Penelope's Irish Experiences

PENELOPE'S IRISH EXPERIENCES

by Kate Douglas Wiggin.

Published 1901.

To my first Irish friend, Jane Barlow.

Contents.

Part First--Leinster.

I. We emulate the Rollo books.

II. Irish itineraries.

III. We sight a derelict.

IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry.

V. The Wearing of the Green.

VI. Dublin, then and now.

Part Second--Munster.

VII. A tour and a detour.

VIII. Romance and reality.

IX. The light of other days.

X. The belles of Shandon.

XI. 'The rale thing.'

XII. Life at Knockarney House.

XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancin'.'

XIV. 'Mrs. Mullarkey's iligant locks.'

XV. Penelope weaves a web.

XVI. Salemina has her chance.

Part Third--Ulster.

XVII. The glens of Antrim.

XVIII. Limavady love-letters.

XIX. 'In ould Donegal.'

XX. We evict a tenant.

XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae.

Part Fourth--Connaught.

XXII. The weeping west.

XXIII. Beams and motes.

XXIV. Humours of the road.

XXV. The wee folk.

Part Fifth--Royal Meath.

XXVI. Ireland's gold.

XXVII. The three chatelaines of Devorgilla.

XXVIII. Round towers and reflections.

XXIX. Aunt David's garden.

XXX. The quest of the fair strangers.

XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen!

XXXII. 'As the sunflower turns.'

Part First--Leinster.

Chapter I. We emulate the Rollo books.

'Sure a terrible time I was out o' the way,

Over the sea, over the sea,

Till I come to Ireland one sunny day,--

Betther for me, betther for me:

The first time me fut got the feel o' the ground

I was strollin' along in an Irish city

That hasn't its aquil the world around

For the air that is sweet an' the girls that are pretty.'

--Moira O'Neill.

Dublin, O'Carolan's Private Hotel.

It is the most absurd thing in the world that Salemina, Francesca, and I

should be in Ireland together.

That any three spinsters should be fellow-travellers is not in itself

extraordinary, and so our former journeyings in England and Scotland

could hardly be described as eccentric in any way; but now that I am

a matron and Francesca is shortly to be married, it is odd, to say the

least, to see us cosily ensconced in a private sitting-room of a Dublin

hotel, the table laid for three, and not a vestige of a man anywhere to

be seen. Where, one might ask, if he knew the antecedent circumstances,

are Miss Hamilton's American spouse and Miss Monroe's Scottish lover?

Francesca had passed most of the winter in Scotland. Her indulgent

parent had given his consent to her marriage with a Scotsman, but

insisted that she take a year to make up her mind as to which particular

one. Memories of her past flirtations, divagations, plans for a life of

single blessedness, all conspired to make him incredulous, and the loyal

Salemina, feeling some responsibility in the matter, had elected to

remain by Francesca's side during the time when her affections were

supposed to be crystallising into some permanent form.

It was natural enough that my husband and I should spend the first

summer of our married life abroad, for we had been accustomed to do this

before we met, a period that we always allude to as the Dark Ages; but

no sooner had we arrived in Edinburgh, and no sooner had my husband

persuaded our two friends to join us in a long, delicious Irish holiday,

than he was compelled to return to America for a month or so.

I think you must number among your acquaintances such a man as Mr.

William Beresford, whose wife I have the honour to be. Physically the

type is vigorous, or has the appearance and gives the impression of

being vigorous, because it has never the time to be otherwise, since

it is always engaged in nursing its ailing or decrepit relatives.

Intellectually it is full of vitality; any mind grows when it is

exercised, and the brain that has to settle all its own affairs and all

the affairs of its friends and acquaintances could never lack energy.

Spiritually it is almost too good for earth, and any woman who lives in

the house with it has moments of despondency and self-chastisement,

in which she fears that heaven may prove all too small to contain the

perfect being and its unregenerate family as well.

Financially it has at least a moderate bank account; that is, it

is never penniless, indeed it can never afford to be, because it is

peremptory that it should possess funds in order to disburse them to

needier brothers. There is never an hour when Mr. William Beresford is

not signing notes and bonds and drafts for less fortunate men; giving

small loans just to 'help a fellow over a hard place'; educating

friends' children, starting them in business, or securing appointments

for them. The widow and the fatherless have worn such an obvious path to

his office and residence that no bereaved person could possibly lose

his way, and as a matter of fact no one of them ever does. This special

journey of his to America has been made necessary because, first, his

cousin's widow has been defrauded of a large sum by her man of business;

and second, his college chum and dearest friend has just died in Chicago

after appointing him executor of his estate and guardian of his only

child. The wording of the will is, 'as a sacred charge and with full

power.' Incidentally, as it were, one of his junior partners has been

ordered a long sea voyage, and another has to go somewhere for mud

baths. The junior partners were my idea, and were suggested solely that

their senior might be left more or less free from business care, but

it was impossible that Willie should have selected sound, robust

partners--his tastes do not incline him in the direction of selfish

ease; accordingly he chose two delightful, estimable, frail gentlemen

who needed comfortable incomes in conjunction with light duties.

I am railing at my husband for all this, but I love him for it just the

same, and it shows why the table is laid for three.

“Salemina,” I said, extending my slipper toe to the glowing peat, which

by extraordinary effort had been brought up from the hotel kitchen, as a

bit of local colour, “it is ridiculous that we three women should be in

Ireland together; it's the sort of thing that happens in a book, and of

which we say that it could never occur in real life. Three persons do

not spend successive seasons in England, Scotland and Ireland unless

they are writing an Itinerary of the British Isles. The situation is

possible, certainly, but it isn't simple, or natural, or probable. We

are behaving precisely like characters in fiction, who, having been

popular in the first volume, are exploited again and again until their

popularity wanes. We are like the Trotty books or the Elsie Dinmore

series. England was our first volume, Scotland our second, and here we

are, if you please, about to live a third volume in Ireland. We fall in

love, we marry and are given in marriage, we promote and take part

in international alliances, but when the curtain goes up again, our

accumulations, acquisitions--whatever you choose to call

them--have disappeared. We are not to the superficial eye the

spinster-philanthropist, the bride to be, the wife of a year; we are

the same old Salemina, Francesca and Penelope. It is so dramatic that my

husband should be called to America; as a woman I miss him and need him;

as a character I am much better single. I don't suppose publishers like

married heroines any more than managers like married leading ladies.

Then how entirely proper it is that Ronald Macdonald cannot leave his

new parish in the Highlands. The one, my husband, belongs to the first

volume; Francesca's lover to the second; and good gracious, Salemina,

don't you see the inference?”

“I may be dull,” she replied, “but I confess I do not.”

“We are three?”

“Who is three?”

“That is not good English, but I repeat with different emphasis WE are

three. I fell in love in England, Francesca fell in love in Scotland-”

And here I paused, watching the blush mount rosily to Salemina's grey

hair; pink is very becoming to grey, and that, we always say, accounts

more satisfactorily for Salemina's frequent blushes than her modesty,

which is about of the usual sort.

“Your argument is interesting, and even ingenious,” she replied, “but

I fail to see my responsibility. If you persist in thinking of me as

a character in fiction, I shall rebel. I am not the stuff of which

heroines are made; besides, I would never appear in anything so cheap

and obvious as a series, and the three-volume novel is as much out of

fashion as the Rollo books.”

“But we are unconscious heroines, you understand,” I explained. “While

we were experiencing our experiences we did not notice them, but they

have attained by degrees a sufficient bulk so that they are visible

to the naked eye. We can look back now and perceive the path we have

travelled.”

“It isn't retrospect I object to, but anticipation,” she retorted; “not

history, but prophecy. It is one thing to gaze sentimentally at the road

you have travelled, quite another to conjure up impossible pictures of

the future.”

Salemina calls herself a trifle over forty, but I am not certain of

her age, and think perhaps that she is uncertain herself. She has good

reason to forget it, and so have we. Of course she could consult the

Bible family record daily, but if she consulted her looking-glass

afterward the one impression would always nullify the other. Her hair is

silvered, it is true, but that is so clearly a trick of Nature that it

makes her look younger rather than older.

Francesca came into the room just here. I said a moment ago that she was

the same old Francesca, but I was wrong; she is softening, sweetening,

expanding; in a word, blooming. Not only this, but Ronald Macdonald's

likeness has been stamped upon her in some magical way, so that,

although she has not lost her own personality, she seems to have added

a reflection of his. In the glimpses of herself, her views, feelings,

opinions, convictions, which she gives us in a kind of solution, as

it were, there are always traces of Ronald Macdonald; or, to be more

poetical, he seems to have bent over the crystal pool, and his image is

reflected there.

You remember in New England they allude to a bride as 'she that was'

a so-and-so. In my private interviews with Salemina I now habitually

allude to Francesca as 'she that was a Monroe'; it is so significant

of her present state of absorption. Several times this week I have been

obliged to inquire, “Was I, by any chance, as absent-minded and dull in

Pettybaw as Francesca is under the same circumstances in Dublin?”

“Quite.”

“Duller if anything.”

These candid replies being uttered in cheerful unison I change the

subject, but cannot resist telling them both casually that the building

of the Royal Dublin Society is in Kildare Street, just three minutes'

from O'Carolan's, and that I have noticed it is for the promotion of

Husbandry and other useful arts and sciences.

Chapter II. Irish itineraries.

'And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,

Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,

And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,

For the fair hills of holy Ireland.'

--Sir Samuel Ferguson.

Our mutual relations have changed little, notwithstanding that

betrothals and marriages have intervened, and in spite of the fact

that Salemina has grown a year younger; a mysterious feat that she has

accomplished on each anniversary of her birth since the forming of our

alliance.

It is many months since we travelled together in Scotland, but on

entering this very room in Dublin, the other day, we proceeded to show

our several individualities as usual: I going to the window to see the

view, Francesca consulting the placard on the door for hours of table

d'hote, and Salemina walking to the grate and lifting the ugly little

paper screen to say, “There is a fire laid; how nice!” As the matron I

have been promoted to a nominal charge of the travelling arrangements.

Therefore, while the others drive or sail, read or write, I am buried

in Murray's Handbook, or immersed in maps. When I sleep, my dreams

are spotted, starred, notched, and lined with hieroglyphics, circles,

horizontal dashes, long lines, and black dots, signifying hotels, coach

and rail routes, and tramways.

All this would have been done by Himself with the greatest ease in the

world. In the humbler walks of Irish life the head of the house, if he

is of the proper sort, is called Himself, and it is in the shadow of

this stately title that my Ulysses will appear in this chronicle.

I am quite sure I do not believe in the inferiority of woman, but I have

a feeling that a man is a trifle superior in practical affairs. If I am

in doubt, and there is no husband, brother, or cousin near, from whom to

seek advice, I instinctively ask the butler or the coachman rather than

a female friend; also, when a female friend has consulted the Bradshaw

in my behalf, I slip out and seek confirmation from the butcher's boy or

the milkman. Himself would have laid out all our journeyings for us, and

we should have gone placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is,

we are already pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, and

Ireland bids fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelter

fashion imaginable.

Francesca's propositions are especially nonsensical, being provocative

of fruitless discussion, and adding absolutely nothing to the sum of

human intelligence.

“Why not start without any special route in view, and visit the towns

with which we already have familiar associations?” she asked. “We should

have all sorts of experiences by the way, and be free from the blighting

influences of a definite purpose. Who that has ever travelled fails to

call to mind certain images when the names of cities come up in general

conversation? If Bologna, Brussels, or Lima is mentioned, I think at

once of sausages, sprouts, and beans, and it gives me a feeling of

friendly intimacy. I remember Neufchatel and Cheddar by their cheeses,

Dorking and Cochin China by their hens, Whitby by its jet, or York by

its hams, so that I am never wholly ignorant of places and their subtle

associations.”

“That method appeals strongly to the fancy,” said Salemina drily. “What

subtle associations have you already established in Ireland?”

“Let me see,” she responded thoughtfully; “the list is not a long one.

Limerick and Carrickmacross for lace, Shandon for the bells, Blarney

and Donnybrook for the stone and the fair, Kilkenny for the cats, and

Balbriggan for the stockings.”

“You are sordid this morning,” reproved Salemina; “it would be better if

you remembered Limerick by the famous siege, and Balbriggan as the

place where King William encamped with his army after the battle of the

Boyne.”

“I've studied the song-writers more than the histories and geographies,”

I said, “so I should like to go to Bray and look up the Vicar, then to

Coleraine to see where Kitty broke the famous pitcher; or to Tara, where

the harp that once, or to Athlone, where dwelt Widow Malone, ochone, and

so on; just start with an armful of Tom Moore's poems and Lover's and

Ferguson's, and, yes,” I added generously, “some of the nice moderns,

and visit the scenes they've written about.”

“And be disappointed,” quoth Francesca cynically. “Poets see everything

by the light that never was on sea or land; still I won't deny that they

help the blind, and I should rather like to know if there are still any

Nora Creinas and Sweet Peggies and Pretty Girls Milking their Cows.”

“I am very anxious to visit as many of the Round Towers as possible,”

said Salemina. “When I was a girl of seventeen I had a very dear friend,

a young Irishman, who has since become a well-known antiquary and

archaeologist. He was a student, and afterwards, I think, a professor

here in Trinity College, but I have not heard from him for many years.”

“Don't look him up, darling,” pleaded Francesca. “You are so much our

superior now that we positively must protect you from all elevating

influences.”

“I won't insist on the Round Towers,” smiled Salemina, “and I think

Penelope's idea a delightful one; we might add to it a sort of literary

pilgrimage to the homes and haunts of Ireland's famous writers.”

“I didn't know that she had any,” interrupted Francesca.

This is a favourite method of conversation with that spoiled young

person; it seems to appeal to her in three different ways: she likes

to belittle herself, she likes to shock Salemina, and she likes to have

information given her on the spot in some succinct, portable, convenient

form.

“Oh,” she continued apologetically, “of course there are Dean Swift and

Thomas Moore and Charles Lever.”

“And,” I added “certain minor authors named Goldsmith, Sterne, Steele,

and Samuel Lover.”

“And Bishop Berkeley, and Brinsley Sheridan, and Maria Edgeworth, and

Father Prout,” continued Salemina, “and certain great speech-makers like

Burke and Grattan and Curran; and how delightful to visit all the places

connected with Stella and Vanessa, and the spot where Spenser wrote the

Faerie Queene.”

“'Nor own a land on earth but one,

We're Paddies, and no more,'”

sang Francesca. “You will be telling me in a moment that Thomas Carlyle

was born in Skereenarinka, and that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet

in Coolagarranoe,” for she had drawn the guidebook toward her and made

good use of it. “Let us do the literary pilgrimage, certainly, before

we leave Ireland, but suppose we begin with something less intellectual.

This is the most pugnacious map I ever gazed upon. All the names seem

to begin or end with kill, bally, whack, shock, or knock; no wonder the

Irish make good soldiers! Suppose we start with a sanguinary trip to the

Kill places, so that I can tell any timid Americans I meet in travelling

that I have been to Kilmacow and to Kilmacthomas, and am going to-morrow

to Kilmore, and the next day to Kilumaule.”

“I think that must have been said before,” I objected.

“It is so obvious that it's not unlikely,” she rejoined; “then let

us simply agree to go afterwards to see all the Bally places from

Ballydehob on the south to Ballycastle or Ballymoney on the north,

and from Ballynahinch or Ballywilliam on the east to Ballyvaughan or

Ballybunnion on the west, and passing through, in transit,

Ballyragget,

Ballysadare,

Ballybrophy,

Ballinasloe,

Ballyhooley,

Ballycumber,

Ballyduff,

Ballynashee,

Ballywhack.

Don't they all sound jolly and grotesque?”

“They do indeed,” we agreed, “and the plan is quite worthy of you; we

can say no more.”

We had now developed so many more ideas than we could possibly use that

the labour of deciding among them was the next thing to be done. Each of

us stood out boldly for her own project,--even Francesca clinging, from

sheer wilfulness, to her worthless and absurd itineraries,--until, in

order to bring the matter to any sort of decision, somebody suggested

that we consult Benella; which reminds me that you have not yet the

pleasure of Benella's acquaintance.

Chapter III. We sight a derelict.

'O Bay of Dublin, my heart you're troublin',

Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream.'

Lady Dufferin.

To perform the introduction properly I must go back a day or two. We

had elected to cross to Dublin directly from Scotland, an easy night

journey. Accordingly we embarked in a steamer called the Prince or the

King of something or other, the name being many degrees more princely or

kingly than the craft itself.

We had intended, too, to make our own comparison of the Bay of Dublin

and the Bay of Naples, because every traveller, from Charles Lever's

Jack Hinton down to Thackeray and Mr. Alfred Austin has always made it a

point of honour to do so. We were balked in our conscientious endeavour,

because we arrived at the North Wall forty minutes earlier than the hour

set by the steamship company. It is quite impossible for anything in

Ireland to be done strictly on the minute, and in struggling not to be

hopelessly behind time, a 'disthressful counthry' will occasionally be

ahead of it. We had been told that we should arrive in a drizzling rain,

and that no one but Lady Dufferin had ever on approaching Ireland seen

the 'sweet faces of the Wicklow mountains reflected in a smooth and

silver sea.' The grumblers were right on this special occasion, although

we have proved them false more than once since.

I was in a fever of fear that Ireland would not be as Irish as we wished

it to be. It seemed probable that processions of prosperous aldermen,

school directors, contractors, mayors, and ward politicians, returning

to their native land to see how Herself was getting on, the crathur,

might have deposited on the soil successive layers of Irish-American

virtues, such as punctuality, thrift, and cleanliness, until they had

quite obscured fair Erin's peculiar and pathetic charm. We longed for

the new Ireland as fervently as any of her own patriots, but we wished

to see the old Ireland before it passed. There is plenty of it left

(alas! the patriots would say), and Dublin was as dear and as dirty as

when Lady Morgan first called it so, long years ago. The boat was met

by a crowd of ragged gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of them

stockingless, and in men's shoes, and several of them with flowers in

their unspeakable hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting cars

because we had not been expected so early, and the jarveys were in

attendance on the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for a

piece of lost luggage that I saw the stewardess assisting a young woman

off the gang plank, and leading her toward a pile of wool bags on

the dock. She sank helplessly on one of them, and leaned her head on

another. As the night had been one calculated to disturb the physical

equilibrium of a poor sailor, and the breakfast of a character to

discourage the stoutest stomach, I gave her a careless thought of pity

and speedily forgot her. Two trunks, a holdall, a hatbox--in which

reposed, in solitary grandeur, Francesca's picture hat, intended for

the further undoing of the Irish gentry--a guitar case, two bags, three

umbrellas; all were safe but Salemina's large Vuitton trunk and my

valise, which had been last seen at Edinburgh station. Salemina returned

to the boat, while Francesca and I wended our way among the heaps of

luggage, followed by crowds of ragamuffins, who offered to run for a

car, run for a cab, run for a porter, carry our luggage up the street

to the cab-stand, carry our wraps, carry us, 'do any mortial thing for a

penny, melady, an' there is no cars here, melady, God bless me sowl, and

that He be good to us all if I'm tellin' you a word of a lie!'

Entirely unused to this flow of conversation, we were obliged to stop

every few seconds to recount our luggage and try to remember what we

were looking for. We all met finally, and I rescued Salemina from the

voluble thanks of an old woman to whom she had thoughtlessly given a

three-penny bit. This mother of a 'long wake family' was wishing that

Salemina might live to 'ate the hin' that scratched over her grave,

and invoking many other uncommon and picturesque blessings, but we were

obliged to ask her to desist and let us attend to our own business.

“Will I clane the whole of thim off for you for a penny, your ladyship's

honour, ma'am?” asked the oldest of the ragamuffins, and I gladly

assented to the novel proposition. He did it, too, and there seemed to

be no hurt feelings in the company.

Just then there was a rattle of cabs and side-cars, and our

self-constituted major-domo engaged two of them to await our pleasure.

At the same moment our eyes lighted upon Salemina's huge Vuitton, which

had been dragged behind the pile of wool sacks. It was no wonder it

had escaped our notice, for it was mostly covered by the person of the

sea-sick maiden whom I had seen on the arm of the stewardess. She was

seated on it, exhaustion in every line of her figure, her head upon my

travelling bag, her feet dangling over the edge until they just touched

the 'S. P., Salem, Mass., U.S.A.' painted in large red letters on the

end. She was too ill to respond to our questions, but there was no

mistaking her nationality. Her dress, hat, shoes, gloves, face, figure

were American. We sent for the stewardess, who told us that she had

arrived in Glasgow on the day previous, and had been very ill all the

way coming from Boston.

“Boston!” exclaimed Salemina. “Do you say she is from Boston, poor

thing?”

(“I didn't know that a person living in Boston could ever, under any

circumstances, be a 'poor thing,'” whispered Francesca to me.)

“She was not fit to be crossing last night, and the doctor on the

American ship told her so, and advised her to stay in bed for three days

before coming to Ireland; but it seems as if she were determined to get

to her journey's end.”

“We must have our trunk,” I interposed. “Can't we move her carefully

over to the wool sacks, and won't you stay with her until her friends

come?”

“She has no friends in this country, ma'am. She's just travelling for

pleasure like.”

“Good gracious! what a position for her to be in,” said Salemina. “Can't

you take her back to the steamer and put her to bed?”

“I could ask the captain, certainly, miss, though of course it's

something we never do, and besides we have to set the ship to rights and

go across again this evening.”

“Ask her what hotel she is going to, Salemina,” we suggested, “and let

us drop her there, and put her in charge of the housekeeper; of course

if it is only sea-sickness she will be all right in the morning.”

The girl's eyes were closed, but she opened them languidly as Salemina

chafed her cold hands, and asked gently if we could not drive her to an

hotel.

“Is--this--your--baggage?” she whispered.

“It is,” Salemina answered, somewhat puzzled.

“Then don't--leave me here, I am from Salem--myself,” whereupon without

any more warning she promptly fainted away on the trunk.

The situation was becoming embarrassing. The assemblage grew larger,

and a more interesting and sympathetic audience I never saw. To an Irish

crowd, always warm-hearted and kindly, willing to take any trouble

for friend or stranger, and with a positive terror of loneliness, or

separation from kith and kin, the helpless creature appealed in every

way. One and another joined the group with a “Holy Biddy! what's this at

all?”

“The saints presarve us, is it dyin' she is?”

“Look at the iligant duds she do be wearin'.”

“Call the docthor, is it? God give you sinse! Sure the docthors is only

a flock of omadhauns.”

“Is it your daughter she is, ma'am?” (This to Salemina.)

“She's from Ameriky, the poor mischancy crathur.”

“Give her a toothful of whisky, your ladyship. Sure it's nayther bite

nor sup she's had the morn, and belike she's as impty as a quarry-hole.”

When this last expression from the mother of the long weak family fell

upon Salemina's cultured ears she looked desperate.

We could not leave a fellow-countrywoman, least of all could Salemina

forsake a fellow-citizen, in such a hapless plight.

“Take one cab with Francesca and the luggage, Penelope,” she whispered.

“I will bring the girl with me, put her to bed, find her friends,

and see that she starts on her journey safely; it's very awkward, but

there's nothing else to be done.”

So we departed in a chorus of popular approval.

“Sure it's you that have the good hearts!”

“May the heavens be your bed!”

“May the journey thrive wid her, the crathur!”

Francesca and I arrived first at the hotel where our rooms were already

engaged, and there proved to be a comfortable little dressing, or

maid's, room just off Salemina's.

Here the Derelict was presently ensconced, and there she lay, in a sort

of profound exhaustion, all day, without once absolutely regaining

her consciousness. Instead of visiting the National Gallery as I had

intended, I returned to the dock to see if I could find the girl's

luggage, or get any further information from the stewardess before she

left Dublin.

“I'll send the doctor at once, but we must learn all possible

particulars now,” I said maliciously to poor Salemina. “It would be so

awkward, you know, if you should be arrested for abduction.”

The doctor thought it was probably nothing more than the complete

prostration that might follow eight days of sea-sickness, but the

patient's heart was certainly a little weak, and she needed the utmost

quiet. His fee was a guinea for the first visit, and he would drop in

again in the course of the afternoon to relieve our anxiety. We took

turns in watching by her bedside, but the two unemployed ones lingered

forlornly near, and had no heart for sightseeing. Francesca did,

however, purchase opera tickets for the evening, and secretly engaged

the housemaid to act as head nurse in our absence.

As we were dining at seven, we heard a faint voice in the little room

beyond. Salemina left her dinner and went in to find her charge slightly

better. We had been able thus far only to take off her dress, shoes, and

such garments as made her uncomfortable; Salemina now managed to slip on

a nightdress and put her under the bedcovers, returning then to her cold

mutton cutlet.

“She's an extraordinary person,” she said, absently playing with her

knife and fork. “She didn't ask me where she was, or show any interest

in her surroundings; perhaps she is still too weak. She said she was

better, and when I had made her ready for bed, she whispered, 'I've got

to say my prayers'.

“'Say them by all means,' I replied.

“'But I must get up and kneel down, she said.

“I told her she must do nothing of the sort; that she was far too ill.

“'But I must,' she urged. 'I never go to bed without saying my prayers

on my knees.'

“I forbade her doing it; she closed her eyes, and I came away. Isn't she

quaint?”

At this juncture we heard the thud of a soft falling body, and rushing

in we found that the Derelict had crept from her bed to her knees, and

had probably not prayed more than two minutes before she fainted for the

fifth or sixth time in twenty-four hours. Salemina was vexed, angel

and philanthropist though she is. Francesca and I were so helpless with

laughter that we could hardly lift the too conscientious maiden into

bed. The situation may have been pathetic; to the truly pious mind it

would indeed have been indescribably touching, but for the moment the

humorous side of it was too much for our self-control. Salemina, in

rushing for stimulants and smelling salts, broke her only comfortable

eyeglasses, and this accident, coupled with her other anxieties

and responsibilities, caused her to shed tears, an occurrence so

unprecedented that Francesca and I kissed and comforted her and tucked

her up on the sofa. Then we sent for the doctor, gave our opera tickets

to the head waiter and chambermaid, and settled down to a cheerful home

evening, our first in Ireland.

“If Himself were here, we should not be in this plight,” I sighed.

“I don't know how you can say that,” responded Salemina, with

considerable spirit. “You know perfectly well that if your husband had

found a mother and seven children helpless and deserted on that dock,

he would have brought them all to this hotel, and then tried to find the

father and grandfather.”

“And it's not Salemina's fault,” argued Francesca. “She couldn't help

the girl being born in Salem; not that I believe that she ever heard of

the place before she saw it printed on Salemina's trunk. I told you it

was too big and red, dear, but you wouldn't listen! I am the strongest

American of the party, but I confess that U.S.A. in letters five inches

long is too much for my patriotism.”

“It would not be if you ever had charge of the luggage,” retorted

Salemina.

“And whatever you do, Francesca,” I added beseechingly, “don't impugn

the veracity of our Derelict. While we think of ourselves as ministering

angels I can endure anything, but if we are the dupes of an adventuress,

there is nothing pretty about it. By the way, I have consulted the

English manageress of this hotel, who was not particularly sympathetic.

'Perhaps you shouldn't have assumed charge of her, madam,' she said,

'but having done so, hadn't you better see if you can get her into a

hospital?' It isn't a bad suggestion, and after a day or two we will

consider it, or I will get a trained nurse to take full charge of her.

I would be at any reasonable expense rather than have our pleasure

interfered with any further.”

It still seems odd to make a proposition of this kind. In former times,

Francesca was the Croesus of the party, Salemina came second, and I

last, with a most precarious income. Now I am the wealthy one, Francesca

is reduced to the second place, and Salemina to the third, but it makes

no difference whatever, either in our relations, our arrangements, or,

for that matter, in our expenditures.

Chapter IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry.

'A fair maiden wander'd

All wearied and lone,

Sighing, “I'm a poor stranger,

And far from my own.”

We invited her in,

We offered her share

Of our humble cottage

And our humble fare;

We bade her take comfort,

No longer to moan,

And made the poor stranger

Be one of our own.'

Old Irish Song.

The next morning dawned as lovely as if it had slipped out of Paradise,

and as for freshness, and emerald sheen, the world from our windows was

like a lettuce leaf just washed in dew. The windows of my bedroom looked

out pleasantly on St. Stephen's Green, commonly called Stephen's Green,

or by citizens of the baser sort, Stephens's Green. It is a good English

mile in circumference, and many are the changes in it from the time it

was first laid out, in 1670, to the present day, when it was made into a

public park by Lord Ardilaun.

When the celebrated Mrs. Delany, then Mrs. Pendarves, first saw it, the

centre was a swamp, where in winter a quantity of snipe congregated,

and Harris in his History of Dublin alludes to the presence of snipe

and swamp as an agreeable and uncommon circumstance not to be met with

perhaps in any other great city in the world.

A double row of spreading lime-trees bordered its four sides, one of

which, known as Beaux' Walk, was a favourite lounge for fashionable

idlers. Here stood Bishop Clayton's residence, a large building with a

front like Devonshire House in Piccadilly: so writes Mrs. Delany. It was

splendidly furnished, and the bishop lived in a style which proves that

Irish prelates of the day were not all given to self-abnegation and

mortification of the flesh.

A long line of vehicles, outside-cars and cabs, some of them battered

and shaky, others sufficiently well-looking, was gathering on two sides

of the Green, for Dublin, you know, is 'the car-drivingest city in

the world.' Francesca and I had our first experience yesterday in the

intervals of nursing, driving to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, the

Four Courts, and Grafton Street (the Regent Street of Dublin). It is

easy to tell the stranger, stiff, decorous, terrified, clutching the

rail with one or both hands, but we took for our model a pretty Irish

girl, who looked like nothing so much as a bird on a swaying bough. It

is no longer called the 'jaunting,' but the outside car and there

is another charming word lost to the world. There was formerly an

inside-car too, but it is almost unknown in Dublin, though still found

in some of the smaller towns. An outside-car has its wheels practically

inside the body of the vehicle, but an inside car carries its wheels

outside. This definition was given us by an Irish driver, but lucid

definition is not perhaps an Irishman's strong point. It is clearer to

say that the passenger sits outside of the wheels on the one, inside on

the other. There are seats for two persons over each of the two

wheels, and a dickey for the driver in front, should he need to use it.

Ordinarily he sits on one side, driving, while you perch on the other,

and thus you jog along, each seeing your own side of the road, and

discussing the topics of the day across the 'well,' as the covered-in

centre of the car is called. There are those who do not agree with its

champions, who call it 'Cupid's own conveyance'; they find the seat too

small for two, yet feel it a bit unsociable when the companion occupies

the opposite side. To me a modern Dublin car with rubber tires and a

good Irish horse is the jolliest vehicle in the universe; there is a

liveliness, an irresponsible gaiety, in the spring and sway of it; an

ease in the half-lounging position against the cushions, a unique charm

in 'travelling edgeways' with your feet planted on the step. You must

not be afraid of a car if you want to enjoy it. Hold the rail if you

must, at first, though it's just as bad form as clinging to your horse's

mane while riding in the Row. Your driver will take all the chances that

a crowded thoroughfare gives him; he would scorn to leave more than an

inch between your feet and a Guinness' beer dray; he will shake your

flounces and furbelows in the very windows of the passing trams, but he

is beloved by the gods, and nothing ever happens to him.

The morning was enchanting, as I said, and, above all, the Derelict was

better.

“It's a grand night's slape I had wid her intirely,” said the housemaid;

“an' sure it's not to-day she'll be dyin' on you at all, at all; she's

had the white drink in the bowl twyst, and a grand cup o' tay on the top

o' that.”

Salemina fortified herself with breakfast before she went in to an

interview, which we all felt to be important and decisive. The time

seemed endless to us, and endless were our suppositions.

“Perhaps she has had morning prayers and fainted again.”

“Perhaps she has turned out to be Salemina's long-lost cousin.”

“Perhaps she is upbraiding Salemina for kidnapping her when she was

insensible.”

“Perhaps she is relating her life history; if it is a sad one, Salemina

is adopting her legally at this moment.”

“Perhaps she is one of Mr. Beresford's wards, and has come over to

complain of somebody's ill treatment.”

Here Salemina entered, looking flushed and embarrassed. We thought it a

bad sign that she could not meet our eyes without confusion, but I made

room for her on the sofa, and Francesca drew her chair closer.

“She is from Salem,” began the poor dear; “she has never been out of

Massachusetts in her life.”

“Unfortunate girl!” exclaimed Francesca, adding prudently, as she saw

Salemina's rising colour, “though of course if one has to reside in a

single state, Massachusetts offers more compensations than any other.”

“She knows every nook and corner in the place,” continued Salemina;

“she has even seen the house where I was born, and her name is Benella

Dusenberry.”

“Impossible!” cried Francesca. “Dusenberry is unlikely enough, but

who ever heard of such a name as Benella! It sounds like a flavouring

extract.”

“She came over to see the world, she says.”

“Oh! then she has money?”

“No--or at least, yes; or at least she had enough when she left America

to last for two or three months, or until she could earn something.”

“Of course she left her little all in a chamois-skin bag under her

pillow on the steamer,” suggested Francesca.

“That is precisely what she did,” Salemina replied, with a pale smile.

“However, she was so ill in the steerage that she had to pay twenty-five

or thirty dollars extra to go into the second cabin, and this naturally

reduced the amount of her savings, though it makes no difference since

she left them all behind her, save a few dollars in her purse. She says

she is usually perfectly well, but that she was very tired when she

started, that it was her first sea-voyage, and the passage was unusually

rough.”

“Where is she going?”

“I don't know; I mean she doesn't know. Her maternal grandmother was

born in Trim, near Tara, in Meath, but she does not think she has any

relations over here. She is entirely alone in the world, and that gives

her a certain sentiment in regard to Ireland, which she heard a great

deal about when she was a child. The maternal grandmother must have gone

to Salem at a very early age, as Benella herself savours only of New

England soil.”

“Has she any trade, or is she trained to do anything whatsoever?” asked

Francesca.

“No, she hoped to take some position of 'trust.' She does not care at

all what it is, so long as the occupation is 'interestin' work,' she

says. That is rather vague, of course, but she speaks and appears like a

nice, conscientious person.”

“Tell us the rest; conceal nothing,” I said sternly.

“She--she thinks that we have saved her life, and she feels that she

belongs to us,” faltered Salemina.

“Belongs to us!” we cried in a duet. “Was there ever such a base reward

given to virtue; ever such an unwelcome expression of gratitude! Belong

to us, indeed! We can't have her; we won't have her. Were you perfectly

frank with her?”

“I tried to be, but she almost insisted; she has set her heart upon

being our maid.”

“Does she know how to be a maid?”

“No, but she is extremely teachable, she says.”

“I have my doubts,” remarked Francesca; “a liking for personal service

is not a distinguishing characteristic of New Englanders; they are

not the stuff of which maids are made. If she were French or German or

Senegambian, in fact anything but a Saleminian, we might use her; we

have always said we needed some one.”

Salemina brightened. “I thought myself it might be rather nice--that is,

I thought it might be a way out of the difficulty. Penelope had thought

at one time of bringing a maid, and it would save us a great deal of

trouble. The doctor thinks she could travel a short distance in a few

days; perhaps it is a Providence in disguise.”

“The disguise is perfect,” murmured Francesca.

“You see,” Salemina continued, “when the poor thing tottered along the

wharf the stewardess laid her on the pile of wool sacks-”

“Like a dying Chancellor,” again interpolated the irrepressible.

“And ran off to help another passenger. When she opened her eyes, she

saw straight in front of her, in huge letters, 'Salem, Mass., U.S.A.'

It loomed before her despairing vision, I suppose, like a great ark

of refuge, and seemed to her in her half-dazed condition not only a

reminder, but almost a message from home. She had then no thought of

ever seeing the owner; she says she felt only that she should like

to die quietly on anything marked 'Salem, Mass.' Go in to see her

presently, Penelope, and make up your own mind about her. See if you

can persuade her to--to--well, to give us up. Try to get her out of the

notion of being our maid. She is so firm; I never saw so feeble a person

who could be so firm; and what in the world shall we do with her if she

keeps on insisting, in her nervous state?”

“My idea would be,” I suggested, “to engage her provisionally, if we

must, not because we want her, but because her heart is weak. I shall

tell her that we do not feel like leaving her behind, and yet we

ourselves cannot be detained in Dublin indefinitely; that we will try

the arrangement for a month, and that she can consider herself free to

leave us at any time on a week's notice.”

“I approve of that,” agreed Francesca, “because it makes it easier to

dismiss her in case she turns out to be a Massachusetts Borgia. You

remember, however, that we bore with the vapours and vagaries, the sighs

and moans of Jane Grieve in Pettybaw, all those weeks, and not one of us

had the courage to throw off her yoke. Never shall I forget her at your

wedding, Penelope; the teardrop glistened in her eye as usual; I think

it is glued there! Ronald was sympathetic, because he fancied she was

weeping for the loss of you, but on inquiry it transpired that she was

thinking of a marriage in that 'won'erfu' fine family in Glasgy,'

with whose charms she had made us all too familiar. She asked to be

remembered when I began my own housekeeping, and I told her truthfully

that she was not a person who could be forgotten; I repressed my feeling

that she is too tearful for a Highland village where it rains most

of the year, also my conviction that Ronald's parish would chasten me

sufficiently without her aid.”

I did as Salemina wished, and had a conference with Miss Dusenberry. I

hope I was quite clear in my stipulations as to the perfect freedom

of the four contracting parties. I know I intended to be, and I was

embarrassed to see Francesca and Salemina exchange glances next day when

Benella said she would show us what a good sailor she could be, on the

return voyage to America, adding that she thought a person would be much

less liable to sea-sickness when travelling in the first cabin.

Chapter V. The Wearing of the Green.

'Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm,

No son of Erin will offer me harm--

For tho' they love woman and golden store,

Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more!'

Thomas Moore.

“This is an anniversary,” said Salemina, coming into the sitting-room at

breakfast-time with a book under her arm. “Having given up all hope of

any one's waking in this hotel, which, before nine in the morning, is

precisely like the Sleeping Beauty's castle, I dressed and determined to

look up Brian Boru.”

“From all that I can recall of him he was not a person to meet before

breakfast,” yawned Francesca; “still I shall be glad of a little

fresh light, for my mind is in a most chaotic state, induced by the

intellectual preparation that you have made me undergo during the past

month. I dreamed last night that I was conducting a mothers' meeting

in Ronald's new parish, and the subject for discussion was the Small

Livings Scheme, the object of which is to augment the stipends of the

ministers of the Church of Scotland to a minimum of 200 pounds per

annum. I tried to keep the members to the point, but was distracted

by the sudden appearance, in all corners of the church, of people who

hadn't been 'asked to the party.' There was Brian Boru, Tony Lumpkin,

Finn McCool, Felicia Hemans, Ossian, Mrs. Delany, Sitric of the Silken

Beard, St. Columba, Mickey Free, Strongbow, Maria Edgeworth, and the

Venerable Bede. Imagine leading a mothers' meeting with those people

in the pews,--it was impossible! St. Columbkille and the Venerable Bede

seemed to know about parochial charges and livings and stipends and

glebes, and Maria Edgeworth was rather helpful; but Brian and Sitric

glared at each other and brandished their hymn-books threateningly,

while Ossian refused to sit in the same pew with Mickey Free, who

behaved in an odious manner, and interrupted each of the speakers in

turn. Incidentally a group of persons huddled together in a far corner

rose out of the dim light, and flapping huge wings, flew over my head

and out of the window above the altar. This I took to be the Flight of

the Earls, and the terror of it awoke me. Whatever my parish duties

may be in the future, at least they cannot be any more dreadful and

disorderly than the dream.”

“I don't know which is more to blame, the seed that I sowed, or the

soil on which it fell,” said Salemina, laughing heartily at Francesca's

whimsical nightmares; “but as I said, this is an anniversary. The famous

battle of Clontarf was fought here in Dublin on this very day eight

hundred years ago, and Brian Boru routed the Danes in what was the last

struggle between Christianity and heathenism. The greatest slaughter

took place on the streets along which we drove yesterday from Ballybough

Bridge to the Four Courts. Brian Boru was king of Munster, you remember”

(Salemina always says this for courtesy's sake), “or at least you have

read of that time in Ireland's history when a fair lady dressed in fine

silk and gold and jewels could walk unmolested the length of the land,

because of the love the people bore King Brian and the respect they

cherished for his wise laws. Well, Mailmora, the king of Leinster, had

quarrelled with him, and joined forces with the Danish leaders against

him. Broder and Amlaff, two Vikings from the Isle of Man, brought with

them a 'fleet of two thousand Denmarkians and a thousand men covered

with mail from head to foot,' to meet the Irish, who always fought in

tunics. Joyce says that Broder wore a coat of mail that no steel would

bite, that he was both tall and strong, and that his black locks were

so long that he tucked them under his belt,--there's a portrait for your

gallery, Penelope. Brian's army was encamped on the Green of Aha-Clee,

which is now Phoenix Park, and when he set fire to the Danish districts,

the fierce Norsemen within the city could see a blazing, smoking pathway

that reached from Dublin to Howth. The quarrel must have been all the

more virulent in that Mailmora was Brian's brother-in-law, and Brian's

daughter was the wife of Sitric of the Silken Beard, Danish king of

Dublin.”

“I refuse to remember their relationships or alliances,” said Francesca.

“They were always intermarrying with their foes in order to gain

strength, but it generally seems to have made things worse rather

than better; still I don't mind hearing what became of Brian after his

victory; let us quite finish with him before the eggs come up. I suppose

it will be eggs?”

“Broder the Viking rushed upon him in his tent where he was praying,

cleft his head from his body, and he is buried in Armagh Cathedral,”

said Salemina, closing the book. “Penelope, do ring again for breakfast,

and just to keep us from realising our hunger read 'Remember the Glories

of Brian the Brave.'”

We had brought letters of introduction to a dean, a bishop, and a Rt.

Hon. Lord Justice, so there were a few delightful invitations when the

morning post came up; not so many as there might have been, perhaps,

had not the Irish capital been in a state of complete dementia over the

presence of the greatest Queen in the world. [*] Privately, I think that

those nations in the habit of having kings and queens at all should have

four, like those in a pack of cards; then they could manage to give all

their colonies and dependencies a frequent sight of royalty, and prevent

much excitement and heart-burning.

* Penelope's experiences in Scotland, given in a former

volume, ended, the meticulous proof-reader will remember,

with her marriage in the year of the Queen's Jubilee. It is

apparent in the opening chapters of this story that Penelope

came to Ireland the following spring, which, though the

matter is hardly important, was not that of the Queen's

memorable visit. The Irish experiences are probably the

fruit of several expeditions, and Penelope has chosen to

include this vivid impression of Her Majesty's welcome to

Ireland, even though it might convict her of an anachronism.

