least three hours, expecting our arrival, and, in the
meantime, drank ale and usquebaugh with the Lady Sara, the daughter of
Tyrone, and wife of the aforesaid Magennis; a truly beautiful woman:
so that I can well believe these three hours did not appear to them
more than a minute, especially to Master Constable, who is by nature
very fond, not of women only, but likewise of dogs and horses. We
also drank twice or thrice, and after we had duly kissed her, we each
prepared for our journey.
It was ten or twelve miles from that island to Downpatrick, where
Master Morrison dwelt; and the way seemed much longer on account of
our wish to be there. At length, as all things have an end and a black
pudding two (as the proverb hath it) we came by little and little to
the said house. And now began that more than Lucullan entertainment,
which neither Cicero, whose style in composition I chiefly imitate,
(although Horace says, “O imitators! a slavish herd”), nor any other
of the Latin or Greek authors, could express in suitable terms.
When we had approached within a stone’s throw of the house--or rather
palace--of the said Master Morrison--behold! forthwith innumerable
servants! some light us with pine-wood lights and torches because it
is dark; others, as soon as we alight, take our horses, and lead them
into a handsome and spacious stable, where neither hay nor oats are
wanting. Master Morrison himself leads us by wide stairs into a large
hall where a fire is burning the height of our chins, as the saying
is; and afterwards into a bed chamber, prepared in the Irish fashion.
Here having taken off our boots, we all sit down and converse on
various matters; Captain Caulfield about supper and food, for he was
very hungry; Captain Constable about hounds, of which he had there
some excellent ones, as he himself asserted; and the rest about other
things. Master Morrison ordered a cup of Spanish wine to be brought,
with burnt sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, and made us all drink a good
draught of it, which was very grateful to the palate, and also good
for procuring an appetite for supper, if anyone needed such.
In an hour we heard some one down in the kitchen calling with a loud
voice “To the Dresser.” Forthwith we see a long row of servants,
decently dressed, each with dishes of the most select meats, which
they place on the table in the very best style. One presents to us a
silver basin with the most limpid water; another hands us a very white
towel; others arrange chairs and seats in their proper places. “What
need of words, let us be seen in action” (as Ajax says in Ovid). Grace
having been said, we begin to fix our eyes intently on the dishes,
whilst handling our knives: and here you might have plainly seen those
Belgian feasts, where, at the beginning is silence, in the middle the
crunching of teeth, and at the end the chattering of the people. For
at first we sat as if rapt and astounded by the variety of meats and
dainties--like a German I once saw depicted standing between two jars,
the one of white wine and the other of claret, with this motto: “I
know not which way to turn.”
But after a short time we fall to roundly on every dish calling now
and then for wine, now and then for attendance, everyone according to
his whim. In the midst of supper Master Morrison ordered be given to
him a glass goblet full of claret, which measured, (as I conjecture)
ten or eleven inches roundabout, and drank to the health of all, and
to our happy arrival. We freely received it from him, thanking him,
and drinking one after the other, as much as he drank before us. He
then gave four or five healths of the chief men, and of our absent
friends, just as the most illustrious Lord, now Treasurer of Ireland,
is used to do at his dinners. And it is a very praiseworthy thing, and
has, perhaps, more in it than anyone would believe; and there was not
one amongst us who did pledge him and each other without any scruple
or gainsay, which I was very glad to see; for it was a proof of
unanimity and assured friendship.
For there are many (a thing I can’t mention without great and extreme
sorrow) who won’t drink healths with others; sitting, nevertheless,
in the company of those who do drink, and not doing as they do; which
is of all things the most shameful.... For, at table, he who does not
receive whatsoever healths may be proposed by another, does so, either
because he likes not the proposer, or he to whom they drink, or the
wine itself. Truly I would not willingly have any dealings with him
who under values either me or my friend, or lastly wine, the most
precious of all things under heaven.
