III

Three months after his fourteenth birthday, on April 22, 1874, Douglas reported in his diary that he weighed nine stone six pounds and was growing rapidly: not a bad record for a boy his age. By the end of October the new boots he had bought at Narry's on February 21 had to be replaced because they were too small. Such evidence of his physical growth and development delighted him. He also liked to test his muscular strength and agility. "I jumped about 15 feet on one of the grass walks on pretty level ground," he noted proudly two months after he turned fifteen, in his diary entry for March 30, 1875.

Year by year, Douglas indeed was changing, but life in Roscommon retained the same predictable rhythms. In the spring—an exciting time for Douglas, as he was the owner of several sheep—the lambs were born. One or two of the new lambs usually belonged to him. May was the month when all the sheep were washed and sheared. In May 1874 he dutifully recorded that Connolly had sold his wool for £13 and his new lambs for £3.16. After sheepshearing there were cricket games with Arthur and Oldfield, home from Trinity by the third week of May. May was the month also, according to the Reverend Arthur Hyde (who had made a particular study of folk medicine), for giving Diver sulphur in his dinner and making sure that the dog was "rub'd . . . well with sulphur & unsalted butter" in accordance with his prescription.

Day-to-day chores were a fact of life throughout the year, but especially during the drier months between spring and fall, for the glebe lands of the Tibohine church were energetically and efficiently worked by the Reverend Arthur Hyde, assisted by his three sons, his steward, and several farm workers. The Reverend Arthur Hyde also attended to whatever farm or household objects needed mending or fixing, from flower boxes to drains, and together with his sons planned and executed remodeling and construction projects, some essential, some associated with one or another of the sporting activities that were a regular feature of Frenchpark life. Douglas's diary records one afternoon in June 1875 when brothers and father designed and set up a target for gun practice:

After tea we raised the large stone out of the little yard with ropes and rollers for which we cut down a tree. And with great difficulty we placed it in the garden. . . . [The next day we] painted the target & fired at it.

Pleased with their success, they began their next task, the building of a summer house, two weeks later; they completed it in three days.

Experienced in handling tools and confident of his skills, Douglas also had his own separate building and mending projects. One year he made a swing for his sister, Annette, and painstakingly assembled cartridges only to discover, when he went to use them, that they had been torn apart by mice. In his diary he noted how he had planed a bow that had splintered and mended a torn stirrup with a piece of hemp. A prized possession was a "lucky briar" that he had cut for himself. It was, he declared, "nearly 7 feet long & very straight."

Boxing was a popular pastime whenever the weather permitted. Usually Douglas's opponent was Michael Lavin, with whom he was fairly evenly matched, but sometimes he liked to challenge others. One afternoon in 1875 he discovered that putting on the gloves with another neighbor, MacDermotroe, was more than he could handle. He fared better on Corpus Christi Day when the Tibohine church sponsored an outing attended by about eighty people who "came for cricket & box'd with the gloves & a little with naked fists."

After Corpus Christi, to Douglas's delight, the weather usually turned warm enough for the Hyde boys to bathe in the lake. Summer nights, mostly clear, were filled with the fascination of stars. On one clear night, the fourteenth of July, 1875, Hyde was awed by the sight of a comet, plainly visible in the northwest sky. As August approached, he added his voice to the general concern that the good weather continue through the next two months of haying and harvest time, for the crops would be spoiled if they could not be brought in because of a period of prolonged rain. Between August and December shooting fever increased, especially when water birds were spotted along the borders of the lake or near the turlough. Douglas filled his diaries of these fall months with details of ammunition purchased, birds killed, and the rise and fall of the turlough. In accordance with the ritual he and his brothers had been taught by their father, he regularly took apart, cleaned, and reassembled his guns. In this way he tracked the seasons of the year.

Next to the Reverend Arthur Hyde, William Connolly bore chief responsibility for managing the glebe estate, washing and shearing the sheep, sowing the oats, looking after sick cows, buying and selling the Hyde family's livestock at local fairs, and dealing with local suppliers of equipment and provisions. Douglas and Annette—either or both—frequently accompanied him on his trips to Ballaghaderreen, French-

park, and Castlerea. A staple item always included in the glebe house shopping list was whiskey. One day Connolly bought a barrel of porter and a gallon of uisce beatha (whiskey) in Castlerea, then went to Boyle for a canister of powder, a potted ham, Worcestershire sauce, pickles—and another gallon of whiskey. Arthur, moreover, who had accompanied Connolly to Boyle ostensibly to help with the purchase of provisions, had come home with a separate bottle of whiskey for himself as well.

Strong drink was consumed in considerable quantities by everyone associated with the glebe house. All the Hyde boys were introduced early to porter, hot punch, whiskey, and poteen; all developed a taste while still children for these "national" drinks, as Hyde used to call them. Only for Oldfield was the habit to become, as for the Reverend Arthur Hyde, a serious problem.