Perhaps as this is not an historical novel, but a 'chronicle

of small beer,' the trifling inaccuracy may be pardoned.--K.

D. W.

It was worth something to be one of the lunatic populace when the little

lady in black, with her parasol bordered in silver shamrocks, drove

along the gaily decorated streets, for the Irish, it seems to me, desire

nothing better than to be loyal, if any persons to whom they can be

loyal are presented to them.

“Irish disaffection is, after all, but skin-deep,” said our friend the

dean; “it is a cutaneous malady, produced by external irritants. Below

the surface there is a deep spring of personal loyalty, which needs only

a touch like that of the prophet's wand to enable it to gush forth in

healing floods. Her Majesty might drive through these crowded streets

in her donkey chaise unguarded, as secure as the lady in that poem of

Moore's which portrayed the safety of women in Brian Boru's time. The

old song has taken on a new meaning. It begins, you know,--

'Lady, dost thou not fear to stray

So lone and lonely through this dark way?'

and the Queen might answer as did the heroine,

'Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm,

No son of Erin will offer me harm.'”

It was small use for the parliamentary misrepresentatives to advise

treating Victoria of the Good Deeds with the courtesy due to a foreign

sovereign visiting the country. Under the miles of flags she drove, red,

white, and blue, tossing themselves in the sweet spring air, and up from

the warm hearts of the surging masses of people, men and women alike,

Crimean soldiers and old crones in rags, gentry and peasants, went a

greeting I never before heard given to any sovereign, for it was a sigh

of infinite content that trembled on the lips and then broke into a deep

sob, as a knot of Trinity College students in a spontaneous burst of

song flung out the last verse of 'The New Wearing of the Green.' [**]

'And so upon St. Patrick's Day, Victoria, she has said

Each Irish regiment shall wear the Green beside the Red;

And she's coming to ould Ireland, who away so long has been,

And dear knows but into Dublin she'll ride Wearing of the Green.'

** Alfred Perceval Graves.

The first cheers were faint and broken, and the emotion that quivered

on every face and the tears that gleamed in a thousand eyes made it the

most touching spectacle in the world. 'Foreign Sovereign, indeed!'

She was the Queen of Ireland, and the nation of courtiers and hero

worshippers was at her feet. There was the history of five hundred years

in that greeting, and to me it spoke volumes.

Plenty of people there were in the crowd, too, who were heartily 'agin

the Government'; but Daniel O'Connell is not the only Irishman who

could combine a detestation of the Imperial Parliament with a passionate

loyalty to the sovereign.

There was a woman near us who 'remimbered the last time Her Noble

Highness come, thirty-nine years back,--glory be to God, thim was the

times!'--and who kept ejaculating, “She's the best woman in the wurrld,

bar none, and the most varchous faymale!” As her husband made no reply,

she was obliged in her excitement to thump him with her umbrella and

repeat, “The most varchous faymale, do you hear?” At which he retorted,

“Have conduct, woman; sure I've nothin' agin it.”

“Look at the size of her now,” she went on, “sittin' in that grand

carriage, no bigger than me own Kitty, and always in the black, the

darlin'. Look at her, a widdy woman, raring that large and heavy family

of children; and how well she's married off her daughters (more luck to

her!), though to be sure they must have been well fortuned! They do

be sayin' she's come over because she's plazed with seein' estated

gintlemen lave iverything and go out and be shot by thim bloody Boers,

bad scran to thim! Sure if I had the sons, sorra a wan but I'd lave

go! Who's the iligant sojers in the silver stays, Thady? Is it the Life

Guards you're callin' thim?”

There were two soldiers' wives standing on the pavement near us, and

one of them showed a half-sovereign to the other, saying, “'Tis the last

day's airnin' iver I seen by him, Mrs. Muldoon, ma'am! Ah, there's thim

says for this war, an' there's thim says agin this war, but Heaven lave

Himself where he is, I says, for of all the ragin' Turcomaniacs iver a

misfortunate woman was curst with, Pat Brady, my full private, he bates

'em all!”

Here the band played 'Come back to Erin,' and the scene was

indescribable. Nothing could have induced me to witness it had I

realised what it was to be, for I wept at Holyrood when I heard the

plaintive strains of 'Bonnie Charlie's noo Awa' floating up to the

Gallery of Kings from the palace courtyard, and I did not wish Francesca

to see me shedding national, political, and historical tears so soon

again. Francesca herself is so ardent a republican that she weeps

only for presidents and cabinet officers. For my part, although I am

thoroughly loyal, I cannot become sufficiently attached to a president

in four years to shed tears when I see him driving at the head of a

procession.

Chapter VI. Dublin, then and now.

'I found in Innisfail the fair,

In Ireland, while in exile there,

Women of worth, both grave and gay men,

Many clerics, and many laymen.'

James Clarence Mangan.

Mrs. Delany, writing from Dublin in 1731, says: 'As for the generality

of people that I meet with here, they are much the same as in England--a

mixture of good and bad. All that I have met with behave themselves very

decently according to their rank; now and then an oddity breaks out, but

never so extraordinary but that I can match it in England. There is a

heartiness among them that is more like Cornwall than any I have known,

and great sociableness.' This picturesque figure in the life of her day

gives charming pictures in her memoirs of the Irish society of the time,

descriptions which are confirmed by contemporary writers. She was the

wife of Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, the companion of duchesses and queens,

and the friend of Swift. Hannah More, in a poem called 'Sensibility,'

published in 1778, gives this quaint and stilted picture of her:--

'Delany shines, in worth serenely bright,

Wisdom's strong ray, and virtue's milder light.

And she who blessed the friend and graced the page of Swift,

still lends her lustre to our age.

Long, long protract thy light, O star benign,

Whose setting beams with added brightness shine!'

The Irish ladies of Delany's day, who scarcely ever appeared on foot in

the streets, were famous for their grace in dancing, it seems, as the

men were for their skill in swimming. The hospitality of the upper

classes was profuse, and by no means lacking in brilliancy or in grace.

The humorous and satirical poetry found in the fugitive literature of

the period shows conclusively that there were plenty of bright

spirits and keen wits at the banquets, routs, and balls. The curse of

absenteeism was little felt in Dublin, where the Parliament secured the

presence of most of the aristocracy and of much of the talent of the

country, and during the residence of the viceroy there was the influence

of the court to contribute to the sparkling character of Dublin society.

How they managed to sparkle when discussing some of the heavy dinner

menus of the time I cannot think. Here is one of the Dean of Down's

bills of fare:--

Turkeys endove

Boyled leg of mutton

Greens, etc.

Soup

Plum Pudding

Roast loin of veal

Venison pasty

Partridge

Sweetbreads

Collared Pig

Creamed apple tart

Crabs

Fricassee of eggs

Pigeons

No dessert to be had.

Although there is no mention of beverages we may be sure that this

array of viands was not eaten dry, but was washed down with a plentiful

variety of wines and liquors.

The hosts, either in Dublin or London, who numbered among their dinner

guests such Irishmen as Sheridan or Lysaght, Mangan or Lever, Curran

or Lover, Father Prout or Dean Swift, had as great a feast of wit and

repartee as one will be apt soon to hear again; although it must have

been Lever or Lover who furnished the cream of Irish humour, and Father

Prout and Swift the curds.

If you are fortunate enough to be bidden to the right houses in Ireland

to-day, you will have as much good talk as you are likely to listen to

anywhere else in this degenerate age, which has mostly forgotten how to

converse in learning to chat; and any one who goes to the Spring Show

at Ball's Bridge, or to the Punchestown or Leopardstown races, or to the

Dublin horse show, will have to confess that the Irishwomen can dispute

the palm with any nation.

'Light on their feet now they passed me and sped,

Give you me word, give you me word,

Every girl wid a turn o' the head

Just like a bird, just like a bird;

And the lashes so thick round their beautiful eyes

Shinin' to tell you it's fair time o' day wid them,

Back in me heart wid a kind of surprise,

I think how the Irish girls has the way wid them!'

Their charm is made up of beautiful eyes and lashes, lustre of hair,

poise of head, shapeliness of form, vivacity and coquetry; and there

is a matchless grace in the way they wear the 'whatever,' be it the

chiffons of the fashionable dame, or the shawl of the country colleen,

who can draw the two corners of that faded article of apparel shyly over

her lips and look out from under it with a pair of luminous grey eyes in

a manner that is fairly 'disthractin'.'

Yesterday was a red-letter day, for I dined in the evening at Dublin

Castle, and Francesca was bidden to the concert in the Throne Room

afterwards. It was a brilliant scene when the assembled guests awaited

their host and hostess, the shaded lights bringing out the satins and

velvets, pearls and diamonds, uniforms, orders, and medals. Suddenly

the hum of voices ceased as one of the aides-de-camp who preceded the

vice-regal party announced 'their Excellencies.' We made a sort of

passage as these dignitaries advanced to shake hands with a few of those

they knew best. The Lord Lieutenant then gave his arm to the lady of

highest rank (alas, it was not I!); her Excellency chose her proper

squire, and we passed through the beautifully decorated rooms to St.

Patrick's Hall in a nicely graded procession, magnificence at the head,

humility at the tail. A string band was discoursing sweet music the

while, and I fitted to its measures certain well-known lines descriptive

of the entrance of the beasts into the ark.

'The animals went in two by two,

The elephant and the kangaroo.'

As my escort was a certain brilliant lord justice, and as the wittiest

dean in Leinster was my other neighbour, I almost forgot to eat in my

pleasure and excitement. I told the dean that we had chosen Scottish

ancestors before going to our first great dinner in Edinburgh, feeling

that we should be more in sympathy with the festivities and more

acceptable to our hostess, but that I had forgotten to provide myself

for this occasion, my first function in Dublin; whereupon the good dean

promptly remembered that there was a Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the

King of Connaught. I could not quite give up Tam o' the Cowgate (Thomas

Hamilton) or Jenny Geddes of fauld-stule fame, also a Hamilton, but I

added the King of Connaught to the list of my chosen forebears with much

delight, in spite of the polite protests of the Rev. Father O'Hogan, who

sat opposite, and who remarked that

'Man for his glory

To ancestry flies,

But woman's bright story

Is told in her eyes.

While the monarch but traces

Through mortal his line,

Beauty born of the Graces

Ranks next to divine.'

I asked the Reverend Father if he were descended from Galloping O'Hogan,

who helped Patrick Sarsfield to spike the guns of the Williamites at

Limerick.

“By me sowl, ma'am, it's not discinded at all I am; I am one o' the

common sort, just,” he answered, broadening his brogue to make me smile.

A delightful man he was, exactly such an one as might have sprung full

grown from a Lever novel; one who could talk equally well with his flock

about pigs or penances, purgatory or potatoes, and quote Tom Moore and

Lover when occasion demanded.

Story after story fell from his genial lips, and at last he said

apologetically, “One more, and I have done,” when a pretty woman,

sitting near him, interpolated slyly, “We might say to you, your

reverence, what the old woman said to the eloquent priest who finished

his sermon with 'One word, and I have done'”.

“An' what is that, ma'am?” asked Father O'Hogan.

“'Och! me darlin' pracher, may ye niver be done!'”

We all agreed that we should like to reconstruct the scene for a moment

and look at a drawing-room of two hundred years ago, when the Lady

Lieutenant after the minuets at eleven o'clock went to her basset table,

while her pages attended behind her chair, and when on ball nights

the ladies scrambled for sweetmeats on the dancing-floor. As to their

probable toilets, one could not give purer pleasure than by quoting Mrs.

Delany's description of one of them:--

'The Duchess's dress was of white satin embroidered, the bottom of the

petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds, and every

breadth had an old stump of a tree, that ran up almost to the top of

the petticoat, broken and ragged, and worked with brown chenille, round

which twined nasturtiums, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, and all sorts

of running flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat.... The

robings and facings were little green banks covered with all sorts of

weeds, and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twining branches

of the same sort as those on the petticoat. Many of the leaves were

finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the

gilding of the sun. I never saw a piece of work so prettily fancied.'

She adds a few other details for the instruction of her sister Anne:--

'Heads are variously adorned; pompons with some accompaniment of

feathers, ribbons, or flowers; lappets in all sorts of curli-murlis;

long hoods are worn close under the chin; the ear-rings go round the

neck(!), and tie with bows and ends behind. Night-gowns are worn without

hoops.'

Part Second--Munster.

Chapter VII. A tour and a detour.

'“An' there,” sez I to meself, “we're goin' wherever we go,

But where we'll be whin we git there it's never a know

I'll know.”'

Jane Barlow.

We had planned to go direct from Dublin to Valencia Island, where there

is not, I am told, 'one dhry step 'twixt your fut an' the States';

but we thought it too tiring a journey for Benella, and arranged for a

little visit to Cork first. We nearly missed the train owing to the

late arrival of Salemina at the Kingsbridge station. She had been buying

malted milk, Mellin's Food, an alcohol lamp, a tin cup, and getting all

the doctor's prescriptions renewed.

We intended, too, to go second or third class now an then, in order to

study the humours of the natives, but of course we went 'first' on this

occasion on account of Benella. I told her that we could not follow

British usage and call her by her surname. Dusenberry was too long and

too--well, too extraordinary for daily use abroad.

“P'r'aps it is,” she assented meekly; “and still, Mis' Beresford, when

a man's name is Dusenberry, you can't hardly blame him for wanting his

child to be called by it, can you?”

This was incontrovertible, and I asked her middle name. It was Frances,

and that was too like Francesca.

“You don't like the sound o' Benella?” she inquired. “I've always set

great store by my name, it is so unlikely. My father's name was Benjamin

and my mother's Ella, and mine is made from both of 'em; but you can

call me any kind of a name you please, after what you've done for me,”

and she closed her eyes patiently.

'Call me Daphne, call me Chloris,

Call me Lalage or Doris,

Only, only call me thine,'

which is exactly what we are not ready to do, I thought, in a poetic

parenthesis.

Benella looks frail and yet hardy. She has an unusual and perhaps

unnecessary amount of imagination for her station, some native

common-sense, but limited experience; she is somewhat vague and

inconsistent in her theories of life, but I am sure there is vitality,

and energy too, in her composition, although it has been temporarily

drowned in the Atlantic Ocean. If she were a clock, I should think that

some experimenter had taken out her original works, and substituted

others to see how they would run. The clock has a New England case

and strikes with a New England tone, but the works do not match it

altogether. Of course I know that one does not ordinarily engage a

lady's-maid because of these piquant peculiarities; but in our case the

circumstances were extraordinary. I have explained them fully to Himself

in my letters, and Francesca too has written pages of illuminating

detail to Ronald Macdonald.

The similarity in the minds of men must sometimes come across them with

a shock, unless indeed it appeals to their sense of humour. Himself

in America, and the Rev. Mr. Macdonald in the north of Scotland, both

answered, in course of time, that a lady's-maid should be engaged

because is a lady's-maid and for no other reason.

Was ever anything duller than this, more conventional, more commonplace

or didactic, less imaginative? Himself added, “You are a romantic idiot,

and I love you more than tongue can tell.” Francesca did not say what

Ronald added; probably a part of this same sentence (owing to the

aforesaid similarity of men's minds), reserving the rest for the frank

intimacy of the connubial state.

Everything looked beautiful in the uncertain glory of the April day.

The thistle-down clouds opened now and then to shake out a delicate,

brilliant little shower that ceased in a trice, and the sun smiled

through the light veil of rain, turning every falling drop to a jewel.

It was as if the fairies were busy at aerial watering-pots, without

any more serious purpose than to amuse themselves and make the earth

beautiful; and we realised that Irish rain is as warm as an Irish

welcome, and soft as an Irish smile.

Everything was bursting into new life, everything but the primroses, and

their glory was departing. The yellow carpet seemed as bright as ever

on the sunny hedgerow banks and on the fringe of the woods, but when we

plucked some at a wayside station we saw that they were just past their

golden prime. There was a grey-green hint of verdure in the sallows

that stood against a dark background of firs, and the branches of

the fruit-trees were tipped with pink, rosy-hued promises of May just

threatening to break through their silvery April sheaths. Raindrops

were still glistening on the fronds of the tender young ferns and on the

great clumps of pale, delicately scented bog violets that we found in

a marshy spot and brought in to Salemina, who was not in her usual

spirits; who indeed seemed distinctly anxious.

She was enchanted with the changeful charm of the landscape, and found

Mrs. Delany's Memoirs a book after her own heart, but ever and anon

her eyes rested on Benella's pale face. Nothing could have been

more doggedly conscientious and assiduous than our attentions to the

Derelict. She had beef juice at Kildare, malted milk at Ballybrophy,

tea at Dundrum; nevertheless, as we approached Limerick Junction we were

obliged to hold a consultation. Salemina wished to alight from the

train at the next station, take a three hours' rest, then jog on to any

comfortable place for the night, and to Cork in the morning.

“I shall feel much more comfortable,” she said, “if you go on and amuse

yourselves as you like, leaving Benella to me for a day, or even for two

or three days. I can't help feeling that the chief fault, or at least

the chief responsibility, is mine. If I hadn't been born in Salem, or

hadn't had the word painted on my trunk in such red letters she wouldn't

have fainted on it, and I needn't have saved her life. It is too late

to turn back now; it is saved, or partly saved, and I must persevere in

saving it, at least until I find that it's not worth saving.”

“Poor darling!” said Francesca sympathisingly. “I'll look in Murray

and find a nice interesting place. You can put Benella to bed in the

Southern Hotel at Limerick Junction, and perhaps you can then drive

within sight of the Round Tower of Cashel. Then you can take up the

afternoon train and go to--let me see--how would you like Buttevant?

(Boutez en avant, you know, the 'Push forward' motto of the Barrymores.)

It's delightful, Penelope,” she continued; “we'd better get off, too. It

is a garrison town, and there is a military hotel. Then in the vicinity

is Kilcolman, where Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene: so there is the

beginning of your literary pilgrimage the very first day, without any

plotting or planning. The little river Aubeg, which flows by Kilcolman

Castle, Spenser called the Mulla, and referred to it as 'Mulla mine,

whose waves I whilom taught to weep.' That, by the way, is no more than

our Jane Grieve could have done for the rivers of Scotland. What do you

say? and won't you be a 'prood woman the day' when you sign the hotel

register 'Miss Peabody and maid, Salem, Mass., U.S.A'”

I thought most favourably of Buttevant, but on prudently inquiring the

guard's opinion, he said it was not a comfortable place for an invalid

lady, and that Mallow was much more the thing. At Limerick Junction,

then, we all alighted, and in the ten minutes' wait saw Benella escorted

up the hotel stairway by a sympathetic head waiter.

Detached from Salemina's fostering care and prudent espionage,

separated, above all, from the depressing Miss Dusenberry, we planned

every conceivable folly in the way of guidebook expeditions. The

exhilarating sense of being married, and therefore properly equipped to

undertake any sort of excursion with perfect propriety, gave added zest

to the affair in my eyes. Sleeping at Cork in an Imperial Hotel was far

too usual a proceeding,--we scorned it. As the very apex of boldness and

reckless defiance of common-sense, we let our heavy luggage go on to the

capital of Munster, and, taking our handbags, entered a railway carriage

standing on a side track, and were speedily on our way,--we knew not

whither, and cared less. We discovered all too soon that we were going

to Waterford, the Star of the Suir,--

'The gentle Shure, that making way

By sweet Clonmell, adorns rich Waterford';

and we were charmed at first sight with its quaint bridge spanning the

silvery river. It was only five o'clock, and we walked about the fine

old ninth-century town, called by the Cavaliers the Urbs Intacta,

because it was the one place in Ireland which successfully resisted the

all-conquering Cromwell. Francesca sent a telegram at once to

MISS PEABODY AND MAID, Great Southern Hotel, Limerick Junction.

Came to Waterford instead Cork. Strongbow landed here 1771,

defeating Danes and Irish. Youghal to-morrow, pronounced Yawl. Address,

Green Park, Miss Murphy's. How's Derelict?

FRANELOPE.

It was absurd, of course, but an absurdity that can be achieved at the

cost of eighteen-pence is well worth the money.

Nobody but a Baedeker or a Murray could write an account of our doings

the next two days. Feeling that we might at any hour be recalled to

Benella's bedside, we took a childlike pleasure in crowding as much as

possible into the time. This zeal was responsible for our leaving the

Urbs Intacta, and pushing on to pass the night in something smaller and

more idyllic.

I dissuaded Francesca from seeking a lodging in Ballybricken by

informing her that it was the heart of the bacon industry, and the home

of the best-known body of pig-buyers in Ireland; but her mind was fixed

upon Kills and Ballies. On asking our jarvey the meaning of Bally as

a prefix, he answered reflectively: “I don't think there's annything

onderhanded in the manin', melady; I think it means BALLY jist.”

The name of the place where we did go shall never be divulged, lest a

curious public follow in our footsteps; and if perchance it have not

our youth, vigour, and appetite for adventure, it might die there in the

principal hotel, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. The house is said to be

three hundred and seventy-five years old, but we are convinced that this

is a wicked understatement of its antiquity. It must have been built

since the Deluge, else it would at least have had one general spring

cleaning in the course of its existence. Cromwell had been there too,

and in the confusion of his departure they must have forgotten to sweep

under the beds. We entered our rooms at ten in the evening, having

dismissed our car, knowing well that there was no other place to stop

the night. We gave the jarvey twice his fare to avoid altercation,

'but divil a penny less would he take,' although it was he who had

recommended the place as a cosy hotel. “It looks like a small little

house, melady, but 'tis large inside, and it has a power o' beds in it.”

We each generously insisted on taking the dirtiest bedroom (they had

both been last occupied by the Cromwellian soldiers, we agreed), but

relinquished the idea, because the more we compared them the more

impossible it was to decide which was the dirtiest. There were no locks

on the doors. “And sure what matther for that, Miss? Nobody has a right

(i.e. business) to be comin' in here but meself,” said the aged woman

who showed us to our rooms.

Chapter VIII. Romance and reality.

'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him.'

Charles Wolfe.

At midnight I heard a faint tap at my door, and Francesca walked in, her

eyes wide and bright, her cheeks flushed, her long, dark braid of hair

hanging over her black travelling cloak. I laughed as I saw her, she

looked so like Sir Patrick Spens in the ballad play at Pettybaw,--a

memorable occasion when Ronald Macdonald caught her acting that tragic

role in his ministerial gown, the very day that Himself came from Paris

to marry me in Pettybaw, dear little Pettybaw!

“I came in to find out if your bed is as bad as mine, but I see you have

not slept in it,” she whispered.

“I was just coming in to see if yours could be any worse,” I replied.

“Do you mean to say that you have tried it, courageous girl? I blew out

my candle, and then, after an interval in which to forget, sat down on

the outside as a preliminary; but the moon rose just then, and I could

get no further.”

I had not unpacked my bag. I had simply slipped on my macintosh,

selected a wooden chair, and, putting a Cromwellian towel over it,

seated myself shudderingly on it and put my feet on the rounds, quoting

Moore meantime--

'And the best of all ways

To lengthen our days

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!”

Francesca followed my example, and we passed the night in reading

Celtic romances to each other. We could see the faint outline of

sweet Slievenamann from our windows--the mountain of the fair women of

Feimheann, celebrated as the hunting-ground of the Finnian Chiefs.

'One day Finn and Oscar

Followed the chase in Sliabh-na-mban-Feimheann,

With three thousand Finnian chiefs

Ere the sun looked out from his circle.'

In the Finnian legend, the great Finn McCool, when much puzzled in the

choice of a wife, seated himself on its summit. At last he decided to

make himself a prize in a competition of all the fair women in Ireland.

They should start at the foot of the mountain, and the one who first

reached the summit should be the great Finn's bride. It was Grainne Oge,

the Gallic Helen, and daughter of Cormac, the king of Ireland, who won

the chieftain, 'being fleetest of foot and longest of wind.'

We almost forgot our discomforts in this enthralling story, and slept

on each other's nice clean shoulders a little, just before the dawn. And

such a dawn! Such infinite softness of air, such dew-drenched verdure!

It is a backward spring, they say, but to me the woods are even lovelier

than in their summer wealth of foliage, when one can hardly distinguish

the beauty of the single tree from that of its neighbours, since the

colours are blended in one universal green. Now we see the feathery

tassels of the beech bursting out of their brown husks, the russet hues

of the young oak leaves, and the countless emerald gleams that 'break

from the ruby-budded lime.' The greenest trees are the larch, the

horse-chestnut, and the sycamore, three naturalised citizens who

apparently still keep to their native fashions, and put out their

foliage as they used to do in their own homes. The young alders and the

hawthorn hedges are greening, but it will be a fortnight before we

can realise the beauty of that snow-white bloom, with its bitter-sweet

fragrance. The cuckoo-flower came this year before instead of after the

bird, they tell us, showing that even Nature, in these days of anarchy

and misrule, is capable of taking liberties with her own laws. There

is a fragrance of freshly turned earth in the air, and the rooks are

streaming out from the elms by the little church, and resting for a bit

in a group of plume-like yews. The last few days of warmth and sunshine

have inspired the birds, and as Francesca and I sit at our windows

breathing in the sweetness and freshness of the morning, there is a

concert of thrushes and blackbirds in the shrubberies. The little

birds furnish the chorus or the undertone of song, the hedge-sparrows,

redbreasts, and chaffinches, but the meistersingers 'call the tune,'

and lead the feathered orchestra with clear and certain notes. It is a

golden time for the minstrels, for nest-building is finished, and the

feeding of the younglings a good time yet in the future. We can see one

little brown lady hovering warm eggs under her breast, her bright eyes

peeping through a screen of leaves as she glances up at her singing

lord, pouring out his thanks for the morning sun. There is only a hint

of breeze, it might almost be the whisper of uncurling fern fronds, but

soft as it is, it stirs the branches here and there, and I know that it

is rocking hundreds of tiny cradles in the forest.

When I was always painting in those other days before I met Himself, one

might think my eyes would have been even keener to see beauty than

now, when my brushes are more seldom used; but it is not so. There is

something, deep hidden in my consciousness, that makes all loveliness

lovelier, that helps me to interpret it in a different and in a larger

sense. I have a feeling that I have been lifted out of the individual

and given my true place in the general scheme of the universe, and, in

some subtle way that I can hardly explain, I am more nearly related to

all things good, beautiful, and true than I was when I was wholly an

artist, and therefore less a woman. The bursting of the leaf-buds brings

me a tender thought of the one dear heart that gives me all its spring;

and whenever I see the smile of a child, a generous look, the flash of

sympathy in an eye, it makes me warm with swift remembrance of the one I

love the best of all, just 'as a lamplight will set a linnet singing for

the sun.'

Love is doing the same thing for Francesca; for the smaller feelings

merge themselves in the larger ones, as little streams lose themselves

in oceans. Whenever we talk quietly together of that strange, new,

difficult life that she is going so bravely and so joyously to meet, I

know by her expression that Ronald's noble face, a little shy, a

little proud, but altogether adoring, serves her for courage and for

inspiration, and she feels that his hand is holding hers across the

distance, in a clasp that promises strength.

At five o'clock we longed to ring for hot water, but did not dare. Even

at six there was no sound of life in the cosy inn which we have named

The Cromwell Arms ['Mrs. Duddy, Manageress; Comfort, Cleanliness,

Courtesy; Night Porter; Cycling Shed'). From seven to half-past we read

pages and pages of delicious history and legend, and decided to go from

Cappoquin to Youghal by steamer, if we could possibly reach the place of

departure in time. At half-past seven we pulled the bell energetically.

Nothing happened, and we pulled again and again, discovering at last

that the connection between the bell-rope and the bell-wire had long

since disappeared, though it had been more than once established with

bits of twine, fishing-line, and shoe laces. Francesca then went across

the hall to examine her methods of communication, and presently I heard

a welcome tinkle, and another, and another, followed in due season by

a cheerful voice, saying, “Don't desthroy it intirely, ma'am; I'll be

coming direckly.” We ordered jugs of hot water, and were told that it

would be some time before it could be had, as ladies were not in the

habit of calling for it before nine in the morning, and as the damper of

the kitchen-range was out of order. Did we wish it in a little canteen

with whisky and a bit of lemon-peel, or were we afther wantin' it in

a jug? We replied promptly that it was not the hour for toddy, but the

hour for baths, with us, and the decrepit and very sleepy night porter

departed to wake the cook and build the fire; advising me first, in a

friendly way, to take the hearth brush that was 'kapin' the windy up,

and rap on the wall if I needed annything more.' At eight o'clock we

heard the porter's shuffling step in the hall, followed by a howl and a

polite objurgation. A strange dog had passed the night under Francesca's

bed, and the porter was giving him what he called 'a good hand and fut

downstairs.' He had put down the hot water for this operation, and on

taking up the burden again we heard him exclaim: “Arrah! look at that

now! May the divil fly away with the excommunicated ould jug!” It

was past saving, the jug, and leaked so freely that one had to be

exceedingly nimble to put to use any of the smoky water in it. “Thim

fools o' turf do nothing but smoke on me,” apologised the venerable

servitor, who then asked, “would we be pleased to order breakquist.” We

were wise in our generation, and asked for nothing but bacon, eggs, and

tea; and after a smoky bath and a change of raiment we seated at our

repast in the coffee-room, feeling wonderfully fresh and cheerful. By

looking directly at each other most of the time, and making experimental

journeys from plate to mouth, thus barring out any intimate knowledge of

the tablecloth and the waiter's linen, we managed to make a breakfast.

Francesca is enough to give any one a good appetite. Ronald Macdonald

will be a lucky fellow, I think, to begin his day by sitting opposite

her, for her eyes shine like those of a child, and one's gaze lingers

fondly on the cool freshness of her cheek. Breakfast over and the bill

settled, we speedily shook off as much of the dust of Mrs. Duddy's hotel

as could be shaken off, and departed on the most decrepit sidecar that

ever rolled on two wheels, being wished a safe journey by a slatternly

maid who stood in the doorway, by the wide Mrs. Duddy herself, who

realised in her capacious person the picturesque Irish phrase, 'the

full-of-the-door of a woman,' and by our friend the head waiter, who

leaned against Mrs. Duddy's ancestral pillars in such a way that the

morning sun shone full upon his costume and revealed its weaknesses to

our reluctant gaze.

The driver said it was eleven miles to Cappoquin, the guide-book

fourteen, but this difference of opinion, we find, is only the

difference between Irish and English miles, for which our driver had an

unspeakable contempt, as of a vastly inferior quality. He had, on the

other hand, a great respect for Mrs. Duddy and her comfortable, cleanly,

and courteous establishment (as per advertisement), and the warmest

admiration for the village in which she had appropriately located

herself, a village which he alluded to as 'wan of the natest towns in

the ring of Ireland, for if ye made a slip in the street of it, be the

help of God ye were always sure to fall into a public-house!'

“We had better not tell the full particulars of this journey to

Salemina,” said Francesca prudently, as we rumbled along; “though,

oddly enough, if you remember, whenever any one speaks disparagingly of

Ireland, she always takes up cudgels in its behalf.”

“Francesca, now that you are within three or four months of being

married, can you manage to keep a secret?”

“Yes,” she whispered eagerly, squeezing my hand and inclining her

shoulder cosily to mine. “Yes, oh yes, and how it would raise my spirits

after a sleepless night!”

“When Salemina was eighteen she had a romance, and the hero of it was

the son of an Irish gentleman, an M.P., who was travelling in America,

or living there for a few years,--I can't remember which. He was nothing

more than a lad, less than twenty-one years old, but he was very much in

love with Salemina. How far her feelings were involved I never knew,

but she felt that she could not promise to marry him. Her mother was an

invalid, and her father a delightful, scholarly, autocratic, selfish old

gentleman, who ruled his household with a rod of iron. Salemina coddled

and nursed them both during all her young life; indeed, little as she

realised it, she never had any separate existence or individuality until

they both died, when she was thirty-one or two years old.”

“And what became of the young Irishman? Was he faithful to his first

love, or did he marry?”

“He married, many years afterward, and that was the time I first

heard the story. His marriage took place in Dublin, on the very day,

I believe, that Salemina's father was buried; for Fate has the most

relentless way of arranging these coincidences. I don't remember his

name, and I don't know where he lives or what has become of him. I

imagine the romance has been dead and buried in rose-leaves for years;

Salemina never has spoken of it to me, but it would account for her

sentimental championship of Ireland.”

Chapter IX. The light of other days.

'Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond memory brings the light

Of other days around me.'

Thomas Moore.

If you want to fall head over ears in love with Ireland at the very

first sight of her charms, take, as we did, the steamer from Cappoquin

to Youghal, and float down the vale of the Blackwater--

'Swift Awniduff, which of the Englishman

Is cal' de Blackwater.'

The shores of this Irish Rhine are so lovely that the sail on a

sunny day is one of unequalled charm. Behind us the mountains ranged

themselves in a mysterious melancholy background; ahead the river wended

its way southward in and out, in and out, through rocky cliffs and

well-wooded shores.

The first tributary stream that we met was the little Finisk, on the

higher banks of which is Affane House. The lands of Affane are said to

have been given by one of the FitzGeralds to Sir Walter Raleigh for a

breakfast, a very high price to pay for bacon and eggs, and it was here

that he planted the first cherry-tree in Ireland, bringing it from the

Canary Islands to the Isle of Weeping.

Looking back just below here, we saw the tower and cloisters of Mount

Melleray, the Trappist monastery. Very beautiful and very lonely looked

'the little town of God,' in the shadows of the gloomy hills. We wished

we had known the day before how near we were to it, for we could have

claimed a night's lodging at the ladies' guest-house, where all creeds,

classes, and nationalities are received with a cead-mile-failte, [*] and

where any offering for food or shelter is given only at the visitors

pleasure. The Celtic proverb, 'Melodious is the closed mouth,' might be

written over the cloisters; for it is a village of silence, and only the

monks who teach in the schools or who attend visitors are absolved from

the vow.

*A hundred thousand welcomes.

Next came Dromana Castle, where the extraordinary old Countess of

Desmond was born,--the wonderful old lady whose supposed one hundred

and forty years so astonished posterity. She must have married Thomas,

twelfth Earl of Desmond, after 1505, as his first wife is known to have

been alive in that year. Raleigh saw her in 1589, and she died in 1604:

so it would seem that she must have been at least one hundred and ten or

one hundred and twelve when she met her untimely death,--a death brought

about entirely by her own youthful impetuosity and her fondness for

athletic sports. Robert Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, makes the

following reference to her in his Table-Book, written when he was

ambassador at Paris, about 1640:--

'The old Countess of Desmond was a marryed woman in Edward IV. time in

England, and lived till towards the end of Queen Elizabeth, so she must

needes be neare one hundred and forty yeares old. She had a new sett of

teeth not long afore her death, and might have lived much longer had she

not mett with a kinde of violent death; for she would needes climbe

a nut-tree to gather nuts; so falling down she hurt her thigh, which

brought a fever, and that fever brought death. This my cousin Walter

Fitzwilliam told me.'

It is true that the aforesaid cousin Walter may have been a better

raconteur than historian; still, local tradition vigorously opposes

any lessening of the number of the countess's years, pinning its faith

rather on one Hayman, who says that she presented herself at the English

court at the age of one hundred and forty years, to petition for her

jointure, which she lost by the attainder of the last earl; and it also

prefers to have her fall from the historic cherry-tree that Sir Walter

planted, rather than from a casual nut-tree.

Down the lovely river we went, lazily lying back in the sun, almost the

only passengers on the little craft, as it was still far too early for

tourists; down past Villierstown, Cooneen Ferry, Strancally Castle, with

its 'Murdering Hole' made famous by the Lords of Desmond, through the

Broads of Clashmore; then past Temple Michael, an old castle of the

Geraldines, which Cromwell battered down for 'dire insolence,' until

we steamed slowly into the harbour of Youghal--and, to use our driver's

expression, there is no more 'onderhanded manin'' in Youghal than the

town of the Yew Wood, which is much prettier to the eye and sweeter to

the ear.

Here we found a letter from Salemina, and expended another eighteenpence

in telegraphing to her:--

PEABODY, Coolkilla House, near Mardyke Walk, Cork.

We are under Yew Tree at Myrtle Grove where Raleigh and Spenser

smoked, read manuscript Faerie Queene, and planted first potato.

Delighted Benella better. Join you to-morrow. Don't encourage

archaeologist.

PENESCA.

We had a charming hour at Myrtle Grove House, an unpretentious, gabled

dwelling, for a time the residence of the ill-fated soldier captain, Sir

Walter Raleigh. You remember, perhaps, that he was mayor of Youghal in

1588. After the suppression of the Geraldine rebellion, the vast estates

of the Earl of Desmond and those of one hundred and forty of the leading

gentlemen of Munster, his adherents, were confiscated, and proclamation

was made all through England inviting gentlemen to 'undertake' the

plantation of this rich territory. Estates were offered at two or three

pence an acre, and no rent was to be paid for the first five years. Many

of these great 'undertakers,' as they were called, were English noblemen

who never saw Ireland; but among them were Raleigh and Spenser, who

received forty-two thousand and twelve thousand acres respectively, and

in consideration of certain patronage 'undertook' to carry the business

of the Crown through Parliament.

Francesca was greatly pleased with this information, culled mostly from

Joyce's Child's History of Ireland. The volume had been bought in Dublin

by Salemina and presented to us as a piece of genial humour, but it

became our daily companion.

I made a rhyme for her, which she sent Miss Peabody, to show her that we

were growing in wisdom, notwithstanding our separation from her.

'You have thought of Sir Walter as soldier and knight,

Edmund Spenser, you've heard, was well able to write;

But Raleigh the planter, and Spenser verse-maker,

Each, oddly enough, was by trade 'Undertaker.''

It was in 1589 that the Shepherd of the Ocean, as Spenser calls him,

sailed to England to superintend the publishing of the Faerie Queene:

so from what I know of authors' habits, it is probable that Spenser did

read him the poem under the Yew Tree in Myrtle Grove garden. It seems

long ago, does it not, when the Faerie Queene was a manuscript, tobacco

just discovered, the potato a novelty, and the first Irish cherry-tree

just a wee thing newly transplanted from the Canary Islands? Were our

own cherry-trees already in America when Columbus discovered us, or did

the Pilgrim Fathers bring over 'slips' or 'grafts,' knowing that they

would be needed for George Washington later on, so that he might furnish

an untruthful world with a sublime sentiment? We re-read Salemina's

letter under the Yew Tree:--

Coolkilla House, Cork.

MY DEAREST GIRLS,--It seems years instead of days since we parted, and

I miss the two madcaps more than I can say. In your absence my life

is always so quiet, discreet, dignified,--and, yes, I confess it, so

monotonous! I go to none but the best hotels, meet none but the

best people, and my timidity and conservatism for ever keep me in

conventional paths. Dazzled and terrified as I still am when you

precipitate adventures upon me, I always find afterwards that I

have enjoyed them in spite of my fears. Life without you is like a

stenographic report of a dull sermon; with you it is by turns a dramatic

story, a poem, and a romance. Sometimes it is a penny-dreadful, as when

you deliberately leave your luggage on an express train going south,

enter another standing upon a side track, and embark for an unknown

destination. I watched you from an upper window of the Junction Hotel,

but could not leave Benella to argue with you. When your respected

husband and lover have charge of you, you will not be allowed such

pranks, I warrant you.

Benella has improved wonderfully in the last twenty-four hours, and I

am trying to give her some training for her future duties. We can never

forget our native land so long as we have her with us, for she is a

perfect specimen of the Puritan spinster, though too young in years,

perhaps, for determined celibacy. Do you know, we none of us mentioned

wages in our conversations with her? Fortunately she seems more alive

to the advantages of foreign travel than to the filling of her empty

coffers. (By the way, I have written to the purser of the ship that she

crossed in, to see if I can recover the sixty or seventy dollars she

left behind her.) Her principal idea in life seems to be that of finding

some kind of work that will be 'interestin'' whether it is lucrative or

not.

I don't think she will be able to dress hair, or anything of that

sort--save in the way of plain sewing, she is very unskilful with her

hands; and she will be of no use as courier, she is so provincial and

inexperienced. She has no head for business whatever, and cannot help

Francesca with the accounts. She recites to herself again and again,

'Four farthings make one penny, twelvepence make one shilling, twenty

shillings make one pound'; but when I give her a handful of money and

ask her for six shillings and sixpence, five and three, one pound two,

or two pound ten, she cannot manage the operation. She is docile, well

mannered, grateful, and really likable, but her present philosophy of

life is a thing of shreds and patches. She calls it 'the science,' as if

there were but one; and she became a convert to its teachings this

past winter, while living in the house of a woman lecturer in Salem,

a lecturer, not a 'curist,' she explains. She attended to the door,

ushered in the members of classes, kept the lecture-room in order, and

so forth, imbibing by the way various doctrines, or parts of doctrines,

which she is not the sort of person to assimilate, but with which she is

experimenting: holding, meantime, a grim intuition of their foolishness,

or so it seems to me. 'The science' made it easier for her to seek her

ancestors in a foreign country with only a hundred dollars in her purse;

for the Salem priestess proclaims the glad tidings that all the wealth

of the world is ours, if we will but assert our heirship. Benella

believed this more or less until a week's sea-sickness undermined all

her new convictions of every sort. When she woke in the little bedroom

at O'Carolan's, she says, her heart was quite at rest, for she knew that

we were the kind of people one could rely on! I mustered courage to

say, “I hope so, and I hope also that we shall be able to rely upon you,

Benella!”

This idea evidently had not occurred to her, but she accepted it, and I

could see that she turned it over in her mind. You can imagine that this

vague philosophy of a Salem woman scientist superimposed on a foundation

of orthodoxy makes a curious combination, and one which will only be

temporary.

We shall expect you to-morrow evening, and we shall be quite ready to go

on to the Lakes of Killarney or wherever you wish. By the way, I met

an old acquaintance the morning I arrived here. I went to see Queen's

College; and as I was walking under the archway which has carved upon

it, 'Where Finbarr taught let Munster learn,' I saw two gentlemen. They

looked like professors, and I asked if I might see the college. They

said certainly, and offered to take my card into some one who would

do the honours properly. I passed it to one of them: we looked at each

other, and recognition was mutual. He (Dr. La Touche) is giving a course

of lectures here on Irish Antiquities. It has been a great privilege to

see this city and its environs with so learned a man; I wish you could

have shared it. Yesterday he made up a party and we went to Passage,

which you may remember in Father Prout's verses:--

'The town of Passage is both large and spacious,

And situated upon the say;

'Tis nate and dacent, and quite adjacent

To come from Cork on a summer's day.

There you may slip in and take a dippin'

Fornent the shippin' that at anchor ride;

Or in a wherry cross o'er the ferry

To Carrigaloe, on the other side.'

Dr. La Touche calls Father Prout an Irish potato seasoned with Attic

salt. Is not that a good characterisation?

