A Day in the Bog
DO YOU MIND the turf-cutting? The turf-cutting in Donegal! the turf-cutting in the lone bogs, away from the far hills, in the merry May time, when the sun was bright and the air was balmy, and the first flowers were showing on the slopes, and the marsh-mallows by the wayside; and the milky-white cean-a-bhans were broidering the bogs; and the bee was humming, and the water-wagtail twittering; and the lark spilling his melody from above—when the bog, at most times lonely, was at length lively with the quick-working little groups that dotted it—the men and bigger boys fast plying the spade, and slinging the clean-cut turf high up into the eager hands that waited to catch it soft and sodden, and bear it back to the clear, dry ground behind, where the sun, and the wind, and the air would win the peat that should serve to feed a fine fire. Oh, the turf-cutting! the glorious turf-cutting! the happy turf-cutting! the turf-cutting in the bogs of Ireland!
But, to be sure, ’twasn’t all merriment, and ’'twasn’t all poetry, the same turf-cutting in your lovely, lonely bogs. It ever meant a long day's work, and a strong day’s work and hard—bracingly begun before the sun rolled above the rim of the bog, and ended, with aching back and raging appetite, after he had gone to rest again, and was pulling black curtains between him and the world.
At four o'clock in the morning your father, who never seemed to sleep when there was anything to do, was already afoot in the little mountain cabin, and noisily awaking every mother's son and daughter of you, and hastening you from your beds before you got the gates of dreamland shut. By five o'clock the clan-jaffrey of you had stowed away a breakfast of oaten stirabout that would provision a privateer, and with bottles of new milk, and fadges of well-hardened, thickly buttered oatcake, and pocketsful of hard-boiled eggs, leave behind you the little house with the candle in its little window, and, in the breaking dawn, are treading an uncertain way down the uneven cassey that leads from your door to the road, cheerily chattering and heartily laughing at one another’s mishaps as you go. On the road, your father is impatiently holding a donkey by the head, waiting for the girls to take their place in the high-caged cart. The cage swings open; the girls bounce in; the donkey is released, and off along the hard, white road it trots, click-clack, click-clack, the girls laughing gleefully, while your father and yourselves, by long and hasty strides, kill yourselves trying to keep up to the mighty wise little animal, which knows well, since such early start is made, that a big day's work lies ahead, and extraordinary haste is called for.
On the way you fall in with many another hurrying party. So, in the bog, the round red sun rises upon a lively scene—a pleasant contrast with the usually dreary aspect of the white-patched, great and wide stretches of waste. Here and there over the vast surface of it you see high-caged carts, little and big, up-ended; and the animals that drew them, the donkeys and horses, picking stray blades of grass and soft tops of heather, as they wander wide. Reeks of blue smoke are mounting on the morning air from a hundred small fires nigh the carts, and a hundred family parties, bareheaded and barefooted, each upon a turf-bank near their own fire, are hard at work plying the spade, or catching, or throwing, or carrying, or wheeling the fresh turf, or setting drier ones on end four or five together—"footing” them. The father’s spade, or elder brother's, works mortal fast indeed; carving its way through the soft bank, sharp and quick, the bright blade, for a second deep-buried, is flashing aloft the next instant, and a clean turf is flying from it into the waiting hands that quickly pass it far from its bed. Four, or five, or six sweating people, father, and sisters, and brothers, take little time—you’d think—to hearken to the lark’s song or the bees’ hum, to enjoy the blue sky, or the bright hills beyond the bog, or the white sunshine that is frisking upon them, or the sweet-smelling smoke that is curling above. Keeping hands and eyes close upon their labour, they work hard and still harder as the sun mounts high and still higher. But, for all that, don’t conceit yourself that the beauty is lost on them. It is in their hearts as they work, their blood leaps the quicker for it; the lively tune, and glad song, and merry joke, come lightly from their lips. The black bog is bright, and the lone bog full of life, and the silent bog filled with music, with whistle and song, with laughter chat and cheery hail.