Neighboring farmers and workmen came and went informally in the Hyde kitchen, sometimes stopping for a cup of tea or glass of ale during the day or a game of cards and tumbler of whiskey in the evening. Douglas and his brothers came and went just as informally in the cottages along the lanes that crisscrossed meadow and bog. When Dockry's son was short of powder and caps, he came up to the glebe house to borrow some from Douglas. Douglas regularly went down to the Lavins to box with Michael. Sometimes he rode his pony to Hanly's in the village. Among these local companions, especially during the summers of 1874 and 1875, Hyde's Irish persona was strengthened. His brother Arthur, aloof and serious, very much the Trinity man, no longer could be counted on to fish with him from the iron bridge or ramble around the countryside: he was continually arriving from or leaving for Dublin with an air of great importance. Oldfield was in London during much of the summer of 1874. Annette, who had just turned nine, was too young to join Douglas in his excursions on foot over meadow and bog or by boat on the river, and in any case she was often in Mohill or Dublin or Galway with their mother. Douglas did not mind; he preferred his independent life. He could choose if he pleased to accompany the men and boys from along the road and from the back of the meadow to see the "great race" in Bellanagare or, as on one very wet day, he could stay warm and comfortable, chatting with old men and old women by a cottage fire. Even on a pleasant morning that might have lured him away from his usual haunts, he declined an invitation from a crowd bound for the Sligo races to remain with Seamas Hart, helping clear the meadow of sticks and stones. His

favorite hours were those he spent with Hart in the meadow and on the bogs or sitting before a fire in the gamekeeper's cottage, listening to his stories.

When in 1875 a series of family illnesses disrupted life in the glebe house, Douglas was especially glad of Hart's company and the friendship of neighbors. During the Reverend Arthur Hyde's attacks of gout he took refuge with them. When Bessie Hyde, weakened by asthma, was too ill to attend church services, when both Arthur and Oldfield were incapacitated by unspecified complaints that required the attention of Dr. Cuppaidge, and when the glebe house was silent and gloomy, they provided a comforting place in which to spend Sunday afternoons. During this period Douglas complained vaguely to his diary in phonetic Irish of his own health: "I am not well" and "I am not well at all." He was in fact fine, but he tended to make such complaints when illness focused attention on others, leaving him lonely and alone. The only physical problem that repeatedly troubled him was a recurrent muscle pain, unpleasant but not incapacitating, in his right leg; at fifteen he was prone to "growing pains." Other than that, except for a bruised arm suffered when his gun kicked, a thumb sprain from boxing, a single bout with a queasy stomach, and an occasional sore throat, he was a sturdy adolescent, with consistently fewer illnesses, accidents, and injuries than anyone else in his family, except possibly his sister, Annette.

Seamas Hart, with his fluent Irish, his talent for reciting poem and story, his rich store of Irish historical and cultural tradition, his knowledge of the natural world of Frenchpark and environs, his Fenian sympathies, his calm strength, and his capacity for warmth and affection, was not only a central figure in Douglas's daily life but a major influence on his development. Brief notes—that Seamas was here or was not here or was ill or had begun to improve; that Douglas had walked down to Hart's or was with him at Ratra; that Douglas, Arthur, and Oldfield had gone together to Hart's in the evening—recur throughout his 1875 diary. From time to time Hart even stayed overnight at the glebe house, helping out in times of illness or other kinds of trouble that required his patience and wisdom. Between May and September when Bessie Hyde was seriously and recurrently ill, Douglas's days began to take their character from these diary notes, recorded in his phonetic Irish: "Ve Shamus in sho" (Seamas was here); "Neil Shamus gummoich" (Seamas is not well); "Shool mae iga tyoch Shamus"; (I walked down to Seamas's house); "Ve Shamus liom" (Seamas was with

me). After August, when he began studying the Irish catechism he had found, his spelling gradually changed. First he introduced the long stroke, or fada , over vowels that he had been writing as oa, ab, ee , and oo . He did not always employ the mark consistently or correctly, but it was a step in the direction of conventional spelling.

In May, when Douglas's mother suffered several long and severe asthma attacks, "Ne ve a Moistrass gummoich" (The mistress was not well) and "Thoine Moistrass besuch" (The mistress is improving) joined "Ve Shamus in sho" as alternating refrains. Illness struck the farm animals also. "Mo cuira foor shee baus" wrote Douglas, after one of his sheep died. Seamas was there, too. Three cows became so sick with a common infection called "red water" that the doctor had to be called; one cow almost died. Seamas was again present.

Although dependent on the daily presence of Hart, more and more during the troubled May of 1875, Douglas wandered on his own through the fields and bogs of Frenchpark and Tibohine to the countryside beyond, often staying out very late at night. He also began keeping enough money in his pocket to purchase whiskey and porter in Ballaghaderreen. In July there was great excitement at the glebe house, during a period when Bessie Hyde seemed to be improving, over a sailboat that the Reverend Arthur Hyde had bought in Carrick-on-Shannon. For a time Douglas, his brothers, his sister, and his father grew close again, spending entire days together as, pairing up in various combinations, together they learned to manage the craft. Sailing briefly replaced shooting as the family sport. When the newness wore off, relations returned to normal; Douglas again went his separate way.