Good-bye for the moment, as I must see about Benella's luncheon.

Yours affectionately S.P.

Chapter X. The belles of Shandon.

'The spreading Lee that, like an Island fayre,

Encloseth Corke with his divided floode.'

Edmund Spenser.

We had seen all that Youghal could offer to the tourist; we were

yearning for Salemina; we wanted to hear Benella talk about 'the

science'; we were eager to inspect the archaeologist, to see if he

'would do' for Salemina instead of the canon, or even the minor canon,

of the English Church, for whom we had always privately destined her.

Accordingly we decided to go by an earlier train, and give our family

a pleasant surprise. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when our car

trundled across St. Patrick's Bridge, past Father Mathew's statue, and

within view of the church and bells of Shandon, that sound so grand on

the pleasant waters of the river Lee. Away to the west is the two-armed

river. Along its banks rise hills, green and well wooded, with beautiful

gardens and verdant pastures reaching to the very brink of the shining

stream.

It was Saturday afternoon, and I never drove through a livelier,

quainter, more easy-going town. The streets were full of people selling

various things and plying various trades, and among them we saw many

a girl pretty enough to recall Thackeray's admiration of the Corkagian

beauties of his day. There was one in particular, driving a donkey in a

straw-coloured governess cart, to whose graceful charm we succumbed on

the instant. There was an exquisite deluderin' wildness about her,

a vivacity, a length of eyelash with a gleam of Irish grey eye, 'the

greyest of all things blue, the bluest of all things grey,' that might

well have inspired the English poet to write of her as he did of his own

Irish wife; for Spenser, when he was not writing the Faerie Queene,

or smoking Raleigh's fragrant weed, wooed and wedded a fair colleen of

County Cork.

'Tell me, ye merchant daughters, did ye see

So fayre a creature in your town before?

Her goodlie eyes, like sapphyres shining bright;

Her forehead, ivory white;

Her lips like cherries, charming men to byte.'

Now we turned into the old Mardyke Walk, a rus in urbe, an avenue a mile

long lined with noble elm-trees; forsaken now as a fashionable promenade

for the Marina, but still beautiful and still beloved, though frequented

chiefly by nurse-maids and children. Such babies and such children, of

all classes and conditions--so jolly, smiling, dimpled, curly-headed;

such joyous disregard of rags and dirt; such kindness one to the other

in the little groups, where a child of ten would be giving an anxious

eye to four or five brothers and sisters, and mothering a contented baby

in arms as well.

Our driver, though very loquacious, was not quite intelligible. He

pronounced the simple phrase 'St. Patrick's Street' in a way to astonish

the traveller; it would seem impossible to crowd as many h's into three

words, and to wrap each in flannel, as he succeeded in doing. He seemed

pleased with our admiration of the babies, and said that Irish children

did be very fat and strong and hearty; that they were the very best

soldiers the Queen had, God kape her! They could stand anny hardship and

anny climate, for they were not brought up soft, like the English.

He also said that, fine as all Irish children undoubtedly were, Cork

produced the flower of them all, and the finest women and the finest

men; backing his opinion with an Homeric vaunt which Francesca took down

on the spot:--

'I'd back one man from Corkshire

To bate ten more from Yorkshire:

Kerrymen

Agin Derrymen,

And Munster agin creation,

Wirrasthrue! 'tis a pity we aren't a nation!'

Here he slackened his pace as we passed a small bosthoon driving a

donkey, to call out facetiously, “Be good to your little brother,

achree!”

“We must be very near Coolkilla House by this time,” said Francesca.

“That isn't Salemina sitting on the bench under the trees, is it? There

is a gentleman with her, and she never wears a wide hat, but it looks

like her red umbrella. No, of course it isn't, for whoever it is belongs

to that maid with the two children. Penelope, it is borne in upon me

that we shouldn't have come here unannounced, three hours ahead of the

time arranged. Perhaps, whenever we had chosen to come, it would have

been too soon. Wouldn't it be exciting to have to keep out of Salemina's

way, as she has always done for us? I couldn't endure it; it would make

me homesick for Ronald. Go slowly, driver, please.”

Nevertheless, as we drew nearer we saw that it was Salemina; or at least

it was seven-eighths of her, and one-eighth of a new person with whom

we were not acquainted. She rose to meet us with an exclamation of

astonishment, and after a hasty and affectionate greeting, presented

Dr. La Touche. He said a few courteous words, and to our relief made no

allusions to round towers, duns, raths, or other antiquities, and bade

us adieu, saying that he should have the honour of waiting upon us that

evening with our permission.

A person in a neat black dress and little black bonnet with white lawn

strings now brought up the two children to say good-bye to Salemina.

It was the Derelict, Benella Dusenberry, clothed in maid's apparel, and

looking, notwithstanding that disguise, like a New England schoolma'am.

She was delighted to see us, scanned every detail of Francesca's

travelling costume with the frankest admiration, and would have allowed

us to carry our wraps and umbrellas upstairs if she had not been

reminded by Salemina. We had a cosy cup of tea together, and told our

various adventures, but Salemina was not especially communicative about

hers. Oddly enough, she had met the La Touche children at the hotel in

Mallow. They were travelling with a very raw Irish nurse, who had no

control of them whatever. They shrieked and kicked when taken to their

rooms at night, until Salemina was obliged to speak to them, in order

that Benella's rest should not be disturbed.

“I felt so sorry for them,” she said--“the dear little girl put to

bed with tangled hair and unwashed face, the boy in a rumpled, untidy

nightgown, the bedclothes in confusion. I didn't know who they were nor

where they came from, but while the nurse was getting her supper I made

them comfortable, and Broona went to sleep with my strange hand in hers.

Perhaps it was only the warm Irish heart, the easy friendliness of

the Irish temperament, but I felt as if the poor little things must be

neglected indeed, or they would not have clung to a woman whom they had

never seen before.” (This is a mistake; anybody who has the opportunity

always clings to Salemina.) “The next morning they were up at daylight,

romping in the hall, stamping, thumping, clattering, with a tin cart

on wheels rattling behind them. I know it was not my affair, and I was

guilty of unpardonable rudeness, but I called the nurse into my room and

spoke to her severely. No, you needn't smile; I was severe. 'Will you

kindly do your duty, and keep the children quiet as they pass through

the halls?' I said. 'It is never too soon to teach them to obey the

rules of a public place, and to be considerate of older people.' She

seemed awestruck. But when she found her tongue she stammered, 'Sure,

ma'am, I've tould thim three times this day already that when their

father comes he'll bate thim with a blackthorn stick!'

“Naturally I was horrified. This, I thought, would explain everything:

no mother, and an irritable, cruel father.

“'Will he really do such a thing?' I asked, feeling as if I must know

the truth.

“'Sure he will not, ma'am!' she answered cheerfully. 'He wouldn't lift a

feather to thim, not if they murdthered the whole counthryside, ma'am.'

“Well, they travelled third class to Cork, and we came first, so we did

not meet, and I did not ask their surnames; but it seems that they were

being brought to their father, whom I met many years ago in America.”

As she did not volunteer any further information, we did not like to ask

her where, how many years ago, or under what circumstances. 'Teasing' of

this sort does not appeal to the sophisticated at any time, but it seems

unspeakably vulgar to touch on matters of sentiment with a woman of

middle age. If she has memories, they are sure to be sad and sacred

ones; if she has not, that perhaps is still sadder. We agreed, however,

when the evening was over, that Dr. La Touche was probably the love of

her youth--unless, indeed, he was simply an old friend, and the degree

of Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is very

likely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they always

incline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of

the woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could

get him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural or

provincial New England.

The professor is grave, but very genial when he fully recalls the fact

that he is in company, and has not, like the Trappist monks, taken vows

of silence. Francesca behaved beautifully, on the whole, and made no

embarrassing speeches, although she was in her gayest humour. Salemina

blushed a little when the young sinner dragged into the conversation the

remark that, undoubtedly, from the beginning of the sixth century to the

end of the eighth, Ireland was the University of Europe, just as Greece

was in the late days of the Roman Republic, and asked our guest when

Ireland ceased to be known as 'Insula sanctorum et doctorum,' the island

of saints and scholars.

We had seen her go into Salemina's bedroom, and knew perfectly well that

she had consulted the Peabody notebook, lying open on the desk; but the

professor looked as surprised as if he had heard a pretty paroquet quote

Gibbon. I don't like to see grave and reverend scholars stare at pretty

paroquets, but I won't belittle Salemina's exquisite and peculiar charm

by worrying over the matter.

'Wirra, wirra! Ologone!

Can't ye lave a lad alone,

Till he's proved there's no tradition left of any other girl--

Not even Trojan Helen,

In beauty all excellin'--

Who's been up to half the divilment of Fan Fitzgerl?'

Of course Francesca's heart is fixed upon Ronald Macdonald, but that

fact has not altered the glance of her eyes. They no longer say,

'Wouldn't you like to fall in love with me, if you dared?' but they

still have a gleam that means, 'Don't fall in love with me; it is no

use!' And of the two, one is about as dangerous as the other, and each

has something of 'Fan Fitzgerl's divilment.

'Wid her brows of silky black

Arched above for the attack,

Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admiring man;

Masther Cupid, point your arrows,

From this out, agin the sparrows,

For you're bested at Love's archery by young Miss Fan.'

Of course Himself never fell a prey to Francesca's fascinations, but

then he is not susceptible; you could send him off for a ten-mile drive

in the moonlight with Venus herself, and not be in the least anxious.

Dr. La Touche is grey for his years, tall and spare in frame, and there

are many lines of anxiety or thought in his forehead; but a wonderful

smile occasionally smooths them all out, and gives his face a rare

though transient radiance. He looks to me as if he had loved too many

books and too few people; as if he had tried vainly to fill his heart

and life with antiquities, which of all things, perhaps, are the most

bloodless, the least warming and nourishing when taken in excess or as

a steady diet. Himself (God bless him!) shall never have that patient

look, if I can help it; but how it will appeal to Salemina! There are

women who are born to be petted and served, and there are those who seem

born to serve others. Salemina's first idea is always to make tangled

things smooth (like little Broona's curly hair); to bring sweet and

discreet order out of chaos; to prune and graft and water and weed and

tend things, until they blossom for very shame under her healing touch.

Her mind is catholic, well ordered, and broad,--for ever full of other

people's interests, never of her own: and her heart always seems to

me like some dim, sweet-scented guest-chamber in an old New England

mansion, cool and clean and quiet, and fragrant of lavender. It has been

a lovely, generous life, lived for the most part in the shadow of other

people's wishes and plans and desires. I am an impatient person,

I confess, and heaven seems so far away when certain things are in

question: the righting of a child's wrong, or the demolition of a

barrier between two hearts; above all, for certain surgical operations,

more or less spiritual, such as removing scales from eyes that refuse

to see, and stops from ears too dull to hear. Nobody shall have our

Salemina unless he is worthy, but how I should like to see her life

enriched and crowned! How I should enjoy having her dear little overworn

second fiddle taken from her by main force, and a beautiful first

violin, or even the baton for leading an orchestra, put into her

unselfish hands!

And so good-bye and 'good luck to ye, Cork, and your pepper-box

steeple,' for we leave you to-morrow!

Chapter XI. 'The rale thing.'

'Her ancestors were kings before Moses was born,

Her mother descended from great Grana Uaile.'

Charles Lever.

Knockarney House, Lough Lein.

We are in the province of Munster, the kingdom of Kerry, the town of

Ballyfuchsia, and the house of Mrs. Mullarkey. Knockarney House is

not her name for it; I made it myself. Killarney is church of the

sloe-trees; and as kill is church, the 'onderhanded manin'' of 'arney'

must be something about sloes; then, since knock means hill, Knockarney

should be hill of the sloe-trees.

I have not lost the memory of Jenny Geddes and Tam o' the Cowgate, but

Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught, is more frequently

present in my dreams. I have by no means forgotten that there was a

time when I was not Irish, but for the moment I am of the turf, turfy.

Francesca is really as much in love with Ireland as I, only, since she

has in her heart a certain tender string pulling her all the while to

the land of the heather, she naturally avoids comparisons. Salemina,

too, endeavours to appear neutral, lest she should betray an

inexplicable interest in Dr. La Touche's country. Benella and I alone

are really free to speak the brogue, and carry our wild harps slung

behind us, like Moore's minstrel boy. Nothing but the ignorance of her

national dishes keeps Benella from entire allegiance to this island; but

she thinks a people who have grown up without a knowledge of doughnuts,

baked beans, and blueberry-pie must be lacking in moral foundations.

There is nothing extraordinary in all this; for the Irish, like the

Celtic tribes everywhere, have always had a sort of fascinating power

over people of other races settling among them, so that they become

completely fused with the native population, and grow to be more Irish

than the Irish themselves.

We stayed for a few days in the best hotel; it really was quite good,

and not a bit Irish. There was a Swiss manager, an English housekeeper,

a French head waiter, and a German office clerk. Even Salemina, who

loves comforts, saw that we should not be getting what is known as the

real thing, under these circumstances, and we came here to this--what

shall I call Knockarney House? It was built originally for a fishing

lodge by a sporting gentleman, who brought parties of friends to stop

for a week. On his death is passed somehow into Mrs. Mullarkey's fair

hands, and in a fatal moment she determined to open it occasionally to

'paying guests,' who might wish a quiet home far from the madding crowd

of the summer tourist. This was exactly what we did want, and here we

encamped, on the half-hearted advice of some Irish friends in the town,

who knew nothing else more comfortable to recommend.

“With us, small, quiet, or out-of-the-way places are never clean; or

if they are, then they are not Irish,” they said. “You had better see

Ireland from the tourist's point of view for a few years yet, until we

have learned the art of living; but if you are determined to know the

humours of the people, cast all thought of comfort behind you.”

So we did, and we afterward thought that this would be a good motto for

Mrs. Mullarkey to carve over the door of Knockarney House. (My name for

it is adopted more or less by the family, though Francesca persists in

dating her letters to Ronald from 'The Rale Thing,' which it undoubtedly

is.) We take almost all the rooms in the house, but there are a

few other guests. Mrs. Waterford, an old lady of ninety-three, from

Mullinavat, is here primarily for her health, and secondarily to dispose

of threepenny shares in an antique necklace, which is to be raffled for

the benefit of a Roman Catholic chapel. Then we have a fishing gentleman

and his bride from Glasgow, and occasional bicyclers who come in for

a dinner, a tea, or a lodging. These three comforts of a home are

sometimes quite indistinguishable with us: the tea is frequently made up

of fragments of dinner, and the beds are always sprinkled with crumbs.

Their source is a mystery, unless they fall from the clothing of the

chambermaids, who frequently drop hairpins and brooches and buttons

between the sheets, and strew whisk brooms and scissors under the

blankets.

We have two general servants, who are supposed to do all the work of the

house, and who are as amiable and obliging and incapable as they well

can be. Oonah generally waits upon the table, and Molly cooks; at

least she cooks now and then when she is not engaged with Peter in the

vegetable garden or the stable. But whatever happens, Mrs. Mullarkey, as

a descendant of one of the Irish kings, is to be looked upon only as an

inspiring ideal, inciting one to high and ever higher flights of happy

incapacity. Benella ostensibly oversees the care of our rooms, but she

is comparatively helpless in such a kingdom of misrule. Why demand clean

linen when there is none; why seek for a towel at midday when it is

never ironed until evening; how sweep when a broom is all inadequate

to the task? Salemina's usual remark, on entering a humble hostelry

anywhere, is: “If the hall is as dirty as this, what must the kitchen

be! Order me two hard-boiled eggs, please!”

“Use your 'science,' Benella,” I say to that discouraged New England

maiden, who has never looked at her philosophy from its practical or

humorous side. “If the universe is pure mind and there is no matter,

then this dirt is not a real thing, after all. It seems, of course,

as if it were thicker under the beds and bureaus than elsewhere, but

I suppose our evil thoughts focus themselves there rather than in the

centre of the room. Similarly, if the broom handle is broken, deny

the dirt away--denial is much less laborious than sweeping; bring 'the

science' down to these simple details of everyday life, and you will

make converts by dozens, only pray don't remove, either by suggestion or

any cruder method, the large key that lies near the table leg, for it

is a landmark; and there is another, a crochet needle, by the washstand,

devoted to the same purpose. I wish to show them to the Mullarkey when

we leave.”

Under our educational regime, the 'metaphysical' veneer, badly applied

in the first place, and wholly unsuited to the foundation material,

is slowly disappearing, and our Benella is gradually returning to her

normal self. Perhaps nothing has been more useful to her development

than the confusion of Knockarney House.

Our windows are supported on decrepit tennis rackets and worn-out hearth

brushes; the blinds refuse to go up or down; the chairs have weak backs

or legs; the door knobs are disassociated from their handles. As for our

food, we have bacon and eggs, with coffee made, I should think, of brown

beans and liquorice, for breakfast; a bit of sloppy chicken, or fish and

potato, with custard pudding or stewed rhubarb, for dinner; and a cold

supper of--oh! anything that occurs to Molly at the last moment. Nothing

ever occurs either to Molly or Oonah at any previous moment, and in that

they are merely conforming to the universal habit. Last week, when we

were starting for Valencia Island, the Ballyfuchsia stationmaster

was absent at a funeral; meantime the engine had 'gone cold on the

engineer,' and the train could not leave till twelve minutes after the

usual time. We thought we must have consulted a wrong time-table, and

asked confirmation of a man who seemed to have some connection with the

railway. Goaded by his ignorance, I exclaimed, “Is it possible you don't

know the time the trains are going?”

“Begorra, how should I?” he answered. “Faix, the thrains don't always be

knowin' thimselves!”

The starting of the daily 'Mail Express' from Ballyfuchsia is a time

of great excitement and confusion, which on some occasions increases

to positive panic. The stationmaster, armed with a large dinner-bell,

stands on the platform, wearing an expression of anxiety ludicrously

unsuited to the situation. The supreme moment had really arrived some

time before, but he is waiting for Farmer Brodigan with his daughter

Kathleen, and the Widdy Sullivan, and a few other local worthies who are

a 'thrifle late on him.' Finally they come down the hill, and he paces

up and down the station ringing the bell and uttering the warning cry,

“This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops! This thrain never

shtops!”--giving one the idea that eternity, instead of Killarney,

must be the final destination of the passengers. The clock in the

Ballyfuchsia telegraph and post office ceases to go for twenty-four

hours at a time, and nobody heeds it, while the postman always has a few

moments' leisure to lay down his knapsack of letters and pitch quoits

with the Royal Irish Constabulary. However, punctuality is perhaps an

individual virtue more than an exclusively national one. I am not sure

that we Americans would not be more agreeable if we spent a month in

Ireland every year, and perhaps Ireland would profit from a month in

America.

At the Brodigans' (Mr. Brodigan is a large farmer, and our nearest

neighbour) all the clocks are from ten to twenty minutes fast or slow;

and what a peaceful place it is! The family doesn't care when it has its

dinner, and, mirabile dictu, the cook doesn't care either!

“If you have no exact time to depend upon, how do you catch trains?” I

asked Mr. Brodigan.

“Sure that's not an everyday matter, and why be foostherin' over it? But

we do, four times out o' five, ma'am!”

“How do you like it that fifth time when you miss it?”

“Sure it's no more throuble to you to miss it the wan time than to hurry

five times! A clock is an overrated piece of furniture, to my mind, Mrs.

Beresford, ma'am. A man can ate whin he's hungry, go to bed whin he's

sleepy, and get up whin he's slept long enough; for faith and it's thim

clocks he has inside of himself that don't need anny winding!”

“What if you had a business appointment with a man in the town, and

missed the train?” I persevered.

“Trains is like misfortunes; they never come singly, ma'am. Wherever

there's a station the trains do be dhroppin' in now and again, and

what's the differ which of thim you take?”

“The man who is waiting for you at the other end of the line may not

agree with you,” I suggested.

“Sure, a man can always amuse himself in a town, ma'am. If it's your

own business you're coming on, he knows you'll find him; and if it's

his business, then begorra let him find you!” Which quite reminded me

of what the Irish elf says to the English elf in Moira O'Neill's fairy

story: “A waste of time? Why, you've come to a country where there's no

such thing as a waste of time. We have no value for time here. There is

lashings of it, more than anybody knows what to do with.”

I suppose there is somewhere a golden mean between this complete

oblivion of time and our feverish American hurry. There is a 'tedious

haste' in all people who make wheels and pistons and engines, and live

within sound of their everlasting buzz and whir and revolution; and

there is ever a disposition to pause, rest, and consider on the part of

that man whose daily tasks are done in serene collaboration with dew and

rain and sun. One cannot hurry Mother Nature very much, after all, and

one who has much to do with her falls into a peaceful habit of mind. The

mottoes of the two nations are as well rendered in the vernacular as by

any formal or stilted phrases. In Ireland the spoken or unspoken slogan

is, 'Take it aisy'; in America, 'Keep up with the procession'; and

between them lie all the thousand differences of race, climate,

temperament, religion, and government.

I don't suppose there is a nation on the earth better developed on what

might be called the train-catching side than we of the Big Country,

and it is well for us that there is born every now and again among us a

dreamer who is (blessedly) oblivious of time-tables and market reports;

who has been thinking of the rustling of the corn, not of its price. It

is he, if we do not hurry him out of his dream, who will sound the ideal

note in our hurly-burly and bustle of affairs. He may never discover a

town site, but he will create new worlds for us to live in, and in the

course of a century the coming Matthew Arnold will not be minded to call

us an unimaginative and uninteresting people.

Chapter XII. Life at Knockarney House.

'See where Mononia's heroes lie, proud Owen More's

descendants,--

'Tis they that won the glorious name and had the grand

attendants!'

James Clarence Mangan.

It was a charming thing for us when Dr. La Touche gave us introductions

to the Colquhouns of Ardnagreena; and when they, in turn, took us to tea

with Lord and Lady Killbally at Balkilly Castle. I don't know what there

is about us: we try to live a sequestered life, but there are certain

kind forces in the universe that are always bringing us in contact with

the good, the great, and the powerful. Francesca enjoys it, but secretly

fears to have her democracy undermined. Salemina wonders modestly at her

good fortune. I accept it as the graceful tribute of an old civilisation

to a younger one; the older men grow the better they like girls of

sixteen, and why shouldn't the same thing be true of countries?

As long ago as 1589, one of the English 'undertakers' who obtained some

of the confiscated Desmond lands in Munster wrote of the 'better sorte'

of Irish: 'Although they did never see you before, they will make you

the best cheare their country yieldeth for two or three days, and take

not anything therefor.... They have a common saying which I am persuaded

they speake unfeinedly, which is, 'Defend me and spend me.' Yet many doe

utterly mislike this or any good thing that the poor Irishman dothe.'

This certificate of character from an 'undertaker' of the sixteenth

century certainly speaks volumes for Irish amiability and hospitality,

since it was given at a time when grievances were as real as plenty;

when unutterable resentment must have been rankling in many minds; and

when those traditions were growing which have coloured the whole texture

of Irish thought, until, with the poor and unlettered, to be 'agin the

government' is an inherited instinct, to be obliterated only by time.

We supplement Mrs. Mullarkey's helter-skelter meals with frequent

luncheons and dinners with our new friends, who send us home on our

jaunting-car laden with flowers, fruit, even with jellies and jams. Lady

Killbally forces us to take three cups of tea and a half-dozen marmalade

sandwiches whenever we go to the Castle; for I apologised for our

appetites, one day, by confessing that we had lunched somewhat frugally,

the meal being sweetened, however, by Molly's explanation that there was

a fresh sole in the house, but she thought she would not inthrude on it

before dinner!

We asked, on our arrival at Knockarney House, if we might breakfast at

a regular hour,--say eight thirty. Mrs. Mullarkey agreed, with

that suavity which is, after her untidiness, her distinguishing

characteristic; but notwithstanding this arrangement we break our fast

sometimes at nine forty, sometimes at nine twenty, sometimes at nine,

but never earlier. In order to achieve this much, we are obliged to

rise early and make a combined attack on the executive and culinary

departments. One morning I opened the door leading from the hall into

the back part of the establishment, but closed it hastily, having

interrupted the toilets of three young children, whose existence I had

never suspected, and of Mr. Mullarkey, whom I had thought dead for many

years. Each child had donned one article of clothing, and was apparently

searching for the mate to it, whatever it chanced to be. Mrs. Mullarkey

was fully clothed, and was about to administer correction to one of the

children who, unhappily for him, was not. I retired to my apartment to

report progress, but did not describe the scene minutely, nor mention

the fact that I had seen Salemina's ivory-backed hairbrush put to

excellent if somewhat unusual and unaccustomed service.

Each party in the house eats in solitary splendour, like the MacDermott,

Prince of Coolavin. That royal personage of County Sligo did not,

I believe, allow his wife or his children (who must have had the

MacDermott blood in their veins, even if somewhat diluted) to sit at

table with him. This method introduces the last element of confusion

into the household arrangements, and on two occasions we have had our

custard pudding or stewed fruit served in our bedrooms a full hour after

we had finished dinner. We have reasons for wishing to be first to enter

the dining-room, and we walk in with eyes fixed on the ceiling, by

far the cleanest part of the place. Having wended our way through an

underbrush of corks with an empty bottle here and there, and stumbled

over the holes in the carpet, we arrive at our table in the window.

It is as beautiful as heaven outside, and the table-cloth is at least

cleaner than it will be later, for Mrs. Waterford of Mullinavat has an

unsteady hand.

When Oonah brings in the toast rack now she balances it carefully,

remembering the morning when she dropped it on the floor, but picked up

the slices and offered them to Salemina. Never shall I forget that

dear martyr's expression, which was as if she had made up her mind to

renounce Ireland and leave her to her fate. I know she often must wonder

if Dr. La Touche's servants, like Mrs. Mullarkey's, feel of the potatoes

to see whether they are warm or cold!

At ten thirty there is great confusion and laughter and excitement, for

the sportsmen are setting out for the day and the car has been waiting

at the door for an hour. Oonah is carolling up and down the long

passage, laden with dishes, her cheerfulness not in the least impaired

by having served seven or eight separate breakfasts. Molly has spilled

a jug of milk, and is wiping it up with a child's undershirt. The Glasgy

man is telling them that yesterday they forgot the corkscrew, the salt,

the cup, and the jam from the luncheon basket,--facts so mirth-provoking

that Molly wipes tears of pleasure from her eyes with the milky

undershirt, and Oonah sets the hot-water jug and the coffee-pot on the

stairs to have her laugh out comfortably. When once the car departs,

comparative quiet reigns in and about the house until the passing

bicyclers appear for luncheon or tea, when Oonah picks up the napkins

that we have rolled into wads and flung under the dining-table,

and spreads them on tea-trays, as appetising details for the weary

traveller. There would naturally be more time for housework if so large

a portion of the day were not spent in pleasant interchange of thought

and speech. I can well understand Mrs. Colquhoun's objections to the

housing of the Dublin poor in tenements,--even in those of a better

kind than the present horrible examples; for wherever they are

huddled together in any numbers they will devote most of their time to

conversation. To them talking is more attractive than eating; it even

adds a new joy to drinking; and if I may judge from the groups I have

seen gossiping over a turf fire till midnight, it is preferable to

sleeping. But do not suppose they will bubble over with joke and

repartee, with racy anecdote, to every casual newcomer. The tourist

who looks upon the Irishman as the merry-andrew of the English-speaking

world, and who expects every jarvey he meets to be as whimsical as

Mickey Free, will be disappointed. I have strong suspicions that ragged,

jovial Mickey Free himself, delicious as he is, was created by Lever to

satisfy the Anglo-Saxon idea of the low-comedy Irishman. You will live

in the Emerald Isle for many a month, and not meet the clown or the

villain so familiar to you in modern Irish plays. Dramatists have made

a stage Irishman to suit themselves, and the public and the gallery are

disappointed if anything more reasonable is substituted for him. You

will find, too, that you do not easily gain Paddy's confidence. Misled

by his careless, reckless impetuosity of demeanour, you might expect to

be the confidant of his joys and sorrows, his hopes and expectations,

his faiths and beliefs, his aspirations, fears, longings, at the first

interview. Not at all; you will sooner be admitted to a glimpse of the

travelling Scotsman's or the Englishman's inner life, family history,

personal ambition. Glacial enough at first and far less voluble, he

melts soon enough, if he likes you. Meantime, your impulsive Irish

friend gives himself as freely at the first interview as at the

twentieth; and you know him as well at the end of a week as you are

likely to at the end of a year. He is a product of the past, be

he gentleman or peasant. A few hundred years of necessary reserve

concerning articles of political and religious belief have bred caution

and prudence in stronger natures, cunning and hypocrisy in weaker ones.

Our days are very varied. We have been several times into the town and

spent an hour in the Petty Sessions Court with Mr. Colquhoun, who sits

on the bench. Each time we have come home laden with stories 'as good as

any in the books,' so says Francesca. Have we not with our own eyes seen

the settlement of an assault and battery case between two of the most

notorious brawlers in that alley of the town which we have dubbed 'The

Pass of the Plumes.' [*] Each barrister in the case had a handful of hair

which he introduced on behalf of his client, both ladies apparently

having pulled with equal energy. These most unattractive exhibits

were shown to the women themselves, each recognising her own hair,

but denying the validity of the other exhibit firmly and vehemently.

Prisoner number one kneeled at the rail and insisted on exposing the

place in her head from which the hair had been plucked; upon which

prisoner number two promptly tore off her hat, scattered hairpins to

the four winds, and exposed her own wounds to the judicial eye.

Both prisoners 'had a dhrop taken' just before the affair; that soft

impeachment they could not deny. One of them explained, however, that

she had taken it to help her over a hard job of work, and through a

little miscalculation of quantity it had 'overaided her.' The other

termagant was asked flatly by the magistrate if she had ever seen

the inside of a jail before, but evaded the point with much grace and

ingenuity by telling his Honour that he couldn't expect to meet a woman

anywhere who had not suffered a misforchin somewhere betwixt the cradle

and the grave.

*The original Pass of the Plumes is near Maryborough, and

was so called from the number of English helmet plumes that

were strewn about after O'Moore's fight with five hundred of

the Earl of Essex's men.

Even the all too common drunk-and-disorderly cases had a flavour

of their own, for one man, being dismissed with a small fine under

condition that he would sign the pledge, assented willingly; but on

being asked for how long he would take it, replied, 'I mostly take it

for life, your worship.'

We also heard the testimony of a girl who had run away from her employer

before the completion of her six months' contract, her plea being that

the fairies pulled her great toe at night so that she could not sleep,

whereupon she finally became so lame that she was unable to work. She

left her employer's house one evening, therefore, and went home, and

curiously enough the fairies 'shtopped pulling the toe on her as soon as

iver she got there!'

Not the least enlivening of the prisoners was a decently educated person

who had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The constable asserted

that he was intoxicated, but the gentleman himself insisted that he was

merely a poet in a more than usually inspired state.

“I am in the poetical advertising line, your worship. It is true I was

surrounded by a crowd, but I was merely practising my trade. I don't

mind telling your worship that this holiday-time makes things a little

lively, and the tradesmen drink my health a trifle oftener than usual;

poetry is dry work, your worship, and a poet needs a good deal of liquid

refreshment. I do not disturb the peace, your worship, at least not more

than any other poet. I go to a grocer's, and, standing outside, I make

up some rhymes about his nice sweet sugar or his ale. If I want to

please a butcher--well, I'll give you a specimen:--

'Here's to the butcher who sells good meat--

In this world it's hard to beat;

It's the very best that's to be had,

And makes the human heart feel glad.

There's no necessity to purloin,

So step in and buy a good sirloin.'

I can go on in this style, like Tennyson's brook, for ever, your

worship.” His worship was afraid that he might make the offer good, and

the poet was released, after promising to imbibe less frequently when he

felt the divine afflatus about to descend upon him.

These disagreements between light-hearted and bibulous persons who haunt

the courts week after week have nothing especially pathetic about them,

but there are many that make one's heart ache; many that seem absolutely

beyond any solution, and beyond reach of any justice.

Chapter XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancing.'

'The light-hearted daughters of Erin,

Like the wild mountain deer they can bound;

Their feet never touch the green island,

But music is struck from the ground.

And oft in the glens and green meadows,

The ould jig they dance with such grace,

That even the daisies they tread on,

Look up with delight in their face.'

James M'Kowen.

One of our favourite diversions is an occasional glimpse of a

'crossroads dance' on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, when all the young

people of the district are gathered together. Their religious duties are

over with their confessions and their masses, and the priests encourage

these decorous Sabbath gaieties. A place is generally chosen where two

or four roads meet, and the dancers come from the scattered farmhouses

in every direction. In Ballyfuchsia, they dance on a flat piece of road

under some fir-trees and larches, with stretches of mountain covered

with yellow gorse or purple heather, and the quiet lakes lying in the

distance. A message comes down to us at Ardnagreena--where we commonly

spend our Sunday afternoons--that they expect a good dance, and the

blind boy is coming to fiddle; and 'so if you will be coming up, it's

welcome you'll be.' We join them about five o'clock--passing, on our

way, groups of 'boys' of all ages from sixteen upwards, walking in twos

and threes, and parties of three or four girls by themselves; for it

would not be etiquette for the boys and girls to walk together, such

strictness is observed in these matters about here.

When we reach the rendezvous we find quite a crowd of young men and

maidens assembled; the girls all at one side of the road, neatly dressed

in dark skirts and light blouses, with the national woollen shawl over

their heads. Two wide stone walls, or dykes, with turf on top, make

capital seats, and the boys are at the opposite side, as custom demands.

When a young man wants a partner, he steps across the road and asks

a colleen, who lays aside her shawl, generally giving it to a younger

sister to keep until the dance is over, when the girls go back to their

own side of the road and put on their shawls again. Upon our arrival we

find the 'sets' are already in progress; a 'set' being a dance like

a very intricate and very long quadrille. We are greeted with many

friendly words, and the young boatmen and farmers' sons ask the ladies,

“Will you be pleased to dance, miss?” Some of them are shy, and say

they are not familiar with the steps; but their would-be partners remark

encouragingly: “Sure, and what matter? I'll see you through.” Soon all

are dancing, and the state of the road is being discussed with as much

interest as the floor of a ballroom. Eager directions are given to the

more ignorant newcomers, such as, “Twirl your girl, captain!” or “Turn

your back to your face!”--rather a difficult direction to carry out, but

one which conveys its meaning. Salemina confided to her partner that she

feared she was getting a bit old to dance. He looked at her grey hair

carefully for a moment, and then said chivalrously: “I'd not say that

that was old age, ma'am. I'd say it was eddication.”

When the sets, which are very long and very decorous, are finished,

sometimes a jig is danced for our benefit. The spectators make a ring,

and the chosen dancers go into the middle, where their steps are watched

by a most critical and discriminating audience with the most minute and

intense interest. Our Molly is one of the best jig dancers among the

girls here (would that she were half as clever at cooking!); but if you

want to see an artist of the first rank, you must watch Kitty O'Rourke,

from the neighbouring village of Dooclone. The half door of the barn is

carried into the ring by one or two of her admirers, whom she numbers

by the score, and on this she dances her famous jig polthogue, sometimes

alone and sometimes with Art Rooney, the only worthy partner for her in

the kingdom of Kerry. Art's mother, 'Bid' Rooney, is a keen matchmaker,

and we heard her the other day advising her son, who was going to

Dooclone, to have a 'weeny court' with his colleen, to put a clane

shirt on him in the middle of the week, and disthract Kitty intirely by

showin' her he had three of thim, annyway!

Kitty is a beauty, and doesn't need to be made 'purty wid cows'--a feat

that the old Irishman proposed to do when he was consummating a match

for his plain daughter. But the gifts of the gods seldom come singly,

and Kitty is well fortuned as well as beautiful; fifty pounds, her own

bedstead and its fittings, a cow, a pig, and a web of linen are supposed

to be the dazzling total, so that it is small wonder her deluderin' ways

are maddening half the boys in Ballyfuchsia and Dooclone. She has the

prettiest pair of feet in the County Kerry, and when they are encased in

a smart pair of shoes, bought for her by Art's rival, the big constable

from Ballyfuchsia barracks, how they do twinkle and caper over that half

barn door, to be sure! Even Murty, the blind fiddler, seems intoxicated

by the plaudits of the bystanders, and he certainly never plays so well

for anybody as for Kitty of the Meadow. Blindness is still common in

Ireland, owing to the smoke in these wretched cabins, where sometimes a

hole in the roof is the only chimney; and although the scores of

blind fiddlers no longer traverse the land, finding a welcome at all

firesides, they are still to be found in every community. Blind Murty

is a favourite guest at the Rooney's cabin, which is never so full that

there is not room for one more. There is a small wooden bed in the

main room, a settle that opens out at night, with hens in the straw

underneath, where a board keeps them safely within until they have

finished laying. There are six children besides Art, and my ambition is

to photograph, or, still better, to sketch the family circle together;

the hens cackling under the settle, the pig ['him as pays the rint')

snoring in the doorway, as a proprietor should, while the children are

picturesquely grouped about. I never succeed, because Mrs. Rooney sees

us as we turn into the lane, and calls to the family to make itself

ready, as quality's comin' in sight. The older children can scramble

under the bed, slip shoes over their bare feet, and be out in front of

the cabin without the loss of a single minute. 'Mickey jew'l,' the baby,

who is only four, but 'who can handle a stick as bould as a man,' is

generally clad in a ragged skirt, slit every few inches from waist to

hem, so that it resembles a cotton fringe. The little coateen that tops

this costume is sometimes, by way of diversion, transferred to the dog,

who runs off with it; but if we appear at this unlucky moment, there

is a stylish yoke of pink ribbon and soiled lace which one of the girls

pins over Mickey jew'l's naked shoulders.

Moya, who has this eye for picturesque propriety, is a great friend

of mine, and has many questions about the Big Country when we take our

walks. She longs to emigrate, but the time is not ripe yet. “The girls

that come back has a lovely style to thim,” she says wistfully, “but

they're so polite they can't live in the cabins anny more and be

contint.” The 'boys' are not always so improved, she thinks. “You'd

niver find a boy in Ballyfuchsia that would say annything rude to a

girl; but when they come back from Ameriky, it's too free they've grown

intirely.” It is a dull life for them, she says, when they have once

been away; though to be sure Ballyfuchsia is a pleasanter place than

Dooclone, where the priest does not approve of dancing, and, however

secretly you may do it, the curate hears of it, and will speak your name

in church.

It was Moya who told me of Kitty's fortune. “She's not the match that

Farmer Brodigan's daughter Kathleen is, to be sure; for he's a rich man,

and has given her an iligant eddication in Cork, so that she can look

high for a husband. She won't be takin' up wid anny of our boys, wid

her two hundred pounds and her twenty cows and her pianya. Och, it's a

thriminjus player she is, ma'am. She's that quick and that strong that

you'd say she wouldn't lave a string on it.”

Some of the young men and girls never see each other before the

marriage, Moya says. “But sure,” she adds shyly, “I'd niver be contint

with that, though some love matches doesn't turn out anny better than

the others.”

“I hope it will be a love match with you, and that I shall dance at your

wedding, Moya,” I say to her smilingly.

“Faith, I'm thinkin' my husband's intinded mother died an old maid in

Dublin,” she answers merrily. “It's a small fortune I'll be havin' and

few lovers; but you'll be soon dancing at Kathleen Brodigan's wedding,

or Kitty O'Rourke's, maybe.”

I do not pretend to understand these humble romances, with their

foundations of cows and linen, which are after all no more sordid than

bank stock and trousseaux from Paris. The sentiment of the Irish peasant

lover seems to be frankly and truly expressed in the verses:--

'Oh! Moya's wise and beautiful, has wealth in plenteous store,

And fortune fine in calves and kine, and lovers half a score;

Her faintest smile would saints beguile, or sinners captivate,

Oh! I think a dale of Moya, but I'll surely marry Kate.

. . . . .

'Now to let you know the raison why I cannot have my way,

Nor bid my heart decide the part the lover must obey--

The calves and kine of Kate are nine, while Moya owns but

eight,

So with all my love for Moya I'm compelled to marry Kate!'

I gave Moya a lace neckerchief the other day, and she was rarely

pleased, running into the cabin with it and showing it to her mother

with great pride. After we had walked a bit down the boreen she excused

herself for an instant, and, returning to my side, explained that she

had gone back to ask her mother to mind the kerchief, and not let the

'cow knock it'!

Lady Kilbally tells us that some of the girls who work in the mills deny

themselves proper food, and live on bread and tea for a month, to

save the price of a gay ribbon. This is trying, no doubt, to a

philanthropist, but is it not partly a starved sense of beauty asserting

itself? If it has none of the usual outlets, where can imagination

express itself if not in some paltry thing like a ribbon?

Chapter XIV. Mrs. Mullarkey's iligant locks.

'Where spreads the beautiful water to gay or cloudy skies,

And the purple peaks of Killarney from ancient woods arise.'

William Allingham.

Mrs. Mullarkey cannot spoil this paradise for us. When I wake in the

morning, the fuchsia-tree outside my window is such a glorious mass of

colour that it distracts my eyes from the unwashed glass. The air is

still; the mountains in the far distance are clear purple; everything

is fresh washed and purified for the new day. Francesca and I leave the

house sleeping, and make our way to the bogs. We love to sit under a

blossoming sloe-bush and see the silver pools glistening here and there

in the turf cuttings, and watch the transparent vapour rising from the

red-brown of the purple-shadowed bog fields. Dinnis Rooney, half awake,

leisurely, silent, is moving among the stacks with his creel. How the

missel thrushes sing in the woods, and the plaintive note of the curlew

gives the last touch of mysterious tenderness to the scene. There is a

moist, rich fragrance of meadowsweet and bog myrtle in the air; and how

fresh and wild and verdant it is!

'For there's plenty to mind, sure, if on'y ye look to the grass

at your feet,

For 'tis thick wid the tussocks of heather, an' blossoms and

herbs that smell sweet

If ye tread thim; an' maybe the white o' the bog-cotton waves

in the win',

Like the wool ye might shear off a night-moth, an' set an ould

fairy to spin;

Or wee frauns, each wan stuck 'twixt two leaves on a grand

little stem of its own,

Lettin' on 'twas a plum on a tree.' [*]

* Jane Barlow.

