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Castle in Irish means country house, and all over the south and west of Ireland you may find such houses as this with doors screwed up, windows covered with planks, roofs and eaves stripped of the lead and slates which once protected them from the storms which rise up from the Atlantic, and burst in wind and rain, snow and sleet over Connemara, long ago taken away to sell by the bankrupt heirs of those who ruined themselves, mortgaged and sold every acre of ground and every stick and stone they owned to maintain what they called the dignity of their families at the Vice-Regal Court in Dublin.
The words were used by Miles Calhoun, Dyck's father, as a greeting to him on his return from the day's sport. Now, if there was a man in Ireland who had a narrow view and kept his toes pointed to the front, it was Miles Calhoun. His people had lived in Connemara for hundreds of years; and he himself had only one passion in life, which was the Protestant passion of prejudice.
Before leaving the Connemara district I paid a second visit to Oughterard in order that I might see the progress made by Irishmen in the art of railway making. A gang or two were engaged in the comparatively skilled work of rail-laying, and the way they got over the ground was truly surprising. Two trucks stood on the line already laid, one bearing sleepers, the other loaded with steel rails.
The cabins of Connemara have been so frequently described that there is no necessity for telling the English public that in the villages I have named anything approaching the character of a bed is very rare. A heap of rags flung on some dirty straw, or the four posts of what was once a bedstead filled in with straw, with a blanket spread over it, form the sleeping-place.
I've had men lodging with me out of the west men who would be walking the world looking for a bit of money and every one of them would be talking of the wonders below in Connemara. I remember one time, a while after I was married, there was a tinker down there in the glen, and two women along with him.
A little later a brilliant glow came over the sky, throwing out the blue of the sea and of the hills of Connemara. When it was quite dark, the cold became intense, and I wandered about the lonely vessel that seemed to be making her own way across the sea. I was the only passenger, and all the crew, except one boy who was steering, were huddled together in the warmth of the engine-room.
Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes, on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get good crops off a little farm is an undertaking which requires "sticking to work."
I declare to you I don't believe there was another screw left in the whole county of Mayo, and unless I took to selling him the asses I couldn't go on. Then I heard of this plan of your friend Finola's, and I determined to make a little coup and clear. I altered a cheque. The idiot was on his way to an out-of-the-way corner of Connemara looking for mounted infantry cobs.
A week in London, during which the sixty pounds, or a great part of it, acquired by the sale of the Connemara mare, passed imperceptibly into items, none of which, on a strict survey of expenditure, appeared to exceed three shillings and nine pence.
'That's a good point of view for the rocks yonder. You can lie down on the rug and give me the benefit of your advice and assistance. 'My advice is not worth taking, said Ernest. 'I'm a regular duffer at painting and sketching. You should ask Lord Connemara. He knows all about art and that sort of thing. 'Lord Connemara! echoed Hilda contemptuously.
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