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Thither, to our grim despair, went forth the Belles from Tralee; and, by the bones of St. Lumbago of Sciatica, I could have plunged into the flood, and followed in their lee, had I not been cognisant of a certain “alacrity in sinking,” which prevents the simultaneous removal of both my legs from the bottom. What would I not have given, to have changed places with the coxswain! I should have felt proud and happy as he who steered the immortal Seven at Henley, or as Edgar the Peaceable, when, keeping his court at Chester, and having a mind to go by water to the monastery of St. John Baptist, he was rowed down the Dee in a barge by eight Kings, himself sitting at the helm. 1
We mourned awhile, but the spirit of youth endures not to sorrow long. It bends low, but it will not break. It rises again in all its freshness after a glass of bitter beer, or just a mouthful of whiskey; and we soon looked our affliction in the face like men, and played the nightingale upon our empty bottles. I have studied somewhat sedulously to imitate, with a moistened cork upon glass, “de nightingirl, de lark, de trush” (as the ever-to-be-retained Von Joel hath it), and the performance was so successful, that two finches perched, attentively, within a yard of our heads, while the boatmen listened as admiringly as the Australian Diggers to the English lark; 2 and a newly-mar-ried couple, deliciously embowered above us, conversed as they sat on the green, and said, that “they had never quite believed the assertion that Ireland had no nightingales.” But Frank, unhappily, dispelled all these allusions, by trying his unpractised hand, and by educing such irregular and feeble chirpings, as would have disgraced a superannuated sparrow, or a tom-tit, hopelessly wrestling with an aggravated form of diphtheria.
1 Rapin, vol. i. p. 106.2 See the exquisite description inIt is Never too Lute toMend,p. 359.
The trees, beneath whose melancholy boughs we had our meal and music, had been disgracefully hacked! and more foul copies of “the Initials” were to be found here (with woodcuts, calf, lettered) than in all Mr. Mudie's Library. If I had my will, I would teach those trenchant snobs, who, wherever they go, dishonour England, to sing their “Through the Wood, Laddie,” to a much more doleful tune, made fast for a few hours in the stocks; or I would endeavour so far to revive in their breasts (if they have any breasts), that Druidical veneration for Baal, which once prevailed in Ireland, and which would induce them to cutthemselveswith their knives, and to worship the trees instead of whittling them. Or, in illustration of another Druidical tenet, metempsychosis, it would be gratifying to see their transmigration into woodpeckers, condemned for ever, like the bird in the fable, to seek their food between bark and bole.
We would fain have lingered among these pleasant isles, green with their abundant foliage, and contrasting admirably with the stern hills, towering over them, and so encircling thisUpper Lake, that you see no place of egress, until you are close upon it. As for comparing it with the other lakes, or with Derwent-Water, as the fashion is,1 it ever appears to me the most ungrateful folly, to depreciate or to extol one scene of beauty by commending or condemning another; and when a man begins with, “Ah, but you should see so-and-so,” or “I assure you, my dear fellow, this is dreadfully inferior to what-d'ye-call-it,” I always most heartily wish him at the locality which he affects to admire. What nasty, niggardly, uncomfortable minds there are in this bilious world! How many men, who, forgetting that excellent round-hand copy, “Comparisons are odious,” are never happy but in detecting infelicities, and only strong when carping at weaknesses. Show them a pretty girl,—“she wants animation,” or “she wants repose,”—“she is overdressed,” or “her clothes, poor thing, must have been made in the village, and put on with a fork.”
1 Any one who takes delight in such comparisons may consultForbes's Ireland,vol. i., p. 229, or Mr. Curwen, whoseconclusion is, “Killarney for a landscape, Windermere for ahome.”
“You should see the youngest Miss Thingembob.” Tell them of a good day's covert-shooting you have had in my Lord's preserves,—out comes a note from their friend the Duke, who has beaten you by sixteen woodcocks. Trot out your new hunter, and “Oh, yes, he's a nice little horse, but will never carryyouwith those forelegs. You must come over and look at an animal I've just got down from Tattersall's, by Snarler out of a Humbug mare, and well up to twenty stone, sir.”