As for Lough Lein itself, who could speak its loveliness, lying like a

crystal mirror beneath the black Reeks of the McGillicuddy, where, in

the mountain fastnesses, lie spell-bound the sleeping warriors who, with

their bridles and broadswords in hand, await but the word to give Erin

her own! When we glide along the surface of the lakes, on some bright

day after a heavy rain; when we look down through the clear water on

tiny submerged islets, with their grasses and drowned daisies glancing

up at us from the blue; when we moor the boat and climb the hillsides,

we are dazzled by the luxuriant beauty of it all. It hardly seems

real--it is too green, too perfect, to be believed; and one thinks of

some fairy drop-scene, painted by cunning-fingered elves and sprites,

who might have a wee folk's way of mixing roses and rainbows,

dew-drenched greens and sun-warmed yellows; showing the picture to you

first all burnished, glittering and radiant, then 'veiled in mist and

diamonded with showers.' We climb, climb, up, up, into the heart of the

leafy loveliness; peering down into dewy dingles, stopping now and again

to watch one of the countless streams as it tinkles and gurgles down

an emerald ravine to join the lakes. The way is strewn with lichens and

mosses; rich green hollies and arbutus surround us on every side;

the ivy hangs in sweet disorder from the rocks; and when we reach the

innermost recess of the glen we can find moist green jungles of ferns

and bracken, a very bending, curling forest of fronds:--

'The fairy's tall palm-tree, the heath bird's fresh nest,

And the couch the red deer deems the sweetest and best.'

Carrantual rears its crested head high above the other mountains, and on

its summit Shon the Outlaw, footsore, weary, slept; sighing, “For once,

thank God, I am above all my enemies.”

You must go to sweet Innisfallen, too, and you must not be prosaic or

incredulous at the boatman's stories, or turn the 'bodthered ear to

them.' These are no ordinary hillsides: not only do the wee folk troop

through the frond forests nightly, but great heroic figures of romance

have stalked majestically along these mountain summits. Every waterfall

foaming and dashing from its rocky bed in the glen has a legend in the

toss and swirl of the water.

Can't you see the O'Sullivan, famous for fleetness of foot and prowess

in the chase, starting forth in the cool o' the morn to hunt the red

deer? His dogs sniff the heather; a splendid stag bounds across the

path; swift as lightning the dogs follow the scent across moors and

glens. Throughout the long day the chieftain chases the stag, until at

nightfall, weary and thirsty, he loses the scent, and blows a blast on

his horn to call the dogs homeward.

And then he hears a voice: “O'Sullivan, turn back!”

He looks over his shoulder to behold the great Finn McCool, central

figure in centuries of romance.

“Why do you dare chase my stag?” he asks.

“Because it is the finest man ever saw,” answers the chieftain

composedly.

“You are a valiant man,” says the hero, pleased with the reply; “and

as you thirst from the long chase, I will give you to drink.” So he

crunches his giant heel into the rock, and forth burst the waters,

seething and roaring as they do to this day; “and may the divil fly away

wid me if I've spoke an unthrue word, ma'am!”

Come to Lough Lein as did we, too early for the crowd of sightseers; but

when the 'long light shakes across the lakes,' the blackest arts of the

tourist (and they are as black as they are many) cannot break the spell.

Sitting on one of these hillsides, we heard a bugle-call taken up and

repeated in delicate, ethereal echoes,--sweet enough, indeed, to be

worthy of the fairy buglers who are supposed to pass the sound along

their lines from crag to crag, until it faints and dies in silence. And

then came the 'Lament for Owen Roe O'Neil.' We were thrilled to the

very heart with the sorrowful strains; and when we issued from our leafy

covert, and rounded the point of rocks from which the sound came,

we found a fat man in uniform playing the bugle. 'Blank's Tours' was

embroidered on his cap, and I have no doubt that he is a good husband

and father, even a good citizen, but he is a blight upon the landscape,

and fancy cannot breathe in his presence. The typical tourist should be

encouraged within bounds, both because he is of some benefit to Ireland,

and because Ireland is of inestimable benefit to him; but he should

not be allowed to jeer and laugh at the legends (the gentle smile of

sophisticated unbelief, with its twinkle of amusement, is unknown to and

for ever beyond him); and above all, he should never be allowed to carry

or to play on a concertina, for this is the unpardonable sin.

We had an adventure yesterday. We were to dine at eight o'clock at

Balkilly Castle, where Dr. La Touche is staying the week-end with Lord

and Lady Killbally. We had been spending an hour or two after tea in

writing an Irish letter, and were a bit late in dressing. These letters,

written in the vernacular, are a favourite diversion of ours when

visiting in foreign lands; and they are very easily done when once you

have caught the idioms, for you can always supplement your slender store

of words and expressions with choice selections from native authors.

What Francesca and I wore to the Castle dinner is, alas! no longer of

any consequence to the community at large. In the mysterious purposes

of that third volume which we seem to be living in Ireland, Francesca's

beauty and mine, her hats and frocks as well as mine, are all reduced to

the background; but Salemina's toilet had cost us some thought. When she

first issued from the discreet and decorous fastnesses of Salem society,

she had never donned any dinner dress that was not as high at the throat

and as long in the sleeves as the Puritan mothers ever wore to meeting.

In England she lapsed sufficiently from the rigid Salem standard to

adopt a timid compromise; in Scotland we coaxed her into still further

modernities, until now she is completely enfranchised. We achieved this

at considerable trouble, but do not grudge the time spent in persuasion

when we see her en grande toilette. In day dress she has always

been inclined ever so little to a primness and severity that suggest

old-maidishness. In her low gown of pale grey, with all her silver

hair waved softly, she is unexpectedly lovely,--her face softened,

transformed, and magically 'brought out' by the whiteness of her

shoulders and slender throat. Not an ornament, not a jewel, will she

wear; and she is right to keep the nunlike simplicity of style which

suits her so well, and which holds its own even in the vicinity of

Francesca's proud and glowing young beauty.

On this particular evening, Francesca, who wished her to look her best,

had prudently hidden her eyeglasses, for which we are now trying to

substitute a silver-handled lorgnette. Two years ago we deliberately

smashed her spectacles, which she had adopted at five-and-twenty.

“But they are more convenient than eye-glasses,” she urged obtusely.

“That argument is beneath you, dear,” we replied. “If your hair were not

prematurely grey, we might permit the spectacles, hideous as they are,

but a combination of the two is impossible; the world shall not convict

you of failing sight when you are guilty only of petty astigmatism!”

The grey satin had been chosen for this dinner, and Salemina was

dressed, with the exception of the pretty pearl-embroidered waist that

has to be laced at the last moment, and had slipped on a dressing jacket

to come down from her room in the second story, to be advised in some

trifling detail. She looked unusually well, I thought: her eyes were

bright and her cheeks flushed, as she rustled in, holding her satin

skirts daintily away from the dusty carpets.

Now, from the morning of our arrival we have had trouble with the

Mullarkey door-knobs, which come off continually, and lie on the floors

at one side of the door or the other. Benella followed Salemina from

her room, and, being in haste, closed the door with unwonted energy. She

heard the well-known rattle and clang, but little suspected that, as one

knob dropped outside in the hall, the other fell inside, carrying the

rod of connection with it. It was not long before we heard a cry of

despair from above, and we responded to it promptly.

“It's fell in on the inside, knob and all, as I always knew it would

some day; and now we can't get back into the room!” said Benella.

“Oh, nonsense! We can open it with something or other,” I answered

encouragingly, as I drew on my gloves; “only you must hasten, for the

car is at the door.”

The curling iron was too large, the shoe hook too short, a lead pencil

too smooth, a crochet needle too slender: we tried them all, and the

door resisted all our insinuations. “Must you necessarily get in before

we go?” I asked Salemina thoughtlessly.

She gave me a glance that almost froze my blood, as she replied, “The

waist of my dress is in the room.”

Francesca and I spent a moment in irrepressible mirth, and then summoned

Mrs. Mullarkey. Whether the Irish kings could be relied upon in an

emergency I do not know, but their descendants cannot. Mrs. Mullarkey

had gone to the convent to see the Mother Superior about something; Mr.

Mullarkey was at the Dooclone market; Peter was not to be found; but

Oonah and Molly came, and also the old lady from Mullinavat, with a

package of raffle tickets in her hand.

We left this small army under Benella's charge, and went down to my room

for a hasty consultation.

“Could you wear any evening bodice of Francesca's?” I asked.

“Of course not. Francesca's waist measure is three inches smaller than

mine.”

“Could you manage my black lace dress?”

“Penelope, you know it would only reach to my ankles! No, you must go

without me, and go at once. We are too new acquaintances to keep Lady

Killbally's dinner waiting. Why did I come to this place like a pauper,

with only one evening gown, when I should have known that if there is

a castle anywhere within forty miles you always spend half your time in

it!”

This slur was totally unjustified, but I pardoned it, because Salemina's

temper is ordinarily perfect, and the circumstances were somewhat

tragic. “If you had brought a dozen costumes, they would all be in your

room at this moment,” I replied; “but we must think of something. It

is impossible for you to remain behind; we were invited more on your

account than our own, for you are Dr. La Touche's friend, and the dinner

is especially in his honour. Molly, have you a ladder?”

“Sorra a wan, ma'am.”

“Could we borrow one?”

“We could not, Mrs. Beresford, ma'am.”

“Then see if you can break down the door; try hard, and if you succeed I

will buy you a nice new one! Part of Miss Peabody's dress is inside the

room, and we shall be late to the Castle dinner.”

The entire corps, with Mrs. Waterford of Mullinavat on top, cast itself

on the door, which withstood the shock to perfection. Then in a moment

we heard: “Weary's on it, it will not come down for us, ma'am. It's the

iligant locks we do be havin' in the house; they're mortial shtrong,

ma'am!”

“Strong, indeed!” exclaimed the incensed Benella, in a burst of New

England wrath. “There's nothing strong about the place but the impidence

of the people in it! If you had told Peter to get a carpenter or a

locksmith, as I've been asking you these two weeks, it would have been

all right; but you never do anything till a month after it's too late.

I've no patience with such a set of doshies, dawdling around and leaving

everything to go to rack and ruin!”

“Sure it was yourself that ruinated the thing,” responded Molly, with

spirit, for the unaccustomed word 'doshy' had kindled her quick Irish

temper. “It's aisy handlin' the knob is used to, and faith it would 'a'

stuck there for you a twelvemonth!”

“They will be quarrelling soon,” said Salemina nervously. “Do not wait

another instant; you are late enough now, and I insist on your going.

Make any excuse you see fit: say I am ill, say I am dead, if you like,

but don't tell the real excuse--it is too shiftless and wretched and

embarrassing. Don't cry, Benella. Molly, Oonah, go downstairs to your

work. Mrs. Waterford, I think perhaps you have forgotten that we have

already purchased raffle tickets, and we'll not take any more for fear

that we may draw the necklace. Good-bye, dears; tell Lady Killbally I

shall see her to-morrow.”

Chapter XV. Penelope weaves a web.

'Why the shovel and tongs

To each other belongs,

And the kettle sings songs

Full of family glee,

While alone with your cup,

Like a hermit you sup,

Och hone, Widow Machree.'

Samuel Lover.

Francesca and I were gloomy enough, as we drove along facing each other

in Ballyfuchsia's one 'inside-car'--a strange and fearsome vehicle,

partaking of the nature of a broken-down omnibus, a hearse, and an

overgrown black beetle. It holds four, or at a squeeze six, the seats

being placed from stem to stern lengthwise, and the balance being so

delicate that the passengers, when going uphill, are shaken into a heap

at the door, which is represented by a ragged leather flap. I have often

seen it strew the hard highroad with passengers, as it jolts up the

steep incline that leads to Ardnagreena, and the 'fares' who succeed in

staying in always sit in one another's laps a good part of the way--a

method pleasing only to relatives or intimate friends. Francesca and I

agreed to tell the real reason of Salemina's absence. “It is Ireland's

fault, and I will not have America blamed for it,” she insisted; “but

it is so embarrassing to be going to the dinner ourselves, and

leaving behind the most important personage. Think of Dr. La Touche's

disappointment, think of Salemina's; and they'll never understand why

she couldn't have come in a dressing jacket. I shall advise her to

discharge Benella after this episode, for no one can tell the effect it

may have upon all our future lives, even those of the doctor's two poor

motherless children.”

It is a four-mile drive to Balkilly Castle, and when we arrived there

we were so shaken that we had to retire to a dressing-room for repairs.

Then came the dreaded moment when we entered the great hall and advanced

to meet Lady Killbally, who looked over our heads to greet the missing

Salemina. Francesca's beauty, my supposed genius, both fell flat; it

was Salemina whose presence was especially desired. The company was

assembled, save for one guest still more tardy than ourselves, and we

had a moment or two to tell our story as sympathetically as possible. It

had an uncommonly good reception, and, coupled with the Irish letter I

read at dessert, carried the dinner along on a basis of such laughter

and good-fellowship that finally there was no place for regret save in

the hearts of those who knew and loved Salemina--poor Salemina,

spending her dull, lonely evening in our rooms, and later on in her own

uneventful bed, if indeed she had been lucky enough to gain access to

that bed. I had hoped Lady Killbally would put one of us beside Dr.

La Touche, so that we might at least keep Salemina's memory green by

tactful conversation; but it was too large a company to rearrange, and

he had to sit by an empty chair, which perhaps was just as salutary,

after all. The dinner was very smart, and the company interesting and

clever, but my thoughts were elsewhere. As there were fewer squires than

dames at the feast, Lady Killbally kindly took me on her left, with

a view to better acquaintance, and I was heartily glad of a possible

chance to hear something of Dr. La Touche's earlier life. In our

previous interviews, Salemina's presence had always precluded the

possibility of leading the conversation in the wished-for direction.

When I first saw Gerald La Touche I felt that he required explanation.

Usually speaking, a human being ought to be able, in an evening's

conversation, to explain himself, without any adventitious aid. If he is

a man, alive, vigorous, well poised, conscious of his own individuality,

he shows you, without any effort, as much of his past as you need to

form your impression, and as much of his future as you have intuition to

read. As opposed to the vigorous personality, there is the colourless,

flavourless, insubstantial sort, forgotten as soon as learned, and for

ever confused with that of the previous or the next comer. When I was a

beginner in portrait-painting, I remember that, after I had succeeded

in making my background stay back where it belonged, my figure sometimes

had a way of clinging to it in a kind of smudgy weakness, as if it were

afraid to come out like a man and stand the inspection of my eye. How

often have I squandered paint upon the ungrateful object without adding

a cubit to its stature! It refused to look like flesh and blood, but

resembled rather some half-made creature flung on the passive canvas in

a liquid state, with its edges running over into the background. There

are a good many of these people in literature, too,--heroes who, like

home-made paper dolls, do not stand up well; or if they manage to

perform that feat, one unexpectedly discovers, when they are placed in

a strong light, that they have no vital organs whatever, and can be seen

through without the slightest difficulty. Dr. La Touche does not belong

to either of these two classes: he is not warm, magnetic, powerful,

impressive: neither is he by any means destitute of vital organs;

but his personality is blurred in some way. He seems a bit remote,

absentminded, and a trifle, just a trifle, over-resigned. Privately, I

think a man can afford to be resigned only to one thing, and that is the

will of God; against all other odds I prefer to see him fight till

the last armed foe expires. Dr. La Touche is devotedly attached to his

children, but quite helpless in their hands; so that he never looks at

them with pleasure or comfort or pride, but always with an anxiety as

to what they may do next. I understand him better now that I know the

circumstances of which he has been the product. (Of course one is always

a product of circumstances, unless one can manage to be superior to

them.) His wife, the daughter of an American consul in Ireland, was a

charming but somewhat feather-brained person, rather given to whims and

caprices; very pretty, very young, very much spoiled, very attractive,

very undisciplined. All went well enough with them until her father was

recalled to America, because of some change in political administration.

The young Mrs. La Touche seemed to have no resources apart from her

family, and even her baby 'Jackeen' failed to absorb her as might have

been expected.

“We thought her a most trying woman at this time,” said Lady Killbally.

“She seemed to have no thought of her husband's interests, and none of

the responsibilities that she had assumed in marrying him; her only idea

of life appeared to be amusement and variety and gaiety. Gerald was

a student, and always very grave and serious; the kind of man who

invariably marries a butterfly, if he can find one to make him

miserable. He was exceedingly patient; but after the birth of little

Broona, Adeline became so homesick and depressed and discontented that,

although the journey was almost an impossibility at the time, Gerald

took her back to her people, and left her with them, while he returned

to his duties at Trinity College. Their life, I suppose, had been very

unhappy for a year or two before this, and when he came home to Dublin

without his children, he looked a sad and broken man. He was absolutely

faithful to his ideals, I am glad to say, and never wavered in his

allegiance to his wife, however disappointed he may have been in her;

going over regularly to spend his long vacations in America, although

she never seemed to wish to see him. At last she fell into a state of

hopeless melancholia; and it was rather a relief to us all to feel that

we had judged her too severely, and that her unreasonableness and her

extraordinary caprices had been born of mental disorder more than of

moral obliquity. Gerald gave up everything to nurse her and rouse her

from her apathy; but she faded away without ever once coming back to a

more normal self, and that was the end of it all. Gerald's father had

died meanwhile, and he had fallen heir to the property and the estates.

They were very much encumbered, but he is gradually getting affairs into

a less chaotic state; and while his fortune would seem a small one to

you extravagant Americans, he is what we Irish paupers would call well

to do.”

Lady Killbally was suspiciously willing to give me all this

information,--so much so that I ventured to ask about the children.

“They are captivating, neglected little things,” she said. “Madame La

Touche, an aged aunt, has the ostensible charge of them, and she is a

most easy-going person. The servants are of the 'old family' sort,

the reckless, improvident, untidy, devoted, quarrelsome creatures that

always stand by the ruined Irish gentry in all their misfortunes, and

generally make their life a burden to them at the same time. Gerald is a

saint, and therefore never complains.”

“It never seems to me that saints are altogether adapted to positions

like these,” I sighed; “sinners would do ever so much better. I should

like to see Dr. La Touche take off his halo, lay it carefully on the

bureau, and wield a battle-axe. The world will never acknowledge his

merit; it will even forget him presently, and his life will have been

given up to the evolution of the passive virtues. Do you suppose he will

recognise the tender passion if it ever does bud in his breast, or will

he think it a weed, instead of a flower, and let it wither for want of

attention?”

“I think his friends will have to enhance his self-respect, or he

will for ever be too modest to declare himself,” said Lady Killbally.

“Perhaps you can help us: he is probably going to America this winter to

lecture at some of your universities, and he may stay there for a year

or two, so he says. At any rate, if the right woman ever appears on

the scene, I hope she will have the instinct to admire and love and

reverence him as we do,” and here she smiled directly into my eyes, and

slipping her pretty hand under the tablecloth squeezed mine in a manner

that spoke volumes.

It is not easy to explain one's desire to marry off all the unmarried

persons in one's vicinity. When I look steadfastly at any group of

people, large or small, they usually segregate themselves into twos

under my prophetic eye. It they are nice and attractive, I am pleased to

see them mated; if they are horrid and disagreeable, I like to think of

them as improving under the discipline of matrimony. It is joy to see

beauty meet a kindling eye, but I am more delighted still to watch a man

fall under the glamour of a plain, dull girl, and it is ecstasy for me

to see a perfectly unattractive, stupid woman snapped up at last, when I

have given up hopes of settling her in life. Sometimes there are men

so uninspiring that I cannot converse with them a single moment without

yawning; but though failures in all other relations, one can conceive

of their being tolerably useful as husbands and fathers; not for one's

self, you understand, but for one's neighbours.

Dr. La Touche's life now, to any understanding eye, is as incomplete

as the unfinished window in Aladdin's tower. He is too wrinkled, too

studious, too quiet, too patient for his years. His children need a

mother, his old family servants need discipline, his baronial halls need

sweeping and cleaning (I haven't seen them, but I know they do!), and

his aged aunt needs advice and guidance. On the other hand, there are

those (I speak guardedly) who have walked in shady, sequestered paths

all their lives, looking at hundreds of happy lovers on the sunny

highroad, but never joining them; those who adore erudition, who love

children, who have a genius for unselfish devotion, who are sweet and

refined and clever, and who look perfectly lovely when they put on

grey satin and leave off eyeglasses. They say they are over forty, and

although this probably is exaggeration, they may be thirty-nine and

three-quarters; and if so, the time is limited in which to find for them

a worthy mate, since half of the masculine population is looking for

itself, and always in the wrong quarter, needing no assistance to

discover rose-cheeked idiots of nineteen, whose obvious charms draw

thousands to a dull and uneventful fate.

These thoughts were running idly through my mind while the Honourable

Michael McGillicuddy was discoursing to me of Mr. Gladstone's

misunderstanding of Irish questions,--a misunderstanding, he said, so

colossal, so temperamental, and so all-embracing, that it amounted

to genius. I was so anxious to return to Salemina that I wished I had

ordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind,

as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the

first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La

Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's

brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host

through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber

closed to the casual visitor. If I have known him long enough I put

my hand on the latch and smile inquiringly. He looks confused and

conscious, but unlocks the door. Then I peep in, and often I see

something that pleases and charms and touches me so much that it shows

in my eyes when I lift them to his to say “Thank you.” Sometimes, after

that, my host gives me the key and says gravely “Pray come in whenever

you like.”

When Dr. La Touche offers me this hospitality I shall find out whether

he knows anything of that lavender-scented guest-room in Salemina's

heart. First, has he ever seen it? Second, has he ever stopped in it for

any length of time? Third, was he sufficiently enamoured of it to occupy

it on a long lease?

Chapter XVI. Salemina has her chance.

'And what use is one's life widout chances?

Ye've always a chance wid the tide.'

Jane Barlow.

I was walking with Lady Fincoss, and Francesca with Miss Clondalkin,

a very learned personage who has deciphered more undecipherable

inscriptions than any lady in Ireland, when our eyes fell upon an

unexpected tableau.

Seated on a divan in the centre of the drawing-room, in a most

distinguished attitude, in unexceptionable attire, and with the

rose-coloured lights making all her soft greys opalescent, was Miss

Salemina Peabody. Our exclamations of astonishment were so audible that

they must have reached the dining-room, for Lord Killbally did not keep

the gentlemen long at their wine.

Salemina cannot tell a story quite as it ought to be told to produce an

effect. She is too reserved, too concise, too rigidly conscientious. She

does not like to be the centre of interest, even in a modest contretemps

like being locked out of a room which contains part of her dress; but

from her brief explanation to Lady Killbally, her more complete and

confidential account on the way home, and Benella's graphic story when

we arrived there, we were able to get all the details.

When the inside-car passed out of view with us, it appears that Benella

wept tears of rage, at the sight of which Oonah and Molly trembled. In

that moment of despair and remorse, her mind worked as it must always

have done before the Salem priestess befogged it with hazy philosophies,

understood neither by teacher nor by pupil. Peter had come back, but

could suggest nothing. Benella forgot her 'science,' which prohibits

rage and recrimination, and called him a great, hulking, lazy vagabone,

and told him she'd like to have him in Salem for five minutes, just to

show him a man with head on his shoulders.

“You call this a Christian country,” she said, “and you haven't got a

screwdriver, nor a bradawl, nor a monkey-wrench, nor a rat-tail file,

nor no kind of a useful tool to bless yourselves with; and my Miss

Peabody, that's worth ten dozen of you put together, has got to stay

home from the Castle and eat warmed-up scraps served in courses,

with twenty minutes' wait between 'em. Now you do as I say: take the

dining-table and set it out under the window, and the carving-table on

top o' that, and see how fur up it'll reach. I guess you can't stump a

Salem woman by telling her there ain't no ladder.”

The two tables were finally in position; but there still remained nine

feet of distance to that key of the situation, Salemina's window, and

Mrs. Waterford's dressing-table went on top of this pile. “Now, Peter,”

were the next orders, “if you've got sprawl enough, and want to rest

yourself by doin' something useful for once in your life, you just

hold down the dining-table; and you and Oonah, Molly, keep the next two

tables stiddy, while I climb up.”

The intrepid Benella could barely reach the sill, even from this

ingeniously dizzy elevation, and Mrs. Waterford and Salemina were called

on to 'stiddy' the tables, while Molly was bidden to help by giving an

heroic 'boost' when the word of command came. The device was completely

successful, and in a trice the conqueror disappeared, to reappear at the

window holding the precious pearl-embroidered bodice wrapped in a towel.

“I wouldn't stop to fool with the door-knob till I dropped you this,”

she said. “Oonah, you go and wash your hands clean, and help Miss

Peabody into it,--and mind you start the lacing right at the top; and

you, Peter, run down to Rooney's and get the donkey and the cart, and

bring 'em back with you,--and don't you let the grass grow under your

feet neither!”

There was literally no other mode of conveyance within miles, and time

was precious. Salemina wrapped herself in Francesca's long black cloak,

and climbed into the cart. Dinnis hauls turf in it, takes a sack of

potatoes or a pig to market in it, and the stubborn little ass, blind of

one eye, has never in his wholly elective course of existence taken up

the subject of speed.

It was eight o'clock when Benella mounted the seat beside Salemina, and

gave the donkey a preliminary touch of the stick.

“Be aisy wid him,” cautioned Peter. “He's a very arch donkey for a lady

to be dhrivin', and mebbe he'd lay down and not get up for you.”

“Arrah! shut yer mouth, Pether. Give him a couple of belts anondher the

hind leg, melady, and that'll put the fear o' God in him!” said Dinnis.

“I'd rather not go at all,” urged Salemina timidly; “it's too late, and

too extraordinary.”

“I'm not going to have it on my conscience to make you lose this

dinner-party,--not if I have to carry you on my back the whole way,”

said Benella doggedly; “and this donkey won't lay down with me more'n

once,--I can tell him that right at the start.”

“Sure, melady, he'll go to Galway for you, when oncet he's started wid

himself; and it's only a couple o' fingers to the Castle, annyways.”

The four-mile drive, especially through the village of Ballyfuchsia, was

an eventful one, but by dint of prodding, poking, and belting, Benella

had accomplished half the distance in three-quarters of an hour, when

the donkey suddenly lay down 'on her,' according to Peter's prediction.

This was luckily at the town cross, where a group of idlers rendered

hearty assistance. Willing as they were to succour a lady in disthress,

they did not know of any car which could be secured in time to be of

service, but one of them offered to walk and run by the side of the

donkey, so as to kape him on his legs. It was in this wise that

Miss Peabody approached Balkilly Castle; and when a gilded

gentleman-in-waiting lifted her from Rooney's 'plain cart,' she was just

on the verge of hysterics. Fortunately his Magnificence was English, and

betrayed no surprise at the arrival in this humble fashion of a dinner

guest, but simply summoned the Irish housekeeper, who revived her with

wine, and called on all the saints to witness that she'd never heard of

such a shameful thing, and such a disgrace to Ballyfuchsia. The idea of

not keeping a ladder in a house where the door-knobs were apt to come

off struck her as being the worst feature of the accident, though this

unexpected and truly Milesian view of the matter had never occurred to

us.

“Well, I got Miss Peabody to the dinner-party,” said Benella

triumphantly, when she was laboriously unlacing my frock, later on, “or

at least I got her there before it broke up. I had to walk every step o'

the way home, and the donkey laid down four times, but I was so nerved

up I didn't care a mite. I was bound Miss Peabody shouldn't lose her

chance, after all she's done for me!”

“Her chance?” I asked, somewhat puzzled, for dinners, even Castle

dinners, are not rare in Salemina's experience.

“Yes, her chance,” repeated Benella mysteriously; “you'd know well

enough what I mean, if you'd ben born and brought up in Salem,

Massachusetts!”

* * * * *

Copy of a letter read by Penelope O'Connor, descendant of the King of

Connaught, at the dinner of Lord and Lady Killbally at Balkilly Castle.

It needed no apology then, but in sending it to our American friends, we

were obliged to explain that though the Irish peasants interlard their

conversation with saints, angels, and devils, and use the name of the

Virgin Mary, and even the Almighty, with, to our ears, undue familiarity

and frequency, there is no profane or irreverent intent. They are

instinctively religious, and it is only because they feel on terms of

such friendly intimacy with the powers above that they speak of them so

often.

At the Widdy Mullarkey's,

Knockarney House, Ballyfuchsia,

County Kerry.

Och! musha bedad, man alive, but it's a fine counthry over here, and it

bangs all the jewel of a view we do be havin' from the windys, begorra!

Knockarney House is in a wild, remoted place at the back of beyant, and

faix we're as much alone as Robinson Crusoe on a dissolute island; but

when we do be wishful to go to the town, sure there's ivery convaniency.

There's ayther a bit of a jauntin' car wid a skewbald pony for drivin',

or we can borry the loan of Dinnis Rooney's blind ass wid the plain

cart, or we can just take a fut in a hand and leg it over the bog. Sure

it's no great thing to go do, but only a taste of divarsion like, though

it's three good Irish miles an' powerful hot weather, with niver a dhrop

of wet these manny days. It's a great old spring we're havin' intirely;

it has raison to be proud of itself, begob!

Paddy, the gossoon that drives the car (it's a gossoon we call him,

but faix he stands five fut nine in his stockin's, when he wears

anny)--Paddy, as I'm afther tellin' you, lives in a cabin down below

the knockaun, a thrifle back of the road. There's a nate stack of turf

fornint it, and a pitaty pot sets beside the doore, wid the hins and

chuckens rachin' over into it like aigles tryin' to swally the smell.

Across the way there does be a bit of sthrame that's fairly shtiff wid

troutses in the saison, and a growth of rooshes under the edge lookin'

that smooth and greeny it must be a pleasure intirely to the grand young

pig and the goat that spinds their time by the side of it when out of

doores, which is seldom. Paddy himself is raggetty like, and a sight to

behould wid the daylight shinin' through the ould coat on him; but he's

a dacint spalpeen, and sure we'd be lost widout him. His mother's a

widdy woman with nine moidtherin' childer, not countin' the pig an' the

goat, which has aquil advantages. It's nine she has livin', she says,

and four slapin' in the beds o' glory; and faix I hope thim that's in

glory is quieter than the wans that's here, for the divil is busy wid

thim the whole of the day. Here's wan o' thim now makin' me as onaisy as

an ould hin on a hot griddle, slappin' big sods of turf over the

dike, and ruinatin' the timpers of our poulthry. We've a right to be

lambastin' thim this blessed minute, the crathurs; as sure as eggs is

mate, if they was mine they'd sup sorrow wid a spoon of grief, before

they wint to bed this night!

Mistress Colquhoun, that lives at Ardnagreena on the road to the town,

is an iligant lady intirely, an' she's uncommon frindly, may the peace

of heaven be her sowl's rist! She's rale charitable-like an' liberal

with the whativer, an' as for Himself, sure he's the darlin' fine man!

He taches the dead-and-gone languages in the grand sates of larnin',

and has more eddication and comperhinson than the whole of County Kerry

rowled together.

Then there's Lord and Lady Killbally; faix there's no iliganter family

on this counthryside, and they has the beautiful quality stoppin' wid

thim, begob! They have a pew o' their own in the church, an' their

coachman wears top-boots wid yaller chimbleys to thim. They do be very

openhanded wid the eatin' and the drinkin', and it bangs Banagher the

figurandyin' we do have wid thim! So you see Ould Ireland is not too

disthressful a counthry to be divartin' ourselves in, an' we have our

healths finely, glory be to God!

Well, we must be shankin' off wid ourselves now to the Colquhouns',

where they're wettin' a dhrop o' tay for us this mortial instant.

It's no good for yous to write to us here, for we'll be quittin' out o'

this before the letther has a chanst to come; though sure it can folly

us as we're jiggin' along to the north.

Don't be thinkin' that you've shlipped hould of our ricollections,

though the breadth of the ocean say's betune us. More power to your

elbow! May your life be aisy, and may the heavens be your bed!

Penelope O'Connor Beresford.

Part Third--Ulster.

Chapter XVII. The Glens of Antrim.

'Silent, O Moyle, [*] be the roar of thy water;

Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose;

While murmuring mournfully, Lir's lovely daughter

Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.'

Thomas Moore.

* The sea between Erin and Alban (Ireland and Scotland) was

called in the olden time the Sea of Moyle, from the Moyle,

or Mull, of Cantire.

Sorley Boy Hotel,

Glens of Antrim.

We are here for a week, in the neighbourhood of Cushendun, just to see

a bit of the north-eastern corner of Erin, where, at the end of

the nineteenth century, as at the beginning of the seventeenth, the

population is almost exclusively Catholic and Celtic. The Gaelic

Sorley Boy is, in Irish state papers, Carolus Flavus--yellow-haired

Charles--the most famous of the Macdonnell fighters; the one who, when

recognised by Elizabeth as Lord of the Route, and given a patent for his

estates, burned the document before his retainers, swearing that

what had been won by the sword should never be held by the sheepskin.

Cushendun was one of the places in our literary pilgrimage, because of

its association with that charming Irish poetess and good glenswoman who

calls herself 'Moira O'Neill.'

This country of the Glens, east of the river Bann, escaped 'plantation,'

and that accounts for its Celtic character. When the grand Ulster

chieftains, the O'Donnells and the O'Neills of Donegal, went under, the

third great house of Ulster, the 'Macdonnells of the Isles,' was more

fortunate, and, thanks to its Scots blood, found favour with James I.

It was a Macdonnell who was created first Earl of Antrim, and given a

'grant of the Glens and the Route, from the Curran of Larne to the Cutts

of Coleraine.' Ballycastle is our nearest large town, and its great days

were all under the Macdonnells, where, in the Franciscan abbey across

the bay, it is said the ground 'literally heaves with Clandonnell dust.'

Here are buried those of the clan who perished at the hands of Shane

O'Neill--Shane the Proud, who signed himself 'Myself O'Neill,' and who

has been called 'the shaker of Ulster'; here, too, are those who fell in

the great fight at Slieve-an-Aura up in Glen Shesk, when the Macdonnells

finally routed the older lords, the M'Quillans. A clansman once went to

the Countess of Antrim to ask the lease of a farm.

“Another Macdonnell?” asked the countess. “Why, you must all be

Macdonnells in the Low Glens!”

“Ay,” said the man. “Too many Macdonnells now, but not one too many on

the day of Aura.”

From the cliffs of Antrim we can see on any clear day the Sea of Moyle

and the bonnie blue hills of Scotland, divided from Ulster at this point

by only twenty miles of sea path. The Irish or Gaels or Scots of 'Uladh'

often crossed in their curraghs to this lovely coast of Alba, then

inhabited by the Picts. Here, 'when the tide drains out wid itself

beyant the rocks,' we sit for many an hour, perhaps on the very spot

from which they pushed off their boats. The Mull of Cantire runs out

sharply toward you; south of it are Ailsa Craig and the soft Ayrshire

coast; north of the Mull are blue, blue mountains in a semicircle,

and just beyond them somewhere, Francesca knows, are the Argyleshire

Highlands. And oh! the pearl and opal tints that the Irish atmosphere

flings over the scene, shifting them ever at will, in misty sun or

radiant shower; and how lovely are the too rare bits of woodland!

The ground is sometimes white with wild garlic, sometimes blue with

hyacinths; the primroses still linger in moist, hidden places, and there

are violets and marsh marigolds. Everything wears the colour of Hope. If

there are buds that will never bloom and birds that will never fly, the

great mother-heart does not know it yet. “I wonder,” said Salemina, “if

that is why we think of autumn as sad--because the story of the year is

known and told?”

Long, long before the Clandonnell ruled these hills and glens and cliffs

they were the home of Celtic legend. Over the waters of the wee river

Margy, with its half-mile course, often sailed the four white swans,

those enchanted children of Lir, king of the Isle of Man, who had been

transformed into this guise by their cruel stepmother, with a stroke of

her druidical fairy wand. After turning them into four beautiful white

swans she pronounced their doom, which was to sail three hundred years

on smooth Lough Derryvara, three hundred on the Sea of Erris--sail, and

sail, until the union of Largnen, the prince from the north, with Decca,

the princess from the south; until the Taillkenn [**] should come to Erinn,

bringing the light of a pure faith, and until they should hear the voice

of a Christian bell. They were allowed to keep their own Gaelic speech,

and to sing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, which should excel all the

music of the world, and which should lull to sleep all who listened to

it. We could hear it, we three, for we loved the story; and love opens

the ear as well as the heart to all sorts of sounds not heard by the

dull and incredulous. You may hear it, too, any fine soft day if you

will sit there looking out on Fair Head and Rathlin Island, and read the

old fairy tale. When you put down the book you will see Finola, Lir's

lovely daughter, in any white-breasted bird; and while she covers her

brothers with her wings, she will chant to you her old song in the

Gaelic tongue.

** A name given by the Druids to St. Patrick.

'Ah, happy is Lir's bright home today

With mirth and music and poet's lay;

But gloomy and cold his children's home,

For ever tossed on the briny foam.

Our wreath-ed feathers are thin and light

When the wind blows keen through the wintry night;

Yet oft we were robed, long, long ago,

In purple mantles and robes of snow.

On Moyle's bleak current our food and wine

Are sandy seaweed and bitter brine;

Yet oft we feasted in days of old,

And hazel-mead drank from cups of gold.

Our beds are rocks in the dripping caves;

Our lullaby song the roar of the waves;

But soft, rich couches once we pressed,

And harpers lulled us each night to rest.

Lonely we swim on the billowy main,

Through frost and snow, through storm and rain;

Alas for the days when round us moved

The chiefs and princes and friends we loved!'

Joyce's translation.

The Fate of the Children of Lir is the second of Erin's Three Sorrows

of Story, and the third and greatest is the Fate of the Sons of Usnach,

which has to do with a sloping rock on the north side of Fair Head, five

miles from us. Here the three sons of Usnach landed when they returned

from Alba to Erin with Deirdre--Deirdre, who was 'beautiful as Helen,

and gifted like Cassandra with unavailing prophecy'; and by reason of

her beauty many sorrows fell upon the Ultonians.

Naisi, son of Conor, king of Uladh, had fled with Deirdre, daughter of

Phelim, the king's story-teller, to a sea-girt islet on Lough Etive,

where they lived happily by the chase. Naisi's two brothers went with

them, and thus the three sons of Usnach were all in Alba. Then the story

goes on to say that Fergus, one of Conor's nobles, goes to seek the

exiles, and Naisi and Deirdre, while playing at the chess, hear from the

shore 'the cry of a man of Erin.' It is against Deirdre's will that they

finally leave Alba with Fergus, who says, “Birthright is first, for ill

it goes with a man, although he be great and prosperous, if he does not

see daily his native earth.”

So they sailed away over the sea, and Deirdre sang this lay as the

shores of Alba faded from her sight:--

“My love to thee, O Land in the East, and 'tis ill for me to leave thee,

for delightful are thy coves and havens, thy kind, soft, flowery fields,

thy pleasant, green-sided hills; and little was our need of departing.”

Then in her song she went over the glens of their lordship, naming

them all, and calling to mind how here they hunted the stag, here they

fished, here they slept, with the swaying fern for pillows, and here the

cuckoo called to them. And “Never,” she sang, “would I quit Alba were it

not that Naisi sailed thence in his ship.”

They landed first under Fair Head, and then later at Rathlin Island,

where their fate met them at last, as Deirdre had prophesied. It is a

sad story, and we can easily weep at the thrilling moment when, there

being no man among the Ultonians to do the king's bidding, a Norse

captive takes Naisi's magic sword and strikes off the heads of the three

sons of Usnach with one swift blow, and Deirdre, falling prone upon the

dead bodies, chants a lament; and when she has finished singing, she

puts her pale cheek against Naisi's, and dies; and a great cairn is

piled over them, and an inscription in Ogam set upon it.

We were full of legendary lore, these days, for we were fresh from a

sight of Glen Ariff. Who that has ever chanced to be there in a pelting

rain but will remember its innumerable little waterfalls, and the great

falls of Ess-na-Crubh and Ess-na-Craoibhe? And who can ever forget the

atmosphere of romance that broods over these Irish glens?

We have had many advantages here as elsewhere; for kind Dr. La Touche,

Lady Killbally, and Mrs. Colquhoun follow us with letters, and wherever

there is an unusual personage in a district we are commended to his or

her care. Sometimes it is one of the 'grand quality,' and often it is

an Ossianic sort of person like Shaun O'Grady, who lives in a little

whitewashed cabin, and who has, like Mr. Yeats's Gleeman, 'the whole

Middle Ages under his frieze coat.' The longer and more intimately we

know these peasants, the more we realise how much in imagination, or in

the clouds, if you will, they live. The ragged man of leisure you meet

on the road may be a philosopher, and is still more likely to be a poet;

but unless you have something of each in yourself, you may mistake him

for a mere beggar.

“The practical ones have all emigrated,” a Dublin novelist told us,

“and the dreamers are left. The heads of the older ones are filled with

poetry and legends; they see nothing as it is, but always through some

iridescent-tinted medium. Their waking moments, when not tormented by

hunger, are spent in heaven, and they all live in a dream, whether it

be of the next world or of a revolution. Effort is to them useless,

submission to everybody and everything the only safe course; in a word,

fatalism expresses their attitude to life.”

Much of this submission to the inevitable is a product of past poverty,

misfortune, and famine, and the rest is undoubtedly a trace of the same

spirit that we find in the lives and writings of the saints, and which

is an integral part of the mystery and the traditions of Romanism. We

who live in the bright (and sometimes staring) sunlight of common-sense

can hardly hope to penetrate the dim, mysterious world of the Catholic

peasant, with his unworldliness and sense of failure.

Dr. Douglas Hyde, an Irish scholar and staunch Protestant, says: “A

pious race is the Gaelic race. The Irish Gael is pious by nature. There

is not an Irishman in a hundred in whom is the making of an unbeliever.

The spirit, and the things of the spirit, affect him more powerfully

than the body, and the things of the body... What is invisible for other

people is visible for him... He feels invisible powers before him, and

by his side, and at his back, throughout the day and throughout the

night... His mind on the subject may be summed up in the two sayings:

that of the early Church, 'Let ancient things prevail,' and that of St.

Augustine, 'Credo quia impossibile.' Nature did not form him to be an

unbeliever; unbelief is alien to his mind and contrary to his feelings.”

Here, only a few miles away, is the Slemish mountain where St. Patrick,

then a captive of the rich cattle-owner Milcho, herded his sheep and

swine. Here, when his flocks were sleeping, he poured out his prayers,

a Christian voice in Pagan darkness. It was the memory of that darkness,

you remember, that brought him back, years after, to convert Milcho.

Here, too, they say, lies the great bard Ossian; for they love to think

that Finn's son Oisin, [++] the hero poet, survived to the time of St.

Patrick, three hundred years after the other 'Fianna' had vanished from

the earth,--the three centuries being passed in Tir-nan-og, the Land of

Youth, where the great Oisin married the king's daughter, Niam of the

Golden Hair. 'Ossian after the Fianna' is a phrase which has become the

synonym of all survivors' sorrow. Blinded by tears, broken by age, the

hero bard when he returns to earth has no fellowship but with grief, and

thus he sings:--

'No hero now where heroes hurled,--

Long this night the clouds delay--

No man like me, in all the world,

Alone with grief, and grey.

Long this night the clouds delay--

I raise their grave carn, stone on stone,

For Finn and Fianna passed away--

I, Ossian left alone.'

