He seemed embarrassed at my question. He “‘hum’d and ‘ha’d” — then with a smile he said quite frankly: “The fact is that I am not at liberty to say. The worthy Gombeen Man put a special clause in our agreement that I was not, during the time of my engagement, to mention to any one the object of my work. He wanted the clause to run that I was never to mention it; but I kicked at that, and only signed in the modified form.” I thought to myself, “More mysteries at Shleenanaher!”
Dick went on:
“However, I have no doubt that you will very soon gather the object for yourself. You are yourself something of a scientist, if I remember?” “Not me,” I answered, “my great aunt took care of that when she sent me to our old tutor — or, indeed, to do the old boyjustice, he tried to teach me something of the kind; but I found out it wasn’t my vogue — anyhow, I haven’t done anything lately.”
“How do you mean?” “I haven’t got over being idle yet. It’s not a year since I came into my fortune. Perhaps — indeed I hope — that I may settle down to work again.”
“I’m sure I hope so, too, old fellow,” he answered gravely. “When a man has once tasted the pleasure of real work, especially work that taxes the mind and the imagination, the world seems only a poor place without it.”
“Like the wurrld widout girruls for me, or widout bog for his ‘an’r!” said Andy, grinning as he turned round on his seat.
Dick Sutherland, I was glad to see, did not suspect the joke. He took Andy’s remark quite seriously, and said to me:
“My dear fellow, it is delightful to find you so interested in my own topic.”
I could not allow him to think me a savant. In the first place, he would very soon find me out, and would then suspect my motives ever after. And, again, I had to accept Andy’s statement, or let it appear that I had some other reason or motive — or what would seem even more suspicious still, none at all; so I answered:
“My dear Dick, my zeal regarding bog is new; it is at present in its incipient stage, in so far as erudition is concerned. The fact is, that although I would like to learn a lot about it, I am at the present moment profoundly ignorant on the subject.”
“Like the rest of mankind,” said Dick. “You will hardly believe that, although the subject is one of vital interest to thousands of persons in our own country — one in which national prosperity is mixed up to a large extent — one which touches deeply the happiness and material prosperity of a large section of Irish people, and so helps to mould their political action, there are hardly any works on the subject in existence.”
“Surely you are mistaken,” I answered.
“No, unfortunately, l am not. There is a Danish book, but it is geographically local; and some information can be derived from the blue-book containing the report of the International Commission on turf-cuttinq, but the special authorities are scant indeed. Some day, when you want occupation, just you try to find in any library, in any city of the world, any works of a scientific character devoted to the subject. Nay; more; try to find a fair share of chapters in scientific books devoted to it. You can imagine how devoid of knowledge we are, when I tell you that even the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica does not contain the heading ‘bog.’”
“You amaze me!” was all I could say.
Then, as we bumped and jolted over the rough by-road, Dick Sutherland gave me a rapid but masterly survey of the condition of knowledge on the subject of bogs, with special application to Irish bogs, beginning with such records as those of Giraldus Cambrensis, of Dr. Boate, of Edmund Spenser, from the time of the first invasion, when the state of the land was such that, as is recorded, when a spade was driven into the ground a pool of water gathered forthwith. He told me of the extent and nature of the bog-lands, of the means taken to reclaim them, and of his hopes of some heroic measures being ultimately taken by Government to reclaim the vast Bog of Allen, which remains as a great evidence of official ineptitude.
“It will be something,” he said, “to redeem the character for indifference to such matters so long established, as when Mr. King wrote two hundred years ago, ‘We live in an island almost infamous for bogs, and yet I do not remember that anyone has attempted much concerning them.’”
We were close to Knockcalltecrore when he finished his impromptu lecture thus:
“In fine, we cure bog by both a surgical and a medical process. We drain it so that its mechanical action as a sponge may be stopped, and we put in lime to kill the vital principle of its growth. Without the other, neither process is sufficient; but together, scientific and executive man asserts his dominance.”
“Hear! hear!” said Andy. “Musha, but Docther Wilde himself (rest his sowl!) couldn’t have put itaisierto grip. It’s a purfessionalerthe young gintleman is, intirely!”
We shortly arrived at the south side of the western slope of the Hill, and, as Andy took care to inform me, at the end of the boreen leading to the two farms, and close to the head of the Snake’s Pass.
Accordingly, I let Sutherland start on his way to Murdock’s, while I myself strolled away to the left, where Andy had pointed out to me, rising over the slope of the intervening spur of the Hill, the top of one of the rocks which formed the Snake’s Pass. After a few minutes of climbing up a steep slope, and down a steeper one, I arrived at the place itself.
From the first moment that my eyes lit on it, it seemed to me to be a very remarkable spot, and quite worthy of being taken as the scene of strange stories, for it certainly had something “uncanny” about it.
I stood in a deep valley, or rather bowl, with behind me a remarkably steep slope of greensward, while on either hand the sides of the hollow rose steeply — that on the left, down which I had climbed, being by far the steeper and rockier of the two. In front was the Pass itself.
It was a gorge or cleft through a great wall of rock, which rose on the sea-side of the promontory formed by the Hill. This natural wall, except at the actual Pass itself, rose some fifty or sixty feet over the summit of the slope on either side of the little valley; but right and left of the Pass rose two great masses of rock, like the pillars of a giant gate-way. Between these lay the narrow gorge, with its walls of rock rising sheer some two hundred feet. It was about three hundred feet long, and widened slightly outward, being shaped something funnel-wise, and on the inner side was about a hundred feet wide. The floor did not go so far as the flanking rocks, but, at about two-thirds of its length, there was a perpendicular descent, like a groove cut in the rock, running sheer down to the sea, some three hundred feet below, and as far under it as we could see. From the northern of the flanking rocks which formed the Pass the rocky wall ran northward, completely sheltering the lower lands from the west, and running into a towering rock that rose on the extreme north, and which stood up in jagged peaks something like The Needles off the coast of the Isle of Wight.
There was no doubt that poor Joyce’s farm, thus sheltered, was an exceptionally favored spot, and I could well understand how loath he must be to leave it.
Murdock’s land, even under the enchantment of its distance, seemed very different, and was just as bleak as Sutherland had told me. Its south-western end ran down towards the Snake’s Pass. I mounted the wall of rock on the north of the Pass to look down, and was surprised to find that down below me was the end of a large plateau of some acres in extent which ran up northward, and was sheltered north and west by a somewhat similar formation of rock to that which protected Joyce’s land. This, then, was evidently the place called the Cliff Fields, of which mention had been made at Widow Kelligan’s.
The view from where I stood was one of ravishing beauty. Westward in the deep sea, under gray clouds of endless variety, rose a myriad of clustering islets, some of them covered with grass and heather, where cattle and sheep grazed; others were mere rocks rising boldly from the depths of the sea, and surrounded by a myriad of screaming wild-fowl. As the birds dipped and swept and wheeled in endless circles, their white breasts and gray wings