Tales and Sketches.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1567, 24 December 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

Tales and Sketches.

ON THE COAST OF CURE, AN. ESCAPE FROM A CAVE,

Tho village'of Kilkee is an' out-of-tho- ' way watering-plaoe ontheWcat of lrelnnd, ■' in the county Clare. It ia.the resort of a few fashionablo families in the summer sea- ! son, But it bin hardly bo call a fashionablo 'watering-place; for, although you may find there a dozen Irish county families at once, and perhaps a stray and modost coronet, tho numner,of fashionable folk at one time seldom exceeds tho baker's dozen, or, if I " want to be quite safe, rarely did; for lam ; now, speaking of—ay, it is—close on twenty years ago, '77 ' 7 . The great bulk of visitors, how(Sver, came from Limerick, and the route from that city ~ ,to the village was sufficiently lopg and ■ worshippers of Aphrodite,.- You might go . part of the way by rail, part of .the way by river, and tho remainder of the, distance by road; or you might start by the steamboat • froin Limerick to Kiltuah, and then finish ' from Kilrush to Kilkee by road. lam not quite sure how long the latter journey took, but I think eleven or twelve hours, You hod in the latter course the advantage of passing down nearly the whole of the Lower Shannon, parts of which are ten or eleven miles wide. The Lower Shannon contrasts very unfavorable with tho upper portion Of that noble river, tho banks being mostly low, flat, uninteresting, and, in fact, depressing. A few spots here and there have some ■ scenic pretensions, but they arc fow and far : between. ■ .. i

I was at that time, as it may be inferred from an unguarded confession made above, twenty years younger than lam now, But for the present I have done with confessions of this kind, and what age I then was will over remain a mystery. It will suffice for present purposes that I say I was as tall then as l am now, and supposed to be able to take care of myself along the bold bleak cliffs or upon the bosom of the undulating sea, ' This was my first visit to Kilkee, and one of tho,incidents, which arose while I was there impressed itself so deeply on my memory that the passage of the two decades has failed to blot out from my memory any detail of that occurrence. ;

I knew no one in the place, had no companion, and was thrown altogethe'ron my own resources. for amusement. To people accustomed only to what I may,call the pastoral aspects of the sea, the grand epic enacted by tho ocean and the cliffs at this bold bald coast must at first be chilling and depressing. But familiarity with this larger canvas, with its gigantic subjects and heroic treatment, soon lifts up the mind to scorn of pretty and engaging detail. • Muoh of my time was spent on the short harsh grass of the Downs, It was my delight to stroll slowly along the edges of the indented cliffs, and watch the great rollers of tho Atlantic sway onwards to, tho rooks, and burst in thunder and break in foam hundreds of feot below me,

To the mystery of the sea and the calm solemnity of the deserted Downs was added tho weird fact that under these gigantic cliffs, which seemed the adamant of eternity, stretched vast caverns of unexplored darkness, and perils which, even in the broad noon, filled the contemplation with dread',' Many of these caves had been, I was told, fully examined; but many were so farreaching and tortuous that the■ boldest.boatmen of the coast shrank from pursuing them through all their ways, I had not been long in Kilkee before I made an expedition to some of these caves; and I confess that to this day a sense of intolerable oppression comes upon me when 1 recall those awful resounding concaves of everlasting darkness. The torches carried by the boatmen made|a ruddy pool of light, which oxtended a few yards every way all round the currach j but beyond that pool of light the water was nothing but an infinity of darkness, blending with the infinity of darkness, beyond its limit. It seemed to me as though, beyond that ruddy •circle, there was no water, no rock, no air: nothing but sunless void And when, to test the echoes and reverberating poy?erof these abysses, a gun was fired, it was as though the Titans inhabiting ,the placo raised up their intolerable voices in thunderous execration of our intrusion. I | I confess that I was glad when once more I saw the 'daylight, main's chief friend tin earth, glimmering before me, and broadening as we rowed between the gigantic walls which formed the vestibule of th?ae mammoth chambers of silence and the sea. •

Having mado a few excursions of. this kind, and saturated myself in the oppressive fear attendant upon these visits, I made up my mind to content myself: for the future with the surface of the sea and the surface of the land, until it came to be my'time t6 take my final rest under either, ! I do not profess to know much of natural history. lam by disposition so lazy that ( am content to look at things I like, and enjoy'tho mere looking at them, without making any curiouß inquiries into their names, constituents, or natures j having re| solved to forego tho vivid fears of the nethoij gloom, I spent a good deal of my time in! lying on the Downs' at a safe distance from' the edge of the sheer cliff, and watching thd sea and wild birds, and listening to thej bursting of the billows along the voluminous! shore. ' ' , !