++ Pronounced Isheen' in Munster, Osh'in in Ulster.

In more senses than one Irish folk-lore is Irish history. At least the

traditions that have been handed down from one generation to another

contain not only the sometimes authentic record of events, but

a revelation of the Milesian temperament, with its mirth and its

melancholy, its exuberant fancy and its passion. So in these weird tales

there is plenty of history, and plenty of poetry, to one who will listen

to it; but the high and tragic story of Ireland has been cherished

mainly in the sorrowful traditions of a defeated race, and the legends

have not yet been wrought into undying verse. Erin's songs of battle

could only recount weary successions of Flodden Fields, with never

a Bannockburn and its nimbus of victory; for, as Ossian says of his

countrymen, “they went forth to the war, but they always fell”; but

somewhere in the green isle is an unborn poet who will put all this

mystery, beauty, passion, romance, and sadness, these tragic memories,

these beliefs, these visions of unfulfilled desire, into verse that will

glow on the page and live for ever. Somewhere is a mother who has kept

all these things in her heart, and who will bear a son to write

them. Meantime, who shall say that they have not been imbedded in the

language, as flower petals might be in amber?--that language which,

as an English scholar says, “has been blossoming there unseen, like a

hidden garland of roses; and whenever the wind has blown from the west,

English poetry has felt the vague perfume of it.”

Chapter XVIII. Limavady love-letters.

'As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping

With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine,

When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled,

And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.'

Anonymous.

We wanted to cross to Rathlin Island, which is 'like an Irish stockinge,

the toe of which pointeth to the main lande.' That would bring Francesca

six miles nearer to Scotland and her Scottish lover; and we wished to

see the castle of Robert the Bruce, where, according to the legend, he

learned his lesson from the 'six times baffled spider.' We delayed too

long, however, and the Sea of Moyle looked as bleak and stormy as it did

to the children of Lir. We had no mind to be swallowed up in Brecain's

Caldron, where the grandson of Niall and the Nine Hostages sank with

his fifty curraghs, so we took a day of golf at the Ballycastle links.

Salemina, who is a neophyte, found a forlorn lady driving and putting

about by herself, and they made a match just to increase the interest of

the game. There was but one boy in evidence, and the versatile Benella

offered to caddie for them, leaving the more experienced gossoon to

Francesca and me. The Irish caddie does not, on the whole, perhaps

manifest so keen an interest in the fine points of the game as his

Scottish brother. He is somewhat languid in his search for a ball, and

will occasionally, when serving amiable ladies, sit under a tree in the

sun and speculate as to its whereabouts. As for staying by you while

you 'hole out' on your last green, he has no possible interest in that

proceeding, and is off and away, giving his perfunctory and half-hearted

polish to your clubs while you are passing through this thrilling

crisis. Salemina, wishing to know what was considered a good score by

local players on these links, asked our young friend 'what they got

round in, here,' and was answered, 'They tries to go round in as few as

possible, ma'am, but they mostly takes more!' We all came together again

at luncheon, and Salemina returned flushed with victory. She had made

the nine hole course in one hundred and sixty, and had beaten her

adversary five up and four to play.

The next morning, bright and early, we left for Coleraine, a great

Presbyterian stronghold in what is called by the Roman Catholics the

'black north.' If we liked it, and saw anything of Kitty's descendants,

or any nice pitchers to break, or any reason for breaking them, we

intended to stop; if not, then to push on to the walled town of Derry,--

'Where Foyle his swelling waters

Rolls northward to the main.'

We thought it Francesca's duty, as she was to be the wife of a Scottish

minister of the Established Church, to look up Presbyterianism in

Ireland whenever and wherever possible, with a view to discoursing

learnedly about it in her letters,--though, as she confesses

ingenuously, Ronald, in his, never so much as mentions Presbyterianism.

As for ourselves, we determined to observe all theological differences

between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but leave Presbyterianism to

gang its ain gait. We had devoted hours--yes, days--in Edinburgh to the

understanding of the subtle and technical barriers which separated the

Free Kirkers and the United Presbyterians; and the first thing they did,

after we had completely mastered the subject, was to unite. It is all

very well for Salemina, who condenses her information and stows it

away neatly; but we who have small storage room and inferior methods of

packing must be as economical as possible in amassing facts.

If we had been touring properly, of course we should have been going

to the Giant's Causeway and the swinging Bridge at Carrick-a-rede; but

propriety is the last thing we aim at in our itineraries. We were within

worshipping distance of two rather important shrines in our literary

pilgrimage; for we had met a very knowledgeable traveller at the Sorley

Boy, and after a little chat with him had planned a day of surprises for

the academic Miss Peabody. We proposed to halt at Port Stewart, lunch at

Coleraine, sleep at Limavady; and meantime Salemina was to read all the

books at her command, and guess, we hoped vainly, the why and wherefore

of these stops.

On the appointed day, the lady in question drove in state on a car with

Benella, but Francesca and I hired a couple of very wheezy bicycles for

the journey. We had a thrilling start; for it chanced to be a fair day

in Ballycastle, and we wheeled through a sea of squealing, bolting

pigs, stupid sheep, and unruly cows, all pursued on every side by their

drivers. To alight from a bicycle in such a whirl of beasts always seems

certain death; to remain seated diminishes, I believe, the number of

one's days of life to an appreciable extent. Francesca chose the first

course, and, standing still in the middle of the street, called upon

everybody within hearing to save her, and that right speedily. A crowd

of 'jibbing' heifers encircled her on all sides, while a fat porker,

'who (his driver said) might be a prize pig by his impidence,' and a

donkey that was feelin' blue-mouldy for want of a batin', tried to

poke their noses into the group. Salemina's only weapon was her scarlet

parasol, and, standing on the step of her side-car, she brandished this

with such terrible effect that the only bull in the cavalcade put up

his head and roared. “Have conduct, woman dear!” cried his owner to

Salemina. “Sure if you kape on moidherin' him wid that ombrelly, you'll

have him ugly on me immajently, and the divil a bit o' me can stop him.”

“Don't be cryin' that way, asthore,” he went on, going to Francesca's

side, and piloting her tenderly to the hedge. “Sure I'll nourish him wid

the whip whin I get him to a more remoted place.”

We had no more adventures, but Francesca was so unhinged by her

unfortunate exit from Ballycastle that, after a few miles, she announced

her intention of putting her machine and herself on the car; whereupon

Benella proclaimed herself a competent cyclist, and climbed down

blithely to mount the discarded wheel. Her ideas of propriety were by

this time so developed that she rode ten or twelve feet behind me, where

she looked quaint enough, in her black dress and little black bonnet

with its white lawn strings.

“Sure it's a quare footman ye have, me lady,” said a genial and friendly

person who was sitting by the roadside smoking his old dudeen. An

Irishman, somehow, is always going to his work 'jist,' or coming from

it, or thinking how it shall presently be done, or meditating on the

next step in the process, or resting a bit before taking it up again, or

reflecting whether the weather is on the whole favourable to its proper

performance; but however poor and needy he may be, it is somewhat

difficult to catch him at the precise working moment. Mr. Alfred Austin

says of the Irish peasants that idleness and poverty seem natural to

them. “Life to the Scotsman or Englishman is a business to conduct, to

extend, to render profitable. To the Irishman it is a dream, a little

bit of passing consciousness on a rather hard pillow; the hard part of

it being the occasional necessity for work, which spoils the tenderness

and continuity of the dream.”

Presently we passed the Castle, rode along a neat quay with a row of

houses advertising lodgings to let; and here is Lever Cottage, where

Harry Lorrequer was written; for Lever was dispensary doctor in Port

Stewart when his first book was appearing in the Dublin University

Magazine.

We did not fancy Coleraine; it looked like anything but Cuil-rathain, a

ferny corner. Kitty's sweet buttermilk may have watered, but it had

not fertilised the plain, though the town itself seemed painfully

prosperous. Neither the Clothworkers' Inn nor the Corporation Arms

looked a pleasant stopping-place, and the humble inn we finally selected

for a brief rest proved to be about as gay as a family vault, with

a landlady who had all the characteristics of a poker except its

occasional warmth, as the Liberator said of another stiff and formal

person. Whether she was Scot or Saxon I know not; she was certainly not

Celt, and certainly no Barney McCrea of her day would have kissed her

if she had spilled ever so many pitchers of sweet buttermilk over the

plain; so we took the railway, and departed with delight for Limavady,

where Thackeray, fresh from his visit to Charles Lever, laid his

poetical tribute at the stockingless feet of Miss Margaret of that town.

O'Cahan, whose chief seat was at Limavady, was the principal urraght of

O'Neill, and when one of the great clan was 'proclaimed' at Tullaghogue

it was the magnificent privilege of the O'Cahan to toss a shoe over

his head. We slept at O'Cahan's Hotel, and--well, one must sleep; and

wherever we attend to that necessary function without due preparation,

we generally make a mistake in the selection of the particular spot.

Protestantism does not necessarily mean cleanliness, although it may

have natural tendencies in that direction; and we find, to our surprise

( a surprise rooted, probably, in bigotry), that Catholicism can be

as clean as a penny whistle, now and again. There were no special

privileges at O'Cahan's for maids, and Benella, therefore, had a

delightful evening in the coffee-room with a storm-bound commercial

traveller. As for Francesca and me, there was plenty to occupy us in our

regular letters to Ronald and Himself; and Salemina wrote several sheets

of thin paper to somebody,--no one in America, either, for we saw her

put on a penny stamp.

Our pleasant duties over, we looked into the cheerful glow of the turf

sods while I read aloud Thackeray's Peg of Limavady. He spells the town

with two d's, by the way, to insure its being rhymed properly with Paddy

and daddy.

'Riding from Coleraine

(Famed for lovely Kitty),

Came a Cockney bound

Unto Derry city;

Weary was his soul,

Shivering and sad he

Bumped along the road

Leads to Limavaddy.

. . . .

Limavaddy inn's

But a humble baithouse,

Where you may procure

Whisky and potatoes;

Landlord at the door

Gives a smiling welcome

To the shivering wights

Who to his hotel come.

Landlady within

Sits and knits a stocking,

With a wary foot

Baby's cradle rocking.

. . . .

Presently a maid

Enters with the liquor

(Half a pint of ale

Frothing in a beaker).

Gads! I didn't know

What my beating heart meant:

Hebe's self I thought

Entered the apartment.

As she came she smiled,

And the smile bewitching,

On my word and honour,

Lighted all the kitchen!

. . . .

This I do declare,

Happy is the laddy

Who the heart can share

Of Peg of Limavaddy.

Married if she were,

Blest would be the daddy

Of the children fair

Of Peg of Limavaddy.

Beauty is not rare

In the land of Paddy,

Fair beyond compare

Is Peg of Limavaddy.'

This cheered us a bit; but the wind sighed in the trees, the rain

dripped on the window panes, and we felt for the first time a

consciousness of home-longing. Francesca sat on a low stool, looking

into the fire, Ronald's last letter in her lap, and it was easy indeed

to see that her heart was in the Highlands. She has been giving us a few

extracts from the communication, an unusual proceeding, as Ronald, in

his ordinary correspondence, is evidently not a quotable person. We

smiled over his account of a visit to his old parish of Inchcaldy in

Fifeshire. There is a certain large orphanage in the vicinity, in which

we had all taken an interest, chiefly because our friends the Macraes of

Pettybaw House were among its guardians.

It seems that Lady Rowardennan of the Castle had promised the orphans,

en bloc, that those who passed through an entire year without once

falling into falsehood should have a treat or festival of their own

choosing. On the eventful day of decision, those orphans, male and

female, who had not for a twelve-month deviated from the truth by a

hair's-breadth, raised their little white hands (emblematic of their

pure hearts and lips), and were solemnly counted. Then came the unhappy

moment when a scattering of small grimy paws was timidly put up, and

their falsifying owners confessed that they had fibbed more than once

during the year. These tearful fibbers were also counted, and sent from

the room, while the non-fibbers chose their reward, which was to sail

around the Bass Rock and the Isle of May in a steam tug.

On the festival day, the matron of the orphanage chanced on the happy

thought that it might have a moral effect on the said fibbers to see the

non-fibbers depart in a blaze of glory; so they were taken to the beach

to watch the tug start on its voyage. The confessed criminals looked

wretched enough, Ronald wrote, when forsaken by their virtuous

playmates, who stepped jauntily on board, holding their sailor hats

on their heads and carrying nice little luncheon baskets; so miserably

unhappy, indeed, did they seem that certain sympathetic and ill-balanced

persons sprang to their relief, providing them with sandwiches,

sweeties, and pennies. It was a lovely day, and when the fibbers' tears

were dried they played merrily on the sand, their games directed and

shared by the aforesaid misguided persons.

Meantime a high wind had sprung up at sea, and the tug was tossed to

and fro upon the foamy deep. So many and so varied were the ills of

the righteous orphans that the matron could not attend to all of them

properly, and they were laid on benches or on the deck, where they

languidly declined luncheon, and wept for a sight of the land. At five

the tug steamed up to the home landing. A few of the voyagers were able

to walk ashore, some were assisted, others were carried; and as the

pale, haggard, truthful company gathered on the beach, they were met by

a boisterous, happy crowd of Ananiases and Sapphiras, sunburned, warm,

full of tea and cakes and high spirits, and with the moral law already

so uncertain in their minds that at the sight of the suffering non-liars

it tottered to its fall.

Ronald hopes that Lady Rowardennan and the matron may perhaps have

gained some useful experience by the incident, though the orphans,

truthful and untruthful, are hopelessly mixed in their views of

right-doing.

He is staying now at the great house of the neighbourhood, while his new

manse is being put in order. Roderick, the piper, he says, has a grand

collection of pipe tunes given him by an officer of the Black Watch.

Francesca, when she and Ronald visit the Castle on their wedding

journey, is to have 'Johnnie Cope' to wake her in the morning, 'Brose

and Butter' just before dinner is served, a reel, a strathspey, and

a march while the meal is going on, and, last of all, the 'Highland

Wedding.' Ronald does not know whether there are any Lowland Scots

or English words to this pipe tune, but it is always played in the

Highlands after the actual marriage, and the words in Gaelic are, 'Alas

for me if the wife I have married is not a good one, for she will eat

the food and not do the work!'

“You don't think Ronald meant anything personal in quoting that?” I

asked Francesca teasingly; but she shot me such a reproachful look that

I hadn't the heart to persist, her face was so full of self-distrust and

love and longing.

What creatures of sense we are, after all; and in certain moods, of what

avail is it if the beloved object is alive, safe, loyal, so long as

he is absent? He may write letters like Horace Walpole or

Chesterfield--better still, like Alfred de Musset, or George Sand, or

the Brownings; but one clasp of the hand that moved the pen is worth an

ocean of words! You believe only in the etherealised, the spiritualised

passion of love; you know that it can exist through years of separation,

can live and grow where a coarser feeling would die for lack of

nourishment; still though your spirit should be strong enough to meet

its spirit mate somewhere in the realms of imagination, and the bodily

presence ought not really to be necessary, your stubborn heart of flesh

craves sight and sound and touch. That is the only pitiless part

of death, it seems to me. We have had the friendship, the love, the

sympathy, and these are things that can never die; they have made us

what we are, and they are by their very nature immortal; yet we would

come near to bartering all these spiritual possessions for the 'touch of

a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still.'

How could I ever think life easy enough to be ventured on alone! It

is so beautiful to feel oneself of infinite value to one other human

creature; to hear beside one's own step the tread of a chosen companion

on the same road. And if the way be dusty or the hills difficult to

climb, each can say to the other, 'I love you, dear; lean on me and walk

in confidence. I can always be counted on, whatever happens.'

Chapter XIX. 'In ould Donegal.'

'Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn!

Slainte, and slainte, and slainte agin;

Pow'rfulest preacher and tenderest teacher,

And kindliest creature in ould Donegal.'

Alfred Perceval Graves.

Coomnageeha Hotel,

In Ould Donegal.

It is a far cry from the kingdom of Kerry to 'ould Donegal,' where we

have been travelling for a week, chiefly in the hope of meeting Father

O'Flynn. We miss our careless, genial, ragged, southern Paddy just a

bit; for he was a picturesque, likable figure, on the whole, and easier

to know than this Ulster Irishman, the product of a mixed descent.

We did not stop long in Belfast; for if there is anything we detest,

when on our journeys, it is to mix too much with people of industry,

thrift, and business sagacity. Sturdy, prosperous, calculating,

well-to-do Protestants are well enough in their way, and undoubtedly

they make a very good backbone for Ireland; but we crave something more

romantic than the citizen virtues, or we should have remained in our own

country, where they are tolerably common, although we have not as yet

anything approaching over-production.

Belfast, it seems, is, and has always been, a centre of Presbyterianism.

The members of the Presbytery protested against the execution of Charles

I., and received an irate reply from Milton, who said that 'the blockish

presbyters of Clandeboy' were 'egregious liars and impostors,' who meant

to stir up rebellion 'from their unchristian synagogue at Belfast in a

barbarous nook of Ireland.'

Dr. La Touche writes to Salemina that we need not try to understand all

the religious and political complications which surround us. They are

by no means as violent or as many as in Thackeray's day, when the great

English author found nine shades of politico-religious differences in

the Irish Liverpool. As the impartial observer must, in such a case,

necessarily displease eight parties, and probably the whole nine,

Thackeray advised a rigid abstinence from all intellectual curiosity.

Dr. La Touche says, if we wish to know the north better, it will do us

no harm to study the Plantation of Ulster, the United Irish

movement, Orangeism, Irish Jacobitism, the effect of French and Swiss

Republicanism in the evolution of public sentiment, and the close

relation and affection that formerly existed between the north of

Ireland and New England. (This last topic seems to appeal to Salemina

particularly.) He also alludes to Tories and Rapparees, Rousseau and

Thomas Paine and Owen Roe O'Neill, but I have entirely forgotten their

connection with the subject. Francesca and I are thoroughly enjoying

ourselves, as only those people can who never take notes, and never

try, when Pandora's box is opened in their neighbourhood, to seize the

heterogeneous contents and put them back properly, with nice little

labels on them.

Ireland is no longer a battlefield of English parties, neither is it

wholly a laboratory for political experiment; but from having been both

the one and the other, its features are a bit knocked out of shape and

proportion, as it were. We have bought two hideous engravings of the

Battle of the Boyne and the Secret of England's Greatness; and whenever

we stay for a night in any inn where perchance these are not, we pin

them on the wall, and are received into the landlady's heart at once. I

don't know which is the finer study: the picture of his Majesty William

III. crossing the Boyne, or the plump little Queen presenting a huge

family Bible to an apparently uninterested black youth. In the latter

work of art the eye is confused at first as the three principal features

approach each other very nearly in size, and Francesca asked innocently,

“Which IS the secret of England's greatness--the Bible, the Queen, or

the black man?”

This is a thriving town, and we are at a smart hotel which had for two

years an English manager. The scent of the roses hangs round it still,

but it is gradually growing fainter under the stress of small patronage

and other adverse circumstances. The table linen is a trifle ragged,

though clean; but the circle of red and green wineglasses by each plate,

an array not borne out by the number of vintages on the wine-list, the

tiny ferns scattered everywhere in innumerable pots, and the dozens of

minute glass vases, each holding a few blue hyacinths, give an air of

urban elegance to the dining-room. The guests are requested, in printed

placards, to be punctual at meals, especially at the seven-thirty table

d'hote dinner, and the management itself is punctual at this function

about seven forty-five. This is much better than in the south, where

we, and sixty other travellers, were once kept waiting fifteen minutes

between the soup and the fish course. When we were finally served with

half-cooked turbot, a pleasant-spoken waitress went about to each table,

explaining to the irate guests that the cook was 'not at her best.' We

caught a glimpse of her as she was being borne aloft, struggling and

eloquent, and were able to understand the reason of her unachieved

ideals.

There is nothing sacred about dinner to the average Irishman; he is

willing to take anything that comes, as a rule, and cooking is not

regarded as a fine art here. Perhaps occasional flashes of starvation

and seasons of famine have rendered the Irish palate easier to please;

at all events, wherever the national god may be, its pedestal is not

in the stomach. Our breakfast, day after day, week after week, has been

bacon and eggs. One morning we had tomatoes on bacon, and concluded that

the cook had experienced religion or fallen in love, since both these

operations send a flush of blood to the brain and stimulate the mental

processes. But no; we found simply that the eggs had not been brought in

time for breakfast. There is no consciousness of monotony--far from

it; the nobility and gentry can at least eat what they choose, and they

choose bacon and eggs. There is no running of the family gamut, either,

from plain boiled to omelet; poached or fried eggs on bacon it is,

weekdays and Sundays. The luncheon, too, is rarely inspired: they eat

cold joint of beef with pickled beetroot, or mutton and boiled potatoes,

with unfailing regularity, finishing off at most hotels with semolina

pudding, a concoction intended for, and appealing solely to, the taste

of the toothless infant, who, having just graduated from rubber rings,

has not a jaded palate.

How the long breakfast bill at an up-to-date Belfast hostelry awed us,

after weeks of bacon and eggs! The viands on the menu swam together

before our dazed eyes.

Porridge

Fillets of Plaice

Whiting

Fried Sole

Savoury Omelet

Kidneys and Bacon

Cold Meats.

I looked at this array like one in a dream, realising that I had lost

the power of selection, and remembering the scientific fact that unused

faculties perish for want of exercise. The man who was serving us

rattled his tray, shifted his weight wearily from one foot to the other

and cleared his throat suggestively; until at last I said hastily,

“Bacon and eggs, please,” and Salemina, the most critical person in the

party, murmured, “The same.”

It is odd to see how soon, if one has a strong sense of humanity, one

feels at home in a foreign country. I, at least, am never impressed by

the differences, but only by the similarities, between English-speaking

peoples. We take part in the life about us here, living each experience

as fully as we can, whether it be a 'hiring fair' in Donegal or a

pilgrimage to the Doon 'Well of Healing.' Not the least part of the

pleasure is to watch its effect upon the Derelict. Where, or in what

way, could three persons hope to gain as much return from a monthly

expenditure of twenty dollars, added to her living and travelling

expenses, as we have had in Miss Benella Dusenberry? We sometimes ask

ourselves what we found to do with our time before she came into the

family, and yet she is as busy as possible herself.

Having twice singed Francesca's beautiful locks, she no longer attempts

hair-dressing; while she never accomplishes the lacing of an evening

dress without putting her knee in the centre of your back once, at

least, during the operation. She can button shoes, and she can mend

and patch and darn to perfection; she has a frenzy for small laundry

operations, and, after washing the windows of her room, she adorns every

pane of glass with a fine cambric handkerchief, and, stretching a

line between the bedpost and the bureau knob, she hangs out her

white neckties and her bonnet strings to dry. She has learned to pack

reasonably well, too. But if she has another passion beside those of

washing and mending, it is for making bags. She buys scraps of gingham

and print, and makes cases of every possible size and for every

possible purpose; so that all our personal property, roughly

speaking--hair-brushes, shoes, writing materials, pincushions,

photographs, underclothing, gloves, medicines,--is bagged. The strings

in the bags pull both ways, and nothing is commoner than to see Benella

open and close seventeen or eighteen of them when she is searching for

Francesca's rubbers or my gold thimble. But what other lady's-maid

or travelling companion ever had half the Derelict's unique charm

and interest, half her conversational power, her unusual and original

defects and virtues? Put her in a third-class carriage when we

go 'first,' and she makes friends with all her fellow-travellers,

discussing Home Rule or Free Silver with the utmost prejudice and

vehemence, and freeing her mind on any point, to the delight of the

natives. Occasionally, when borne along by the joy of argument, she

forgets to change at the point of junction, and has to be found and

dragged out of the railway carriage; occasionally, too, she is left

behind when taking a cheerful cup of tea at a way station, but this is

comparatively seldom. Her stories of life belowstairs in the various

inns and hotels, her altercations with housemaid or boots or landlady in

our behalf, all add a zest to the day's doings.

Benella's father was an itinerant preacher, her mother the daughter of

a Vermont farmer; and although she was left an orphan at ten years,

educating and supporting herself as best she could after that, she is as

truly a combination of both parents as her name is a union of their two

names.

“I'm so 'fraid I shan't run across any of grandmother's folks over

here, after all,” she said yesterday, “though I ask every nice-appearin'

person I meet anywheres if he or she's any kin to Mary Boyce of Trim;

and then, again, I'm scared to death for fear I shall find I'm own

cousin to one of these here critters that ain't brushed their hair nor

washed their apurns for a month o' Sundays! I declare, it keeps me real

nerved up... I think it's partly the climate that makes 'em so slack,”

she philosophised, pinning a new bag on her knee, and preparing to

backstitch the seam. “There's nothin' like a Massachusetts winter for

puttin' the git-up-an'-git into you. Land! you've got to move round

smart, or you'd freeze in your tracks. These warm, moist places always

makes folks lazy; and when they're hot enough, if you take notice,

it makes heathen of 'em. It always seems so queer to me that real hot

weather and the Christian religion don't seem to git along together.

P'r'aps it's just as well that the idol-worshippers should get used to

heat in this world, for they'll have it consid'able hot in the next one,

I guess! And see here, Mrs. Beresford, will you get me ten cents'--I

mean sixpence--worth o' red gingham to make Miss Monroe a bag for Mr.

Macdonald's letters? They go sprawlin' all over her trunk; and there's

so many of 'em I wish to the land she'd send 'em to the bank while she's

travellin'!”

Chapter XX. We evict a tenant.

'Soon as you lift the latch, little ones are meeting you,

Soon as you're 'neath the thatch, kindly looks are

greeting you;

Scarcely have you time to be holding out the fist to them--

Down by the fireside you're sitting in the midst of them.'

Francis Fahy.

Roothythanthrum Cottage,

Knockcool, County Tyrone.

Of course, we have always intended sooner or later to forsake this life

of hotels and lodgings, and become either Irish landlords or tenants,

or both, with a view to the better understanding of one burning Irish

question. We heard of a charming house in County Down, which could be

secured by renting it the first of May for the season; but as we

could occupy it only for a month at most we were obliged to forego the

opportunity.

“We have been told from time immemorial that absenteeism has been one of

the curses of Ireland,” I remarked to Salemina; “so, whatever the charms

of the cottage in Rostrevor, do not let us take it, and in so doing

become absentee landlords.”

“It was you two who hired the 'wee theekit hoosie' in Pettybaw,” said

Francesca. “I am going to be in the vanguard of the next house-hunting

expedition; in fact, I have almost made up my mind to take my third of

Benella and be an independent householder for a time. If I am ever to

learn the management of an establishment before beginning to experiment

on Ronald's, now is the proper moment.”

“Ronald must have looked the future in the face when he asked you to

marry him,” I replied, “although it is possible that he looked only at

you, and therefore it is his duty to endure your maiden incapacities;

but why should Salemina and I suffer you to experiment upon us, pray?”

It was Benella, after all, who inveigled us into making our first

political misstep; for, after avoiding the sin of absenteeism, we fell

into one almost as black, inasmuch as we evicted a tenant. It is part of

Benella's heterogeneous and unusual duty to take a bicycle and scour the

country in search of information for us: to find out where shops are,

post-office, lodgings, places for good sketches, ruins, pretty roads for

walks and drives, and many other things, too numerous to mention. She

came home from one of these expeditions flushed with triumph.

“I've got you a house!” she exclaimed proudly. “There's a lady in it

now, but she'll move out to-morrow when we move in; and we are to pay

seventeen dollars fifty--I mean three pound ten--a week for the house,

with privilege of renewal, and she throws in the hired girl.” (Benella

is hopelessly provincial in the matter of language: butler, chef, boots,

footman, scullery-maid, all come under the generic term of 'help.')

“I knew our week at this hotel was out to-morrow,” she continued, “and

we've about used up this place, anyway, and the new village that I've

b'en to is the prettiest place we've seen yet; it's got an up-and-down

hill to it, just like home, and the house I've partly rented is opposite

a fair green, where there's a market every week, and Wednesday's the

day; and we'll save money, for I shan't cost you so much when we can

housekeep.”

“Would you mind explaining a little more in detail,” asked Salemina

quietly, “and telling me whether you have hired the house for yourself

or for us?”

“For us all,” she replied genially--“you don't suppose I'd leave you?

I liked the looks of this cottage the first time I passed it, and I got

acquainted with the hired girl by going in the side yard and asking for

a drink. The next time I went I got acquainted with the lady, who's got

the most outlandish name that ever was wrote down, and here it is on a

paper; and to-day I asked her if she didn't want to rent her house for a

week to three quiet ladies without children and only one of them

married and him away. She said it wa'n't her own, and I asked her if she

couldn't sublet to desirable parties--I knew she was as poor as Job's

turkey by her looks; and she said it would suit her well enough, if she

had any place to go. I asked her if she wouldn't like to travel, and

she said no. Then I says, 'Wouldn't you like to go to visit some of your

folks?' And she said she s'posed she could stop a week with her son's

wife, just to oblige us. So I engaged a car to drive you down this

afternoon just to look at the place; and if you like it we can easy move

over to-morrow. The sun's so hot I asked the stableman if he hadn't got

a top buggy, or a surrey, or a carryall; but he never heard tell of any

of 'em; he didn't even know a shay. I forgot to tell you the lady is a

Protestant, and the hired girl's name is Bridget Thunder, and she's a

Roman Catholic, but she seems extra smart and neat. I was kind of in

hopes she wouldn't be, for I thought I should enjoy trainin' her, and

doin' that much for the country.”

And so we drove over to this village of Knockcool (Knockcool, by the

way, means 'Hill of Sleep'), as much to make amends for Benella's

eccentricities as with any idea of falling in with her proposal. The

house proved everything she said, and in Mrs. Wogan Odevaine Benella had

found a person every whit as remarkable as herself. She is evidently an

Irish gentlewoman of very small means, very flexible in her views and

convictions, very talkative and amusing, and very much impressed with

Benella as a product of New England institutions. We all took a fancy

to one another at first sight, and we heard with real pleasure that

her son's wife lived only a few miles away. We insisted on paying the

evicted lady the three pounds ten in advance for the first week. She

seemed surprised, and we remembered that Irish tenants, though often

capable of shedding blood for a good landlord, are generally averse

to paying him rent. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine then drove away in high good

humour, taking some personal belongings with her, and promising to drink

tea with us some time during the week. She kissed Francesca good-bye,

told her she was the prettiest creature she had ever seen, and asked if

she might have a peep at all her hats and frocks when she came to visit

us.

Salemina says that Rhododendron Cottage (pronounced by Bridget Thunder

'Roothythanthrum') being the property of one landlord and the residence

of four tenants at the same time makes us in a sense participators in

the old system of rundale tenure, long since abolished. The good-will

or tenant-right was infinitely subdivided, and the tiniest holdings

sometimes existed in thirty-two pieces. The result of this joint tenure

was an extraordinary tangle, particularly when it went so far as the

subdivision of 'one cow's grass,' or even of a horse, which, being owned

jointly by three men, ultimately went lame, because none of them would

pay for shoeing the fourth foot.

We have been here five days, and instead of reproving Benella, as we

intended, for gross assumption of authority in the matter, we are more

than ever her bond-slaves. The place is altogether charming, and here it

is for you.

Knockcool Street is Knockcool village itself, as with almost all Irish

towns; but the line of little thatched cabins is brightened at the far

end by the neat house of Mrs. Wogan Odevaine, set a trifle back in its

own garden, by the pillared porch of a modest hotel, and by the barracks

of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The sign of the Provincial Bank of

Ireland almost faces our windows; and although it is used as a meal-shop

the rest of the week, they tell us that two thousand pounds in money is

needed there on fair-days. Next to it is a little house, the upper part

of which is used as a Methodist chapel; and old Nancy, the caretaker, is

already a good friend of ours. It is a humble house of prayer, but Nancy

takes much pride in it, and showed us the melodeon, 'worked by a young

lady from Rossantach,' the Sunday-school rooms, and even the cupboard

where she keeps the jugs for the love-feast and the linen and wine for

the sacrament, which is administered once in three years. Next comes the

Hoeys' cabin, where we have always a cordial welcome, but where we never

go all together, for fear of embarrassing the family, which is a large

one--three generations under one roof, and plenty of children in the

last. Old Mrs. Hoey does not rightly know her age, she says; but her

daughter Ellen was born the year of the Big Wind, and she herself was

twenty-two when she was married, and you might allow a year between that

and when Ellen was born, and make your own calculation.

She tells many stories of the Big Wind, which we learn was in 1839,

making Ellen's age about sixty-one and her mother's eighty-four. The

fury of the storm was such that it forced the water of the Lough far

ashore, stranding the fish among the rocks, where they were found dead

by hundreds. When next morning dawned there was confusion and ruin on

every side: the cross had tumbled from the chapel, the tombstones were

overturned in the graveyard, trees and branches blocked the roadways,

cabins were stripped of their thatches, and cattle found dead in the

fields; so it is small wonder old Mrs. Hoey remembers the day of Ellen's

birth, weak as she is on all other dates.

Ellen's husband, Miles M'Gillan, is the carpenter on an estate in the

neighbourhood. His shop opens out of the cabin, and I love to sit by the

Hoey fireside, where the fan bellows, turned by a crank, brings in an

instant a fresh flame to the sods of smouldering turf, and watch a wee

Colleen Bawn playing among her daddy's shavings, tying them about her

waist and fat wrists, hanging them on her ears and in among her brown

curls. Mother Hoey says that I do not speak like an American--that I

have not so many 'caperin's' in my language, whatever they may be; and

so we have long delightful chats together when I go in for a taste of

Ellen's griddle bread, cooked over the peat coals. Francesca, meantime,

is calling on Mrs. O'Rourke, whose son has taken more than fifty bicycle

prizes; and no stranger can come to Knockcool without inspecting the

brave show of silver, medals, and china that adorn the bedroom, and

make the O'Rourkes the proudest couple in ould Donegal. Phelim O'Rourke

smokes his dudeen on a bench by the door, and invites the passer-by to

enter and examine the trophies. His trousers are held up with bits of

rope arranged as suspenders; indeed, his toilet is so much a matter of

strings that it must be a work of time to tie on his clothing in the

morning, in case he takes it off at night, which is open to doubt;

nevertheless it is he that's the satisfied man, and the luck would be

on him as well as on e'er a man alive, were he not kilt wid the cough

intirely! Mrs. Phelim's skirt shows a triangle of red flannel behind,

where the two ends of the waistband fail to meet by about six inches,

but are held together by a piece of white ball fringe. Any informality

in this part of her costume is, however, more than atoned for by the

presence of a dingy bonnet of magenta velvet, which she always dons for

visitors.

The O'Rourke family is the essence of hospitality, so their kitchen

is generally full of children and visitors; and on the occasion when

Salemina issued from the prize bedroom, the guests were so busy with

conversation that, to use their own language, divil a wan of thim clapt

eyes on the O'Rourke puppy, and they did not notice that the baste was

floundering in a tub of soft, newly made butter standing on the floor.

He was indeed desperately involved, being so completely wound up in the

waxy mass that he could not climb over the tub's edge. He looked comical

and miserable enough in his plight: the children and the visitors

thought so, and so did Francesca and I; but Salemina went directly home,

and kept her room for an hour. She is so sensitive! Och, thin, it's

herself that's the marthyr intirely! We cannot see that the incident

affects us so long as we avoid the O'Rourkes' butter; but she says,

covering her eyes with her handkerchief and shuddering: “Suppose there

are other tubs and other pup--Oh, I cannot bear the thought of it,

dears! Please change the subject, and order me two hard-boiled eggs for

dinner.”

Leaving Knockcool behind us, we walk along the country road between

high, thick hedges: here a clump of weather-beaten trees, there a

stretch of bog with silver pools and piles of black turf, then a sudden

view of hazy hills, a grove of beeches, a great house with a splendid

gateway, and sometimes, riding through it, a figure new to our eyes, a

Lady Master of the Hounds, handsome in her habit with red facings. We

pass many an 'evicted farm,' the ruined house with the rushes growing

all about it, and a lonely goat browsing near; and on we walk, until

we can see the roofs of Lisdara's solitary cabin row, huddled under

the shadow of a gloomy hill topped by the ruins of an old fort. All is

silent, and the blue haze of the peat smoke curls up from the thatch.

Lisdara's young people have mostly gone to the Big Country; and how

many tears have dropped on the path we are treading, as Peggy and Mary,

Cormac and Miles, with a wooden box in the donkey cart behind them, or

perhaps with only a bundle hanging from a blackthorn stick, have come

down the hill to seek their fortune! Perhaps Peggy is barefooted;

perhaps Mary has little luggage beyond a pot of shamrock or a mountain

thrush in a wicker cage; but what matter for that? They are used to

poverty and hardship and hunger, and although they are going quite

penniless to a new country, sure it can be no worse than the old. This

is the happy-go-lucky Irish philosophy, and there is mixed with it a

deal of simple trust in God.

How many exiles and wanderers, both those who have no fortune and

those who have failed to win it, dream of these cabin rows, these

sweet-scented boreens with their 'banks of furze unprofitably gay,'

these leaking thatches with the purple loosestrife growing in their

ragged seams, and, looking backward across the distance of time and

space, give the humble spot a tender thought, because after all it was

in their dear native isle!

'Pearly are the skies in the country of my fathers,

Purple are thy mountains, home of my heart;

Mother of my yearning, love of all my longings,

Keep me in remembrance long leagues apart.'

I have been thinking in this strain because of an old dame in the first

cabin in Lisdara row, whose daughter is in America, and who can talk of

nothing else. She shows us the last letter, with its postal order for

sixteen shillings, that Mida sent from New York, with little presents

for blind Timsy, 'dark since he were three years old,' and for lame

Dan, or the 'Bocca,' as he is called in Lisdara. Mida was named for the

virgin saint of Killeedy in Limerick. [*] “And it's she that's good enough

to bear a saint's name, glory be to God!” exclaims the old mother

returning Mida's photograph to a hole in the wall where the pig cannot

possibly molest it.

* Saint Mide, the Brigit of Munster.

At the far end of the row lives 'Omadhaun Pat.' He is a 'little

sthrange,' you understand; not because he was born with too small a

share of wit, but because he fell asleep one evening when he was lying

on the grass up by the old fort, and--'well, he was niver the same thing

since.' There are places in Ireland, you must know, where if you lie

down upon the green earth and sink into untimely slumber, you will 'wake

silly'; or, for that matter, although it is doubtless a risk, you may

escape the fate of waking silly, and wake a poet! Carolan fell asleep

upon a faery rath, and it was the faeries who filled his ears with

music, so that he was haunted by the tunes ever afterward; and perhaps

all poets, whether they are conscious of it or not, fall asleep on faery

raths before they write sweet songs.

Little Omadhaun Pat is pale, hollow-eyed, and thin; but that, his mother

says, is 'because he is over-studyin' for his confirmation.' The

great day is many weeks away, but to me it seems likely that, when the

examination comes, Pat will be where he will know more than the priests!

Next door lives old Biddy Tuke. She is too aged to work, and she sits

in her doorway, always a pleasant figure in her short woollen petticoat,

her little shawl, and her neat white cap. She has pitaties for food,

with stirabout of Indian meal once a day (oatmeal is too dear), tea

occasionally when there is sixpence left from the rent, and she has more

than once tasted bacon in her eighty years of life; more than once, she

tells me proudly, for it's she that's had the good sons to help her a

bit now and then,--four to carry her and one to walk after, which is the

Irish notion of an ideal family.

“It's no chuckens I do be havin' now, ma'am,” she says, “but it's

a darlin' flock I had ten year ago, whin Dinnis was harvestin' in

Scotland! Sure it was two-and-twinty chuckens I had on the floore wid

meself that year, ma'am.”

“Oh, it's a conthrary world, that's a mortial fact!” as Phelim O'Rourke

is wont to say when his cough is bad; and for my life I can frame no

better wish for ould Biddy Tuke and Omadhaun Pat, dark Timsy and the

Bocca, than that they might wake, one of these summer mornings, in the

harvest-field of the seventh heaven. That place is reserved for the

saints, and surely these unfortunates, acquainted with grief like

Another, might without difficulty find entrance there.

I am not wise enough to say how much of all this squalor and

wretchedness and hunger is the fault of the people themselves, how much

of it belongs to circumstances and environment, how much is the result

of past errors of government, how much is race, how much is religion. I

only know that children should never be hungry, that there are ignorant

human creatures to be taught how to live; and if it is a hard task,

the sooner it is begun the better, both for teachers and pupils. It is

comparatively easy to form opinions and devise remedies, when one knows

the absolute truth of things; but it is so difficult to find the truth

here, or at least there are so many and such different truths to weigh

in the balance,--the Protestant and the Roman Catholic truth, the

landlord's and the tenant's, the Nationalist's and the Unionist's truth!

I am sadly befogged, and so, pushing the vexing questions all aside, I

take dark Timsy, Bocca Lynch, and Omadhaun Pat up on the green hillside

near the ruined fort, to tell them stories, and teach them some of the

thousand things that happier, luckier children know.

This is an island of anomalies: the Irish peasants will puzzle you,

perplex you, disappoint you with their inconsistencies, but keep from

liking them if you can! There are a few cleaner and more comfortable

homes in Lisdara and Knockcool than when we came, and Benella has

been invaluable, although her reforms, as might be expected, are of

an unusual character, and with her the wheels of progress never move

silently, as they should, but always squeak. With the two golden

sovereigns given her to spend, she has bought scissors, knives, hammers,

boards, sewing materials, knitting needles, and yarn,--everything to

work with, and nothing to eat, drink, or wear, though Heaven knows there

is little enough of such things in Lisdara.

“The quicker you wear 'em out, the better you'll suit me,” she says to

the awestricken Lisdarians. “I'm a workin' woman myself, an' it's my

ladies' money I've spent this time; but I'll make out to keep you in

brooms and scrubbin' brushes, if only you'll use 'em! You mustn't take

offence at anything I say to you, for I'm part Irish--my grandmother was

Mary Boyce of Trim; and if she hadn't come away and settled in Salem,

Massachusetts, mebbe I wouldn't have known a scrubbin' brush by sight

myself!”

Chapter XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae.

'What ails you, Sister Erin, that your face

Is, like your mountains, still bedewed with tears?

. . . . . . .

Forgive! forget! lest harsher lips should say,

Like your turf fire, your rancour smoulders long,

And let Oblivion strew Time's ashes o'er your wrong.'

Alfred Austin.

