Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

peep dance of subtly chequered tones; and away still farther, looming through the mist, the bluffs of Malin Head, the extreme limit, to the north, of Ireland. As they looked the mists melted in eddying swirls of gold, unveiling an expanse of immense and lonely sea, dotted with fairy islets strewn in a raveled fringe the long span of the bluegreen Atlantic, marked with a line of white where it seethed and moaned and lashed without ceasing against the foot of the beetling cliff.

"What a lovely spot!" Doreen exclaimed, as she sniffed the brisk breeze; "how wild-how desolate how weirdly fair! Not the vestige of a dwelling as far as eye can reach -except that speck below us."

Unpoetic Shane had been busy counting the wild-fowl, watching the hawks, marking the sublime slow wheeling of a pair of eagles far away in ether heavenward. At the call of his cousin he brought his thoughts down to earth, and cried out:

"By the Hokey! a nice coast for the French to land upon. I wish them joy of it if they try. If they do we shall be in the thick of it, for look! You can just discern Glas-aitch-é-that dot in the sea, no bigger than a pin's point-between Dunaff and Malin. A fleet would have to pass close by us that was making either for Lough Swilly or Lough Foyle. But come-a canter down the hill, and we will see what we can get to eat. This sharp air gives one a plaguey appetite!"

Doreen spoke truly, for Ennishowen is weirdly fair. The atmosphere of winter gave the desolation she had passed through a special charm. The ponderous banks of rolling steel-gray clouds, which had only just been conquered by a battling sun, gave a ghastly beauty to its wildness. Dun and steel-gray, sage-green and russet-brown, with here and there a bit of genuine color-a vivid tuft of the Osmunda fern. Such chromatic attributes were well in harmony with the intense stillness, broken only by the rustle now and then of whirring wings, or the sharp boom of the frightened bittern. But beyond Carndonagh the face of nature changed-or would have if it had been summer-for bleak elevated moorland and iron gorge vary but little with the season, whilst lower-lying districts are more privileged.

During the warm months the track between Carndonagh and Malin is like a garden-an oasis of rich, damp, dewy verdure from the ever-dripping vapors of the Atlantican expanse of emerald mead saturated with the moisture of the ocean. Every bush and bank breaks forth in myriad flowers. Each tarn is edged with blossom, each path is tricked with glory. It is as if Persephone had here passed through the granite-bound gates of hell, and had dropped her garland at its portals. White starry water-lilies clothe the lakelets. The bells of the fuchsia-hedges glow red from beneath a burden of honeysuckle and dog-roses; orange-lilies and sheets of yellow iris cast ruddy reflections into the streams, while purple heather and patches of wild heartsease vie with each other in a friendly struggle to mask the wealth of green.

Strabagy Bay cuts deep into the peninsula. A rider must skirt its edge with patience, rewarded now and again by some vision of surprise, as he finds himself at a turn in the pathway on the summit of a precipice 1200 feet above the water, or in a sheltered cove where waves of céladon and malachite plash upon a tawny bed. At one point, if the tide happens to be in, he must sit and await its ebb; for the only passage is by a ford across the sand, which is dangerous to the stranger at high water. Not so to the dwellers in this latitude, for they speed like monkeys along the overhanging crags, or like the waddling penguins and sea-parrots that are padding yonder crannies with the softest down from off their breasts for the behoof of a yet unborn brood.

Towards Malin Head the ground rises gradually from a shingly beach till it breaks off abruptly to seaward in a sheer wall of quartz and granite-a vast frowning face, vexed by centuries of tempest, battered by perennial storms, comforted by the clinging embrace of vegetation, red and russet heath of every shade, delicate ferns drooping from cracks and fissures, hoary lichens, velvet mosses, warm-tinted cranesbill; from out of which peeps here and there the glitter of a point of spar, a stain of metal or of clay, a sparkling vein of ore. The white-crested swell which never sleeps laps round its foot in curdled foam; for the bosom of the Atlantic is ever breathing-heaving in

arterial throws below, however calm it may seem upon the surface.