, But the fascination of fear had not passed 1 away from me, and I chose as my favourite 1 lounge the edge of a small gulf, ronnd which' the cliffs were two hundred feet high, and in; whose western wall opened the portal to one of the largest and least explored of the caves, I usually took up my place on the, eastern side of tho little gulf, so as to com-; |inand the entrance to that cave. Here, as I' lay at full length in the broad and , healing! sunshine, and< smoked my pipe, I was able! to contrast, luxuriously the delight of sun*; shine and free air with the oppressive sense! of darkness and stagnation in that cave; ; and as I watched the birds fly in and out, I; wondered if they felt depressed when they ; entered, and joyful when they made their; escape. • ' j ' I had been about a' fortnight in Kilkee, ■ arid although it was very early in the year, : not : more than half-way through May,' a few' visitor's had already arrived. Among these: was one family who took a house at West End; My landlady told me that the .name of'this family was Fitzmaurice; that the family consisted of father, mother, and daughter ; that the people were very off arid 'quality,' and that Miss : Fitzmaurice was one of the loveliest girls from Antrim to Capo Clear. , I had soon an opportunity of putting my landlady's description to the test, for, within an hour after her announcement, I met the three on the broad road that runs along the inner edge of tho bay, and forms the ohief promenade of the village. I <sould not, , upon mere inspection, decide as to tho social! and financial position of the ; but I did not want to look twice to dia«: cover that Miss Fitzmaurice need have no; great fear of passing unadmired where beauty; only was admitted, _ Any tomptation which might have arisen in me,to fall in love with tho beautiful Miss; Fiztmaurice was removed, a few days after I saw her fifst,' by the arrival of a young ma* named McCarthy, who put up at the hotel,. and; the very evening of his'arrival, was »een walking on the promenade,alono with; Miss Fitzmaurico. There could bo no mis-: take' in the relations between these young! people, That they were lovers an octogena-'

.rianopul?! ami- McCarthy was a fine stalwart young fallow of four or five and twenty, flat*onested,square-Bhoaldered, light-flanked, long-limbed. He looked as though he could take oare of himself in any company, .under, any oirbumstances, He had the easy; goodhumoured assurance of the man acoustomcd all.hia life to good circumstances;. and lam boutid to say that, notwithstanding my great admiration for Miaa Fitzma\iricD,-.I .(if/once took' the livelist possible interest. in ( him and his sweetheart and their love affairs.7 ' It was yet muoh too early to find many strangers at Kilkee, I am sure , there, were •.not |a- dozen people beyond the - winter, in-, habitants of the place, ,July, August, and September were the months during' which the villiage was full. Therefore in these early days of the year there were fewer people to speak of, and more known of them, than later on.

At that time the bathing accommodation, at Kilkee was indifferent. Men who. used the boxes on the strand had to bathe early in the morning, But the good swimmers scorned the boxes on the strand,..and took' their matutinal header from the rocks at the. 'West End, Here the accommodation was, still worse than at the strand, We had 'to undress on the rocks and secure our clothes with large stones if there was any wind' blowing, Here it was I first met McCarthy, We happened to use the same table of,.rock as a dressing-room; and as all swimmers in the water look upon each other as members ,of the' great natation olub, we, ■ while far out and lying on our backs resting, exchanged some words as to the coldness of the water and so on, That was the beginning of our acquaintance, We swam back together, talking as we swam. We dressed together, and'walked back. to the hotel, where we