At tea-time, and again after our simple dinner--for Bridget Thunder's

repertory is not large, and Benella's is quite unsuited to the Knockcool

markets--we wend our way to a certain house that stands by itself on

the road to Lisdara. It is only a whitewashed cabin with green window

trimmings, but it is a larger and more comfortable one than we commonly

see, and it is the perfection of neatness within and without. The stone

wall that encloses it is whitewashed too, and the iron picket railing at

the top is painted bright green; the stones on the posts are green also,

and there is the prettiest possible garden, with nicely cut borders of

box. In fine, if ever there was a cheery place to look at, Sarsfield

Cottage is that one; and if ever there was a cheerless gentleman, it is

Mr. Jordan, who dwells there. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine commended him to us

as the man of all others with whom to discuss Irish questions, if we

wanted, for once in a way, to hear a thoroughly disaffected, outraged,

wrong-headed, and rancorous view of things.

“He is an encyclopaedia, and he is perfectly delightful on any topic in

the universe but the wrongs of Ireland,” said she; “not entirely sane

and yet a good father, and a good neighbour, and a good talker. Faith,

he can abuse the English government with any man alive! He has a smaller

grudge against you Americans, perhaps, than against most of the other

nations, so possibly he may elect to discuss something more cheerful

than our national grievances; if he does, and you want a livelier topic,

just mention--let me see--you might speak of Wentworth, who destroyed

Ireland's woollen industry, though it is true he laid the foundation

of the linen trade, so he wouldn't do, though Mr. Jordan is likely to

remember the former point and forget the latter. Well, just breathe the

words 'Catholic Disqualification' or 'Ulster Confiscation,' and you will

have as pretty a burst of oratory as you'd care to hear. You remember

that exasperated Englishman who asked in the House why Irishmen were

always laying bare their grievances. And Major O'Gorman bawled across

the floor, 'Because they want them redressed!'”

Salemina and I went to call on Mr. Jordan the very next day after our

arrival at Knockcool. Over the sitting-room or library door at Sarsfield

Cottage is a coat of arms with the motto of the Jordans, 'Percussus

surgam'; and as our friend is descended from Richard Jordan of Knock,

who died on the scaffold at Claremorris in the memorable year 1798, I

find that he is related to me, for one of the De Exeter Jordans married

Penelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught. He took her

to wife, too, when the espousal of anything Irish, names, language,

apparel, customs, or daughters, was high treason, and meant instant

confiscation of estates. I never thought of mentioning the relationship,

for obviously a family cannot hold grievances for hundreds of years and

bequeath a sense of humour at the same time.

The name Jordan is derived, it appears, from a noble ancestor who was

banner-bearer in the Crusades and who distinguished himself in many

battles, but particularly in one fought against the infidels on the

banks of the River Jordan in the Holy Land. In this conflict he was

felled to the ground three times during the day, but owing to his

gigantic strength, his great valour, and the number of the Saracens

prostrated by his sword, he succeeded in escaping death and keeping

the banner of the Cross hoisted; hence by way of eminence he was called

Jordan; and the motto of this illustrious family ever since has been,

'Though I fall I rise.'

Mr. Jordan's wife has been long dead, but he has four sons, only one of

them, Napper Tandy, living at home. Theobald Wolfe Tone is practising

law in Dublin; Hamilton Rowan is a physician in Cork; and Daniel

O'Connell, commonly called 'Lib' (a delicate reference to the

Liberator), is still a lad at Trinity. It is a great pity that Mr.

Jordan could not have had a larger family, that he might have kept fresh

in the national heart the names of a few more patriots; for his library

walls, 'where Memory sits by the altar she has raised to Woe,' are hung

with engravings and prints of celebrated insurgents, rebels, agitators,

demagogues, denunciators, conspirators,--pictures of anybody, in a word,

who ever struck a blow, right or wrong, well or ill judged, for the

green isle. That gallant Jacobite, Patrick Sarsfield, Burke, Grattan,

Flood, and Robert Emmet stand shoulder to shoulder with three Fenian

gentlemen, names Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien, known in ultra-Nationalist

circles as the 'Manchester martyrs.' For some years after this trio was

hanged in Salford jail, it appears that the infant mind was sadly mixed

in its attempt to separate knowledge in the concrete from the more or

less abstract information contained in the Catechism; and many a bishop

was shocked, when asking in the confirmation service, “Who are the

martyrs?” to be told, “Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien, me lord!”

Francesca says she longs to smuggle into Mr. Jordan's library a picture

of Tom Steele, one of Daniel O'Connell's henchmen, to whom he gave the

title of Head Pacificator of Ireland. Many amusing stories are told

of this official, of his gaudy uniform, his strut and swagger, and his

pompous language. At a political meeting on one occasion, he attacked,

it seems, one Peter Purcell, a Dublin tradesman who had fallen out with

the Liberator on some minor question. “Say no more on the subject, Tom,”

cried O'Connell, who was in the chair, “I forgive Peter from the bottom

of my heart.”

“You may forgive him, liberator and saviour of my country,” rejoined

Steele, in a characteristic burst of his amazingly fervent rhetoric.

“Yes, you, in the discharge of your ethereal functions as the moral

regenerator of Ireland, may forgive him; but, revered leader, I also

have functions of my own to perform; and I tell you that, as Head

Pacificator of Ireland, I can never forgive the diabolical villain that

dared to dispute your august will.”

The doughty Steele, who appears to have been but poorly fitted by nature

for his office, was considered at the time to be half a madman, but as

Sir James O'Connell, Daniel's candid brother, said, “And who the divil

else would take such a job?” At any rate, when we gaze at Mr. Jordan's

gallery, imagining the scene that would ensue were the breath of life

breathed into the patriots' quivering nostrils, we feel sure that the

Head Pacificator would be kept busy.

Dear old white-haired Mr. Jordan, known in select circles as 'Grievance

Jordan,' sitting in his library surrounded by his denunciators,

conspirators, and martyrs, with incendiary documents piled mountains

high on his desk--what a pathetic anachronism he is after all!

The shillelagh is hung on the wall now, for the most part, and faction

fighting is at an end; but in the very last moments of it there were

still 'ructions' between the Fitzgeralds and the Moriartys, and the

age-old reason of the quarrel was, according to the Fitzgeralds, the

betrayal of the 'Cause of Ireland.' The particular instance occurred in

the sixteenth century, but no Fitzgerald could ever afterward meet any

Moriarty at a fair without crying, “Who dare tread on the tail of me

coat?” and inviting him to join in the dishcussion with shticks. This

practically is Mr. Jordan's position; and if an Irishman desires to

live entirely in the past, he can be as unhappy as any man alive. He is

writing a book, which Mrs. Wogan Odevaine insists is to be called The

Groans of Ireland; but after a glance at a page of memoranda pencilled

in a collection of Swift's Irish Tracts that he lent to me (the

volume containing that ghastly piece of irony, The Modest Proposal for

Preventing the Poor of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents

and Country), I have concluded that he is editing a Catalogue of Irish

Wrongs, Alphabetically Arranged. This idea pleased Mrs. Wogan Odevaine

extremely; and when she drove over to tea, bringing several cheerful

young people to call upon us, she proposed, in the most light-hearted

way in the world, to play what she termed the Grievance Game, an

intellectual diversion which she had invented on the instant. She

proposed it, apparently, with a view of showing us how small a knowledge

of Ireland's ancient wrongs is the property of the modern Irish girl,

and how slight a hold on her memory and imagination have the unspeakably

bitter days of the long ago.

We were each given pencil and paper, and two or three letters of the

alphabet, and bidden to arrange the wrongs of Ireland neatly under

them, as we supposed Mr. Jordan to be doing for the instruction and the

depression of posterity. The result proved that Mrs. Odevaine was a true

prophet, for the youngest members of the coterie came off badly enough,

and read their brief list of grievances with much chagrin at their lack

of knowledge; the only piece of information they possessed in common

being the inherited idea that England never had understood Ireland,

never would, never could, never should, never might understand her.

Rosetta Odevaine succeeded in remembering, for A, F, and H, Absenteeism,

Flight of the Earls, Famine, and Hunger; her elder sister, Eileen, fresh

from college, was rather triumphant with O and P, giving us Oppression

of the Irish Tenantry, Penal Laws, Protestant Supremacy, Poynings' Law,

Potato Rot, and Plantations. Their friend, Rhona Burke, had V, W, X, Y,

Z, and succeeded only in finding Wentworth and Woollen Trade Destroyed,

until Miss Odevaine helped her with Wood's Halfpence, about which

everybody else had to be enlightened; and there was plenty of laughter

when Francesca suggested for V, Vipers Expelled by St. Patrick. Salemina

carried off the first prize; but we insisted C and D were the easiest

letters; at any rate, her list showed great erudition, and would

certainly have pleased Mr. Jordan. C, Church Cess, Catholic

Disqualification, Crimes Act of 1887, Confiscations, Cromwell, Carrying

Away of Lia Fail (Stone of Destiny) from Tara. D, Destruction of Trees

on Confiscated Lands, Discoverers (of flaws in Irish titles), Debasing

of the Coinage by James I.

Mrs. Odevaine came next with R and S. R, Recall of Lord Fitzwilliams

by Pitt, Rundale Land Tenure, Rack-Rents, Ribbonism. S, Schism Act,

Supremacy Act, Sixth Act of George I.

I followed with T and U, having unearthed Tithes and the Test Act for

the first, and Undertakers, the Acts of Union and Uniformity, for the

second; while Francesca, who had been given I, J, K, L, and M, disgraced

herself by failing on all the letters but the last, under which she

finally catalogued one particularly obnoxious wrong in Middlemen.

This ignorance of the past may have its bright side, after all, though

to speak truthfully, it did show a too scanty knowledge of national

history. But if one must forget, it is as well to begin with the wrongs

of far-off years, those 'done to your ancient name or wreaked upon your

race.'

Part Fourth--Connaught.

Chapter XXII. The Weeping West.

'Veiled in your mist, and diamonded with showers.'

Alfred Austin.

Shan Van Vocht Hotel,

Heart of Connemara.

Shan Van Vocht means in English the 'Poor Little Old Woman,' one of the

many endearing names given to Ireland in the Gaelic. There is, too,

a well-known rebel song called by this title--one which was not only

written in Irish and English, but which was translated into French for

the soldiers at Brest who were to invade Ireland under Hoche.

We had come from Knockcool, Donegal, to Westport, in County Mayo, and

the day was enlivened by two purely Irish touches, one at the beginning

and one at the end. We alighted at a certain railway junction to

await our train, and were interested in a large detachment of

soldiers--leaving for a long journey, we judged, by the number of

railway carriages and the amount of luggage and stores. In every crowded

compartment there were two or three men leaning out over the locked

doors; for the guard was making ready to start. All were chatting gaily

with their sweethearts, wives, and daughters, save one gloomy fellow

sitting alone in a corner, searching the crowd with sad eyes for a

wished-for face or a last greeting. The bell rang, the engine stirred;

suddenly a pretty, rosy girl flew breathlessly down the platform,

pushing her way through the groups of onlookers. The man's eyes lighted;

he rose to his feet, but the other fellows blocked the way; the door was

locked, and he had but one precious moment. Still he was equal to

the emergency, for he raised his fist and with one blow shattered the

window, got his kiss, and the train rumbled away, with his victorious

smile set in a frame of broken glass! I liked that man better than any

one I've seen since Himself deserted me for his Duty! How I hope the

pretty girl will be faithful, and how I hope that an ideal lover will

not be shot in South Africa!

And if he was truly Irish, so was the porter at a little way station

where we stopped in the dark, after being delayed interminably at

Claremorris by some trifling accident. We were eight persons packed into

a second-class carriage, and totally ignorant of our whereabouts; but

the porter, opening the door hastily, shouted, “Is there anny one there

for here?”--a question so vague and illogical that none of us said

anything in reply, but simply gazed at one another, and then laughed as

the train went on.

We are on a here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow journey, determined to avoid

the railways, and travel by private conveyance and the public 'long

cars,' just for a glimpse of the Weeping West before we settle down

quietly in County Meath for our last few weeks of Irish life.

Thus far it has been a pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas;

in fact, we're desthroyed wid the dint of the damp! 'Moist and

agreeable--that's the Irish notion both for climate and company.' If

the barometer bore any relation to the weather, we could plan our drives

with more discretion; but it sometimes remains as steady as a rock

during two days of sea mist, and Francesca, finding it wholly regardless

of gentle tapping, lost her temper on one occasion and rapped it

so severely as to crack the glass. That this peculiarity of Irish

barometers has been noted before we are sure, because of this verse

written by a native bard:--

'When the glass is up to thirty,

Be sure the weather will be dirty.

When the glass is high, O very!

There'll be rain in Cork and Kerry.

When the glass is low, O Lork!

There'll be rain in Kerry and Cork!'

I might add:--

And when the glass has climbed its best,

The sky is weeping in the West.

The national rainbow is as deceitful as the barometer, and it is no

uncommon thing for us to have half a dozen of them in a day, between

heavy showers, like the smiles and tears of Irish character; though, to

be sure, one does not need to be an Irish patriot to declare that a fine

day in this country is worth three fine days anywhere else. The present

weather is accounted for partially by the fact that, as Horace Walpole

said, summer has set in with its usual severity, and the tourist is

abroad in the land.

I am not sure but that we belong to the hated class for the moment,

though at least we try to emulate tourist virtues, if there are any, and

avoid tourist vices, which is next to impossible, as they are the fruit

of the tour itself. It is the circular tour which, in its effect upon

the great middle class, is the most virulent and contagious, and which

breeds the most offensive habits of thought and speech. The circular

tour is a magnificent idea, a praiseworthy business scheme; it has

educated the minds of millions and why it should have ruined their

manners is a mystery, unless indeed they had none when they were at

home. Some of our fellow-travellers with whom we originally started

disappear every day or two, to join us again. We lose them temporarily

when we take a private conveyance or when they stop at a cheap hotel,

but we come altogether again on coach or long car; and although they

have torn off many coupons in the interval, their remaining stock seems

to assure us of their society for days to come.

We have a Protestant clergyman who is travelling for his health,

but beguiling his time by observations for a volume to be called The

Relation between Priests and Pauperism. It seems, at first thought,

as if the circular coupon system were ill fitted to furnish him with

corroborative detail; but inasmuch as every traveller finds in a country

only, so to speak, what he brings to it, he will gather statistics

enough. Those persons who start with a certain bias of mind in one

direction seldom notice any facts that would throw out of joint those

previously amassed; they instinctively collect the ones that 'match,'

all others having a tendency to disturb the harmony of the original

scheme. The clergyman's travelling companion is a person who possesses

not a single opinion, conviction, or trait in common with him; so we

conclude that they joined forces for economy's sake. This comrade we

call 'the man with the evergreen heart,' for we can hardly tell by his

appearance whether he is an old young man or a young old one. With his

hat on he is juvenile; when he removes it, he is so distinctly

elderly that we do not know whether to regard him as damaged youth or

well-preserved old age; but he transfers his solicitous attentions to

lady after lady, rebuffs not having the slightest effect upon his warm,

susceptible, ardent nature. We suppose that he is single, but we know

that he can be married at a moment's notice by anybody who is willing to

accept the risks of the situation. Then we have a nice schoolmaster, so

agreeable that Salemina, Francesca, and I draw lots every evening as

to who shall sit beside him next day. He has just had seventy boys down

with measles at the same time, giving prizes to those who could show the

best rash! Salemina is no friend to the competitive system in education,

but this appealed to her as being as wise as it was whimsical.

We have also in our company an indiscreet and inflammable Irishman from

Wexford and a cutler from Birmingham, who lose no opportunity to have

a conversational scrimmage. When the car stops to change or water the

horses (and as for this last operation, our steeds might always manage

it without loss of time by keeping their mouths open), we generally

hear something like this; for although the two gentlemen have never met

before, they fight as if they had known each other all their lives.

Mr. Shamrock. “Faith, then, if you don't like the hotels and the

railroads, go to Paris or London; we've done widout you up to now,

and we can kape on doing widout you! We'd have more money to spind in

entertainin' you if the government hadn't taken three million of pounds

out of us to build fortifications in China.”

Mr. Rose. “That's all bosh and nonsense; you wouldn't know how to manage

an hotel if you had the money.”

Mr. Shamrock. “If we can't make hotel-kapers, it's soldiers we can make;

and be the same token you can't manage India or Canada widout our help!

Faith, England owes Ireland more than she can pay, and it's not her

business to be thravelin' round criticisin' the throubles she's helped

to projuce.”

Mr. Rose. “William Ewart Gladstone did enough for your island to make up

for all the harm that the other statesmen may or may not have done.”

Mr. Shamrock, touched in his most vulnerable point, shrieks above the

rattle of the wheels: “The wurrst statesman that iver put his name to

paper was William Ewart Gladstone!”

Mr. Rose. “The best, I say!”

Mr. Shamrock. “I say the wurrst!”

Mr. Rose. “The best!!”

Mr. Shamrock. “The wurrst!!”

Mr. Rose (after a pause). “It's your absentee landlords that have done

the mischief. I'd hang every one of them, if I had my way.”

Mr. Shamrock. “Faith, they'd be absent thin, sure enough!”

And at this everybody laughs, and the trouble is over for a brief space,

much to the relief of Mrs. Shamrock, until her husband finds himself,

after a little, sufficiently calm to repeat a Cockney anecdote, which is

received by Mr. Rose in resentful silence, it being merely a description

of the common bat, an unfortunate animal that, according to Mr.

Shamrock, “'as no 'ole to 'ide in, no 'ands to 'old by, no 'orns to 'urt

with, though Nature 'as given 'im 'ooks be'ind to 'itch 'imself up by.”

The last two noteworthy personages in our party are a dapper Frenchman,

who is in business at Manchester, and a portly Londoner, both of whom

are seeing Ireland for the first time. The Frenchman does not grumble at

the weather, for he says that in Manchester it rains twice a day all the

year round, save during the winter, when it commonly rains all day.

Sir James Paget, in an address on recreation, defined its chief element

to be surprise. If that is true, the portly Londoner must be exhilarated

beyond words. But with him the sensation does not stop with surprise:

it speedily becomes amazement, and then horror; for he is of the

comparative type, and therefore sees things done and hears things said,

on every hand, that are not said and done at all in the same way in

London. He sees people--ay, and policemen--bicycling on footpaths and

riding without lamps, and is horrified to learn that they are seldom,

if ever, prosecuted. He is shocked at the cabins, and the rocks, and the

beggar children, and the lack of trees; at the lack of logic, also, and

the lack of shoes; at the prevalence of the brogue; above all, at the

presence of the pig in the parlour. He is outraged at the weather, and

he minds getting wet the more because he hates Irish whisky. He keeps a

little notebook, and he can hardly wait for dinner to be over, he is

so anxious to send a communication (probably signed 'Veritas') to the

London Times.

The multiplicity of rocks and the absence of trees are indeed the two

most striking features of the landscape; and yet Boate says, 'In

ancient times as long as the land was in full possession of the Irish

themselves, all Ireland was very full of woods on every side, as

evidently appeareth by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis.' But this

was long ago,--

'Ere the emerald gem of the western world

Was set in the brow of a stranger.'

In the long wars with the English these forests were the favourite

refuge of the natives, and it was a common saying that the Irish could

never be tamed while the leaves were upon the trees. Then passages were

cut through the woods, and the policy of felling them, as a military

measure, was begun and carried forward on a gigantic scale in

Elizabeth's reign.

At one of the cabins along the road they were making great preparations,

which we understood from having seen the same thing in Lisdara. There

are wee villages and solitary cabins so far from chapel that the priests

establish 'stations' for confession. A certain house is selected, and

all the old, infirm, and feeble ones come there to confess and hear

Mass. The priest afterwards eats breakfast with the family; and there

is great pride in this function, and great rivalry in the humble

arrangements. Mrs. Odevaine often lends a linen cloth and flowers to

one of her neighbours, she tells us; to another a knife and fork, or a

silver teapot; and so on. This cabin was at the foot of a long hill, and

the driver gave me permission to walk; so Francesca and I slipped down,

I with a parcel which chanced to have in it some small purchases made

at the last hotel. We asked if we might help a bit, and give a little

teapot of Belleek ware and a linen doily trimmed with Irish lace. Both

the articles were trumpery bits of souvenirs, but the old dame was

inclined to think that the angels and saints had taken her in charge,

and nothing could exceed her gratitude. She offered us a potato from

the pot, a cup of tea or goat's milk, and a bunch of wildflowers from

a cracked cup; and this last we accepted as we departed in a shower of

blessings, the most interesting of them being, “May the Blessed Virgin

twine your brow with roses when ye sit in the sates of glory!” and “The

Lord be good to ye, and sind ye a duke for a husband!” We felt more than

repaid for our impulsive interest, and as we disappeared from sight a

last 'Bannact dea leat!' ['God's blessing be on your way!') was wafted

to our ears.

I seem to have known all these people before, and indeed I have met them

between the covers of a book; for Connemara has one prophet, and her

name is Jane Barlow. In how many of these wild bog-lands of Connaught

have we seen a huddle of desolate cabins on a rocky hillside, turf

stacks looking darkly at the doors, and empty black pots sitting on the

thresholds, and fancied we have found Lisconnel! I should recognise

Ody Rafferty, the widow M'Gurk, Mad Bell, old Mrs. Kilfoyle, or Stacey

Doyne, if I met them face to face, just as I should know other real

human creatures of a higher type,--Beatrix Esmond, Becky Sharp, Meg

Merrilies, or Di Vernon.

Chapter XXIII. Beams and motes.

'Mud cabins swarm in

This place so charming,

With sailor garments

Hung out to dry;

And each abode is

Snug and commodious,

With pigs melodious

In their straw-built sty.'

Father Prout.

'“Did the Irish elves ever explain themselves to you, Red Rose?”

'“I can't say that they did,” said the English Elf. “You can't call it

an explanation to say that a thing has always been that way, just: or

that a thing would be a heap more bother any other way.”'

The west of Ireland is depressing, but it is very beautiful; at least

if your taste includes an appreciation of what is wild, magnificent,

and sombre. Oppressed you must be, even if you are an artist, by its

bleakness and its dreariness, its lonely lakes reflecting a dull, grey

sky, its desolate boglands, its solitary chapels, its wretched cabins

perched on hillsides that are very wildernesses of rocks. But for cloud

effects, for wonderful shadows, for fantastic and unbelievable sunsets,

when the mountains are violet, the lakes silver with red flashes, the

islets gold and crimson and purple, and the whole cloudy west in a

flame, it is unsurpassed; only your standard of beauty must not be a

velvet lawn studded with copper beeches, or a primary-hued landscape

bathed in American sunshine. Connemara is austere and gloomy under a

dull sky, but it has the poetic charm that belongs to all mystery,

and its bare cliffs and ridges are delicately pencilled on a violet

background, in a way peculiar to itself and enchantingly lovely.

The waste of all God's gifts; the incredible poverty; the miserable

huts, often without window or chimney; the sad-eyed women, sometimes

nothing but 'skins, bones, and grief'; the wild, beautiful children,

springing up like startled deer from behind piles of rocks or growths of

underbrush; the stony little bits of earth which the peasants cling to

with such passion, while good grasslands lie unused, yet seem for ever

out of reach,--all this makes one dream, and wonder, and speculate, and

hope against hope that the worst is over and a better day dawning. We

passed within sight of a hill village without a single road to

connect it with the outer world. The only supply of turf was on the

mountain-top, and from thence it had to be brought, basket by basket,

even in the snow. The only manure for such land is seaweed, and that

must be carried from the shore to the tiny plats of sterile earth on the

hillside. I remember it all, for I refused to buy a pair of stockings of

a woman along the road. We had taken so many that my courage failed; but

I saw her climbing the slopes patiently, wearily, a shawl over her white

hair,--knitting, knitting, knitting, as she walked in the rain to her

cabin somewhere behind the high hills. We never give to beggars in any

case, but we buy whatever we can as we are able; and why did I draw the

line at that particular pair of stockings, only to be haunted by that

pathetic figure for the rest of my life? Beggars there are by the score,

chiefly in the tourist districts; but it is only fair to add that there

are hundreds of huts where it would be a dire insult to offer a penny

for a glass of water, a sup of milk, or the shelter of a turf fire.

As we drive along the road, we see, if the umbrellas can be closed for a

half-hour, flocks of sheep grazing on the tops of the hills, where it is

sunnier, where food is better and flies less numerous. Crystal streams

and waterfalls are pouring down the hillsides to lose themselves in one

of Connemara's many bays, and we have a glimpse of osmunda fern, golden

green and beautiful. It was under a branch of this Osmunda regalis

that the Irish princess lay hidden, they say, till she had evaded her

pursuers. The blue turf smoke rises here and there,--now from a cabin

with house-leek growing on the crumbling thatch, now from one whose roof

is held on by ropes and stones,--and there is always a turf bog, stacks

and stacks of the cut blocks, a woman in a gown of dark-red flannel

resting for a moment, with the empty creel beside her, and a man cutting

in the distance. After climbing the long hill beyond the 'station' we

are rewarded by a glimpse of more fertile fields; the clumps of ragwort

and purple loosestrife are reinforced with kingcups and lilies growing

near the wayside, and the rare sight, first of a pot of geraniums in the

window, and then of a garden all aglow with red fuchsias, torch plants,

and huge dahlias, so cheers Veritas that he takes heart again. “This

is something like home!” he exclaims breezily; whereupon Mr. Shamrock

murmurs that if people find nothing to admire in a foreign country save

what resembles their own, he wonders that they take the trouble to be

travelling.

“It is a darlin' year for the pitaties,” the drivers says; and there

are plenty of them planted hereabouts, even in stony spots not worth

a keenogue for anything else, for “pitaties doesn't require anny

inTHRICKet farmin', you see, ma'am.”

The clergyman remarks that only three things are required to make

Ireland the most attractive country in the world: “Protestantism,

cleanliness, and gardens”; and Mr. Shamrock, who is of course a Roman

Catholic, answers this tactful speech in a way that surprises the

speaker and keeps him silent for hours.

The Birmingham cutler, who has a copy of Ismay's Children in his pocket,

triumphantly reads aloud, at this moment, a remark put into the mouth of

an Irish character: “The low Irish are quite destitute of all notion of

beauty,--have not the remotest particle of artistic sentiment or taste;

their cabins are exactly as they were six hundred years ago, for they

never want to improve themselves.”

Then Mr. Shamrock asserts that any show of prosperity on a tenant's

part would only mean an advance of rent on the landlord's; and Mr. Rose

retorts that while that might have been true in former times, it is

utterly false to-day.

Mrs. Shamrock, who is a natural apologist, pleads that the Irish gentry

have the most beautiful gardens in the world and the greatest natural

taste in gardening, and there must be some reason why the lower classes

are so different in this respect. May it not be due partly to lack of

ground, lack of money to spend on seeds and fertilisers, lack of all

refining, civilising and educating influences? Mr. Shamrock adds that

the dwellers in cabins cannot successfully train creepers against the

walls or flowers in the dooryard, because of the goat, pig, donkey,

ducks, hens, and chickens; and Veritas asks triumphantly, “Why don't you

keep the pig in a sty, then?”

The man with the evergreen heart (who has already been told this morning

that I am happily married, Francesca engaged, Salemina a determined

celibate, but Benella quite at liberty) peeps under Salemina's umbrella

at this juncture, and says tenderly, “And what do you think about these

vexed questions, dear madam?” Which gives her a chance to reply with

some distinctness, “I shall not know what I think for several months to

come; and at any rate there are various things more needed on this coach

than opinions.”

At this the Frenchman murmurs, “Ah, she has right!” and the Birmingham

cutler says, “'Ear! 'ear!”

On another day the parson began to tell the man with the evergreen heart

some interesting things about America. He had never been there himself,

but he had a cousin who had travelled extensively in that country,

and had brought back much unusual information. “The Americans are an

extraordinary people on the practical side,” he remarked; “but having

said that, you have said all, for they are sordid, and absolutely devoid

of ideality. Take an American at his roller-top desk, a telephone at one

side and a typewriter at the other, talk to him of pork and dollars,

and you have him at his very best. He always keeps on his Panama hat at

business, and sits in a rocking-chair smoking a long cigar. The American

woman wears a blue dress with a red lining, or a black dress with orange

trimmings, showing a survival of African taste; while another exhibits

the American-Indian type,--sallow, with high cheekbones. The manners of

the servant classes are extraordinary. I believe they are called 'the

help,' and they commonly sit in the drawing-room after the work is

finished.”

“You surprise me!” said Mrs. Shamrock.

“It is indeed amazing,” he continued; “and there are other extraordinary

customs, among them the habit of mixing ices with all beverages. They

plunge ices into mugs of ale, beer, porter, lemonade, or Apollinaris,

and sip the mixture with a long ladle at the chemist's counter, where it

is usually served.”

“You surprise me!” exclaimed the cutler.

“You surprise me too!” I echoed in my inmost heart. Francesca would not

have confined herself to that blameless mode of expression, you may be

sure, and I was glad that she was on the back seat of the car. I did

not know it at the time, but Veritas, who is a man of intelligence,

had identified her as an American, and wishing to inform himself on all

possible points, had asked her frankly why it was that the people of

her nation gave him the impression of never being restful or quiet,

but always so excessively and abnormally quick in motion and speech and

thought.

“Casual impressions are not worth anything,” she replied nonchalantly.

“As a nation, you might sometimes give us the impression of being

phlegmatic and slow-witted. Both ideas may have some basis of fact, yet

not be absolutely true. We are not all abnormally quick in America. Look

at our messenger boys, for example.”

“We! Phlegmatic and slow-witted!” exclaimed Veritas. “You surprise me!

And why do you not reward these government messengers for speed, and

stimulate them in that way?”

“We do,” Francesca answered; “that is the only way in which we ever get

them to arrive anywhere--by rewarding and stimulating them at both ends

of the journey, and sometimes, in extreme cases, at a halfway station.”

“This is most interesting,” said Veritas, as he took out his damp

notebook; “and perhaps you can tell me why your newspapers are so poorly

edited, so cheap, so sensational?”

“I confess I can't explain it,” she sighed, as if sorely puzzled. “Can

it be that we have expended our strength on magazines, where you are so

lamentably weak?”

At this moment the rain began as if there had been a long drought

and the sky had just determined to make up the deficiency. It fell in

sheets, and the wind blew I know not how many Irish miles an hour.

The Frenchman put on a silk macintosh with a cape, and was berated by

everybody in the same seat because he stood up a moment and let the

water in under the lap covers. His umbrella was a dainty en-tout-cas

with a mother-of-pearl handle, that had answered well enough in heavy

mist or soft drizzle. His hat of fine straw was tied with a neat cord

to his buttonhole; but although that precaution insured its ultimate

safety, it did not prevent its soaring from his head and descending on

Mrs. Shamrock's bonnet. He conscientiously tried holding it on with one

hand, but was then reproved by both neighbours because his macintosh

dripped over them.

“How are your spirits, Frenchy?” asked the cutler jocosely.

“I am not too greatly sad,” said the poor gentleman, “but I will be

glad it should be finished; far more joyfully would I be at Manchester,

triste as it may be.”

Just then a gust of wind blew his cape over his head and snapped his

parasol.

“It is evidently it has been made in Ireland,” he sighed, with a

desperate attempt at gaiety. “It should have had a grosser stem,

and helas! it must not be easy to have it mended in these barbarous

veelages.”

We stopped at four o'clock at a wayside hostelry, and I had quietly

made up my mind to descend from the car, and take rooms for the night,

whatever the place might be. Unfortunately, the same idea occurred to

three or four of the soaked travellers; and as men could leap down,

while ladies must wait for the steps, the chivalrous sex, their manners

obscured by the circular tour system, secured the rooms, and I was

obliged to ascend again, wetter than ever, to my perch beside the

driver.

“Can I get the box seat, do you think, if I pay extra for it?” I had

asked one of the stablemen before breakfast.

“You don't need to be payin', miss! Just confront the driver, and you'll

get it aisy!” If, by the way, I had confronted him at the end instead of

at the beginning of the journey, my charms certainly would not have

been all-powerful, for my coat had been leaked upon by red and green

umbrellas, my hat was a shapeless jelly, and my face imprinted with the

spots from a drenched blue veil.

After two hours more of this we reached the Shan Van Vocht Hotel, where

we had engaged apartments; but we found to our consternation that it was

full, and that we had been put in lodgings a half-mile away.

Salemina, whose patience was quite exhausted by the discomforts of the

day, groaned aloud when we were deposited at the door of a village shop,

and ushered upstairs to our tiny quarters; but she ceased abruptly when

she really took note of our surroundings. Everything was humble, but

clean and shining--glass, crockery, bedding, floor, on the which we were

dripping pools of water, while our landlady's daughter tried to make us

more comfortable.

“It's a soft night we're havin',” she said, in a dove's voice, “but

we'll do right enough if the win' doesn't rise up on us.”

Left to ourselves, we walked about the wee rooms on ever new and more

joyful voyages of discovery. The curtains rolled up and down easily; the

windows were propped upon nice clean sticks instead of tennis rackets

and hearth brushes; there was a well-washed stone to keep the curtain

down on the sill; and just outside were tiny window gardens, in each of

which grew three marigolds and three asters, in a box fenced about with

little green pickets. There were well-dusted books on the tables, and

Francesca wanted to sit down immediately to The Charming Cora, reprinted

from The Girl's Own Paper. Salemina meantime had tempted fate by looking

under the bed, where she found the floor so exquisitely neat that she

patted it affectionately with her hand.

We had scarcely donned our dry clothing when the hotel proprietor sent a

jaunting-car for our drive to the seven-o'clock table d'hote dinner. We

carefully avoided our travelling companions that night, but learned the

next morning that the Frenchman had slept on four chairs, and rejected

the hotel coffee with the remark that it was not 'veritable'--a

criticism in which he was quite justified. Our comparative Englishman

had occupied a cot in a room where the tin bathtubs were kept. He was

writing to The Times at the moment of telling me his woes, and, without

seeing the letter, I could divine his impassioned advice never to travel

in the west of Ireland in rainy weather. He remarked (as if quoting from

his own communication) that the scenery was magnificent, but that there

was an entirely insufficient supply of hot water; that the waiters had

the appearance of being low comedians, and their service was of the

character one might expect from that description; that he had been

talking before breakfast with a German gentleman, who had sat on a

wall opposite the village of Dugort, in the island of Achill, from six

o'clock in the morning until nine, and in that time he had seen coming

out of an Irish hut three geese, eight goslings, six hens, fifteen

chickens, two pigs, two cows, two barefooted girls, the master of the

house leading a horse, three small children carrying cloth bags filled

with school-books, and finally a strapping mother leading a donkey

loaded with peat-baskets; that all this poverty and ignorance and

indolence and filth was spoiling his holiday; and finally, that if he

should be as greatly disappointed in the fishing as he had been in the

hotel accommodations--here we almost fainted from suspense--he should be

obliged to go home! And not only that, but he should feel it his duty to

warn others of what they might expect.

“Perhaps you are justified,” said Francesca sympathetically. “People who

are used to the dry, sunny climate and the clear atmosphere of London

ought not to expose themselves to Irish rain without due consideration.”

He agreed with her, glancing over his spectacles to see if she by any

possibility could be amusing herself at his expense--good, old, fussy,

fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so soft and

lovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less he could do

her the injustice of suspecting her sincerity.

But mind you, although I would never confess it to Veritas, because he

sees nothing but flaws on every side, the Irish pig is, to my taste, a

trifle too much in the foreground. He pays the rent, no doubt; but

this magnificent achievement could be managed from a sty in the rear,

ungrateful as it might seem to immure so useful a personage behind a

door or conceal his virtues from the public at large.

Chapter XXIV. Humours of the road.

'Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,

Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.'

Oliver Goldsmith.

If you drive from Clifden to Oughterard by way of Maam Cross, and then

on to Galway, you will pass through the O'Flahertys' country, one of

whom, Murrough O'Flaherty, was governor of this country of Iar (western)

Connaught. You will like to see the last of the O'Flaherty yews,

a thousand years old at least, and the ruins of the castle and

banqueting-hall. The family glories are enumerated in ancient Irish

manuscript, and instead of the butler, footman, chef, coachman, and

gardener of to-day we read of the O'Flaherty physician, standard-bearer,

brehon or judge, master of the revels, and keeper of the bees; and the

moment Himself is rich enough, I intend to add some of these picturesque

personages to our staff.

We afterwards learned that there was formerly an inscription over the

west gate of Galway:--

'From the fury of the O'Flaherties,

Good Lord, deliver us.'

After Richard de Burgo took the town, in 1226, it became a flourishing

English colony, and the citizens must have guarded themselves from

any intercourse with the native Irish; at least, an old by-law of 1518

enacts that 'neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere thro' the

streetes of Galway.'

We did not go to Galway straight, because we never do anything straight.

We seldom get any reliable information, and never any inspiring

suggestions, from the natives themselves. They are all patriotically

sure that Ireland is the finest counthry in the world, God bless her!

but in the matter of seeing that finest counthry in the easiest or best

fashion they are all very vague. Indirectly, our own lack of geography,

coupled with the ignorance of the people themselves, has been of the

greatest service in enlivening our journeys. Francesca says that, in

looking back, she finds that our errors of judgment have always resulted

in our most charming and unforgettable experiences; but let no one who

is travelling with a well-balanced and logical-minded man attempt to

follow in our footsteps.

Being as free as air on this occasion (if I except the dread of

Benella's scorn, which descends upon us now and then, and moves us to

repentance, sometimes even to better behaviour), we passed Porridgetown

and Cloomore, and ferried across to the opposite side of Lough Corrib.

Salemina, of course, had fixed upon Cong as our objective point, because

of its caverns and archaeological remains, which Dr. La Touche tells her

not on any account to miss. Francesca and I said nothing, but we had

a very definite idea of avoiding Cong, and going nearer Tuam, to climb

Knockma, the hill of the fairies, and explore their ancient haunts and

archaeological remains, which are more in our line than the caverns of

Cong.

Speaking of Dr. La Touche reminds me that we have not the smallest

notion as to how our middle-aged romance is progressing. Absence may,

at this juncture, be just as helpful a force in its development as daily

intercourse would be; for when one is past thirty, I fancy there is a

deal of 'thinking-it-over' to do. Precious little there is when we are

younger; heart does it all then, and never asks head's advice! But in

too much delay there lies no plenty, and there's the danger. Actually,

Francesca and I could be no more anxious to settle Salemina in life if

she were lame, halt, blind, and homeless, instead of being attractive,

charming, absurdly young for her age, and not without means. The

difficulty is that she is one of those 'continent, persisting, immovable

persons' whom Emerson describes as marked out for the blessing of the

world. That quality always makes a man anxious. He fears that he may

only get his rightful share of blessing, and he craves the whole output,

so to speak.

We naturally mention Dr. La Touche very often, since he is always

writing to Salemina or to me, offering counsel and suggestion. Madame La

Touche, the venerable aunt, has written also, asking us to visit them

in Meath; but this invitation we have declined, principally because the

Colquhouns will be with them, and they would surely be burdened by the

addition of three ladies and a maid to their family; partly because we

shall be freer in our own house, which will be as near the La Touche

mansion as possible, you may be sure, if Francesca and I have anything

to do with choosing it.

The La Touche name, then, is often on our lips, but Salemina offers no

intimation that it is indelibly imprinted on her heart of hearts. It

is a good name to be written anywhere, and we fancied there was the

slightest possible hint of pride and possession in Salemina's voice when

she read to us to-night, from her third volume of Lecky's History of

Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, a paragraph concerning one David La

Touche, from whom Dr. Gerald is descended:--

'In the last of the Irish Parliaments no less than five members of the

name sat together in the House of Commons, and his family may claim what

is in truth the highest honour of which an Irish family can boast,--that

during many successive governments, and in a period of most lavish

corruption, it possessed great parliamentary influence, and yet passed

through political life untitled and unstained.'

There is just the faintest gleam of hope, by the way, that Himself may

join us at the very end of June, and he is sure to be helpful on this

sentimental journey; he aided Ronald and Francesca more than once

in their tempestuous love-affair, and if his wits are not dulled by

marriage, as so often happens, he will be invaluable. It will not be

long then, probably, before I assume my natural, my secondary position

in the landscape of events. The junior partners are now, so to speak, on

their legs, although it is idle to suppose that such brittle appendages

will support them for any length of time. As soon as we return in the

autumn I should like to advertise (if Himself will permit me) for a

perfectly sound and kind junior partner,--one who has been well broken

to harness, and who will neither shy nor balk, no matter what the

provocation; the next step being to urge Himself to relinquish

altogether the bondage of business care. There is no need of his

continuing in it, since other people's business will always give him

ample scope for his energies. He has, since his return to America,

dispensed justice and mercy, chiefly mercy, to one embezzler, one honest

fellow tempted beyond his strength, one widow, one unfortunate friend

of his youth, and two orphans, and it was in no sense an extraordinary

season.

To return to notes of travel, our method of progression, since we

deserted the high-road and the public car, has been strangely varied. I

think there is no manner of steed or vehicle which has not been used by

us, at one time or another, even to the arch donkey and the low-backed

car with its truss of hay, like that of the immortal Peggy. I thought at

first that 'arch' was an unusual adjective to apply to a donkey, but

I find after all that it is abundantly expressive. Benella, who

disapproves entirely of this casual sort of travelling, far from

'answerable roads' and in 'backwards places' (Irish for 'behind the

times'), is yet wonderfully successful in discovering equipages of some

sort in unlikely spots.

In towns of any size or pretensions, we find by the town cross or near

the inn a motley collection of things on wheels, with drivers sometimes

as sober as Father Mathew, sometimes not. Yesterday we had a mare which

the driver confessed he bought without 'overcircumspectin' it,' and

although you couldn't, as he said, 'extinguish her at first sight from a

grand throtter, she hadn't rightly the speed you could wish.'

“It's not so powerful young she is, melady!” he confessed. “You'd be

afther lookin' at a chicken a long time and niver be reminded of her;

but sure ye might thry her, for belike ye wouldn't fancy a horse that

would be leppin' stone walls wid ye, like Dan Ryan's there! My little

baste'll get ye to Rossan before night, and she won't hurt man nor

mortial in doin' it.”

“Begorra, you're right, nor herself nayther,” said Dan Ryan; “and if

it's leppin' ye mane, sure she couldn't lep a sod o' turf, that

mare couldn't! God pardon ye, melady, for thrustin' yerself to that

paiceable, brindly-coloured ould hin, whin ye might be gettin' a dacint,

high-steppin' horse for a shillin' or two more; an' belike I might

contint meself to take less, for I wouldn't be extortin' ye like Barney

O'Mara there!”

Our chosen driver replied to this by saying that he wouldn't be caught

dead at a pig fair with Dan Ryan's horse, but in the midst of all the

distracting discussions and arguments that followed we held to

our original bargain; for we did not like the look of Dan Ryan's

high-stepper, who was a 'thrifle mounTAIny,' as they say in these parts,

and had a wild eye to boot. We started, and in a half-hour we could

still see the chapel spire of the little village we had just left. It

was for once a beautiful day, but we felt that we must reach a railway

station some time or other, in order to find a place to sleep.

