Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-11-18

| 1Hduy, WHO, On the cOulTdry,- was develop
| Ing INTO one or those people whose gooo-
| for-nothingness is taken as a matter of
| course even by themselves; and a bolt was
| thus, SO to speak, drawn across Mick s
| locked door.
lie set off betimes on his long ramble 1t
| was cloudless July morning-the noon of
! summer by air and light, as well as by the
| calendar. Even the barest tracts of the
| DoSland, which vary their aspect q little as
may be from shifting season to season, were
| necked with golden furze blossom, and
| Whtened with streaming tufts OF fairy cot
| ton, and sun-warmed herbs were fragrant
under foot. Mick rather hurried over this
stage of his "stravade," partly because he
Ioresaw blazing hot day, and he wished
| 10 be among more broken ground where
| there are sheltered hollows scooped in the
| knockawns," and cool patches under their
pusnes and boulders. He entered the region
OF these things before his shadow had
shrunk to its briefest; for not SO very far
beyond kilmacrone the smooth floor of the
big bog crumples itself into crusts and
! ridges, as If 1t had caught the trick from its
Doundlng ocean; and the nearer Ii comes to
| the shore the higher it heayes itself, until
! at last 1t is cut short by a sheer cliff wall.
| with storm-stunted brambles and furZes
covering along the edge, fathoms above a
Dase line OF exuberant weed and foam. The
| long sea frontage of this rock rampant is
INSURED by only a few narrow clefts. On
the left hand, facing oceanward, the coast
Is labyrinth of mountain fords, straits
anu pays where you may see great craggy
|
tnelr crystal calm at the flick of a gulrs
dipping wing, or add to the terror of the
tempest as they start out black and I'M
moved behind riffs of swirling mists On
| the right there is the same fretwork of land
ana water, but wrought in less high relief
tract OF lonely strands, where shells and
ualsles whlten the grass. and pink-belled
creeperS trall entangled with tawny-podded
wrack across the single You are ant
Whereabouts to happen on gathering pebble
oanhs ana curling foam, when you are APP
paiehly oeep among meadows and corn
ianu, or 10 come on sturdy green potato
drills round some corner where you had
conndently supposed the unstable burrows
OF the sea. And the intricate ground plan
VI o. .he district must be long studied before
you can always feei sure whether the low
sheiVlng sWarded edges by which you are
waking frame salt fresh water
MICK was bound eventually for one of
lnoSe ravlneS which cleave the cliffs pre-
cipitous wall and give access to the shors
seheraily by deep-sunken sandy boreen
mere, under tall bank, there are a couple
VI CABINS besides another, which, having
loSt lts roof. may be reckoned as a half: so
tnat 1ullyklllagin is not a large place even
as places go in its neighborhood, He knew
however, that he could count upon getting
something to eat at either of the two cah
ms Hrst mentioned, and indeed, at the
bare-raftered one also if as often CHANGED
II was occupied by Tim Fottrel, the gath,
eremup; and this prospect served for an in
centiVe, feeble enough, though IN strength
ened little as the hours wore ON. So Ian
Suld, IN TACT, was his resolution that at one
moment he thought he would Just sthreel
nome again without going any further; If
he went alsy everybody would have cleared
out OF kilmacrone before he got hack R,t
at this time he was sitting among some
broom bushes, under which last years with
eleu 4acK pods were strewn. and he deter
hlned mat II there were an odd number of
seeds in the first one ne opened he would 90
on to Tullykillagin. There were nine in II
and he logically continued 20 iai.e, IA H.
ward. Sc"
He dawdled so much that when he cor,o
to the cliff the sun already hung low over
t tne water, and as he walked along the edge
MS snadow stretched away far inland
acros the dappled pale and dark green of
the furZe-fretted sward. The sea unrolled
ceaseless scroll of faint wild-hyacinth
color, on which invisible breeze watts in
atIIpeu ana erased mysterious curves and
sur IKE hieroglyphics. Here and there
IL showed deep purple stains. for a flight of
little snowflake clouds were f1utterinp in
from the ---,antic, followed at leisure by
ceep-folded, clustering drifts now massed
on the horizon rim to muffie the descendine
sun Yet that tide, with all its smoothness
showed broad band of foam wherever it
,ouched the pebbles. which lay dry before
lts silding-for Ii was on it's way in II had
nearly reached the cliffs foot I'm most
places, but Mick presently came to a point
where he looked down on a small field of
very green grass, set as an oasis between
the waves and the walling rock with a
miniature chaos of heaped-up boulders to
left and right. A few of them were scat
tered over II, and even the highest of these
wore SCARF of leathery fat sea ribbon, in
token OF occasional submergence. but
among them grew hawthorn and sloe hush
es and clump of scarlet-tasseled fuchsia-
no heighten the incongruity of its aspect,
this pasture was inhabited by large
strawberry cow, who seemed to be enjoying
the alternate mouthfuls of seaveed and
woodbine, which she munched off a thickly
wreathed boulder. untroubled by the fact
a mo al bad Cot
the rising spring tide had already all but
cut off access on either hand and would
still flow for some hours
"Musha, now I'll be skivered," said Mick
standing still, IF that's not Joe McEyoy's
ould cow. You'll be apt to experienced a
dampn'. ould woman, IL you don't quit out
or there. Whether, it's a quare man he is
to lave the haste sthrayin' about narn;s
cuous in the welther of the tide"
He peered over the edge of the cliff ev,.
IDENTIFY mistrusting its smooth face and
then he threw several stones and clods at |
the COW, with shouts of Hi, out of that >,
and "Shoo along"' but his missiles fen |
short of their mark. and IL his voice reach
ed her she treated 1t with the placid disre- |
gard of which her kind are mistress on |
such occasions, and never raised her crun-
ple-horned head.
Have it your own way, then" said Mick
cynically. It's nothin' to me IL you've a |
mind to thry taste of swimmin' under |
wather." |
He had not, however strolled much
farther, when he met with somebody who
was vastly more concerned about the ami |
mails impending fate. This was old Toe |
McEvoy himself, who, out of the mouth
or steep sandy boreen, sprang UP sudden /
ly, like Jack -in-the- box-one of the shock |
wigged, neutrality-suspicious. pattern But
no Jack-in-the-boX could have looked SO /
iurriedly distracted have muttered to
itself such queer excavations as he did hob
bling along
"A years loadin' of bad luck to the
whoule of thim!' he was saying with gasps
when Mick approached; there's not one of |
thin but 'ud do destruction on herself |
sooner than lose chanst to be annoyin'
anybody if she could conthrive it no other
way"
If its tn ould COW you're cursin'," said
Mick. shes down below yonder"
Och, tell me somethin' 1 dunno, YOU gom-
meself can be to go thrust her wild that
little imp of mischief Bad scran to it; 1 |
must give me stiff leg a rest, and she'll be
up here blatherin' after me before you can
look round, you may bet your brogues she
will"
General yourself and save your penny"
said Mick, whose temper was not at its
best after his long day of hungry discon-
tent. And the divil call you have to be
onaisy about the crather follyin' YOU any,
where's. Stayin' where she is she's apt to be
until she gets the chanst of goin' out to saw
wild the turn of the tide, and that's like
enough to happen her."
"And who at all was talkin' of the COW
follyin'? It's ould Biddy Dugean down be-