parted, having arranged that our swimming hours should be identical for the morrow, Six days went by, and our intimaoy continued, Daily we met at the swimming hour, and shook hands at meeting and parting. Daily -1 encountered him and his sweetheart on the Downs, as I went my way to roost on the estern side of the little gulf, Tho weather was exceedingly mild, and McCarthy had told me he was passionately fond of boating. The boats here, called currachs, are of various sizes, but built of uniform materials, Stout canvas is stretched over a lattice frame and heavily tarred, The oars are long and slender, with narrow blades. Tho boat is round-bottomed, without keel or keelson, and is built specially with a view to climbing the vast, round, slow-moving waves of the Atlantio. Across the Bay of Kilkee there stretches a vast rock of rocks called (I must spell it phonetically, for I have never seen the word in print) the Duggerner. Outside these rocks roll the eighteen hundred miles of ocean between them and tho American shores; inside, the water is usually placid, and in tho placid waters of tho bay any amateur oarsmen is safe by himself, but, outside, experience and nerve are often required. I had once or twice seen McCarthy and Miss Fitzmaurice rowing about in the bay. On the principle that "two is company, three is none, they dispensed with the services of a boatman, and indeed, as far as management of the sculls and strength went, no boatman could have displayed bettor

form than McCarthy. Once or twice I have stood watching him as he spun the currach round, shot her ahead, shot her astern over the smooth waters of the gleaming bay. I remember very well it was on a Monday the laat time I saw him rowing inside the Duggerner, I was coming home from my gulf to dinner. The light was beginning to fade, and I stood at the West End wall and watched him as ho rowed towards the vast tableland of flat rocks at the western angle of tho bay, which was the beaching ground of the currachs, He handed the girl out, and then, pushing off his skiff/pulled out into the bay again. I went home, and had my simple dinner and read for a few hours, and then went to bed, thinking to myself that, when I met at our usual swimming hour in the morning, I should playfully accuse him of want of taste in allowing so charming a girl to walk home by herself, while he clung to his tarry currach. Next morning at the swimming hour McCarthy was not. there. When I was dressed I went down to where , all the currachs lay bottom up on the flat rooks. I noticed that something unusual had ocourred in the night, Not more than half tho boats were beached, and it was much too early to suppose they had been employed by any fresh arrival of viaitora. An old weatherbeaten kiln-dried boatman was sitting on the side of a ourrach, smoking his pipe. ''"'Where are the boats ?" said I, 1

".Gone out!" said he briefly. " After what," I asked; "fish?" "No," lie said; "that young man!" 1 "Goodheavens 1 " Isaid; "what young man?" ■; "YoungMcCarthy," he said, "thatwas stopping at the hotel. : He took a currach yesterday and pulled the girl all round the bay, and came back in the,evening and landed the girl, and then pulled out beyond the Duggerner as 'twas growing dusk, and that's the last known of him ; he never came back." . I got a great shock, for 'I had conceived a strong liking for McCarthy. "Is it known what,he said, to Miss Fitzmaurice when they patted ?" "Yes, it is. It was then three-quarter ebb, and he told the lady he had a lantern with him and was going outside to one of the caves, The boats are gone out to search the caves for him; but it's a poor chance, a, very poor chance, I fear., It's been high water since, and he did not know the coast very well, and had never been in one of the caves, "It's a poor chance,"'said the old man, shaking his head, "a very poor chance," I went home to breakfast that morning with very little appetite, I felt sick when I thought of poor McCarthy,'and distracted when I thought of the beautiful girl who had given him all tho love she could bestow on man, •' In half an hour I was once more down on the beach/ By this time the news had spread, and a little crowd had gathered. , " Any news ?" said I to the old man. He raised bis armand pointed out towards an opening in the Duggerner. " There's a currach coming in," he said, "with an empty currach in tow, and in the leading one there is only the three men that went out in her."

"Good God, then," I said, "that's McCarthy's boat,.and the man is drowned," v "That's McCarthy's boat and tho man,is drowned," repeated the old man after me. There was : a low. moan from/the little crowd, and some of the women covered their faces with their When the approaching currach landed our worst fears were confirmed, The currach had been found off' Moran's Cove, full of water. The bottom had been pierced by something—a rock, the men said. The oars, :'which aro not worked in rowlocks or spurs, but tied with a piece of line each to one thole-pin, were found to be missing.