It would perplex even these censorious gentlemen to find any fault withthe Long Range(which has nothing to do with Sir William Armstrong's Guns,—except thatthe Cannon Rockat the entrance andthe Gun Rockby Brickeen Island have some resemblance to artillery)—that beautiful river, which leads from the Upper to the Middle and Lower Lakes. To float between its banks of dark grey stone, from which the green trees droop their glossy foliage, though, like the Alpine tannen,
“Rooted in barrenness, where nought belowOf soil supports them;”
and the purple heath and the Royal Osmund, “half fountain and half tree,” lean over the brimming waters, to greet the lily and the pale lobelia, was a dream of happiness such as the Laureate dreamed, when—
“Anight his shallop, rustling thro'The low and bloomed foliage, droveThe fragrant glistening deeps, and cloveThe citron-shadows in the blue.”
You enterthe Long RangeatColmans Eye, and shortly afterwards come toColmans Leap. This Colman, once upon a time, was the lord ofthe Upper Lake, and, instead of following the example of his namesake, who, as a saint and peacemaker, assisted St. Patrick in converting Ireland to Christianity, spent most of his time in quarrelling with the O'Donoghue, and in provoking him to single combat. Being in a minority at one of these divisions, it appeared to him a prudential course to “hook it,” and, closely pursued by his adversary, he took this celebrated jump over the river, which goes by the name ofColmans Leap. The guides show you his footprints on the rock, and they narrate, moreover, that the O'Donoghue, being a little out of condition (dropsical, perhaps, from his long residence under water), came up to the stream a good deal blown, and would not have it at any price.
Now we pass by the mountain of theEagles Nest, a glorious throne for the royal bird, and listen, at theStation of Audience, to the marvellous, manifold echoes of the bugler's music, as he wakes the soul and the scene with his “tender strokes of Art,”—now wild and spirit-stirring, as though kings hunted in some distant forest, and now dying, so sweetly, so softly, that we know not when they cease, but listen
“pensively,As one that from a casement leans his head,When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,And the old year is dead.”
Then our boat, swiftly as an arrow, shoots the rapids of the Old Weir Bridge, and, having lingered awhile, in the pool beyond, to admire and sketch, we leave the Middle Lake (reserved for our morrow's excursion) on the right, and pass by the Islands ofDinishandBrie keento the entrance of the Lower Lake.
I have said nothing, and can say nothing worthily, of the trees, which grow by the waters ofKillarney,—oak, yew, birch, hazel holly, the wild apple, and the mountain-ash, with its berries of vivid red, growing confusedly one into the other, buten masseof faultless unity. And among them, brightest and greenest of them all, the arbutus! Wherever you see it, it gleams amid the duller tints, refreshing as a child's laugh on a rainy day, or (as Frank suggested) a view-halloo in the coverts of a vulpicide, or the ace of trumps in a bad hand at whist. Like Xerxes, we fell in love with the arbutus (Herodotus and Ælian say that it was “a plane tree of remarkable beauty,” but this assertion is self-contradictory, and, if it were not so, I am not, I hope, so bereft of the spirit of the nineteenth century, as to care for historical facts); and though we could not pour wine in honour of our idol, as the Romans were wont to do, we drank our pale ale admiringly beneath its branches, and made a libation (principally of froth) to its roots.
And now by the lovely bay ofGlena, we enter the Lower Lake. In front of Lord Kenmare's Cottage, to which visitors have access, 1 numerous boats are moored; and the bright green sward about this pretty rustic retreat, contrasts remarkably with the under-robes of brilliant scarlet, which are sweeping slowly over it, while, from the walks above, gay little bonnets flash among the trees, and the cock-pheasants and other ornithological specimens, now worn in the hats of Englishwomen, seem to rejoice, reanimate, in their leafy homes.
1 The public are greatly indebted to Lord Kenmare and Mr.Herbert for their indulgent liberality.
Here again, opposite the sublime mountains of Glena, so fairly dight from crown to foot in their summer garb of green, we awake and listen to the echoes, until “the big rain comes dancing to the” lake, and we row hastily homeward, changing places half way with the boatmen, and astonishing them considerably with an Oxford “spirt.”
It was pleasant, when we reached the Victoria, and had “cleaned ourselves” (as housemaids term a restoration of the toilette), to find letters from England, to hear that the good wheat was shorn and stacked, and the mowers “in among the bearded barley.” There was still a short interval, when these letters were answered, to elapse before dinner, and this I occupied in perusing the account of “the Prince of Wales's visit to Killarney” in April, 1858.