* * * * *
Let us now return to Lecale, where the supper (which, as I have said,
was most elegant) being ended, we again enter our bedroom, in which
was a large fire (for at the time it was exceedingly cold out of
doors) and benches for sitting on; and plenty of tobacco, with nice
pipes, was set before us. The wine also had begun to operate a little
on us, and everyone’s wits had become somewhat sharper; all were
gabbling at once, and all sought a hearing at once.... Amongst other
things, we said that the time was now happily different, from when
we were before Kinsale at Christmas of last year, when we suffered
intolerable cold, dreadful labour, and a want of almost everything;
drinking the very worst. We compared events, till lately unhoped for,
with the past, and with those now hoped for. Lastly, reasoning on
everything, we conclude that the verse of Horace (Ode 37, Book 1st)
squares exceedingly well with the present time--namely, “that now is
the time for drinking, that now is the time for thumping the floor
with a loose foot.” Therefore, after a little Captain Jephson calls
for usquebaugh, and we all immediately second him with one consent,
calling out “Usquebaugh, usquebaugh”--for we could make as free there
as in our own quarters.
Besides it was not without reason we drank usquebaugh; for it was the
best remedy against the cold of that night, and good for dispersing
the crude vapours of the French wine; and pre-eminently wholesome in
these regions, where the priests themselves, who are holy men--as the
Abbot of Armagh, the Bishop of Cashel, and others; and also noble
men--as Henry Oge MacMahon, MacHenry--and men and women of every
rank--pour usquebaugh down their throats by day and by night; and that
not for hilarity only, which would be praiseworthy, but for constant
drunkenness which is detestable.
Therefore, after everyone had drank two or three healths ... what
because of the assailing fumes of the wine which now sought our heads
... we thought it right, as I have said, to rest for some hours. And
behold, now, the great kindness that Master Morrison shows towards us.
He gives up to us his own good and soft bed, and throws himself upon
a pallet in the same chamber, and would not be persuaded by anything
we could say, to lie in his own bed; and the pallet was very hard and
thin, such as they are wont to have who are called “Palatine” of great
heroes.
I need not tell how soundly we slept till morning, for that is easily
understood, all things considered; at least if the old syllogism be
true: “He who drinks well sleeps well.” We did not, however, pass the
night altogether without annoyance: for the Captain’s dogs, which were
very badly educated (after the Northern fashion) were always jumping
on the beds, and would not let us alone, although we beat them ever
so often, which the said Captain took in dudgeon, especially when he
heard his dogs howling; but it was all as one for that; for it is not
right that dogs, who are of the beasts, should sleep with men who are
reasoning and laughing animals, according to the philosophers....
Before we get out of bed they bring to us a certain aromatic of strong
ale, compounded with sugar and eggs (in English “caudle”) to comfort
and strengthen the stomach, they also bring beer (if any prefer it)
with toasted bread and nutmeg, to allay thirst, steady the head, and
cool the liver; they also bring pipes of the best tobacco to drive
away rheums and catarrhs.
We now all jump quickly out of bed, put on our clothes, approach the
fire, and, when all are ready, walk abroad together to take the air,
which, in that region, is most salubrious and delightful, so that if I
wished to enumerate all the advantages of the place, not only powers
(of description), but time itself would be wanting. I shall therefore
omit that, as being already known, and revert to ourselves, who,
having now had a sufficient walk, returned to our lodging as dinner
time was at hand. But how can we tell about the sumptuous preparation
of everything? How about the dinners? How about the dainties? For we
seemed as if present (as you would suppose) at the nuptial banquet to
which some Cleopatra had invited her Antony; so many varieties of meat
were there, so many kinds of condiments; about every one of which I
would willingly say something, only that I fear being too tedious. I
shall therefore demonstrate from a single dinner, what may be imagined
of the rest. There was a large and beautiful collar of brawn, with
its accompaniments--to wit, mustard and Muscadel wine; there were
well-stuffed geese, ... the legs of which the Captain always laid
hold of for himself; there were pies of venison and of various kinds
of game; pasties also, some of marrow, with innumerable plums; others
of it with coagulated milk; others which they call tarts, of divers
shapes, materials and colours, made of beef, mutton and veal. I do
not mention because they are reckoned vulgar, other kinds of dishes,
wherein France much abounds, and which they designate “Quelq’choses”
[“Kickshaws”]. Neither do I relate anything of the delicacies which
accompanied the cheese, because they would excel all belief. I may say
in one word, that all things were there supplied us most luxuriously
and most copiously. And lest anyone might think that God had sent us
the meat, but the Devil the Cook (as the proverb says), there was
a cook there so expert in his art that his equal could scarce be
found....