!■:. "The currach," said' one, Qf the men, "must have been taken upon the top of .a swell, landed on a spike of rock, and stove in. Very likely when the water sank the poor boy fell out and was drowned. Anyway, we've no hope, for from this to there, and from three miles west, there's not a place where anything but a seagull could land," At these words the crowd groaned, and I turned away,. I did not care to hear any further particulars of this dismal tale, !Moran's Cove was,the place which I had called my gulf, Was that place henceforth for me to be haunted by the shade of one whOm I had learned to regard as a friend 1 >

The day wore on and brought no news of McCarthy. In the afternoon Mr, Fitzmaurice came down to the'beach and engaged a currach and started off for Moran's Cove, In tho eveniDg he, and the party of boatman who accompanied him, returned, They had been in four .caves, the Idneiin Morah'B Cove, called Moran's Gave included, Nothing had been found. They had shouted in all the cavcß and...received no reply,. They had picked' up' nothing floating. The failure of this expedition confirmed , the worst fears,

At the entrance of Moran's Cove was an isolated sharp rook which would have been •jilst covered by. the swells at. the'time McCarthy could,have reached it, and which would have'.been, bared, .in the trough of ;the Bea, The 1 universal opinion was, among the boatmen, that the. currach' had been swept by .a swell upon this rook, pierced by it; that the next swell had carried' thev currach off the rock, filled her with water; that the young man had then fallen out, or that the currach had turned over, and he had then been drowned, the currach subsequently righting itself, though full of water.

~ The whole village was filled with consternation and grief, Nothing else was talked of all that,evening and night. The few promenaders who, after dark, walked up and down the storm-wall could not refrain from now aud then casting expectant eyes upon the glimmering sea. They knew the.' currach had come in empty,, and they knew that .there was.no landing-place for miles, along this coast , except in the bay. But still hope dies hard when our hearts are the' advocates of it; and even the boatmen' turned their faces now and then seaward, as though | they did not know that nothing short of a miracle could bring John McCarthy' into that bay, " I could hot sleep that night. I thought of the fine young fellow, in the very heyday of life, with prosperous circumstances to parry the rude blows of the world-with health and strength and a sweetheart that would alone have been a sufficient object to live for -thus suddenly cutoff by an act of insensate Nature, helped by his own carelessness or perversity. What could he have meant by foolishly jeopardising a life which was valuable to himself and priceless to her who mourned him above there at the West End ? Why should he r a comparative stranger to the coast, havo risked his life on that periloussea by night? Had he not had enough of the sea that day with her, without running foolhardy risks in waters of which he knew little or nothing? Would it not have been wiser for him to have seen her home, and then gone back to his hotel and eaten his dinner, and walked along the promenade in the hushed darkness of the evening ? It seemed to me aJ though he had wilfully and wantonly thrown away his life at the very moment when all things conspired to make that life most precious to him, Next morning I could not bring myself to go to the rocks at the West End for my usual swim, I should have felt more acutely even than now if I stood there and missed his talk and his company in the water, Besides, I had a revulsion from the sea j it looked treacherous and deadly in my eyes. After breakfast I went out and took my customary way along the West End to the Downs. Although I had formed no intention of going to Moran's Cove, I felt a firm certainty that I should find myself there before long. In addition to the old fascination of watching the mouth of that cave, there .was now the new one added that somewhere close to this poor McCarthy had lost his life, In less than an hour I found myself in my old place, lying on the grass, now watching the mouth of the cave, now gazing intently at the surface of the water, as though I expected something of him to rise to it, I had not been here more than half an hour when all at once I was seized with an idea that made mo spring to my feet as though I had felt the cliff beginning to give way. I paused a moment, and looked down intently at the mouth of Moran's Cave, There was nothing unusual visible in the water, nothing unusual in the mouth of the cave, nothing unusual on the cliff. But I had noticed something which had made my heart stand still. In less than a minute I was running back at the top of my speed to Kilkee. .

How I got to the beach where the boats laj Ido not know now: I did not know then. All Ido know is, that when I reached thejew fishermen I was speechless for want of breath, I must have looked very much excited, for one of the men said to me, " Have you seen his ghost!" For a moment I could not answer, When at last I recovered my breath, I said, "Launch a boat, Quick I I'll show you where he is." They looked at me incredulously for a while. Then they shook their heads, as though they thought me mad. " Launch the boat,at once," I cried, "Ho is in Moran's Cavo—l'll swear to you he is Moran's Cave!" "But," said one of the men, "wo tried Moran's Cave yesterday, aud lie wasn't there then. How can he be there now? What makes you think lie's there ?" "The birds," I cried, "the birds! They fly a few yards into the cave with fish in their beaks, and then fly out again with the fish still in their beaks," I had no occasion to aay any .more, Four men seized a carrach, and ran with it into the sea, I waded after them, and we five got in. " We'll try what it is, any way," said the owner of the boat.

