The Snake's Pass: Historical Novel. Брэм Стокер
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each other cordially, and I felt as if old times had come again, for Dick and I had been great friends at school. When we were on our way I renewed my inquiries about Shleenanaher and its inhabitants. I began by asking Sutherland as to what brought him there. He answered:—
"I was just about to ask you the same question. ' What brings you here?' "
I felt a difficulty in answering as freely as I could have wished, for I knew that Andy's alert ears were close to us, so I said:—
"I have been paying some visits along the West Coast, and I thought I would take the opportunity on my way home of investigating a very curious phenomenon of whose existence I became casually acquainted on my way here—a shifting bog."
Andy here must strike in:—
"Shure the masther is mighty fond iv bogs, intirely. I don't know there's anything in the wurruld what intherests him so much."
Here he winked at me in a manner that said as plainly as if spoken in so many words, "All right, yer 'an'r, I'll back ye up!"
Sutherland laughed as he answered:—
"Well, you're in the right place here, Art; the difficulty they have in this part of the world is to find a place that is not bog. However, about the shifting bog on Knock-calltecrore, I can, perhaps, help you as much as any one. As you know, geology has been one of my favourite studies, and lately I have taken to investigate in my spare time the phenomena of this very subject. The bog at Shleenanaher is most interesting. As yet, however, my investigation can only be partial, but very soon I shall have the opportunity which I require."
"How is that?" I asked.
"The difficulty arises," he answered, "from a local feud between two men, one of them my employer, Murdock, and his neighbour, Joyce."
"Yes," I interrupted, "I know something of it. I was present when the sheriff's assignment was shown to Joyce, and saw the quarrel. But how does it affect you and your study?"
"This way; the bog is partly on Murdock's land and partly on Joyce's, and until I can investigate the whole extent I cannot come to a definite conclusion. The feud is so bitter at present that neither man will allow the other to set foot over his boundary—or the foot of any one to whom the other is friendly. However, to-morrow the exchange of lands is to be effected, and then I shall be able to continue my investigation. I have already gone nearly all over Murdock's present ground, and after tomorrow I shall be able to go over his new ground—up to now forbidden to me."
"How does Joyce take his defeat?"
"Badly, poor fellow, I am told; indeed, from what I see of him, I am sure of it. They tell me that up to lately he was a bright, happy fellow, but now he is a stern, hard-faced, scowling man; essentially a man with a grievance, which makes him take a jaundiced view of everything else. The only one who is not afraid to speak to him is his daughter, and they are inseparable. It certainly is cruelly hard on him. His farm is almost an ideal one for this part of the world; it has good soil, water, shelter, trees, everything that makes a farm pretty and comfortable, as well as being good for farming purposes; and he has to change it for a piece of land as irregular in shape as the other is compact; without shelter, and partly taken up with this very bog and the utter waste and chaos which, when it shifted in former times, it left behind."
"And how does the other, Murdock, act?"
"Shamefully; I feel so angry with him at times that I could strike him. There is not a thing he can say or do, or leave unsaid or undone, that is not aggravating and insulting to his neighbour. Only that he had the precaution to bind me to an agreement for a given time I'm blessed if I would work for him, or with him at all—interesting as the work is in itself, and valuable as is the opportunity it gives me of studying that strange phenomenon, the shifting bog."
"What is your work with him?" I asked: "mining or draining, or what?"
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 boy justice, 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 lie 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, I 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-cutting, 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 ' Enclyco-psedia Britannica' does not contain the heading ' bog.' "
"You amaze me!" was all I could say.
Then as we bumped and jolted over the rough bye-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,