Now Heaven preserve our dear young Prince from that excessive loyalty, which loves to “chronicle small beer.” The historian told how “alighting from his vehicle, the Prince, who seems passionately fond of walking, proceeded on foot for a mile or two, with gun in hand, firing from time to time at bird, leaf, or fissure in the rock, in the exuberance of those animal spirits, which belong to his time of life,” but which must be somewhat perilous to those of his Royal Mother's liege subjects, who may be wandering in the immediate vicinity. Then we are informed, how that, “His Royal Highness and party drove on to the Victoria Hotel, with rather keen appetites;” how he visited “the tomb of O' Sullivan, and inspected it with much gravity of demeanour,” as though to ordinary minds there was something in sepulchres irresistibly comic; how “having drunk in all the glories of this wondrous scene,” (the view from Mangerton) “the Prince amused himself for some time in rolling large stones into the Devil's Punch Bowl” for the satisfaction, doubtless, of hearing them “go flop;” how when he went to Church on Sunday, “the Venerable Archdeacon read prayers, and seemed, as it were, reinvigorated by his presence,” which suggests the idea of a subsequent jig with the clerk in the vestry, or of an Irish chassez down the centre aisle; and how, to make a final extract, Mr. Carroll, the tailor, presented His Royal Highness with “a whole suit of Irish tweed, admirably calculated for mountain excursions, and with the texture of which, as well as the fit,—which Mr. Carrolls eye hit off to a nicety”—does this mean that Mr. C. “took a shot” at the royal dimensions?—“the Prince was much pleased.”
I remember nothing of thetable d'hôtethat evening, except that a Cambridge man, who sat next to me, remarked of some miserable carving hard by, that “the gentleman seemed well up inComicSections;” and that a boy of seventeen, with a violent shooting-coat, and a few red bristles in the vicinity of his mouth, officiating as “Vice,” and looking it, mumbled three hurried words as grace after meat, in the presence of four English clergymen, and two Roman Catholic priests.
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HAPPY and expectant, as two young cricketers, who, having made no “end of a score” in their first innings, go forth a-gain to the wicket, we started next morning in thecurrus militarius, or Car of Miles, for another joyous day atKillarney. Stopping at the entrance of the town, we went into the Cathedral (R.C.), a very handsome edifice of beautiful proportions, in the severe, Early-English style. The carving in stone over the high altar, in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and especially in the exquisite symmetry of the figures in the arches of the doorways, is exceedingly chaste and clear, and some Connamara marble about one of the lesser altars has a very pleasing effect. Not so the numerous confessionals, which, with their new wood and bright drapery, are somewhat suggestive of wardrobes, and detract, as novelties always do, from the ecclesiastical aspect of the interior.
Hard by, upon the hill, stands the spacious Asylum for the Insane, sadly reminding us of poor Pugin, who designed the Cathedral; and, less painfully, of Swift's last act of penitent charity, the bequest of £12,000, nearly all he had to bequeath, for the erection of a similar institution.
Egans Bog-oak and Arbutus warehousewell deserves a visit. Here you learn from a ledger, opening, as ledgers will, at a brilliant galaxy of noble names, which makes a commoner's eyes wink, how the Right Honourable the Earl of Cash bought an elaborate table for my Lady's boudoir, and how Rear-Admiral Sir Bowline Bluff made purchase of a Backgammon board, marvellously inlaid, over which I venture to surmise, he has ere this discoursed in stormy language, when the gout and the dice have been against him. Let us tread, softly and at a distance, in these illustrious footprints, and buy our meek memorials of Killarney.
Hence onward to theTore Cascade, descending its silver staircase amid green trees and graceful ferns,—the latter including, as we were told, the rareTrichomanes speciosum. Here there is a lovely landscape of theMiddle and Lower Lakes, and there were seats wherefrom to enjoy it, until those despicable snobs, who had mutilated the trees inRohnaines Island, threw them (sweet gentlemen!) down the waterfall. And it's O for atête-à-têtewith the principal performer, in the unbroken seclusion of a twenty-four foot ring!
But we must think more wisely, as we approach the solemn ruins ofMucross, than of punching our fellow-creatures' heads, though even here upon the very tombs, the miscreants have been at work,—disporting themselves, like filthy ghouls and vampires—and scrabbling upon the stones, as madmen will.
So much remains, both of Church and Abbye, that imagination readily supplies what is gone. Here in the Choir, where that ill-tempered looking tourist is reprimanding his wife for giving a beggar twopence, the brothers of St. Francis of Assisi were wont to sing holy psalms; and there in the Cloisters, where those two gaily-dressed French girls are admiring the gigantic yew-tree, and wondering what has become of “ce cher Jules,” (whom I apprehend to be a lover, but who comes round the corner, a poodle, dreadful to contemplate!) there
“Ever-musing melancholy dwelt,”
and there paced the pale Franciscan, in the sombre habit of his order, and girded with his hempencord.