The men pulled with all their might, and I steered with a spare oar, I thought the time interminable, but at last we reached Moran's Cove, and I headed straight for the cave, The opening was so narrow there was not room for the oars, and we shot in with the way already on the boat. We had not got twenty yards into the cave when, above the booming of the waters abroad, we heard from within a faint cry of joy, ■ There was now room for the oars, A few strokes, and in the dim light of the torch I could see the figure of a man standing on a shelf of rook,

"There he is!" I shouted. The men turned round and uttered a loud cheer, Before there was time for almost anything else, we were alongside the rock, and M'Carfchy was on board. We raised another cheer now, pulled a few rapid strokes, and emerged from tho cavern. M'Carthy's explanation, which he gave us as we went back, was as follows "That night he had pulled round to Moran's Cave with the intention of rowing up one of the passages, which he was told had hitherto been unexplored. He arrived at the cave, lighted a torch, and entered, The passage was on the right, and he pulled immediately for it. He had gone a considerable distance, when the passage suddenly narrowed, so that there was hardly room for the boat to pass between the walls; he had to push her forward with his hands. He paused here and looked ahead. As far as he could see, by the aid of the lantern, the passage oontinued to narrow. Seeing this, he resolved to return, when, to his horror, he found that in the few minutes he had been examining the, place, the currach had stuck fast in the passage, „ The tide waa, he knew, falling, but this could hardly account for her being jammed so quiokly. Ho, took an.oar ana thrust it down 'under the.end near!the mouth of the cave; the whole length of the oar, did . not get the bottom,, He went up to the other end of the boat j there were not two inches of water here. As he clambered up to the high end of the. currach he heard a noise behind him, and, looking round, saw that a spear-like jag had pierced the bottom of the

boat, At that moment, his oaudla weat out, and he was left in complete darkness, • With'the oar he felt the shallow end of l the oavej'and found out that it was composed of a flat bed of rook ascending inward,... He. got out, and carefully feeling his way, foot by foot) ho finally found /himself .Bome'i'feet; above the level of the water below. Here, he sat down in despair ; he had no light, the' oureachwas useless, and .theohanro qtany one seeking him ! down hittierto' tmexplored passage almost valueless, ! ' He had no means of finding out liow the time; went, 1 .He piit : hii watch to' liis 'ear jit was goitig, : but there was no. light to Bee the dial,;' He' gave himself up iorloSb. He tried, to'keep awakejhe knew not why, ' He had no'fear of: being' overwhelmed' by; the tide when' it rose again, 1 for it was 'nearly high" wator when he entered the cave, and.he was now several feet above where the currach had stuck fast, At last he slept, When he invoke he felt his way. back to whero he had'left 'the ourrach, and found that it' was gone, 1 Thus he knew that he had been then upwards of twelve hours in the cave.. He went back to his old place and lajr down there once more, He knew not, he carerf not, how'long he lay thus, but he rMembered having'slept'again.' It must have been during' this second sleep that Mr, Fitzmaurice I visited the cave,'for' it was more. than likely that if M'Carthy had been awake'he w'ould'have heard the ories. After this Becondawakiiig,' despair. drove him nearly' frantic.' iFor.* moment he resolved to antioipate the 'approach of death, and, hurrying down.to the water, he threw himself in, The shook and the involuntary action of swimming suggested at the moment that he might make one effort for life.' He was in deep water and pitch darkness; but he knew that by keeping close to the wall on the left, he must, if he had strength to continue his way, reach the mouth, Here he knew he should see daylight once again, and that lie could find a resting place on the ledge whero we subsequently found him, He scarcely remembered having reaohed that ledge, and, from the time he crawled up it until we came, he remembered nothing distinctly, He had a dim recollection of the birds flying in, and that, in the belief that they were carrion birds waiting for 'his doath, he had made gestures intended :to drive them away, It was a week before John M'Carthy had recovered from the privation and the shock, But, within a montli of that memorable excursion of his, I stood at his side in one of the Limerick churches while a certain ceremony went forward, and signed the register, hard by the place where a beautiful girl wrote her name as Kate Fitzmaurice for the last time,