The year progressed: as the voice in which Douglas recorded his day-to-day activities and experiences in Irish became more personal, his diary began to reflect not just actions and ideas but fears, disappointments, pleasures, interests. The rector's son remains present in entries written in English; no ripple disturbed the surface calm of his carefully managed existence. Lines written in Irish, however, though briefer and less polished, tell a fuller story. On August 10, Douglas employed both English and Irish to describe a boat race on Lough Gara. Oldfield had been appointed sole judge of the event, a sensitive situation, since the Hyde boat, with Arthur as steersman, was among the competitors. All went well until the last race, which Arthur won by a quarter length. Oldfield's judgment was challenged by members of the crowd. "There was near being a faction fight on account of it," wrote Douglas in English, distancing himself from the situation by characterizing the

protest as a kind of brawl among the country people rather than as the howl of indignation it actually was. His apprehension, however, was clear from his Irish: The crowd did not regard the Hyde boys as merely Ascendancy onlookers. Many of the men who participated in the race were joined by supporters from the crowd in what became an increasingly heated protest. A particularly hot-tempered man by the name of Mark was loudest; he was to be feared the most. Dockry warned that the situation was dangerous. "If one man stoops to pick up a stone, others will also," he warned Douglas; "if one man is struck, two hundred will be at it." Cool heads prevailed in the end, and the crowd dispersed without incident. Douglas's English persona replaced his Irish persona after the danger was past.

In September Douglas's mother was again seriously ill. Hart was at the glebe house almost daily, often sleeping there. These facts, plus the monthly register by species and number of birds killed, were recorded, as usual, in Irish. One day, while shooting the "wild bog," Douglas noticed "a very curious sort of ring around the sun such as is round the moon late at night"; it mystified him. In the swamp he spotted a strange-looking duck: "his bill was very large and broad and his wings were a kind of greyish blue." Diver proved himself an extraordinary dog once again by catching and killing a bat in the kitchen. These incidents were noted in English, probably because Douglas's Irish vocabulary was inadequate to their content.

Fine weather had prevailed during September; in contrast, October was often dark, windy, and cold. A few berries remained on the bushes in the garden, but all other natural signs indicated that the harvest season was over. The appearance of large numbers of water birds tempted Douglas outdoors with his gun early each morning and late each night. His success was chronicled in a three-page account that began under a profile sketch of an unidentified bald, smiling man. The receding forehead, which takes its angle from the receding chin, gives the figure a vaguely imbecilic appearance. A sequence of round collars, each larger than the one above it, encircles his neck and shoulders. On the facing page there is a wine glass and a bottle. Were the round collars intended to signify that the man was a cleric? Was this a caricature of the Reverend Arthur Hyde? (His drinking during Bessie Hyde's illness had been troubling Douglas; he had figured less and less in his youngest son's life as the father-son relationship between Douglas and Seamas Hart had intensified.) Or is this Everyman as Douglas—who himself had been experimenting with ale, porter, whiskey, and even poteen,

usually in the company of one or both of his brothers—then saw him? An incongruous note on an adjacent page provides the only evidence that academic studies also had been occupying portions of Douglas's time—that he had been reading and rehearsing Horatian odes.

Toward the end of October, Hart became ill. Douglas took a small bottle down to him. In November, Hart was no better. Hyde's diary entries became less detailed, briefer, sometimes containing no information beyond the fact that day after day and sometimes several times a day, he visited Hart's house. A marked decrease in the proportion of Irish to English restores Douglas's impersonal, public persona to control of this portion of his diary, perhaps because he could not take the time to write in Irish, perhaps because he could not cope with his feelings. Irish regained ground as Hart improved at the beginning of December. On December 9, out walking with Arthur, Douglas had a frightening experience that he recounted entirely in Irish, in the first long passage written in months: They had been in the potato field near Hart's cottage when Arthur suddenly fell to the ground, suffered convulsions, and lapsed into unconsciousness. Certain that Arthur was dead, Douglas did not know what to do. Fortunately the incident was witnessed by Thomas Higgins, who quickly obtained from Beirne, a nearby cottager, a door that could be used as a stretcher, then called others to help carry Arthur home. Arthur recovered, but ironically by the twenty-seventh of the month Higgins himself was dead. "Drimma mudya ig a suchreca " (I went to his funeral), wrote Douglas in his phonetic Irish, the first such event to be noted in his diary. Soon, however, there was another.

On December 20 Hart was, as usual, at the glebe house. On December 21 he slept there. On December 22 "ní bhí Semuis go maith," wrote Douglas in an entry in Irish in which everything but Hart's first name is spelled correctly: once again, Hart was ill. On December 28 Hart was dead. It was the most devastating loss Hyde ever had suffered—a loss he remembered throughout his life. He expressed his sorrow in a simple, direct, and moving passage written partly in phonetic Irish, partly in conventional Irish script in his diary for December 29:

Seamas died yesterday. A man so decent and generous, alas, so true and honest, alas, so friendly, alas, never will I see again. He was sick about a week and today he is gone. Poor Seamas, I learned Irish from you. A man so good with the Irish, never will there be another like you. I can see no one at all from now on whom I would love as well as you. May seven angels be with you and may your blessed soul be in heaven now.