If you now inquire whether there were any other amusements, besides
those I have related, I say an infinite number, and the very best. For
if we wished to ride after dinner, you would have seen forthwith ten
or twelve handsome steeds with good equipments and other ornaments,
ready for the road. We quickly mount, we visit the Well and Chair of
St. Patrick [Struel], the ancient Fort [Rath-Celtair], or any other
place according to our fancy; and at length returning home, cards,
tables, and dice are set before us, and amongst other things that
Indian tobacco (of which I shall never be able to make sufficient
mention), and of which I cannot speak otherwise.
* * * * *
And now once more to our Lecale, where amongst other things that
contributed to hilarity, there came one night after supper certain
maskers belonging to the Irish gentry, four in number (if I rightly
remember). They first sent in to us a letter marked with “the greatest
haste,” and “after our hearty commendations,” according to the old
style, saying that they were strangers, just arrived in these parts,
and very desirous of spending one or two hours with us; and leave
being given, they entered in this order: first a boy, with a lighted
torch; then two, beating drums; then the maskers, two and two; then
another torch. One of the maskers carried a dirty pocket handkerchief,
with ten pounds in it, not of bullion, but of the new money lately
coined, which has the harp on one side, and the royal arms on the
other.
They were dressed in shirts, with many ivy leaves sewed on here and
there over them; and had over their faces masks of dog-skin; with
holes to see out of, and noses made of paper; their caps were high
and peaked (in the Persian fashion), and were also of paper, and
ornamented with the same (ivy) leaves.
I may briefly say we play at dice. At one time the drums sound on
their side; at another the trumpet on ours. We fight a long time a
doubtful game; at length the maskers lose, and are sent away cleaned
out. Now whoever hath seen a dog, struck with a stick or a stone, run
out of the house with his tail hanging between his legs, would have
(so) seen these maskers going home: without money; out of spirits;
out of order; without even saying “Farewell”; and they said that each
of them had five or six miles to go to his home, and it was then two
hours after midnight.
I shall now tell of another jest or gambol, which amongst many, the
domestics of Master Morrison exhibited for us. Two servants sat down
after the manner of women (with reverence be it spoken) when they
“hunker,” only that they (the servants) sat upon the ground: their
hands were tied together in such a manner that their knees were
clasped within them; and a stick placed between the bend of the arms
and the legs, so that they could in no way move their arms; they held
between the thumb and forefinger of either hand a small stick, almost
a foot in length, and sharp at the farther end. Two are placed in
this way: the one opposite the other at the distance of an ell. Being
thus placed they engage; and each one tries to upset his opponent,
by attacking him with his feet; for being once upset, he can by no
means recover himself, but presents himself to his upsetter for attack
with the aforesaid small stick. Which made us laugh so for an hour,
that the tears dropped from our eyes; and the wife of Philip the cook
laughed, and the scullion, who were both present. You would have said
that some barber-surgeon was there to whom all were showing their
teeth.
But enough of these matters; for there would be no end of writing,
were I to recount all our grave and merry doings in that space of
seven days.
I shall therefore make an end both of the journey and of my story. For
on the seventh day from our arrival we departed, mournful and sad;
and Master Morrison accompanied us as far as Dundrum; to whom each of
us bid farewell, and again farewell, and shouting the same for a long
way, with our caps raised above our heads, we hasten to our quarters,
and there we each cogitate seriously over our own affairs.