“Can't you make her go a bit faster? Do you want to keep us on the road

all night?” inquired Francesca.

“I do not, your ladyship's honour, ma'am.”

“Is she tired, or doesn't she ever go any better?” urged Salemina.

“She does; it's God's truth I'm tellin' ye, melady, she's that flippant

sometimes that I scarcely can hould her, and the car jumps undher her

like a spring bed.”

“Then what on earth IS the matter with her?” I inquired, with some fire

in my eye.

“Sure I believe she's takin' time to think of the iligant load she's

carryin', melady, and small blame to her!” said Mr. Barney O'Mara; and

after that we let him drive as best he could, although it did take us

four hours to do nine Irish miles. He came, did Mr. Barney, from County

Armagh, and he beguiled the way with interesting tales from that

section of Ireland, one of which, 'the Old Crow and the Young Crow,'

particularly took our fancies.

“An old crow was teaching a young crow one day, and says to him, 'Now,

my son,' says he, 'listen to the advice I'm going to give you,' says he.

'If you see a person coming near you and stooping, mind yourself, and be

on your keeping; he's stooping for a stone to throw at you,' says he.

“'But tell me,' says the young crow, 'what should I do if he had a stone

already down in his pocket?' says he.

“'Musha, go 'long out of that,' says the old crow, 'you've learned

enough; the divil another learning I'm able to give you.'”

He was a perfect honey-pot of useless and unreliable information, was

Barney O'Mara, and most learned in fairy lore; but for that matter, all

the people walking along the road, the drivers, the boatman and guides,

the men and women in the cottages where we stop in a shower or to

inquire the way, relate stories of phookas, leprehauns, and sprites,

banshees and all the various classes of elves and fays, as simply and

seriously as they would speak of any other occurrences. Barney told

us gravely of the old woman who was in the habit of laying pishogues

(charms) to break the legs of his neighbour's cattle, because of an

ancient grudge she bore him; and also how necessary it is to put a bit

of burning turf under the churn to prevent the phookas, or mischievous

fairies, from abstracting the butter or spoiling the churning in any

way. Irish fays seem to be much interested in dairy matters, for,

besides the sprites who delight in distracting the cream and keeping

back the butter (I wonder if a lazy up-and-down movement of the dasher

invites them at all, at all?), it is well known that many a milkmaid

on a May morning has seen fairy cows browsing along the banks of

lakes,--cows that vanish into thin mist at the sound of human footfall.

When we were quite cross at missing the noon train from Rossan, quite

tired of the car's jolting, somewhat vexed even at the mare's continued

enjoyment of her 'iligant load,' Barney appeased us all by singing, in

a delightful, mellow voice, a fairy song called the 'Leprehaun,' [*] This

personage, you must know, if you haven't a large acquaintance among

Irish fairies, is a tricksy fellow in a green coat and scarlet cap, with

brave shoe buckles on his wee brogues. You will catch him sometimes, if

the 'glamour' is on you, under a burdock leaf or a thorn bush, and he

is always making or mending a shoe. He commonly has a little purse about

him, which, if you are quick enough, you can snatch; and a wonderful

purse it is, for whatever you spend, there is always money to be found

in it. Truth to tell, nobody has yet succeeded in being quicker than

Master Leprehaun, though many have offered to fill his cruiskeen with

'mountain dew,' of which Irish fairies are passionately fond.

* By Patrick W. Joyce.

'In a shady nook, one moonlight night,

A leprehaun I spied;

With scarlet cap and coat of green,

A cruiskeen by his side.

'Twas tick, tack, tick, his hammer went,

Upon a weeny shoe;

And I laughed to think of his purse of gold;

But the fairy was laughing too!

With tip-toe step and beating heart,

Quite softly I drew nigh:

There was mischief in his merry face,

A twinkle in his eye.

He hammered, and sang with tiny voice,

And drank his mountain dew;

And I laughed to think he was caught at last;

But the fairy was laughing too!

As quick as thought I seized the elf.

“Your fairy purse!” I cried.

“The purse!” he said--“'tis in her hand--

That lady at your side.”

I turned to look: the elf was off.

Then what was I to do?

O, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been;

And the fairy was laughing too!'

I cannot communicate any idea of the rollicking gaiety and quaint charm

Barney gave to the tune, nor the light-hearted, irresistible chuckle

with which he rendered the last two lines, giving a snap of his whip as

accent to the long 'O':--

'O, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been;

And the fairy was laughing too!'

After he had sung it twice through, Benella took my guitar from its case

for me, and we sang it after him, again and again; so it was in happy

fashion that we at least approached Ballyrossan, where we bade Barney

O'Mara a cordial farewell, paying him four shillings over his fare,

which was cheap indeed for the song.

As we saw him vanish slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car and

harness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in the

last week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy to

enliven his life a bit,--that fancy which seems a providential reaction

against the cruel despotisms of fact.

Chapter XXV. The wee folk.

'There sings a bonnie linnet

Up the heather glen;

The voice has magic in it

Too sweet for mortal men!

Sing O, the blooming heather,

O, the heather glen!

Where fairest fairies gather

To lure in mortal men.'

Carrig-a-fooka Inn, near Knockma,

On the shores of Lough Corrib.

A modern Irish poet [*] says something that Francesca has quoted to Ronald

in her letter to-day, and we await from Scotland his confirmation or

denial. He accuses the Scots of having discovered the fairies to be

pagan and wicked, and of denouncing them from the pulpits, whereas Irish

priests discuss with them the state of their souls; or at least they

did, until it was decided that they had none, but would dry up like so

much bright vapour at the last day. It was more in sadness than in anger

that the priests announced this fiat; for Irish sprites and goblins do

gay, graceful, and humorous things, for the most part, tricksy sins,

not deserving annihilation, whereas Scottish fays are sometimes

malevolent,--or so says the Irish poet.

* W. B. Yeats.

This is very sad, no doubt, but it does not begin to be as sad as

having no fairies at all. There must have been a few in England in

Shakespeare's time, or he could never have written The Tempest or the

Midsummer Night's Dream; but where have they vanished?

As for us in America, I fear that we never have had any 'wee folk.' The

Indians had their woodland spirits, spirits of rocks, trees, mountains,

star and moon maidens; the negroes had their enchanted animals and

conjure men; but as for real wee folk, either they were not indigenous

to the soil or else we unconsciously drove them away. Yet we had

facilities to offer! The columbines, harebells, and fringed gentians

would have been just as cosy and secluded places to live in as the Irish

foxgloves, which are simply running over with fairies. Perhaps they

wouldn't have liked our cold winters; still it must have been something

more than climate, and I am afraid I know the reason well--we are too

sensible; and if there is anything a fairy detests, it is common-sense.

We are too rich, also; and a second thing that a fairy abhors is the

chink of dollars. Perhaps, when I am again enjoying the advantages

brought about by sound money, commercial prosperity, and a magnificent

system of public education, I shall feel differently about it; but for

the moment I am just a bit embarrassed and crestfallen to belong to a

nation absolutely shunned by the fairies. If they had only settled among

us like other colonists, shaped us to their ends as far as they could,

and, when they couldn't, conformed themselves to ours, there might have

been, by this time, fairy trusts stretching out benign arms all over the

continent.

Of course it is an age of incredulity, but Salemina, Francesca, and I

have not come to Ireland to scoff, and whatever we do we shall not go

to the length of doubting the fairies; for, as Barney O'Mara says, 'they

stand to raison.'

Glen Ailna is a 'gentle' place near Carrig-a-fooka Inn--that is,

one beloved by the sheehogues; and though you may be never so much

interested, I may not tell you its exact whereabouts, since no one can

ever find it unless he is himself under the glamour. Perhaps you might

be a doubter, with no eyes for the 'dim kingdom'; perhaps you might gaze

for ever, and never be able to see a red-capped fiddler, fiddling

under a blossoming sloe bush. You might even see him, and then indulge

yourself in a fit of common-sense or doubt of your own eyes, in which

case the wee dancers would never flock to the sound of the fiddle or

gather on the fairy ring. This is the reason that I shall never take you

to Knockma, to Glen Ailna, or especially to the hyacinth wood, which is

a little plantation near the ruin of a fort. Just why the fairies are so

fond of an old rath or lis I cannot imagine, for you would never suppose

that antiquaries, archaeologists, and wee folk would care for the same

places.

I have no intention of interviewing the grander personages among the

Irish fairies, for they are known to be haughty, unapproachable, and

severe, as befits the descendants of the great Nature Gods and the

under-deities of flood and fell and angry sea. It is the lesser folk,

the gay, gracious, little men that I wish to meet; those who pipe and

dance on the fairy ring. The 'ring' is made, you know, by the tiny feet

that have tripped for ages and ages, flying, dancing, circling, over the

tender young grass. Rain cannot wash it away; you may walk over it; you

may even plough up the soil, and replant it ever so many times; the

next season the fairy ring shines in the grass just the same. It seems

strange that I am blind to it, when an ignorant, dirty spalpeen who

lives near the foot of Knockma has seen it and heard the fairy music

again and again. He took me to the very place where, last Lammas Eve,

he saw plainly--for there was a beautiful, white moon overhead--the

arch king and queen of the fairies, who appear only on state occasions,

together with a crowd of dancers, and more than a dozen pipers piping

melodious music. Not only that, but (lucky little beggar!) he heard

distinctly the fulparnee and the folpornee, the rap-lay-hoota and the

roolya-boolya--noises indicative of the very jolliest and wildest and

most uncommon form of fairy conviviality. Failing a glimpse of these

midsummer revels, my next choice would be to see the Elf Horseman

galloping round the shores of the Fairy Lough in the cool of the morn.

'Loughareema, Loughareema,

Stars come out and stars are hidin';

The wather whispers on the stones,

The flittherin' moths are free.

Onest before the mornin' light

The Horseman will come ridin'

Roun' an' roun' the Fairy Lough,

An' no one there to see.'

But there will be some one there, and that is the aforesaid Jamesy

Flanigan! Sometimes I think he is fibbing, but a glance at his soft,

dark, far-seeing eyes under their fringe of thick lashes convinces me to

the contrary. His field of vision is different from mine, that is all,

and he fears that if I accompany him to the shores of the Fairy Lough

the Horseman will not ride for him; so I am even taunted with undue

common-sense by a little Irish gossoon.

I tried to coax Benella to go with me to the hyacinth wood by moonlight.

Fairies detest a crowd, and I ought to have gone alone; but, to tell

the truth, I hardly dared, for they have a way of kidnapping attractive

ladies and keeping them for years in the dim kingdom. I would not trust

Himself at Glen Ailna for worlds, for gentlemen are not exempt from

danger. Connla of the Golden Hair was lured away by a fairy maiden, and

taken, in a 'gleaming, straight-gliding, strong, crystal canoe,' to her

domain in the hills; and Oisin, you remember, was transported to the

Land of the Ever Youthful by the beautiful Niam. If one could only be

sure of coming back! but Oisin, for instance, was detained three hundred

years, so one might not be allowed to return, and still worse, one

might not wish to; three hundred years of youth would tempt--a woman!

My opinion, after reading the Elf Errant, is that one of us has been

there--Moira O'Neill. I should suspect her of being able to wear a fairy

cap herself, were it not for the human heart-throb in her verses; but I

am sure she has the glamour whenever she desires it, and hears the fairy

pipes at will.

Benella is of different stuff; she not only distrusts fairies, but, like

the Scotch Presbyterians, she fears that they are wicked. “Still, you

say they haven't got immortal souls to save, and I don't suppose they're

responsible for their actions,” she allows; “but as for traipsing up to

those heathenish, haunted woods when all Christian folks are in bed, I

don't believe in it, and neither would Mr. Beresford; but if you're set

on it, I shall go with you!”

“You wouldn't be of the slightest use,” I answered severely; “indeed,

you'd be worse than nobody. The fairies cannot endure doubters; it

makes them fold their wings over their heads and shrink away into their

flowercups. I should be mortified beyond words if a fairy should meet me

in your company.”

Benella seemed hurt and a trifle resentful as she replied: “That about

doubters is just what Mrs. Kimberly used to say.” (Mrs. Kimberly is the

Salem priestess, the originator of the 'science.') “She couldn't talk a

mite if there was doubters in the hall; and it's so with spiritualists

and clairvoyants, too--they're all of 'em scare-cats. I guess likely

that those that's so afraid of being doubted has some good reason for

it!”

Well, I never went to the hyacinth wood by moonlight, since so many

objections were raised, but I did go once at noonday, the very most

unlikely hour of all the twenty-four, and yet--As I sat there beneath a

gnarled thorn, weary and warm with my climb, I looked into the heart of

a bluebell forest growing under a circle of gleaming silver birches,

and suddenly I heard fairy music--at least it was not mortal--and many

sounds were mingled in it: the sighing of birches, the carol of a lark,

the leap and laugh of a silvery runnel tumbling down the hillside, the

soft whir of butterflies' wings, and a sweet little over or under tone,

from the over or under world, that I took to be the opening of a million

hyacinth buds in the sunshine. Then I heard the delicious sound of

a fairy laugh, and, looking under a swaying branch of meadowsweet, I

saw--yes, I really saw--You must know that first a wee green door swung

open in the stem of the meadowsweet, and out of that land where you can

buy joy for a penny came a fairy in the usual red and green. I had the

Elf Errant in my lap, and I think that in itself made him feel more at

home with me, as well as the fact, perhaps, that for the moment I wasn't

a bit sensible and had no money about me. I was all ready with an

Irish salutation, for the purposes of further disarming his aversion. I

intended to say, as prettily as possible, though, alas! I cannot manage

the brogue, “And what way do I see you now?” or “Good-mornin' to yer

honour's honour!” But I was struck dumb by my good fortune at seeing him

at all. He looked at me once, and then, flinging up his arms, he gave a

weeny, weeny yawn! This was disconcerting, for people almost never yawn

in my company; and to make it worse, he kept on yawning, until, for very

sympathy, and not at all in the way of revenge, I yawned too. Then the

green door swung open again, and a gay rabble of wide-awake fairies came

trooping out: and some of them kissed the hyacinth bells to open them,

and some of them flew to the thorn-tree, until every little brancheen

was white with flowers, where but a moment ago had been tightly-closed

buds. The yawning fairy slept meanwhile under the swaying meadowsweet,

and the butterflies fanned him with their soft wings; but, alas! it

could not have been the hour for dancing on the fairy ring, nor the

proper time for the fairy pipers, and long, long as I looked I saw and

heard nothing more than what I have told you. Indeed, I presently lost

even that, for a bee buzzed, a white petal dropped from the thorn-tree

on my face, there was a scraping of tiny claws and the sound of two

squirrels barking love to each other in the high branches, and in that

moment the glamour that was upon me vanished in a twinkling.

“But I really did see the fairies!” I exclaimed triumphantly to Benella

the doubter, when I returned Carrig-a-fooka Inn, much too late for

luncheon.

“I want to know!” she exclaimed, in her New England vernacular. “I

guess by the looks o' your eyes they didn't turn out to be very lively

comp'ny!”

Part Fifth--Royal Meath.

Chapter XXVI. Ireland's gold.

'I sat upon the rustic seat--

The seat an aged bay-tree crowns--

And saw outspreading from our feet

The golden glory of the Downs.

The furze-crowned heights, the glorious glen,

The white-walled chapel glistening near,

The house of God, the homes of men,

The fragrant hay, the ripening ear.'

Denis Florence M'Carthy.

The Old Hall, Devorgilla,

Vale of the Boyne.

We have now lived in each of Ireland's four provinces, Leinster,

Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, but the confines of these provinces, and

their number, have changed several times since the beginning of history.

In A.D. 130 the Milesian monarchy was restored in the person of Tuathal

(Too'hal) the Legitimate. Over each of the Irish provinces was a ri or

king, and there was also over all Ireland an Ard-ri or supreme monarch

who lived at Tara up to the time of its abandonment in the sixth

century. Before Tuathal's day, the Ard-ri had for his land allowance

only a small tract around Tara, but Tuathal cut off a portion from each

of the four older provinces, at the Great Stone of Divisions in the

centre of Ireland, making the fifth province of Royal Meath, which

has since disappeared, but which was much larger than the present two

counties of Meath and Westmeath. In this once famous, and now most

lovely and fertile spot, with the good republican's love of royalty and

royal institutions, we have settled ourselves; in the midst of verdant

plains watered by the Boyne and the Blackwater, here rippling over

shallows, there meandering in slow deep reaches between reedy banks.

The Old Hall, from which I write, is somewhere in the vale of the Boyne,

somewhere near Yellow Steeple, not so far from Treadagh, only a few

miles from Ballybilly (I hope to be forgiven this irreverence to the

glorious memory of his Majesty, William, Prince of Orange!), and within

driving distance of Killkienan, Croagh-Patrick, Domteagh, and Tara Hill

itself. If you know your Royal Meath, these geographical suggestions

will give you some idea of our location; if not, take your map of

Ireland, please (a thing nobody has near him), and find the town of

Tuam, where you left us a little time ago. You will see a railway

line from Tuam to Athenry, Athlone, and Mullingar. Anybody can

visit Mullingar--it is for the million; but only the elect may go to

Devorgilla. It is the captive of our bow and spear; or, to change the

figure, it is a violet by a mossy stone, which we refuse to have plucked

from its poetic solitude and worn in the bosom or in the buttonhole of

the tourist.

At Mullingar, then, we slip on enchanted garments which conceal us from

the casual eye, and disappear into what is, in midsummer, a bower of

beauty. There you will find, when you find us, Devorgilla, lovely enough

to be Tir-nan-og, that Land of the Ever Youthful well know to the Celts

of long ago. Here we have rested our weary bodies and purified our

travel-stained minds. Fresh from the poverty-ridden hillsides of

Connaught, these rich grazing-lands, comfortable houses, magnificent

demesnes and castles, are unspeakably grateful to the eye and healing

to the spirit. We have not forgotten, shall never forget, our Connemara

folk, nor yet Omadhaun Pat and dark Timsy of Lisdara in the north; but

it is good, for a change, to breathe in this sense of general comfort,

good cheer, and abundance.

Benella is radiant, for she is near enough to Trim to go there

occasionally to seek for traces of her ancestress, Mary Boyce; and

as for Salemina, this bit of country is a Mecca for antiquaries and

scholars, and we are fairly surrounded by towers, tumuli, and cairns.

“It's mostly ruins they do be wantin', these days,” said a wayside

acquaintance. “I built a stone house for my donkey on the knockaun

beyant my cabin just, and bedad, there's a crowd round it every Saturday

callin' it the risidence of wan of the Danish kings! An' they are

diggin' at Tara now, ma'am, looking for the Ark of the Covenant! They do

be sayin' the prophet Jeremiah come over from England and brought it wid

him. Begorra, it's a lucky man he was to get away wid it!”

Added to these advantages of position, we are within a few miles of

Rosnaree, Dr. La Touche's demesne, to which he comes home from Dublin

to-morrow, bringing with him our dear Mr. and Mrs. Colquhoun of

Ardnagreena. We have been here ourselves for ten days, and are flattered

to think that we have used the time as unconventionally as we could

well have done. We made a literary pilgrimage first, but that is another

story, and I will only say that we had a day in Edgeworthstown and a

drive through Goldsmith's country, where we saw the Deserted Village,

with its mill and brook, the 'church that tops the neighbouring hill';

and even rested under

'The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade

For talking age and whispering lovers made.'

There are many parts of Ireland where one could not find a habitable

house to rent, but in this locality they are numerous enough to make it

possible to choose. We had driven over perhaps twenty square miles of

country, with the view of selecting the most delectable spot that could

be found, without going too far from Rosnaree. The chief trouble was

that we always desired every dwelling that we saw. I tell you this with

a view of lessening the shock when I confess that, before we came to the

Old Hall where we are now settled for a month, and which was Salemina's

choice, Francesca and I took two different houses, and lived in them for

seven days, each in solitary splendour, like the Prince of Coolavin. It

was not difficult to agree upon the district, we were of one mind there:

the moment that we passed the town and drove along the flowery way that

leads to Devorgilla, we knew that it was the road of destiny.

The whitethorn is very late this year, and we found ourselves in the

full glory of it. It is beautiful in all its stages, from the time when

it first opens its buds, to the season when 'every spray is white with

may, and blooms the eglantine.' There is no hint of green leaf visible

then, and every tree is 'as white as snow of one night.' This is

the Gaelic comparison, and the first snow seems especially white and

dazzling, I suppose, when one sees it in the morning where were green

fields the night before. The sloe, which is the blackthorn, comes

still earlier and has fewer leaves. That is the tree of the old English

song:--

'From the white-blossomed sloe

My dear Chloe requested

A sprig her fair breast to adorn.

“No, by Heav'ns!” I exclaimed, “may I perish,

If ever I plant in that bosom a thorn!”'

And it is not only trees, but hedges and bushes and groves of hawthorn,

for a white thorn bush is seldom if ever cut down here, lest a grieved

and displeased fairy look up from the cloven trunk, and no Irishman

could bear to meet the reproach of her eyes. Do not imagine, however,

that we are all in white, like a bride: there is the pink hawthorn,

and there are pink and white horse-chestnuts laden with flowers, yellow

laburnums hanging over whitewashed farm-buildings, lilacs, and, most

wonderful of all, the blaze of the yellow gorse. There will be a thorn

hedge struggling with and conquering a grey stone wall; then a golden

gorse bush struggling with and conquering the thorn; seeking the sun,

it knows no restraints, and creeping through the barriers of green and

white and grey, it fairly hurls its yellow splendours in great blazing

patches along the wayside. In dazzling glory, in richness of colour,

there is nothing in nature that we can compare with this loveliest and

commonest of all wayside weeds. The gleaming wealth of the Klondike

would make a poor showing beside a single Irish hedgerow; one would

think that Mother Earth had stored in her bosom all the sunniest gleams

of bygone summers, and was now giving them back to the sun king from

whom she borrowed them.

It was at twilight when we first swam this fragrant, golden

sea--twilight, and the birds were singing in every bush; the thrushes

and blackbirds in the blossoming cherry and chestnut-trees were so many

and so tuneful that the chorus was sweet and strong beyond anything

I ever heard. There had been a shower or two, of course; showers that

looked like shimmering curtains of silver gauze, and whether they lifted

or fell the birds went on singing.

“I did not believe such a thing possible but it is lovelier than

Pettybaw,” said Francesca; and just here we came in sight of a pink

cottage cuddling on the breast of a hill. Pink the cottage was, as if

it had been hewed out of a coral branch or the heart of a salmon;

pink-washed were the stone walls and posts; pink even were the chimneys;

a green lattice over the front was the only leaf in the bouquet.

Wallflowers grew against the pink stone walls, and there is no beautiful

word in any beautiful language that can describe the effect of

that modest, rose-hued dwelling blushing against a background of

heather-brown hills covered solidly with golden gorse bushes in full

bloom. Himself and I have always agreed to spend our anniversaries with

Mrs. Bobby at Comfort Cottage, in England, or at Bide-a-Wee, the 'wee,

theekit hoosie' in the loaning at Pettybaw, for our little love-story

was begun in the one and carried on in the other; but this, this, I

thought instantly, must somehow be crowded into the scheme of red-letter

days. And now we suddenly discovered something at once interesting and

disconcerting--an American flag floating from a tree in the background.

“The place is rented, then,” said Francesca, “to some enterprising

American or some star-spangled Irishman who has succeeded in discovering

Devorgilla before us. I well understand how the shade of Columbus must

feel whenever Amerigo Vespucci's name is mentioned!”

We sent the driver off to await our pleasure, and held a consultation by

the wayside.

“I shall call at any rate,” I announced; “any excuse will serve which

brings me nearer to that adorable dwelling. I intend to be standing in

that pink doorway, with that green lattice over my head, when Himself

arrives in Devorgilla. I intend to end my days within those rosy walls,

and to begin the process at the earliest possible moment.”

Salemina disapproved, of course. Her method is always to stand well

in the rear, trembling beforehand lest I should do something

unconventional; then, later on, when things romantic begin to transpire,

she says delightedly, “Wasn't that clever of us?”

“An American flag,” I urged, “is a proclamation; indeed, it is, in a

sense, an invitation; besides it is my duty to salute it in a foreign

land!”

“Patriotism, how many sins are practised in thy name!” said Salemina

satirically. “Can't you salute your flag from the high-road?”

“Not properly, Sally dear, nor satisfactorily. So you and Francesca sit

down, timidly and respectably, under the safe shadow of the hedge, while

I call upon the blooming family in the darling, blooming house. I am an

American artist, lured to their door alike by devotion to my country's

flag and love of the picturesque.” And so saying I ascended the path

with some dignity and a false show of assurance.

The circumstances did not chance to be precisely what I had expected.

There was a nice girl tidying the kitchen, and I found no difficulty

in making friends with her. Her mother owned the cottage, and rented

it every season to a Belfast lady, who was coming in a week to take

possession, as usual. The American flag had been floating in honour of

her mother's brother, who had come over from Milwaukee to make them a

little visit, and had just left that afternoon to sail from Liverpool.

The rest of the family lived, during the three summer months, in a

smaller house down the road; but she herself always stayed at the

cottage, to 'mind' the Belfast lady's children.

When I looked at the pink floor of the kitchen and the view from the

windows, I would have given anything in the world to outbid, yes, even

to obliterate the Belfast lady; but this, unfortunately, was not only

illegal and immoral, but it was impossible. So, calling the mother in

from the stables, I succeeded, after fifteen minutes' persuasion, in

getting permission to occupy the house for one week, beginning with

the next morning, and returned in triumph to my weary constituents, who

thought it an insane idea.

“Of course it is,” I responded cheerfully; “that is why it is going to

be so altogether charming. Don't be envious; I will find something mad

for you to do, too. One of us is always submitting to the will of the

majority; now let us be as individually silly as we like for a week,

and then take a long farewell of freakishness and freedom. Let the third

volume die in lurid splendour, since there is never to be a fourth.”

“There is still Wales,” suggested Francesca.

“Too small, Fanny dear, and we could never pronounce the names. Besides,

what sort of adventures would be possible to three--I mean, of course,

two--persons tied down by marital responsibilities and family cares?

Is it the sunset or the reflection of the pink house that is shining on

your pink face, Salemina?”

“I am extremely warm,” she replied haughtily.

“I don't wonder; sitting on the damp grass under a hedge is so

stimulating to the circulation!” observed 'young Miss Fan.'

Chapter XXVII. The three chatelaines of Devorgilla.

'Have you been at Devorgilla,

Have you seen, at Devorgilla,

Beauty's train trip o'er the plain,--

The lovely maids of Devorgilla?'

Adapted from Edward Lysaght.

The next morning the Old Hall dropped like a ripe rowan berry into our

very laps. The landlord of the Shamrock Inn directed us thither, and

within the hour it belonged to us for the rest of the summer. Miss

Peabody, inclined to be severe with me for my desertion, took up

her residence at once. It had never been rented before; but Miss

Llewellyn-Joyce, the owner, had suddenly determined to visit her sister

in London, and was glad to find appreciative and careful tenants. She

was taking her own maid with her, and thus only one servant remained, to

be rented with the premises, as is frequently the Irish fashion. The Old

Hall has not always been managed thus economically, it is easy to see,

and Miss Llewellyn-Joyce speaks with the utmost candour of her poverty,

as indeed the ruined Irish gentry always do. I well remember taking tea

with a family in West Clare where in default of a spoon the old squire

stirred his cup with the poker, a proceeding apparently so usual that he

never thought of apologising for it as an oddity.

The Hall has a lodge, which is a sort of miniature Round Tower, at the

entrance gate, and we see nothing for it but to import a brass-buttoned

boy from the nearest metropolis, where we must also send for a second

maid.

“That'll do when you get him,” objected Benella, “though boys need a lot

of overseeing; but as nobody can get in or come out o' that gate without

help, I shall have to go to the lodge every day now, and set down

there with my sewin' from four to six in the afternoon, or whenever the

callin' hours is. When I engaged with you, it wasn't for any particular

kind of work; it was to make myself useful. I've been errand-boy and

courier, golf-caddie and footman, beau, cook, land agent, and mother to

you all, and I guess I can be a lodge-keeper as well as not.”

Francesca had her choice of residing either with Salemina or with me,

during our week of separation, and drove in my company to Rosaleen

Cottage, to make up her mind. While she was standing at my gate, engaged

in reflection, she espied a small cabin not far away, and walked toward

it on a tour of investigation. It proved to have three tiny rooms--a

bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen. The rent was only two pounds a

month, it is true, but it was in all respects the most unattractive,

poverty-stricken, undesirable dwelling I ever saw. It was the small

stove in the kitchen that kindled Francesca's imagination, and she made

up her mind instantly to become a householder on her own account. I

tried to dissuade her; but she is as firm as the Rock of Cashel when

once she has set her heart upon anything.

“I shall be almost your next-door neighbour, Penelope,” she coaxed, “and

of course you will give me Benella. She will sleep in the sitting-room,

and I will do the cooking. The landlady says there is no trouble

about food. 'What to ate?' she inquired, leaning out sociably over the

half-door. 'Sure it'll drive up to your very doore just.' And here is

the 'wee grass,' as she calls it, where 'yous can take your tay' under

the Japanese umbrella left by the last tenant. Think how unusual it will

be for us to live in three different houses for a week; and 'there's

luck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More.' We shall have the advantages of

good society, too, when we are living apart, for I foresee entertainment

after entertainment. We will give breakfasts, luncheons, teas, and

dinners to one another; and meanwhile I shall have learned all the

housewifely arts. Think, too, how much better you can paint with me out

of your way!”

“Does no thought of your eccentricity blight your young spirit, dear?”

“Why should it when I have simply shaped my course by yours?”

“But I am married, my child.”

“And I'm 'going to be married, aha, Mamma!' as the song says; and what

about Salemina, you haven't scolded her?”

“She is living her very last days of single blessedness,” I rejoined;

“she does not know it, but she is; and I want to give her all the

freedom possible. Very well, dear innocent, live in your wee hut, then,

if you can persuade Benella to stay with you; but I think there would

best be no public visiting between you and those who live in Rosaleen

Cottage and the Old Hall, as it might ruin their social position.”

Benella confessed that she had not the heart to refuse Francesca

anything. “She's too handsome,” she said, “and too winnin'. I s'pose

she'll cook up some dreadful messes, but I'm willin' to eat 'em, to

oblige her, and perhaps it'll save her husband a few spells of dyspepsy

at the start; though, as far as my experience goes, ministers'll always

eat anything that's set before 'em, and look over their shoulders for

more.”

We had a heavenly week of silliness, and by dint of concealing our real

relations from the general public, I fancy we escaped harsh criticism.

There is a very large percentage of lunacy anyway in Ireland, as well

as great leniency of public opinion, and I fancy there is scarcely a

country on the map in which one could be more foolish without being

found out. Visit each other we did constantly, and candour obliges me to

state that, though each of us secretly prided herself on the perfection

of her cuisine, Miss Monroe gave the most successful afternoon tea of

all, on the 'wee grass,' under the Japanese umbrella. How unexpectedly

good were her scones, her tea-cakes, and her cress sandwiches, and how

pretty and graceful and womanly she was, all flushed with pride at our

envy and approbation! I did a water-colour sketch of her and sent it to

Ronald, receiving in return a letter bubbling over with fond admiration

and gratitude. She seems always in tone with the season and the

landscape, does Francesca, and she arrives at it unconsciously, too.

She glances out of her window at the yellow laburnum-tree when she

is putting on her white frock, and it suggests to her all her amber

trinkets and her drooping hat with the wreath of buttercups. When she

came to my hawthorn luncheon at Rosaleen Cottage she did not make the

mistake of heaping pink on pink, but wore a cotton gown of palest green,

with a bunch of rosy blossoms at her belt. I painted her just as she

stood under the hawthorn, with its fluttering petals and singing birds,

calling the picture Grainne Mael [*]: A Vision of Erinn, writing under

it the verse:--

'The thrushes seen in bushes green are singing loud--

Bid sadness go and gladness glow,--give welcome proud!

The Rover comes, the Lover, whom you long bewail,

O'er sunny seas, with honey breeze, to Grainne Mael.'

* Pronounced Graunia Wael, the M being modified. It is one

of the endearing names given to Ireland in the Penal Times.

Benella, I fancy, never had so varied a week in her life, and she was

in her element. We were obliged to hire a side-car by the day, as two

of our residences were over a mile apart; and the driver of that vehicle

was the only person, I think, who had any suspicion of our sanity. In

the intervals of teaching Francesca cooking, and eating the results

while the cook herself prudently lunched or dined with her friends,

Benella 'spring-cleaned' the lodge at the Old Hall, scrubbed the

gateposts, mended stone walls, weeded garden beds, made bags for the

brooms and dusters and mattresses, burned coffee and camphor and other

ill-smelling things in all the rooms, and devoted considerable time to

superintending my little maid, that I might not feel neglected. We were

naturally obliged, meanwhile, to wait upon ourselves and keep our frocks

in order; but as long as the Derelict was so busy and happy, and

so devoted to the universal good, it would have been churlish and

ungrateful to complain.

On leaving the Wee Hut, as Francesca had, with ostentatious modesty,

named her residence, she paid her landlady two pounds, and was

discomfited when the exuberant and impetuous woman embraced her in a

paroxysm of weeping gratitude.

“I cannot understand, Penelope, why she was so disproportionately

grateful, for I only gave her five shillings over the two pounds rent.”

“Yes, dear,” I responded drily; “but you remember that the rent was for

the month, and you paid her two pounds five shillings for the week.”

All the rest of that day Francesca was angelic. She brought footstools

for Salemina, wound wool for her, insisted upon washing my paint

brushes, read aloud to us while we were working, and offered to be the

one to discharge Benella if the awful moment for that surgical operation

should ever come. Finally, just as we were about to separate for the

night, she said, with insinuating sweetness, “You won't tell Ronald

about my mistake with the rent-money, will you, dearest and darlingest

girls?”

We are now quite ready to join in all the gaieties that may ensue when

Rosnaree welcomes its master and his guests. Our page in buttons at the

lodge gives Benella full scope for her administrative ability, which

seems to have sprung into being since she entered our service; at least,

if I except that evidence of it which she displayed in managing us when

first we met. She calls our page 'the Button Boy,' and makes his life

a burden to him by taking him away from his easy duties at the gate,

covering his livery with baggy overalls, and setting him to weed the

garden. It can never, in the nature of things, be made free from weeds

during our brief term of tenancy, but Benella cleverly keeps her slave

at work on the beds and the walks that are the most conspicuous to

visitors. The Old Hall used simply to be called 'Aunt David's house' by

the Welsh Joyces, and it was Aunt David herself who made the garden;

she who traced the lines of the flower-beds with the ivory tip of her

parasol; she who planned the quaint stone gateways and arbours and

hedge seats; she who devised the interminable stretches of paths, the

labyrinthine walks, the mazes, and the hidden flower-plots. You walk on

and on between high hedges, until, if you have not missed your way, you

presently find a little pansy or rose or lily garden. It is quite the

most unexpected and piquant method of laying out a place I have ever

seen; and the only difficulty about it is that any gardener, unless

he were possessed of unusual sense of direction, would be continually

astray in it. The Button Boy, obeying the laws of human nature, is lost

in two minutes, but requires two hours in which to find himself.

Benella suspects that he prefers this wandering to and fro to the more

monotonous task of weeding, and it is no uncommon thing for her to

pursue the recalcitrant page through the mazes and labyrinths for an

hour at a time, and perhaps lose herself in the end. Salemina and I were

sitting this morning in the Peacock Walk, where two trees clipped into

the shape of long-tailed birds mount guard over the box hedge, and put

their beaks together to form an arch. In the dim distance we could see

Benella 'bagging' the Button Boy, and, after putting the trowel and rake

in his reluctant hands, tying the free end of a ball of string to his

leg, and sending him to find and weed the pansy garden. We laughed until

the echoes rang, to see him depart, dragging his lengthening chain,

or his Ariadne thread, behind him, while Benella grimly held the ball,

determined that no excuses or apologies should interfere with his work

on this occasion.

Chapter XXVIII. Round towers and reflections.

'On Lough Neagh's banks, as the fisherman strays,

When the cool, calm eve's declining.

He sees the round towers of other days

Beneath the waters shining.'

Thomas Moore.

A Dublin car-driver told me one day that he had just taken a

picnic-party to the borders of a lake, where they had had tea in a

tramcar which had been placed there for such purposes. Francesca and I

were amused at the idea, but did not think of it again until we drove

through the La Touche estate, on one of the first days after our arrival

at Devorgilla. We left Salemina at Rosnaree House with Aunt La Touche

and the children, and proceeded to explore the grounds, with the view of

deciding on certain improvements to be made when the property passes, so

to speak, into our hands.

Truth to say, nature has done more for it than we could have done; and

if it is a trifle overgrown and rough and rank, it could hardly be

more beautiful. At the very furthest confines of the demesne there is a

brook,--large enough, indeed, to be called a river here, where they have

no Mississippi to dwarf all other streams and serve as an impossible

standard of comparison. Tall trees droop over the calm water, and on

its margins grow spearwort, opening its big yellow cups to the sunshine,

meadow rue, purple and yellow loosestrife, bog bean, and sweet flag.

Here and there float upon the surface the round leaves and delicate

white blossoms of the frogbit, together with lilies, pondweeds, and

water starworts.

“What an idyllic place to sit and read, or sew, or have tea!” exclaimed

Francesca.

“What a place for a tram tea-house!” I added. “Do you suppose we

could manage it as a surprise to Dr. La Touche, in return for all his

kindness?”

“It would cost a pretty penny, I fear,” said Francesca prudently,

“though it isn't as if it were going out of the family. Now that there

is no longer any need for you to sell pictures, I suppose you could

dash off one in an hour or two that would buy a tram; and papa cabled me

yesterday, you know, to draw on him freely. I used to think, whenever

he said that, that he would marry again within the week; but I did him

injustice. A tram tea-house by the river,--wouldn't it be unique? Do

let us see what we can do about it through some of our Dublin

acquaintances.”

The plan proved unexpectedly easy to carry out, and not ruinously

extravagant, either; for our friend the American consul knew the

principal director in a tram company, and a dilapidated and discarded

car was sent to us in a few days. There were certain moments--once when

we saw that it had not been painted for twenty years, once when the

freight bill was handed us, and again when we contracted for the removal

of our gift from the station to the river-bank--when we regretted the

fertility of imagination that had led us to these lengths; but when

we finally saw the car by the water-side, there was no room left for

regret. Benella said that, with the assistance of the Button Boy, she

could paint it easily herself; but we engaged an expert, who put on a

coat of dark green very speedily, and we consoled the Derelict with the

suggestion that she could cover the cushions, and make the interior cosy

and pretty.

All this happened some little time ago. Dr. La Touche has been at home

for a fortnight, and we have had to use the greatest ingenuity to keep

people away from that particular spot, which, fortunately for us, is

a secluded one. All is ready now, however, and the following cards of

invitation have been issued:--

The honour of your presence

is requested at the

Opening of the New Tea Tram

On the River Bank, Rosnaree Demesne,

Wednesday, June 27th, at 4 p.m.

The ceremony will be performed by

H.R.H. Salemina Peabody.

The Bishop of Ossory in the Chair.

I have just learned that a certain William Beresford was Bishop of

Ossory once on a time, and I intend to personate this dignitary, clad

in Dr. La Touche's cap and gown. We spend this sunny morning by the

river-bank; Francesca hemming the last of the yellow window curtains,

and I making souvenir programmes for the great occasion. Salemina had

gone for the day with the Colquhouns and Dr. La Touche to lunch with

some people near Kavan and see Donaghmore Round Tower and the moat.

“Is she in love with Dr. Gerald?” asked Francesca suddenly, looking

up from her work. “Was she ever in love with him? She must have been,

mustn't she? I cannot and will not entertain any other conviction.”

“I don't know, my dear,” I answered thoughtfully, pausing over an

initial letter I was illuminating; “but I can't imagine what we shall do

if we have to tear down our sweet little romance, bit by bit, and leave

the stupid couple sitting in the ruins. They enjoy ruins far too well

already, and it would be just like their obstinacy to go on sitting in

them.”

“And they are so incredibly slow about it all,” Francesca commented.

“It took me about two minutes, at Lady Baird's dinner, where I first

met Ronald, to decide that I would marry him as soon as possible. When

a month had gone by, and he hadn't asked me, I thought, like Rosalind,

that I'd as lief be wooed of a snail.”

“I was not quite so expeditious as you,” I confessed, “though I believe

Himself says that his feeling was instantaneous. I never cared for

anything but painting before I met him, so I never chanced to suffer any

of those pangs that lovelorn maidens are said to feel when the beloved

delays his avowals: perhaps that is the reason I suffer so much now,

vicariously.”

“The lack of positive information makes one so impatient,” Francesca

went on. “I am sure he is as fond of her as ever; but if she refused

him when he was young and handsome, with every prospect of a brilliant

career before him, perhaps he thinks he has even less chance now. He

was the first to forget their romance, and the one to marry; his estates

have been wasted by his father's legal warfares, and he has been an

unhappy and a disappointed man. Now he has to beg her to heal his

wounds, as it were, and to accept the care and responsibility of his

children.”

“It is very easy to see that we are not the only ones who suspect his

sentiments,” I said, smiling at my thoughts. “Mrs. Colquhoun told me

that she and Salemina stopped at one of the tenants' cabins, the other

day, to leave some small comforts that Dr. La Touche had sent to a sick

child. The woman thanked Salemina, and Mrs. Colquhoun heard her say,

'When a man will stop, coming in the doore, an' stoop down to give a

sthroke and a scratch to the pig's back, depend on it, ma'am, him that's

so friendly with a poor fellow-crathur will make ye a good husband.'

“I have given him every opportunity to confide in me,” I continued,

after a pause, “but he accepts none of them; and yet I like him a

thousand times better now that I have seen him as the master of his

own house. He is so courtly, and, in these latter days, so genial and

sunny... Salemina's life would not at first be any too easy, I fear; the

aunt is very feeble, and the establishment is so neglected. I went into

Dr. Gerald's study the other day to see an old print, and there was a

buzz-buzz-zzzz when the butler pulled up the blinds. 'Do you mind bees,

ma'am?' he asked blandly. 'There's been a swarm of them in one corner

of the ceiling for manny years, an' we don't like to disturb them.'...

Benella said yesterday: 'Of course, when you three separate, I shall

stay with the one that needs me most; but if Miss Peabody SHOULD settle

over here anywhere, I'd like to take a scrubbing brush an' go through

the castle, or whatever she's going to live in, with soap and sand and

ammonia, and make it water-sweet before she sets foot in it.'... As for

the children, however, no one could regard them as a drawback, for they

are altogether charming; not well disciplined, of course, but lovable

to the last degree. Broona was planning her future life when we were

walking together yesterday. Jackeen is to be 'an engineer, by the

sea,' so it seems, and Broona is to be a farmer's wife with a tiny red

bill-book like Mrs. Colquhoun's. Her little boys and girls will sell the

milk, and when Jackeen has his engineering holidays he will come and

eat fresh butter and scones and cream and jam at the farm, and when her

children have their holidays they will go and play on 'Jackeen's beach.'