Till the white sun has reached its height, and passed it, there is neither cease nor pause. Many a suddenly-sprung turf-cutting contest has been hotly fought out, and many a victor loudly acclaimed. “Patrick’s Andy walked his floor [a strip or bog-bank cleaned for cutting] at the rate of a weddin’, but Manis Gildea swept his like a blaze o’ whins.” But, then, “The match of Manis wasn’t within the five baronies, and his bate couldn’t be got though you screenged Ireland with a herrin’ net; and as for Andy, his aiqual was far to find.” For the champion turf-cutter is a hero not without honour in his own country, and in his own way he may gather to himself nigh as much glory as the schoolmaster. His name is spoken proudly at wedding, wake and fair, and he holds a high place in the councils of his neighbours. He toils hard for the fame that finally comes to him, and has the consolation of knowing that for a generation after the “daisy quilt” is pulled over him his name will be passed with pride, and his deeds paraded by the wondering ones he leaves behind.
After midday, when appetites are keen as a March blast, your father, to the joy of all, says:
“That'll do, childer. Let us in God’s name have food to eat, and rest for our limbs.” And turf and turf-barrows are instantly dropped, and, with a rousing cheer, you all rush for the cart where the coveted things are stored. Close to the fire the Cloth of Plenty is untied, and stacks of buttered oatcake, mounds of eggs, and mountains of milk-bottles disclosed to hungering eyes. Into the fire the eggs are put for roasting. Down on the bog-floor, by the piles of eatables and drinkables, you all squat. Your father, taking off his hat, blesses himself, and you all follow the good example. With hearty good-will you then “fall-to,” and the carnage begins.
Notwithstanding the ravenous hunger that each of you brings to the feast, there is always time for a joke between bites, and the gay laughter goes forward without cessation, At the tail of the feasting your father draws out his pipe, and fills and lights it, stretches his legs from him, gets his back against a pile of turf and smokes, in high content with himself and the world. You and your brothers step across to the neighbouring parties, and have your whispers with the blushing cailini there; while, just to strike a balance, the boys from there cross over to tell your girls what sort the weather is going to be tomorrow. But there’s only little time for intercourse just now. The call of a dozen fathers: “To your work, brave boys!” soon rings out. And, with brightness in your eyes and merry music on your lips, tripping you come to your task once more, and in a few minutes’ time the bog is again busy with a toiling multitude.
When, after a long day and a glad day, the sun has at last left the pearly sky, and the shadows, waving their dark wands, come after you all, now tired and songless, but still merry, you drop spade and barrow, gather your alls, pursue, bring back and harness the donkey, get the girls into the cart, and, wearing a pleasant cloak of fatigue, set your steps on the homeward way. A supper fit for a king is before you as you burst into the warm kitchen of your cabin, nigh to bedtime—a mountain of flowery potatoes, still steaming, and laughing through their jackets, hillocks of yellow butter flanking it, and lochs of thick-milk—for, surely, little less than lochs are the great bowls of it that are set down, one for each man, and boy, and girl. The envy of a king would be the appetites that each of you brings home with you from the bog; and the envy of a king might well be the relish with which you attack the mountain of laughing potatoes; and certainly the envy of a king would be the happy hearts and the sleep-filled heads, and glad, tired limbs, which, when Rosary is said, you stretch upon welcome beds.
Before yet the turf is fully won, and dragged home, and stacked in the garden, there’s many another long and toilsome, joyous, bright day in the bog still ahead of you. And after the turf is won, and safely stacked at home, on many a winter's night will the high-leaping, bright-blazing turf fire warm you and cheer you, as you propound riddles, and sing songs, and hearken to the old, old, beautiful tales and laoidhs that happily while away the surly, burly, rainy, stormy, blowy, snowy winter nights, and repay you, happy-hearted children of all ages, for many a sore, toilsome, glorious day in the bog!
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