The record-union., 1894-03-17

been flung into tremendous walls by
fairy architects of night. In silent
courts are mullioned windows, sculpt-
ured gateways, Fashioned angles, iron
wicket work and early moresque things,
that awaken historic memories of the
Spaniards and Moorish merchants that
once were here.
Over among the Claddagh men, those
wondrous fishers of the Irish western
coast, you will find the kinkly hair,
the closely curling beard and the broad
foreheads of the pescadores of Barcelona,
and as their glittering harvests of the sea
are brought to the rotting quayS, while
they chatter and smile IN the morning
sun, you will see the hairy breasts. the
pearly teeth and the languorous, half-sad
gleam of eyes which are found upon the
southern coast of old CASTLE.
If it is early morning, underneath the
gray of the arches you will come upon
groups of women, swarth and dark, with
skin and eyes and hair that hint of taint
upon the pavement. their faces almost in
visible, the smoke of their pipes curling
out of their braideen hoods.
These are the Galway fishwives wait
ing for the landing of the fish upon the
quay. If any are mothers you cannot
discover it. If any are wives it is not
known. If any ever loved, or knew the
home as we know it, it cannot be ascer-
tanned. Here they are, as they have
been from generation to generation,
a wild, tender, savage, merry, lawless,
honest mob, dressed, or half dressed, as
females, grotesquely different from
women, radiantly Indifferent to either
man or woman,a and incom parably braver
and more enduring than the sturdiest,
hardest of men.
And it is Ellie Dreen who, having
walked all night over the old coast road
of stone from Toombeola nights, with
the endless knitting in her hands and the
back breaking load beneath her black
braideen, is now passing from group to
group among them, accompanied by
tinkling sounds of long lingering Irish
lips, to keep the grief and dread of want
from mother Dreen's heart, away back
there in the grewsome home beside the
still. while rising the hearts of the
Galway fishwives for their labors~of the
day.
Over beyond the ancient city square in
quiet side street behind where the drowsy
posting stations are, stands two-story,
dormer-windoWed structure, quaint and
sweet and old. On this March morning
its shutters were drawn, though the
brand new sign of "Madigan's Inn"
glittered like gaudy mockery in green
and gold above its door of Irish oak.
1t is because the clergy in the west of
Ireland are more sympatheticaily close
to the affairs and the hearts of the people
than elsewhere in all the Green Isle, that
alter young Dan Madigan had turned
the key IN the lock of the inn door, hav-
ing just left the silent hostelry with the
young parish priest, his boyhood friend,
that The two walked away arm in arm,
Dan Madigan's face, renowned for BEAM
ing kindness, now overcast with YeXati-
Gus frowns, and Father Hobson's, grave
enough with sympathy, and not wholly
free from roguish twinkle of the eyes.
''Tin year on the Galway foorce lurkin'
fur poachers, slatherin' up an down th'
coorIs an alleys fur thramps, separatin'
Claddagh brawlers an bearin' thin divils
o. fishwives' blistherin' tongues, wild
scrimpin' am saviD' like miser, built
this nest fur Ellie, dear, wild two hundred
pound in th' stocks t. nurse it t. thriv-
in trade, Father Hobson," came as
rueful outburst from Dan Madigan's
lips.
And Ellie Dreen III not come to that
elegant home, then? It's great pity for
you, Dan," answered Father Hobson,
comfortingly.
'.Indade am she'll not. I've implored
am entrayted her th' three month gone.
L got her once as fur as th' dure. 'TlI
not go in, Dan,' says she; 'Pll not go in.
Ye'd come it DER me entirely wid yer
swate spache ar yer finery. Th' poor
ould mother nades me worser nor you,
DAMP AM wild that she broke AM
scampered away like mad hare. Och,
Father Hobson, Pm done fur widout Ellie
Dreen!"
You might leave off the Father when
we're by ourselves, Dan?" said the young
priest kindly.
''Is it Teddy, thin, your riverence?"
'tYes, Dan; and Teddy without the
'riverence,' besides just the same as
when, years ago, we poached salmon to-
gether in the Corrib, Dan."
God bliss ye, Teddy, fur thin same
wordsr'
They had come to the corner of the
fshmarket square, and stood unobserved
but observant of the daily scene upon the
Galway quays. The ancient and pictu-
rescue square, with gables leaning over
il, with arches like mighty hoods OPEN
ing upon it, with wicket windows look
ing down it, and WITH the Claddagh sails
and spars like wind-whipped autumn
forest almost hiding the blue of the sea
beyond, was alive with startling color,
form, movement and sound. The deX
terity of the tishwives in handling and
cleaning the fish; the shrili, wild cailings
from one to another; the wordy wars be-
tween them and the fishermen concern
between them and buyers as to price; the
bedlamitic ballads that were hurled upon
the air as the cleaning knives flashed
and the fish scales flew like driven Sleet,
and the torrents OF fierce, though secretly
merry, bilingsgate and abuse, with
passes of fshkniyes as if for murder,
cloutings with conger eels, rushings and
drubbings bestowed upon innocent
strangers or meddlesome intruders, were
something marvellous. indescribable, aw
ful; and the priests face really grew
grave as he quietly regarded it all.
shes therein th' thlckest, ,av coorse,"
said Dan mournfully, while craning his
neck for better view of the ''thickest''
OF the wriggling throng.
''All right, Dan. We1l speak to Ellie
together. Come along. Dan, like the
Madigan held back rebelliously.
''Beggin' yer pard'n, it's not bein'
man Z get meself an Ellie blackguarded
from the market Iharu ruin her little
trade. I'll not gol'
YOU'RE right, Dan. Tll speak to Ellie
alone"
He stepped briskly toward the densest
portion OF the crowd, but, catching sight
of old fshwife Molly Noon emptying
glass of the ''rale right Sort" just from
Flies hand, stopped. turned his back
upon them for moment as If to leisurely
contemplate the quaint architecture of
the square, and then, amid wheedling
words from the fishwives, close and far,
of Buy Eros Er-r-ings, th morn, Faith
er Hobson, d8ar?'' walked straight to
Ellie Dreen, and with gesture of author
lty and kindly, Come as you are,
Ellie. I'll speak with you of the mother,