Away down through the crystal water you can detect the blackened base resting on a bank of weed-dense, slippery citrine hair, swinging in twilit masses slowly to and fro, as if humming to itself under the surface, of the march of time, whose hurry affects it not; for what have human cares, human soul-travail, human agony, to do with this enchanted spot, which is, as it were, just without the threshold of the world? The winter waves, which dash high above the bluffs in spray, have fretted, by a perseverance of many decades, a series of caverns half-submerged; viscous arcades, where strange winged creatures lurk that hate the light; beasts that, hanging like some villainous fruit in clusters, blink with purblind eyes at the fishes which dart in and out, fragments of the sunshine they abhor; at the invading shoals of seals, which gambol and turn in clumsy sport, with a glint of white bellies as they roll, and a shower of prismatic gems.

In June the salmon arrive in schools, led each by a solemn pioneer, who knows his own special river; and then the fisher-folk are busy. So are the seals, whose appetite is dainty. Yet the hardy storm-children of Ennishowen love the seals although they eat their fish-for their coats are warm and soft to wear; their oil gives light through the long winter evenings for weaving of stuff and netmending. There is a superstition which accounts for their views as to the seals; for they believe them to be animated by the souls of deceased maiden-aunts. It is only fair in the inevitable equalization of earthly matter that our maiden-aunts should taste of our good things, and that we in our turn should live on theirs.

A mile from the shore-at Swilly's mouth-stands Glasaitch-é Island, a mere rock, a hundred feet above sea-level, crowned by an antique fortress which was modernized and rendered habitable by a caprice of the late lord. At the period which now occupies us it consisted of a dwelling rising sheer from the rock on three sides; its rough walls pierced by small windows, and topped by a watch-tower, on which was an iron beacon-basket. The fourth side looked upon a little garden, where, protected by low scrub and chronically asthmatic trees, a few flowers grew un

kempt-planted there by my lady when she first visited the place as mistress. On this side, too, was a little creek which served as harbor for the boats—a great many boats of every sort and size; for the only amusement at Glasaitch-é was boating, with a cast for a salmon or a codling now and again, and an occasional shot at a seal or cormorant.

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

(1802-1865.)

NICHOLAS PATRICK STEPHEN WISEMAN was born Aug. 2, 1802. He was in early boyhood a pupil at a private school in Waterford. His principal place of education in youth, however, was St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, near Durham. Here he had among his teachers Dr. Lingard, the eminent historian. In 1818 he left Ushaw and with five others set out for the English College at Rome, which had been desolate and uninhabited for almost an entire generation.

In his new abode Wiseman soon attracted attention, and in his eighteenth year he published 'Hora Syriacæ' on the subject of the languages of the East-a study in which he took a deep interest throughout his whole life. He could not be ordained till he was twenty-three years of age, but before that time he had obtained the degree of D.D. In June, 1840, he was consecrated Bishop of Melipotamus in partibus. He was also made President of St. Mary's College, Oscott. In 1848 Dr. Walsh was appointed Vicar Apostolic of London in room of Dr. Griffiths; Dr. Wiseman again became his coadjutor, and when, in the following year, Dr. Walsh died, Dr. Wiseman was raised to the presidency of the district, taking upon himself the duties of the office Feb. 18, 1849.

On Sept. 30, 1850, Dr. Wiseman was created Cardinal by the title of St. Pudentiana, and was named Archbishop of Westminster. This brought about the famous Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which made illegal the assumption by Roman Catholic prelates of such titles as the Pope had recently conferred on them. This measure led to wild and prolonged debates in Parliament, split parties, and broke up a government; and the final result of all was that the bill, when passed, was openly violated without an attempt at prosecution, and that some years afterward it was repealed without attracting any particular notice.

Dr. Wiseman paid a visit to Ireland in 1859, and was received with much enthusiasm. His last public lecture was delivered in January, 1863, before the Royal Society. He died at his residence, 8 York Place, Baker Street, London, Feb. 15, 1865. His writings are voluminous and deal with religious controversy, science, philology, and art. His 'Recollections of the Last Four Popes' give several graphic pictures and amusing sketches of life in Rome during the pontificates of Pius VII., Leo. XII., Pius VIII. and Gregory XVI. He is the author of a romance, Fabiola,' in which a vivid and apparently lifelike description is given of the days when the early Christians had to worship among the Catacombs. He also wrote a drama called 'The Hidden Gem,' which was first performed at the jubilee of St. Cuthbert's, Ushaw, and, being produced on the stage at Liverpool in 1859, was well received. A considerable number of his essays have been reprinted from The Dublin Review, of which he was one of the founders.

« ПредишнаНапред »