CHAPTER III.
The Irish home to which Major Bryan had brought his little English wife was situated in a glen among the hills south of Slieva-na-goil, “the mountain of the wild people.” Art and care had filled the glen with plantations, beechen woods on the slopes, ashen copses in the hollows, abundant larches and Scottish firs, like a thicket of spears, fencing in all. The oasis of foliage was a beautiful contrast to the barren marble peaks that rose beyond, and to the treeless downs that swelled along the shore, swept by briny west winds, which suffered nothing to grow higher than a furze-bush. Here the shelter encouraged the arbutus to push forth its white waxen bells, interchangeable during autumn for scarlet prickly balls; already the birch was dropping its graceful silken tassels over rocky places, and the glutinous buds of the horse-chestnut were split by tender green tongues of incipient leafage.
In the deepest part of all, below the house, lay a lakelet, fed by runnels from the hills, and which ebbed its overflow through a rift westward toward the sea; and on the glassy surface appeared a few broad leaves, which promised white and yellow cups of water-lily when summer should come.
The Manuscript Man stole along to this place of his appointment, kept well up to time by his knowing wife, and having received another warning to make the best bargain possible. He was tall and gray, with a carriage as upright as if he had been drilled, and seemed to see nothing of the natural beauty surrounding him, by reason of his ruminations. The stern, set features, revealed that these were not agreeable; and between his eyebrows a deep furrow, carved by time, was more contracted than usual. Again Major Bryan was struck by his appearance of being ill at ease.
“Sit down, sit down, Clare. So you don’t think I could learn Irish? I dare say it is not more difficult to learn than Hindostanee; but I was younger then.”
He received his visitor in the most hard-worked apartment of the house, which performed within itself the duties of study, office, justice-room. The wall was hung with whips and guns, as well as bookshelves and maps; Wilkie’s “Rent Day” was over the mantel-piece. At his elbow, on the leather-covered library table, lay a cluster of Irish books.
“I would have thought,” said he, piling up these where they had toppled over, “that you were so fond of the language as to be glad to get a pupil on any terms.”
“Sir, it is at the core of my heart,” was the reply, spoken with a sort of flash from the deep-set eyes. “There isn’t a language like it on the tongue of mortal man, though now it’s only the talk of the poor, an’ the ould, an’ the lonesome; an’ rich people make a curiosity of it, an’ lock up its manuscripts in glass cases, an’ call it a ‘dead’ language; but I can tell ‘em there’s a spell of life in it yet!”
“Curiosity was not my motive,” said Major Bryan, respecting the man’s enthusiasm sufficiently to explain; “I wanted to be able to speak and read it if possible.”
“Sir,” he had a way of prefacing most of his sentences thus —“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I didn’t mane to have the presumption of lookin’ into yer honor’s rasons, only a new language can’t ever be but as a crutch to a body, compared with one’s own feet. An’ I never met or see an Englified person that could pronounce the Irish any way dacent; so, no offense to yer honor, but I couldn’t give you real value for the money you’d be afther payin’ me; an I’d rather not try,” added the Manuscript Man, honestly; though not without a twinge, as he recollected irate Mrs. Clare at home. “Tisn’t like as if the Irish wor the words of yer heart, an’ ye remembered yer mother singin’ ‘em over yer cradle, an’ only wanted to know how they looked on paper —only wanted to be taught to read, in a manner.”
“Well, it was simply an idea of mine, perhaps worth nothing; and now you have touched on another point. Are there many Irish readers in the country? Are people in general—for instance, the priests of the parish —are they able to speak Irish?”
“Father Euseby and Misther Devenish (he’s the coadjuther), sir? Sure they are, as glib as any of us; they’d have no business bein’ our clergy, otherwise. But there’s mighty few can read the Irish; for why? because there’s nothin’ to read, barrin the ould manuscripts sich as they calls me afther.” And a flickering smile rested on his lips for a moment.
“Mr. Armstrong told me how devoted you were to Irish literature; you must show me some of your treasures.” This was the rector of the parish, living a few miles off, and trying to make his very small income expand to the requirements of his large family by means of a farm.
“I’m obliged for the gentleman’s good word,” said the Manuscript Man, with his sort of proud humbleness of mien. “What I have is mostly poor things, sir, poor things; just legends an’ ballads an’ stories gathered from ould people, an’ writ down by myself at odd times; but yer honor can see them, an’ welcome, any day.”
