North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1870-03-09
Gone with the Fairies.

Eastward Of the old city of Limerick
about ten Irish miles, under the range o
mountains known as the Slievee.im hills
famous as having afforded Sarsfeld Q
shelter among their rocks and hollows
when he crossed them in his gallant de
scent upon the cannon and ammunition o.
King William, on its way to the beleag
uering army, there runs very old and
narrow road. 1t connects the Limerick
road to Tipperary with the old road from
Limerick to Dublin, and runs by bog and
pasture, hill and hollow, straw,thatched
village, and roofess castle, not far frpm
twenty miles.
Skirting the healthy mountains Of which
| have spoken, at one part it becomes
singularly lonely. For more than three
Irish miles it traverses deserted country.
A wide, black bog, level as lake, skirted
with copse, spreads ut the left, as you
journey northward, and the long and
irregular line Of mountain rises at the
right, clothed in heath, broken with lines
Of gray rock that resemble the bold and
irregular outlines Of Notifications, and
riven with many gully, expanding here
and there into rocky and wooded glens,
which open as they approach the road.
A scanty pasturage, on which browsed
few scattered sheep or kline, skirts this
solitary road for some miles, and under
shelter of hillock, and of two or three
great ash trees, stood, not many years ago,
the little thatched cabin of a widow named
Mary Ryan.
Poor was this widow in land of power
ty. The thatch had acquired the grey
tint and sunken outlines, that show how
the alterations of rain and sun have told
upon that perishable shelter.
But whatever other dangers threatened,
there was one well provided against by
the care of other times. Round the cabin
stooL half dozen mountain ashes, as the
rowans, inimical to witches, are there
called. On the worn planks Of the door
were nailed two horse shoes, and over the
Intel and spreading along the thatch,
grew, luxuriant, patches of that ancient
cure for many maladies, and prophy ylactic
against the Vaccinations of the evil one,
the house>leek. Descending into the door
way. in the chair oscuro Of the interior,
when your eye grew sufficiently accustom
ed to that dim light, you might discover,
hanging at the head Of the widows
wooden. rooted bed, her beads and a phial
of holy water.
Here certainly were defences and bull
warks against the intrusion Of that
unearthly and evil power, of whose vicin-
ity this solitary family were constantly
reminded by the outline of Lisnavoura,
that lonely hill-haunt of the ''Good peo-
ple," as the fairies are called euphemisti.
cally, whose strangely dome-like summit
rose not half mile away, looking like an
outwork of the long line of mountain
that sweeps by it.
1t was at the fall of the leaf, and an
autumnal sunset threw the lengthening
shadow of haunted Lisnavoura, close in
front Of the solitary little cabin, over the
undulating slopes and sides of Slieveelim.
The birds were singing among the branch>
es in the thinning leaves Of the melancho-
ly ash'trees that grew at the roadside in
front of the door. The widows three
younger children were playing on the
road, and their voices mingled with the
evening song of the birds. Their elder
sister, Nell, was "within the house, as
their phrase is. seeing after the boiling Of
the potatoes for supper.
Their mother had gone down to the bog,
to carry up a hamper Of turf en- her back.
1t is, or was at least, charitable custom
and if not disused, leng may it contin-
ue-forlthe weather. people when cutting
their turf and stacking it in the bog, to
make smaller stack for the behoof of the
poor, who were welcome to take from ii
so long as it lasted, and thus the potato
pot was kept boiling. and the hearth warm
that would have been cold enough but for
that good natured bounty, through wintry
months.
Moll Ryan trudged up. the steep
'bohereen," whose banks were overgrown
with thorn and brambles, and STOPPING
under her burden, re-entered her door,
where her dark-haireA daughter Nell me,
her with welcome, aud relieved her ol
the hamper.
Moll Ryan looked round with sigh oi
relief. and drying her forehead, uttered
the Munster ejaculation: "Eiah wisha
It's tired am with it, God bless it. And
where's the crathurs, Nell?"
"Playin' out on the road, mother; didn''
ye see them and you comm up? 2"
"No, there was no one before me on
the road" she said, uneasily ''not soul
Nell; and why didn't ye keep an eye OF
them 2"
well, they're in the hasgard, playin'
there, or round by the back O. the house.
Will call them in ?"
"Do SO, good girl, in the name O. God
The hens is comm home, see, and the'sun
was just down over Knockdoulah, an
comm up.'
So out ran tall, dark>haired Nell, and
standing on the road, looked up and down
it, but not sign of her two little broth
ers, Con and Bill, or her little sister, Peg,
could she see. She called them but no