to harm him, though he had broken her loving heart.
Suddenly the plague broke out in the neighborhood, and Ulick MacKelly
was one of the first struck. As was the custom, for fear of the
infection, he was removed at once from the castle to the fields, where
a shed was erected over him, and he was left alone with only a loaf of
bread and a pitcher of water by his side. When Oona heard of this, she
forgot his cruel desertion--forgot every thing but his suffering and
her love--and went to him, and tended him, and prayed beside him, day
and night, till he died. Even then, she did not leave him. She had
taken his deadly disease; on her breast came a bright red spot--the
sure sign of the plague. She was not sorry to see it there and the
next day, all her pain and trouble and sorrows were over. Then her
brother came to take her away. She still sat by the dead--her hood
fell over her face, so she seemed to be yet alive. Her brother laid
his hand on her shoulder, and said, gently--
"Oona, come home--the cow is lowing for you--the little lambs have no
one to care for them. Oona, dear, come home with me!"
Seeing that she did not stir, he lifted the hood, looked in her dead
face, and gave a bitter cry. He had no sister any more.
We passed through a portion of the "Bog of Allen," the largest of all
Irish bogs--said to be full 300,000 acres in extent. Some of my
readers may not know that the bog is not the primitive soil, but masses
of partly decomposed vegetable matter, which have accumulated during
many, many ages. In nearly all of the bogs, trees of various kinds
have been found imbedded--sometimes small buildings, arms, ornaments,
strange implements, and the bones of enormous animals, now extinct.
From oak dug up from bogs, many pretty black ornaments are now made.
This bog takes its name from the hill of Allen, or "Dun Almhain," on
which was the residence of the famous old Irish chief, Fin MacCual, or
Fingal, as he is called in Ossian's Poems. He was the king of the
Fians, the name of the ancient Irish tribes who lived by hunting. He
must have been handsome as well as heroic, for he was, it seems, a
wonderful favorite with the ladies. It is related that when he
concluded that it was time for him to take a wife, he was sadly puzzled
who to choose among his many fair admirers. Finally, he settled upon a
plan odd and funny enough, certainly. He sent out a proclamation to
all the beautiful young women of Irel
|