Disturbed Ireland | Page 9

farm, it was applied for by
some of the neighbours, who offered a similar rent to that paid by her.
Either because the landlord did not want the applicants as tenants, or
because he thought the land improved, he demanded a higher rent. This
is the one unpardonable crime--an attempt to raise the rent. For his own
reasons the landlord does not choose to let what is called Hunter's farm
to the Tiernaur people on the old terms, and the stranger who should
venture upon it would need be girt with robur et æs triplex.
Within the last few days this proprietary deadlock has been enlivened
by an act which has caused much conversation in this part of Ireland. A
house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle
of the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to
pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been
warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them off.
Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing, and, what is
more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open to Mr.
Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this course he
will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured that the life of
his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase.

III.
A LAND MEETING.
WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, Oct. 27th.
The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo
man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists." Not very far off lies

Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the
snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I
was assured by the car-driver that the noxious animals vanished into
the earth at the touch of the Saint's bell. "He just," said this veracious
informant, "shlung his bell at 'um, and the bell cum back right into his
hand. And the mountain is full of holes. And the snakes went into 'um
and ye can hear 'um hissing on clear still days." Be this as it may, the
line of country towards Newport is delightfully picturesque. The great
brown cone of Croagh Patrick soars above all, and to right and left rise
the snow-covered Nephin and Hest. Evidences of careful cultivation are
frequent on every side. Fairly large potato-fields occur at short intervals,
and mangolds and turnips are grown for feeding stock. Cabbages also
are grown for winter feed, and the character of the country is infinitely
more cheerful than on the opposite side of Westport. Inquiring of my
driver as to the safety of the country, I received the following
extraordinary reply, "Ye might lie down and sleep anywhere, and divil
a soul would molest ye, barring the lizards in summer time; and they
are dreadful, are lizards. They don't bite ye like snakes, or spit at ye like
toads; but if ye sleep wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down
ye'r throat into ye'r stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their
bodies, and can't get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at
your innards till ye die." There was nothing to be done with these
terrible lizards but to drink an unmentionable potion, which, I am
assured, is strong enough to rout the most determined lizard of them all,
and bring him to nought. It is, however, noteworthy that stories of
persons being killed by lizards crawling down their throats are widely
distributed. There is one of a young Hampshire lady who, the day
before she was married, went to sleep in her father's garden, and was
killed by a lizard crawling down her throat. And, my informant said,
the lizard is carved on her tomb--a fact which makes it appear likely
that the story was made for the armorial bearings of the lady in
question.
By a pleasant road lined with cabbage gardens we came on to
Newport--a port which, like this, is not one of the "has beens," but one
of the "would have beens." There is the semblance of a port without
ships, and warehouses without goods, and quays overgrown with grass.

Beyond Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation,
and behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the
neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass--or sedge, as it
is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of
hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking
for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great
island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. Wilder and
wilder grows the scenery as we approach Grace O'Malley's Castle, a
small tenement for a