The Earl's Promise (Complete)
9781465679635
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Kingslough at high noon was ordinarily the stupidest, dullest, dirtiest little town that could have been found in the Province of Ulster. On market and fair, and party-procession days, the inhabitants seemed to expend the whole of their strength. An almost unbroken calm ensued after wild excitement, a death-like stillness followed the shouts and cries of faction, the shrieks of drunken merriment, the shrill piping of fifes, the braying of trumpets, and the bang-banging of drums. Excepting on such and such-like festive occasions as those above enumerated, the town, figuratively speaking, looked as though it had gone to bed to sleep off the effects of its last excitement or debauch. In the bright sunlight it appeared like a place deserted by its population—a place rich in every natural beauty, which there was neither man nor woman to admire. So far as position was concerned, Kingslough had nothing left to desire. Situated on an arm of the sea, the town, well sheltered from the wild north winds by hills and far-spreading plantations, nestled its houses snugly along the shore, while the blue waves rippled gently in over the red sandstone beach. Nature had indeed done everything for the little watering-place, and man had, as is usually the case, done his best to spoil Nature’s handiwork. Seen from the sea Kingslough lay tranquil under its hills, the perfection of an artist’s ideal; but a nearer view dispelled this allusion, and it appeared to eyes from which the glamour was removed, just what it has already been described, the stupidest, dullest, dirtiest little town in Ulster. Here was no dark Moorish architecture, lighted up by the bright costumes and brighter eyes of the Galway women. Here were no fantastic houses, no picturesque surprises, no archways lying in deep shadow, no recessed and highly ornamented doorways, no rich carvings, no evidences of a wonderful and romantic past. Everything was straight, strictly utilitarian, mean. The best houses presented outwardly no sign of the amount of actual accommodation they contained. They were old, but they had not grown grey and softened with the lapse of years. The prevailing “finish” amongst the better class of residences was paint or rough-cast, whilst the dwellings inhabited by the trading and working members of the community were periodically covered with lime-white, which the rain as regularly washed off.