It is the little people I rely upon chiefly, after all. I wish you could

have seen them cataract down the staircase to greet her this morning. I

notice that she tries to make me divert their attention when Dr. Gerald

is present; for it is a bit suggestive to a widower to see his children

pursue, hang about, and caress a lovely, unmarried lady. Broona,

especially, can hardly keep away from Salemina; and she is such a

fascinating midget, I should think anybody would be glad to have her

included in a marriage contract. 'You have a weeny, weeny line between

your eyebrows, just like my daddy's,' she said to Salemina the other

day. 'It's such a little one, perhaps I can kiss it away; but daddy has

too many, and they are cutted too deep. Sometimes he whispers, 'Daddy is

sad, Broona,' and then I say, 'Play up, play up, and play the game!' and

that makes him smile.'”

“She is a darling,” said Francesca, with the suspicion of a tear in her

eye. “'Were you ever in love, Miss Fancy?' she asked me once. 'I was; it

was long, long ago before I belonged to daddy'; and another time when

I had been reading to her, she said 'I often think that when I get

into the kingdom of heaven the person I'll be gladdest to see will be

Marjorie Fleming.' Yes, the children are sure to help; they always do in

whatever circumstances they chance to be placed. Did you notice Salemina

with them at tea-time, yesterday? It was such a charming scene. The

heavy rain had kept them in, and things had gone wrong in the

nursery. Salemina had glued the hair on Broona's dolly, and knit up a

heart-breaking wound in her side. Then she mended the legs of all the

animals in the Noah's ark, so that they stood firm, erect, and proud;

and when, to draw the children's eyes from the wet window-panes, she

proposed a story, it was pretty to see the grateful youngsters snuggle

in her lap and by her side.”

“When does an artist ever fail to see pictures? I have loved Salemina

always, even when she used to part her hair in the middle and wear

spectacles; but that is the first time I ever wanted to paint her, with

the firelight shining on the soft, restful greys and violets of her

dress, and Broona in her arms. Of course, if a woman is ever to be

lovely at all, it will be when she is holding a child. It is the oldest

of all old pictures, and the most beautiful, I believe, in a man's eyes.

“And do you notice that she and the doctor are beginning to speak more

freely of their past acquaintance?” I went on, looking up at Francesca,

who had dropped her work in her interest. “It is too amusing! Every hour

or two it is: 'Do you remember the day we went to Bunker Hill?' or,

'Do you recall that charming Mrs. Andrews, with whom we used to dine

occasionally?' or, 'What has become of your cousin Samuel?' and, 'Is

your uncle Thomas yet living?'... The other day, at tea, she asked, 'Do

you still take three lumps, Dr. La Touche? You had always a sweet tooth,

I remember.'... Then they ring the changes in this way: 'You were always

fond of grey, Miss Peabody.' 'You had a great fancy for Moore, in the

old days, Miss Peabody: have you outgrown him, or does the 'Anacreontic

little chap,' as Father Prout called him, still appeal to you?'... 'You

used to admire Boyle O'Reilly, Dr. La Touche. Would you like to see

some of his letters?'... 'Aren't these magnificent rhododendrons, Dr.

La Touche,--even though they are magenta, the colour you specially

dislike?' And so on. Did you chance to look at either of them last

evening, Francesca, when I sang 'Let Erin remember the days of old'?”

“No; I was thinking of something else. I don't know what there is about

your singing, Penny love, that always makes me think of the past and

dream of the future. Which verse do you mean?”

And, still painting, I hummed:--

“'On Lough Neagh's banks, as the fisherman strays,

When the cool, calm eve's declining,

He sees the round towers of other days

Beneath the waters shining.

. . . . . .

Thus shall memory oft, in dreams sublime,

Catch a glimpse of the days that are over,

And, sighing, look thro' the waves of Time,

For the long-faded glories they cover.'

“That is what our two dear middle-aged lovers are constantly doing

now,--looking at the round towers of other days, as they bend over

memory's crystal pool and see them reflected there. It is because he

fears that the glories are over and gone that Dr. Gerald is troubled.

Some day he will realise that he need not live on reflections, and he

will seek realities.”

“I hope so,” said Francesca philosophically, as she folded her work;

“but sometimes these people who go mooning about, and looking through

the waves of Time, tumble in and are drowned.”

Chapter XXIX. Aunt David's garden.

'O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind,

Blow through me, blow!

Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind

From long ago.'

John Todhunter.

No one ever had a better opportunity than we, of breathing in, so far

as a stranger and a foreigner may, the old Celtic atmosphere, and of

reliving the misty years of legend before the dawn of history; when

'Long, long ago, beyond the space

Of twice two hundred years,

In Erin old there lived a race

Taller than Roman spears.'

Mr. Colquhoun is one of the best Gaelic scholars in Ireland, and Dr.

Gerald, though not his equal in knowledge of the language, has 'the full

of a sack of stories' in his head. According to the Book of Leinster, a

professional story-teller was required to know seven times fifty tales,

and I believe the doctor could easily pass this test. It is not easy to

make a good translation from Irish to English, for they tell us there

are no two Aryan languages more opposed to each other in spirit and

idiom. We have heard little of the marvellous old tongue until now,

but we are reading it a bit under the tutelage of these two inspiring

masters, and I fancy it has helped me as much in my understanding of

Ireland as my tedious and perplexing worriments over political problems.

After all, how can we know anything of a nation's present or future

without some attempt to revivify its past? Just as, without some slender

knowledge of its former culture, we must be for ever ignorant of its

inherited powers and aptitudes. The harp that once through Tara's halls

the soul of music shed, now indeed hangs mute on Tara's walls, but for

all that its echoes still reverberate in the listening ear.

When we sit together by the river brink on sunny days, or on the

greensward under the yews in our old garden, we are always telling

ancient Celtic romances, and planning, even acting, new ones.

Francesca's mind and mine are poorly furnished with facts of any sort;

but when the kind scholars in our immediate neighbourhood furnish

necessary information and inspiration, we promptly turn it into dramatic

form, and serve it up before their wondering and admiring gaze. It

is ever our habit to 'make believe' with the children; and just as

we played ballads in Scotland and plotted revels in the Glen at

Rowardennan, so we instinctively fall into the habit of thought and

speech that surrounds us here.

This delights our grave and reverend signiors, and they give themselves

up to our whimsicalities with the most whole-hearted zeal. It is days

since we have spoken of one another by those names which were given to

us in baptism. Francesca is Finola the Festive. Eveleen Colquhoun is

Ethnea. I am the harper, Pearla the Melodious. Miss Peabody is Sheela

the Skilful Scribe, who keeps for posterity a record of all our antics,

in the Speckled Book of Salemina. Dr. Gerald is Borba the Proud, the

Ard-ri or overking. Mr. Colquhoun is really called Dermod, but he would

have been far too modest to choose Dermot O'Dyna for his Celtic

name, had we not insisted; for this historic personage was not only

noble-minded, generous, of untarnished honour, and the bravest of the

brave, but he was as handsome as he was gallant, and so much the idol of

the ladies that he was sometimes called Dermat-na-man, or Dermot of the

women.

Of course we have a corps of shanachies, or story-tellers, gleemen,

gossipreds, leeches, druids, gallowglasses, bards, ollaves, urraghts,

and brehons; but the children can always be shifted from one role to

another, and Benella and the Button Boy, although they are quite unaware

of the honours conferred upon them, are often alluded to in our romances

and theatrical productions.

Aunt David's garden is not a half bad substitute for the old Moy-Mell,

the plain of pleasure of the ancient Irish, when once you have the key

to its treasures. We have made a new and authoritative survey of its

geographical features and compiled a list of its legendary landmarks,

which, strangely enough, seem to have been absolutely unknown to Miss

Llewellyn-Joyce.

In the very centre is the Forradh, or Place of Meeting, and on it is our

own Lia Fail, Stone of Destiny. The one in Westminster Abbey, carried

away from Scotland by Edward I., is thought by many scholars to be

unauthentic, and we hope that ours may prove to have some historical

value. The only test of a Stone of Destiny, as I understand it, is that

it shall 'roar' when an Irish monarch is inaugurated; and that our Lia

Fail was silent when we celebrated this impressive ceremony reflects

less upon its own powers, perhaps, than upon the pedigree of our chosen

Ard-ri.

The arbour under the mountain ash is the Fairy Palace of the Quicken

Tree, and on its walls is suspended the Horn of Foreknowledge, which if

any one looks on it in the morning, fasting, he will know in a moment

all things that are to happen during that day.

The clump of willows is the Wood of the Many Sallows (a willow-tree is

familiarly known as a 'sally' in Ireland). Do you know Yeats's song, put

to a quaint old Irish air?

'Down by the sally gardens my love and I did meet,

She passed the sally gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree,

But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.'

The summer-house is the Greenan; that is, grianan, a bright, sunny

place. On the arm of a tree in the Greenan hangs something you might (if

you are dull) mistake for a plaited garland of rushes hung with pierced

pennies; but it really is our Chain of Silence, a useful article

of bygone ages, which the lord of a mansion shook when he wished

an attentive hearing, and which deserved a better fate and a longer

survival than it has met. Jackeen's Irish terrier is Bran,--though

he does not closely resemble the great Finn's sweet-voiced,

gracefully-shaped, long-snouted hound; the coracle lying on the shore of

the little lough--the coracle made of skin, like the old Irish boats--is

the Wave-Sweeper; and the faithful mare that we hire by the day is, by

your leave, Enbarr of the Flowing Mane. No warrior was ever killed on

the back of this famous steed, for she was as swift as the clear, cold

wind of spring, travelling with equal ease and speed on land and sea,

an' may the divil fly away wid me if that same's not true.

We no longer find any difficulty in remembering all this nomenclature,

for we are 'under gesa' to use no other. When you are put under gesa to

reveal or to conceal, to defend or to avenge, it is a sort of charm or

spell; also an obligation of honour. Finola is under gesa not to write

to Alba more than six times a week and twice on Sundays; Sheela is bound

by the same charm to give us muffins for afternoon tea; I am vowed to

forget my husband when I am relating romances, and allude to myself, for

dramatic purposes, as a maiden princess, or a maiden of enchanting and

all-conquering beauty. And if we fail to abide by all these laws of the

modern Dedannans of Devorgilla, which are written in the Speckled Book

of Salemina, we are to pay eric-fine. These fines are collected with all

possible solemnity, and the children delight in them to such an extent

that occasionally they break the law for the joy of the penalty. If you

have ever read the Fate of the Children of Turenn, you remember that

they were to pay to Luga the following eric-fine for the slaying of

their father, Kian: two steeds and a chariot, seven pigs, a hound whelp,

a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill. This does not at first seem

excessive, if Kian were a good father, and sincerely mourned; but when

Luga began to explain the hidden snares that lay in the pathway, it is

small wonder that the sons of Turenn felt doubt of ever being able to

pay it, and that when, after surmounting all the previous obstacles,

they at last raised three feeble shouts on Midkena's Hill, they

immediately gave up the ghost.

The story told yesterday by Sheela the Scribe was the Magic Thread-Clue,

or the Pursuit of the Gilla Dacker, Benella and the Button Boy being the

chief characters; Finola's was the Voyage of the Children of Corr the

Swift-Footed (the Ard-ri's pseudonym for American travellers); while

mine, to be told to-morrow, is called the Quest of the Fair Strangers,

or the Fairy Quicken Tree of Devorgilla.

Chapter XXX. The Quest of the Fair Strangers,

or The Fairy Quicken-Tree of Devorgilla. [*]

'Before the King

The bards will sing.

And there recall the stories all

That give renown to Ireland.'

Eighteenth Century Song.

Englished by George Sigerson.

* It seems probable that this tale records a real incident

which took place in Aunt David's garden. Penelope has

apparently listened with such attention to the old Celtic

romances as told by the Ard-ri and Dermot O'Dyna that she

has, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced something of

their atmosphere and phraseology. The delightful surprise at

the end must have been contrived by Salemina, when she, in

her character of Sheela the Scribe, gazed into the Horn of

Foreknowledge and learned the events that were to happen

that day.--K.D.W.

PEARLA'S STORY.

Three maidens once dwelt in a castle in that part of the Isle of Weeping

known as the cantred of Devorgilla, Devorgilla of the Green Hill Slopes;

and they were baptized according to druidical rites as Sheela the

Scribe, Finola the Festive, and Pearla the Melodious, though by the

dwellers in that land they were called the Fair Strangers, or the

Children of Corr the Swift-Footed.

This cantred of Devorgilla they acquired by paying rent and tribute to

the Wise Woman of Wales, who granted them to fish in its crystal streams

and to hunt over the green-sided hills, to roam through the woods of

yew-trees and to pluck the flowers of every hue that were laughing all

over the plains.

Thus were they circumstanced: Their palace of abode was never without

three shouts in it,--the shout of the maidens brewing tea, the shout of

the guests drinking it, and the shout of the assembled multitude playing

at their games. The same house was never without three measures,--a

measure of magic malt for raising the spirits, a measure of Attic salt

for the seasoning of tales, and a measure of poppy leaves to induce

sleep when the tales were dull.

And the manner of their lives was this: In the cool of the morning they

gathered nuts and arbutus apples and scarlet quicken berries to take

back with them to Tir-thar-toinn, the Country beyond the Wave; for this

was the land of their birth. When the sun was high in the east they went

forth to the chase; sometimes it was to hunt the Ard-ri, and at others

it was in pursuit of Dermot of the Bright Face. Then, after resting

awhile on their couches of soft rushes, they would perform champion

feats, or play on their harps, or fish in their clear-flowing streams

that were swimming with salmon.

The manner of their fishing was this: to cut a long, straight

sallow-tree rod, and having fastened a hook and one of Finola's hairs

upon it, to put a quicken-tree berry upon the hook, and stand on

the brink of the swift-flowing river, whence they drew out the

shining-skinned, silver-sided salmon. These they would straightway broil

over a little fire of birch boughs; and they needed with them no other

food but the magical loaf made by Toma, one of their house-servants. The

witch hag that dwelt on that hillside of Rosnaree called Fan-na-carpat,

or the Slope of the Chariots, had cast a druidical spell over Toma,

by which she was able to knead a loaf that would last twenty days and

twenty nights, and one mouthful of which would satisfy hunger for that

length of time. [**]

** Fact.

Not far from the mayden castle was a certain royal palace, with a

glittering roof, and the name of the palace was Rosnaree. And upon the

level green in front of the regal abode, or in the banqueting-halls,

might always be seen noble companies of knights and ladies bright,--some

feasting, some playing at the chess, some giving ear to the music of

their own harps, some continually shaking the Chain of Silence, and some

listening to the poems and tales of heroes of the olden time that were

told by the king's bards and shanachies.

Now all went happily with the Fair Strangers until the crimson berries

were ripening on the quicken-tree near the Fairy Palace. For the berries

possessed secret virtues known only to a man of the Dedannans, and

learned from him by Sheela the Scribe, who put him under gesa not to

reveal the charm to any one else. Whosoever ate of the honey-sweet,

scarlet-glowing fruit felt a cheerful flow of spirits, as if he had

tasted wine or mead, and whosoever ate a sufficient number of them

was almost certain to grow younger. These things were written in the

Speckled Book of Salemina, but in druidical ink, undecipherable to all

eyes but those of the Scribe herself.

So, wishing that none should possess the secret but themselves, the Fair

Strangers set the Gilla Dacker+ to watch the fruit (putting him first

under gesa to eat none of the berries himself, since he was already

too cheerful and too young to be of much service); and thus, in their

absence, the magical tree was never left alone.

+Could be freely translated as the Slothful Button Boy.

Nevertheless, when Finola the Festive went forth to the chase one day,

she found a quicken berry glowing like a ruby in the highroad, and

Sheela plucked a second from under a gnarled thorn on the Slope of the

Chariots, and Pearla discovered a third in the curiously-compounded,

swiftly-satisfying loaf of Toma. Then the Fair Strangers became very

angry, and sent out their trusty fleet-footed couriers to scour the land

for the invaders; for they knew that none of the Dedannans would take

the berries, being under gesa not to do so. But the couriers returned,

and though they were men able to trace the trail of a fox through nine

glens and nine rivers, they could discover no proof of the presence of a

foreign foe in the mayden cantred of Devorgilla.

Then the hearts of the Fair Strangers were filled with grief and gall,

for they distrusted the couriers, and having consulted the Ard-ri, they

set forth themselves to find and conquer the invader; for the king told

them that there was one other quicken-tree, more beautiful and more

magical than that growing by the Fairy Palace, and that it was set in

another part of the bright-blooming, sweet-scented old garden,--namely,

in the heart of the labyrinthine maze of the Wise Woman of Wales; but as

no one of them, neither the Gilla Dacker nor those who pursued him, had

ever, even with the aid of the Magic Thread-Clue, reached the heart of

the maze, there was no knowledge among them of the second quicken-tree.

The king also told Sheela the Scribe, secretly, that one of his knights

had found a money-piece and a breviary in the forest of Rosnaree; and

the silver was unlike any ever used in the country of the Dedannans, and

the breviary could belong only to a pious Gael known as Loskenn of the

Bare Knees.

Now Sheela the Scribe, having fasted from midnight until dawn, gazed

upon the Horn of Foreknowledge, and read there that it was wiser for her

to remain on guard at the Fairy Palace, while her sisters explored the

secret fastnesses of the labyrinth.

When Finola was apparelled to set forth upon her quest, Pearla thought

her the loveliest maiden upon the ridge of the world, and wondered

whether she meant to conquer the invader by force of arms or by the

power of beauty.

The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face, and one could

not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and hands were like the

lime, her mouth was as red as a ripe strawberry, her foot as small and

as light as another one's hand, her form smooth and slender, and her

hair falling down from her head under combs of gold.++ One could not

look at her without being 'all over in love with her,' as Oisin said at

his first meeting with Niam of the Golden Hair. And as for Pearla, the

rose on her cheeks was heightened by her rage against the invader,

the delicate blossom of the sloe was not whiter than her neck, and her

glossy chestnut ringlets fell to her waist.

++ Description of the Princess in Guleesh na Guss Dhu.

Then the Gilla Dacker unleashed Bran, the keen-scented terrier hound,

and put a pearl-embroidered pillion on Enbarr of the Flowing Mane, and

the two dauntless maidens leaped upon her back, each bearing a broad

shield and a long polished, death-dealing spear. When Enbarr had been

given a free rein she set out for the labyrinth, trailing the Magic

Thread-Clue behind her, cleaving the air with long, active strides;

and if you know what the speed of a swallow is, flying across a

mountain-side, or the dry wind of a March day sweeping over the plains,

then you can understand nothing of the swiftness of this steed of the

flowing mane, acquired by the day by the maydens of Devorgilla.

Many were the dangers that beset the path of these two noble champions

on their quest for the Fairy Quicken Tree. Here they met an enormous

white stoat, but this was slain by the intrepid Bran, and they buried

its bleeding corse and raised a cairn over it, with the name 'Stoat'

graven on it in Ogam; there a druidical fairy mist sprang up in

their path to hide the way, but they pierced it with a note of their

far-reaching, clarion-toned voices,--an art learned in their native land

beyond the wave.

Now the dog Bran, being unhungered, and refusing to eat of Toma's loaf,

as all did who were ignorant of its druidical purpose, fell upon the

Magic Thread-Clue and tore it in twain. This so greatly affrighted the

champions that they sounded the Dord-Fian slowly and plaintively, hoping

that the war-cry might bring Sheela to their rescue. This availing

nothing, Finola was forced to slay Bran with her straight-sided,

silver-shining spear; but this she felt he would not mind if he could

know that he would share the splendid fate of the stoat, and speedily

have a cairn raised over him, with the word 'Bran' graven upon it in

Ogam,--since this is the consolation offered by the victorious living to

all dead Celtic heroes; and if it be a poor substitute for life, it is

at least better than nothing.

It was now many hours after noon, and though to the Fair Strangers it

seemed they had travelled more than forty or a hundred miles, they were

apparently no nearer than ever to the heart of the labyrinth: and this

from the first had been the pestiferous peculiarity of that malignantly

meandering maze. So they dismounted, and tied Enbarr to the branch of

a tree, while they refreshed themselves with a mouthful of Toma's loaf;

and Finola now put her thumb under her 'tooth of knowledge,' for she

wished new guidance and inspiration, and, being more than common modest,

she said: “Inasmuch as we are fairer than all the other maydens in this

labyrinth, why, since we cannot find the heart of the maze, do we not

entice the invaders from their hiding-place by the quicken-tree; and

when we see from what direction they advance, fall upon and slay them;

and after raising the usual cairn to their memory, and carving their

names over it in the customary Ogam, run to the enchanted tree and

gather all the berries that are left? For this is the hour when Sheela

brews the tea, and the knights and the ladies quaff it from our golden

cups; and truly I am weary of this quest, and far rather would I be

there than here.”

So Pearla the Melodious took her timpan, and chanted a Gaelic song

that she had learned in the country of the Dedannans; and presently a

round-polished, red-gleaming quicken berry dropped into her lap, and

another into Finola's, and, looking up, they saw nought save only a

cloud of quicken berries falling through the air one after the other.

And this caused them to wonder, for it seemed like unto a snare set for

them; but Pearla said, “There is nought remaining for us but to meet the

danger.”

“It is well,” replied Finola, shaking down the mantle of her ebon locks,

and setting the golden combs more firmly in them; “only, if I perish,

I prithee let there be no cairns or Ogams. Let me fall, as a beauty

should, face upward; and if it be but a swoon, and the invader be a

handsome prince, see that he wakens me in his own good way.”

“To arms, then!” cried Pearla, and, taking up their spears and shields,

the Fair Strangers dashed blindly in the direction whence the berries

fell.

“To arms indeed, but to yours or ours?” called two voices from the heart

of the labyrinth; and there, in an instant, the two brave champions,

Finola and Pearla, found the Fairy Tree hanging thick with scarlet

berries, and under its branches, fit fruit indeed to raise the spirits

or bring eternal youth, were, in the language of the Dedannans, Loskenn

of the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory,--known to the Children of

Corr the Swift-Footed as Ronald Macdonald and Himself!

And the hours ran on; and Sheela the Scribe brewed and brewed and brewed

and brewed the tea at her table in the Peacock Walk, and the knights and

ladies quaffed it from the golden cups belonging to the Wise Woman of

Wales; but Finola the Festive and Pearla the Melodious lingered in the

labyrinth with Loskenn of the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory. And

they said to one another, “Surely, if it were so great a task to find

the heart of this maze, we should be mad to stir from the spot, lest we

lose it again.”

And Pearla murmured, “That plan were wise indeed, save that the place

seemeth all too small for so many.”

Then Finola drew herself up proudly, and replied, “It is no smaller for

one than for another; but come, Loskenn, let us see if haply we can lose

ourselves in some path of our own finding.”

And this they did; and the content of them that departed was no greater

than the content of them that were left behind, and the sun hid himself

for very shame because the brightness of their joy was so much more

dazzling than the glory of his own face. And nothing more is told of

what befell them till they reached the threshold of the Old Hall; and it

was not the sun, but the moon, that shone upon their meeting with Sheela

the Scribe.

Chapter XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen.

'When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,

And took a long farewell, and wished in vain

For seats like these beyond the western main,

And shuddering still to face the distant deep,

Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'

Oliver Goldsmith.

It is almost over, our Irish holiday, so full of delicious, fruitful

experiences; of pleasures we have made and shared, and of other people's

miseries and hardships we could not relieve. Almost over! Soon we shall

be in Dublin, and then on to London to meet Francesca's father; soon be

deciding whether she will be married at the house of their friend the

American ambassador, or in her own country, where she has really had no

home since the death of her mother.

The ceremony over, Mr. Monroe will start again for Cairo or

Constantinople, Stockholm or St. Petersburg; for he is of late years

a determined wanderer, whose fatherly affection is chiefly shown

in liberal allowances, in pride of his daughter's beauty and many

conquests, in conscientious letter-writing, and in frequent calls

upon her between his long journeys. It is because of these paternal

predilections that we are so glad Francesca's heart has resisted all

the shot and shell directed against it from the batteries of a dozen

gay worldlings and yielded so quietly and so completely to Ronald

Macdonald's loyal and tender affection.

At tea-time day before yesterday, Salemina suggested that Francesca and

I find the heart of Aunt David's labyrinth, the which she had discovered

in a less than ten minutes' search that morning, leaving her Gaelic

primer behind her that we might bring it back as a proof of our success.

You have heard in Pearla's Celtic fairy tale the outcome of this little

expedition, and now know that Ronald Macdonald and Himself planned the

joyful surprise for us, and by means of Salemina's aid carried it out

triumphantly.

Ronald crossing to Ireland from Glasgow, and Himself from Liverpool,

had met in Dublin, and travelled post-haste to the Shamrock Inn in

Devorgilla, where they communicated with Salemina and begged her

assistance in their plot.

I was looking forward to my husband's arrival within a week, but Ronald

had said not a word of his intended visit; so that Salemina was properly

nervous lest some one of us should collapse out of sheer joy at the

unexpected meeting.

I have been both quietly and wildly happy many times in my life, but I

think yesterday was the most perfect day in all my chain of years. Not

that in this long separation I have been dull, or sad, or lonely. How

could I be? Dull, with two dear, bright, sunny letters every week,

letters throbbing with manly tenderness, letters breathing the sure,

steadfast, protecting care that a strong man gives to the woman he has

chosen. Sad, with my heart brimming over with sweet memories and

sweeter prophecies, and all its tiny crevices so filled with love that

discontent can find no entrance there! Lonely, when the vision of the

beloved is so poignantly real in absence that his bodily presence adds

only a final touch to joy! Dull, or sad, when in these soft days of

spring and early summer I have harboured a new feeling of companionship

and oneness with Nature, a fresh joy in all her bounteous resource

and plenitude of life, a renewed sense of kinship with her mysterious

awakenings! The heavenly greenness and promise of the outer world seem

but a reflection of the hopes and dreams that irradiate my own inner

consciousness.

My art, dearly as I loved it, dearly as I love it still, never gave

me these strange, unspeakable joys with their delicate margin of pain.

Where are my ambitions, my visions of lonely triumphs, my imperative

need of self-expression, my ennobling glimpses of the unattainable, my

companionship with the shadows in which an artist's life is so rich? Are

they vanished altogether? I think not; only changed in the twinkling

of an eye, merged in something higher still, carried over, linked on,

transformed, transmuted, by Love the alchemist, who, not content with

joys already bestowed, whispers secret promises of raptures yet to come.

The green isle looked its fairest for our wanderers. Just as a woman

adorns herself with all her jewels when she wishes to startle or

enthrall, wishes to make a lover of a friend, so Devorgilla arrayed

herself to conquer these two pairs of fresh eyes, and command their

instant allegiance.

It was a tender, silvery day, fair, mild, pensive, with light shadows

and a capricious sun. There had been a storm of rain the night before,

and it was as if Nature had repented of her wildness, and sought

forgiveness by all sorts of winsome arts, insinuating invitations, soft

caresses, and melting coquetries of demeanour.

Broona and Jackeen had lunched with us at the Old Hall, and, inebriated

by broiled chicken, green peas, and a half holiday, flitted like

fireflies through Aunt David's garden, showing all its treasures to the

two new friends, already in high favour.

Benella, it is unnecessary to say, had confided her entire past life

to Himself after a few hours' acquaintance, while both he and Ronald,

concealing in the most craven manner their original objections to the

part she proposed to play in our triangular alliance, thanked her, with

tears in their eyes, for her devotion to their sovereign ladies.

We had tea in the Italian garden at Rosnaree, and Dr. Gerald, arm in arm

with Himself, walked between its formal flower borders, along its paths

of golden gravel, and among its spirelike cypresses and fountains, where

balustrades and statues, yellowed and stained with age (stains which

Benella longs to scrub away), make the brilliant turf even greener by

contrast.

Tea was to have been followed in due course by dinner, but we all agreed

that nothing should induce us to go indoors on such a beautiful evening;

so baskets were packed, and we went in rowboats to a picnic supper on

Illanroe, a wee island in Lough Beg.

I can close my eyes to-day and see the picture--the lonely little lake,

as blue in the sunshine as the sky above it, but in the twilight first

brown and cool, then flushed with the sunset. The distant hills, the

rocks, the heather, wore tints I never saw them wear before. The singing

wavelets 'spilled their crowns of white upon the beach' across the lake,

and the wild-flowers in the clear shallows near us grew so close to the

brink that they threw their delicate reflections in the water, looking

up at us again framed in red-brown grasses.

By and by the moon rose out of the pearl-greys and ambers in the east,

bevies of black rooks flew homeward, and stillness settled over the face

of the brown lake. Darkness shut us out from Devorgilla; and though we

could still see the glimmer of the village lights, it seemed as if we

were in a little world of our own.

It was useless for Salemina to deny herself to the children, for was

she not going to leave them on the morrow? She sat under the shadow of

a thorn bush, and the two mites, tired with play, cuddled themselves by

her side, unreproved. She looked tenderly, delectably feminine. The moon

shone full upon her face; but there are no ugly lines to hide, for there

are no parched and arid places in her nature. Dews of sympathy, sweet

spring floods of love and compassion, have kept all fresh, serene, and

young.

We had been gay, but silence fell upon us as it had fallen upon the

lake. There would be only a day or two in Dublin, whither Dr. Gerald was

going with us, that he might have the last word and hand-clasp before we

sailed away from Irish shores; and so near was the parting that we were

all, in our hearts, bidding farewell to the Emerald Isle.

Good-bye, Silk of the Kine! I was saying to myself, calling the friendly

spot by one of the endearing names given her by her lovers in the sad

old days. Good-bye, Little Black Rose, growing on the stern Atlantic

shore! Good-bye, Rose of the World, with your jewels of emerald and

amethyst, the green of your fields and the misty purple of your hills!

Good-bye, Shan Van Vocht, Poor Little Old Woman! We are going

back, Himself and I, to the Oilean Ur, as you used to call our new

island--going back to the hurly-burly of affairs, to prosperity and

opportunity; but we shall not forget the lovely Lady of Sorrows looking

out to the west with the pain of a thousand years in her ever youthful

eyes. Good-bye, my Dark Rosaleen, good-bye!

Chapter XXXII. 'As the sunflower turns.'

'No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,

The same look which she turned when he rose.'

Thomas Moore.

Here we all are at O'Carolan's Hotel in Dublin--all but the Colquhouns,

who bade us adieu at the station, and the dear children, whose tears are

probably dried by now, although they flowed freely enough at parting.

Broona flung her arms tempestuously around Salemina's neck, exclaiming

between her sobs, “Good-bye, my thousand, thousand blessings!”--an

expression so Irish that we laughed and cried in one breath at the sound

of it.

Here we are in the midst of life once more, though to be sure it is

Irish life, which moves less dizzily than our own. We ourselves feel

thoroughly at home, nor are we wholly forgotten by the public; for on

beckoning to a driver on the cab-stand to approach with his side-car, he

responded with alacrity, calling to his neighbour, “Here's me sixpenny

darlin' again!” and I recognised him immediately as a man who had once

remonstrated with me eloquently on the subject of a fee, making such a

fire of Hibernian jokes over my sixpence that I heartily wished it had

been a half-sovereign.

Cables and telegrams are arriving every hour, and a rich American lady

writes to Salemina, asking her if she can purchase the Book of Kells

for her, as she wishes to give it to a favourite nephew who is a

bibliomaniac. I am begging the shocked Miss Peabody to explain that the

volume in question is not for sale, and to ask at the same time if her

correspondent wishes to purchase the Lakes of Killarney or the Giant's

Causeway in its stead. Francesca, in a whirl of excitement, is buying

cobweb linens, harp brooches, creamy poplins with golden shamrocks woven

into their lustrous surfaces; and as for laces, we spend hours in the

shops, when our respective squires wish us to show them the sights of

Dublin.

Benella is in her element, nursing Salemina, who sprained her ankle just

as we were leaving Devorgilla. At the last moment our side-cars were

so crowded with passengers and packages that she accepted a seat in Dr.

Gerald's carriage, and drove to the station with him. She had a few last

farewells to say in the village, and a few modest remembrances to leave

with some of the poor old women; and I afterward learned that the drive

was not without its embarrassments. The butcher's wife said fervently,

“May you long be spared to each other!” The old weaver exclaimed,

“'Twould be an ojus pity to spoil two houses wid ye!” While the woman

who sells apples at the station capped all by wishing the couple “a long

life and a happy death together.” No wonder poor Salemina slipped and

twisted her ankle as she alighted from the carriage! Though walking

without help is still an impossibility, twenty-four hours of rubbing and

bathing and bandaging have made it possible for her to limp discreetly,

and we all went to St. Patrick's Cathedral together this morning.

We had been in the quiet churchyard, where a soft, misty rain was

falling on the yellow acacias and the pink hawthorns. We had stood under

the willow-tree in the deanery garden--the tree that marks the site of

the house from which Dean Swift watched the movements of the torches in

the cathedral at the midnight burial of Stella. They are lying side by

side at the foot of a column in the south side of the nave, and a brass

plate in the pavement announces:--

'Here lies Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name

of Stella, under which she is celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan

Swift, Dean of this Cathedral.'

Poor Stella, at rest for a century and a half beside the man who caused

her such pangs of love and grief--who does not mourn her?

The nave of the cathedral was dim, and empty of all sightseers save our

own group. There was a caretaker who went about in sloppy rubber shoes,

scrubbing marbles and polishing brasses, and behind a high screen or

temporary partition some one was playing softly on an organ.

We stood in a quiet circle by Stella's resting-place, and Dr. Gerald,

who never forgets anything, apparently, was reminding us of Thackeray's

gracious and pathetic tribute:--

'Fair and tender creature, pure and affectionate heart! Boots it to you

now that the whole world loves you and deplores you? Scarce any man

ever thought of your grave that did not cast a flower of pity on it,

and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady! so lovely, so loving,

so unhappy. You have had countless champions, millions of manly hearts

mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond

tradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your story, your bright

morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet

martyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints of

English story.'

As Dr. Gerald's voice died away, the strains of 'Love's Young Dream'

floated out from the distant end of the building.

“The organist must be practising for a wedding,” said Francesca, very

much alive to anything of that sort.

“'Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life,'”

she hummed. “Isn't it charming?”

“You ought to know,” Dr. Gerald answered, looking at her affectionately,

though somewhat too sadly for my taste; “but an old fellow like me must

take refuge in the days of 'milder, calmer beam,' of which the poet

speaks.”

Ronald and Himself, guide-books in hand, walked away to talk about the

'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and look for Wolfe's tablet, and I stole

behind the great screen which had been thrown up while repairs of some

sort were being made or a new organ built. A young man was evidently

taking a lesson, for the old organist was sitting on the bench beside

him, pulling out the stops, and indicating the time with his hand. There

was to be a wedding--that was certain; for 'Love's Young Dream' was

taken off the music rack at that moment, while 'Believe me, if all

those endearing young charms' was put in its place, and the melody came

singing out to us on the vox humana stop.

'Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still.'

Francesca joined me just then, and a tear was in her eye. “Penny dear,

when all is said, 'Believe me' is the dearer song of the two. Anybody

can sing, feel, live, the first, which is but a youthful dream, after

all; but the other has in it the proved fidelity of the years. The first

song belongs to me, I know, and it is all I am fit for now; but I want

to grow toward and deserve the second.”

“You are right; but while Love's Young Dream is yours and Ronald's,

dear, take all the joy that it holds for you. The other song is for

Salemina and Dr. Gerald, and I only hope they are realising it at this

moment--secretive, provoking creatures that they are!”

The old organist left his pupil just then, and disappeared through a

little door in the rear.

“Have you the Wedding March there?” I asked the pupil who had been

practising the love-songs.

“Oh yes, madam, though I am afraid I cannot do it justice,” he replied

modestly. “Are you interested in organ music?”

“I am very much interested in yours, and I am still more interested in a

romance that has been dragging its weary length along for twenty years,

and is trying to bring itself to a crisis just on the other side of that

screen. You can help me precipitate it, if you only will!”

Well, he was young and he was an Irishman, which is equivalent to being

a born lover, and he had been brought up on Tommy Moore and music--all of

which I had known from the moment I saw him, else I should not have made

the proposition. I peeped from behind the screen. Ronald and Himself

were walking toward us; Salemina and Dr. Gerald were sitting together in

one of the front pews. I beckoned to my husband.

“Will you and Ronald go quietly out one of the side doors,” I asked,

“take your own car, and go back to the hotel, allowing us to follow you

a little later?”

It takes more than one year of marriage for even the cleverest Benedict

to uproot those weeds of stupidity, denseness, and non-comprehension

that seem to grow so riotously in the mental garden of the bachelor;

so, said Himself, “We came all together; why shouldn't we go home all

together?” (So like a man! Always reasoning from analogy; always, so to

speak, 'lugging in' logic!)

“Desperate situations demand desperate remedies,” I replied

mysteriously, though I hope patiently. “If you go home at once without

any questions, you will be virtuous, and it is more than likely that you

will also be happy; and if you are not, somebody else will be.”

Having seen the backs of our two cavaliers disappearing meekly into the

rain, I stationed Francesca at a point of vantage, and went out to my

victims in the front pew.

“The others went on ahead,” I explained, with elaborate

carelessness--“they wanted to drive by Dublin Castle; and we are going

to follow as we like. For my part, I am tired, and you are looking pale,

Salemina; I am sure your ankle is painful. Help her, Dr. Gerald, please;

she is so proud and self-reliant that she won't even lean on any one's

arm, if she can avoid it. Take her down the middle aisle, for I've sent

your car to that door” (this was the last of a series of happy thoughts

on my part). “I'll go and tell Francesca, who is flirting with the

organist. She has an appointment at the tailor's; so I will drop her

there, and join you at the hotel in a few minutes.”

The refractory pair of innocent, middle-aged lovers started, arm in

arm, on what I ardently hoped would be an eventful walk together. It

was from, instead of toward the altar, to be sure, but I was certain

it would finally lead them to it, notwithstanding the unusual method of

approach. I gave Francesca the signal, and then, disappearing behind the

screen, I held her hand in a palpitation of nervous apprehension that I

had scarcely felt when Himself first asked me to be his.

The young organist, blushing to the roots of his hair, trembling with

responsibility, smiling at the humour of the thing, pulled out all the

stops, and the Wedding March pealed through the cathedral, the splendid

joy and swing and triumph of it echoing through the vaulted aisles in a

way that positively incited one to bigamy.

“We may regard the matter as settled now,” whispered Francesca

comfortably. “Anybody would ask anybody else to marry him, whether he

was in love with her or not. If it weren't so beautiful and so touching,

wouldn't it be amusing? Isn't the organist a darling, and doesn't he

enter into the spirit of it? See him shaking with sympathetic

laughter, and yet he never lets a smile creep into the music; it is all

earnestness and majesty. May I peep now and see how they are getting

on?”

“Certainly not! What are you thinking of, Francesca? Our only

justification in this whole matter is that we are absolutely serious

about it. We shall say good-bye to the organist, wring his hand

gratefully, and steal with him through the little door. Then in a

half-hour we shall know the worst or the best; and we must remember

to send him cards and a marked copy of the newspaper containing the

marriage notice.”

Salemina told me all about it that night, but she never suspected the

interference of any deus ex machina save that of the traditional God of

Love, who, it seems to me, has not kept up with the requirements of the

age in all respects, and leaves a good deal for us women to do nowadays.

“Would that you had come up this aisle to meet me, Salemina, and that

you were walking down again as my wife!” This was what Dr. Gerald had

surprised her by saying, when the wedding music had finally entered

into his soul, driving away for the moment his doubt and fear and

self-distrust; and I can well believe that the hopelessness of his tone

stirred her tender heart to its very depths.

“What did you answer?” I asked breathlessly, on the impulse of the

moment.

We were talking by the light of a single candle. Salemina turned her

head a little aside, but there was a look on her face that repaid me for

all my labour and anxiety, a look in which her forty years melted away

and became as twenty, a look that was the outward and visible expression

of the inward and spiritual youth that has always been hers; then she

replied simply--“I told him what is true: that my life had been one long

coming to meet him, and that I was quite ready to walk with him to the

end of the world.”

. . . . . .

I left her to her thoughts, which I well knew were more precious than my

words, and went across the hall, where Benella was packing Francesca's

last purchases. Ordinarily one of us manages to superintend such

operations, as the Derelict's principal aim is to make two garments go

where only one went before. Nature in her wildest moments never abhorred

a vacuum in her dominion as Miss Dusenberry resents it in a trunk.

“Benella,” I said, in that mysterious whisper which one uses for such

communications, “Dr. La Touche has asked Miss Peabody to marry him, and

she has consented.”

“It was full time!” the Derelict responded, with a deep sigh of relief,

“but better late than never! Men folks are so queer, I don't hardly know

how a merciful Providence ever came to invent 'em! Either they're so

bold they'd propose to the Queen o' Sheba without mindin' it a mite,

or else they're such scare-cats you 'bout have to ask 'em yourself, and

then lug 'em to the minister's afterwards--there don't seem to be no

halfway with 'em. Well, I'm glad you're all settled; it must be nice to

have folks!”

It was a pathetic little phrase, and I fancied I detected a tear in

her usually cheerful and decided voice. Acting on the suspicion, I said

hurriedly, “You have already had a share of Miss Monroe's 'folks' and

mine offered you, and now Miss Peabody will be sure to add hers to the

number. Your only difficulty will be to attend to them all impartially,

and keep them from quarrelling as to which shall have you next.”

She brightened visibly. “Yes,” she assented, without any superfluous

modesty,--squeezing as she spoke a pair of bronze slippers into the

crown of Francesca's favourite hat--“yes, that part'll be hard on all

of us; but I want you to know that I belong to you this winter, any way;

Miss Peabody can get along without me better'n you can.”

Her glance was freighted with a kind of evasive, half-embarrassed

affection; shy, unobtrusive, respectful it was, but altogether friendly

and helpful.

That the relations between us have ever quite been those of mistress

and maid, I cannot affirm. We have tried to persuade ourselves that they

were at least an imitation of the proper thing, just to maintain our

self-respect while travelling in a country of monarchical institutions,

but we have always tacitly understood the real situation and accepted

its piquant incongruities.

So when I met Benella Dusenberry's wistful, sympathetic eye, my

republican head, reckless of British conventions, found the maternal

hollow in her spinster shoulder as I said, “Dear old Derelict! it was a

good day for us when you drifted into our harbour!”