“About your school, Clare: do you teach Irish? —I mean, reading the Irish?”
“Sir, they couldn’t afford to pay for that; English is more genteel. An’ mostly all my scholars are gone to the ‘National,’ since it was opened down at Roonard. Not but there’s plenty more boys an’ girls that get no tachin’ at all, an’ don’t know the colour of a letter.”
“Could you find people willing to learn to read the Irish, suppose I paid you for the time and trouble, and they, of course, paid you nothing?”
This was the main point at which Major Bryan was anxious to arrive in his converse with the Manuscript Man. It was no new scheme, but had been originated and put in practice years before in other parts of Ireland by a religious society with considerable success.
“There’s no work in the world I’d like better!” exclaimed Clare, his face glowing; “an’ yer honor needn’t be afeard but plenty would be willin’ to learn on them terms. But is yer honor raly gion’ to act such a friend to the dear ould ‘dead’ language?”
The plan would not fail from want of enthusiasm in the teacher; he was thoroughly thawed; he examined the specimen primer with delight at the clear-cut type representing the well-beloved ancient characters.
“I’ve seen Irish books in English letters, printed like in English words;”—he meant the Roman character —“’twas like as if yer honor or his reverence dressed himself up in the rags of a scarecrow. But here’s the very same manuscripts themselves —our own very language, root and branch.”
Like enthusiasm greeted the Irish New Testament and its orderly verses. Now we may mention that when first an attempt was made to educate the Celtic-speaking population through the medium of their own language, the books were printed in ordinary Roman letter, with English and Irish in parallel columns. It was considered that the Irish student might be induced afterward to learn English by this means, but in reality he was repelled, or misled, by the wide difference of pronunciation, which totally altered the sounds of the letters. Thus, for instance, b sounds like v or w in Irish, according to the vowel coming after it; th is invariably pronounced as h; other letters and combinations are similarly metamorphosed, which rules would make havoc of the English alphabet, as the reader may guess. And to un-learn is a heavy yoke on the neck of a learner.
Now there was some struggle in the Manuscript Man’s mind between admiration for the volume and desire to read so fair a specimen of Irish topography on the one hand, and dread of its being a possible vehicle of heresy on the other. “I would not look at the Testament in English,” thought he, as he turned the pages, “because the English are all Protestants; but sure the Irish is the ould Catholic tongue, that all the blessed saints spoke. Saint Patrick, an’ Saint Briget, an’ Saint Columbkill, an’ a thousand more; an’ the heretics couldn’t put any badness into it if they tried.”
For with all his knowledge of olden times, our Manuscript Man was unaware that the Christian persons he named held scarcely a single iota of the creed of Rome, but preached to the heathen doctrines almost identical with those which he might hear any Sunday in the little parish church. The result of his cogitation was a request.
“May be I might make so bould as to ax yer honor to lend me a loan of the book?” said he. “The print is so beautiful intirely—“
Major Bryan took it from him, and wrote his own name on the title-page, though he had half a dozen other copies on the table, and could surely have given away this one.
“Only a loan, remember,” he said, as he handed it back. Then the idea of a wandering school for Irish learners was talked over; not that they should be assembled in classes, but that the teacher should go to their houses and instruct all, men and women, of whatever years, who could be persuaded to learn. The Manuscript Man was confident that in this there would be no difficulty, and his payment was to be according to the number and progress of his pupils.
“And now, Clare,” as he rose to go, “remember that book is not like any other you have ever read; for though it was written by holy men, as you will see, by Saint Matthew, Saint Paul, Saint Peter, and others, they were all inspired by God; he himself put the truth into their hearts, and took care they made no mistakes in writing about him and about the way to be saved.”
“Thank yer honor. I’m sure there’s no mistake in the Irish, any how,” said the Manuscript Man, expressing an idea which is universal among the Celtic-speaking people. They can believe no ill of the beloved language. Clare buttoned his coat closely over the new treasure, and departed. Did not Major Bryan, watching from the window his receeding figure through the shrubbery, pray that the Lord of Light and Life would reveal himself through the pages of the Gospel to the heart of this poor man, and endow him with the riches which are eternal?
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