A Child of the Glens | Page 2

old Ulster Roman
Catholic. He was a tall, powerful man, of nearly seventy at the time
when our story opens, while he did not look sixty. His hair was long,
iron-grey, and wiry, and it was only when uncovered that the high, bald,
wrinkled forehead gave indication of his real age. A rebel at heart, the
son of a man who had been "out" in '98, Michael had gone through life
with a feeling that every man's hand was against him. Sober,
self-reliant, and hard-working, the man was grasping and hard as flint.
By tradition and instinct a bitter enemy to Protestantism, he was not on
that account a friend of the priest, or a particularly faithful son of the
Church. He had his own "notions" about things, and though a professed
"Catholic," his neighbours used to speculate whether age or sickness
would ever have power to bend that proud spirit, and bring Michael to
confession and a humble reception of the "last rites" of the Church.
Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl, and the almost
inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed marriage" had cast
its shadow over the lives of the pair. The Kanes had belonged to the
small and rigid body of "Covenanters," and never a Sabbath from
childhood till her marriage had 'Lisbeth failed to walk the four rough,
up-hill, dreary miles that separated her father's home from the
meeting-house that rose alone, and stern as the Covenant itself, on the

bleak moorland above Glenariff. But her last Sabbath-day's journey
was taken the week before her wedding. Michael had gloomily
announced that no wife of his should be seen going to a
"meeting-house," and though he never sought to bring her to mass
(perhaps in part because it might have involved going himself), his
resolution never varied. Nor did his wife contend against it. The habit
once broken, she felt no inclination to undertake those long and
wearisome journeys. But a Covenanter she meant to live and die.
Nothing would have tempted her into the Presbyterian chapel close by.
And thus when there came two children to be baptized the difficulty as
to religion was compromised, and a triumph allowed to neither side, by
the babes being solemnly received into the compassionate and truly
Catholic fold of what was then the Established Church. That both these
little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended
to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that
marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey.
Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by
young faces. For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two
little children, who called them father and mother. But, as it was quite
evident that no such relationship as this could exist, so it came to be
generally understood that there was no tie of blood at all. What
connection there might be, or who the children were, was a mystery
none had ever solved, nor was it likely that any inquiries--if such had
ever been ventured upon--had met with much encouragement on the
part of "auld Mike" or his equally taciturn wife.
Though the Antrim glens had been the scene of such courtship as it is
possible to conceive of between Michael McAravey and Elizabeth
Kane, they had for many years ceased to be the place of their abode.
Previous to the opening of our tale, McAravey had fallen into the
tenant-right and goodwill of a farm held by an elder and unmarried
brother, and hither he had accordingly moved with his wife, now past
middle-age, and the two little ones that called her mother. To find the
spot where the McAraveys now lived--a spot yet more retired and more
lovely than any in the glens properly so called--we must once more
return to the great "coast road." Having reached Cushendall, the

scenery becomes more imposing, and the high background almost
deserves the name of a mountain. Here, at length, the rugged and
towering coast-line successfully defies further violation of its lonely
majesty. Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and
turning its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope
of a flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the
highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once
more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of
Ballycastle. The extreme northeast point of Ireland is thus cut off, and
thus the ordinary tourist is cut off too, from one of Nature's most
fairy-like retreats. On looking back from Ballycastle you at once
perceive the necessity for your bleak and tedious mountain drive. The
eye immediately catches and rests fascinated upon the gigantic and
literally overhanging precipice of Fair