Laugh on, sweet Stephanie, joyous Josephine (I heard their names from Mamma in search); but be not cruel with your charms, for Love, unloved, can still change men to monks,—forlorn and wretched, though in crowded streets, as he, of whom Percy sang:
“Within these holy cloysters longHe languisht, and he dyedLamenting of a lady's love,And 'playning of her pride.”
There are some beautiful ferns among and about these ruins, but being a very poor Polypodian, or Scolopendrian (or whatever may be the scientific title of a Fernist), I only recognised the Hart's-tongue,—with its fructification arranged like a miniature plan of ships in order of battle,—and of this I gathered some very fine fronds, and put them in my hat, as will appear hereafter.
Passing through Mr. Herberts beautiful demesne, by his pleasant home (note the St. John's-wort by the wayside), his offices, and yards, wherein the newest agricultural implements cause one to sigh more than ever for landlords, resident and liberal as he,—by the copper-mine, rich and productive until the envious waters interfered, we reach the Middle Lake, and our boat, waiting for us, thereupon.
Tourists, who have written about the Irish Lakes have made but little mention of thisMiddle, Mucross, or Tore Lake. Like the youngest of three fair sisters, she is kept in the background by their proximity and prior claims, being, moreover, an unobtrusive, gentle beauty, of a subdued and retiring air, not demanding the admiration she deserves. But were there such a scene of tranquil loveliness six miles from any of our great manufacturing towns, it would be a refreshment, and a blessing evermore, to thousands of our weary artisans, just as “the Pool,” by Sutton Coldfield, (one of the prettiest spots in England) is the holiday resort and resting-place of the working men of Birmingham.
Leaving this sweet seclusion, and rowing under the picturesque bridge which connects the islands of Dinisk and Brickeen, we come once more into the bay of Glena, and the “cottage near a wood.” Here, climbing the hill, and choosing a position which commanded a most delightful view, we enjoyed the sandwich and scene. Descending, we were horrified to hear that “whetstone of the teeth,” the bagpipes, droning away close to our boat, and abominable to both of us as a dialogue between connubial cats, or a class of schoolboys pointing slate pencils. But “Ars longa,” art is long-headed; and so we tossed up which of us, preceding the other, should go down, pay the piper, and keep him in conversation until his friend had reached the boat. This service of conspicuous gallantry fell to me, and if ever man deserved the Victoria Cross, I won it there and then.
They say, but I don't believe it, that the red-deer, who inhabit these mountains, admire this infernal machine; and, in proof thereof, the Rev. Mr. Wright, in his Guide to Killarney, quotes the following anecdote from Playford's History of Music:—
“As I travelled some years ago near Royston, I met a herd of stags, about twenty, on the road, following a bagpipe and violin, which when the music played they went forward, when it ceased they all stood still, and in this manner they were brought out of Yorkshire to Hampton Court.” Next we rowed toO'Sullivans Cascade, foaming down its triple falls; and here finding some shamrock, and feeling very Irish, we liberally adorned our coats and hats with it. To our surprise and disappointment, upon our return, the boatmen appeared to be perfectly indifferent to this enthusiastic display of their national emblem; and it subsequently transpired, to our very severe discomfort, that we had ornamented our persons with some vulgar trefoil, which did not resemble the shamrock at all, at all. 1 It vexed one's vanity to have performed unconsciously both a Guy and a Jack-in-the-Green; and the effect produced reminded me of the answer of a Nottinghamshire labourer, in reply to my inquiries concerning his friend, “To tell you the truth, Sir, Bill's been and married his mestur, and it'sgloppened him a good-ish bit!”
1 “We believe it to be an ascertained fact, that theshamrock of the old Irish was not a trefoil at all, but thewood-sorrel,Oxalis acetosella”—Gardener? Chronicle, 7thAugust, 1858.
Leaving to our right the numerous islets of the Lower Lake (there are thirty-three of them in all), and the ruins of Ross Castle, once the home of the O'Donoghues, we pass by fair Innisfallen, and, reaching our landing-place, separate awhile; Frank starting afresh to fish, and I returning to the inn.
In a cozy corner of the coffee-room, I began now to transcribe a little poem of a sentimental kind, which had suggested itself to my thoughts during our excursion. Looking up from time to time, as Poets (like poultry) will, when drinking at the Pierian stream, I was much offended to see several persons in different parts of the room, evidently amusing themselves at my expense. A joke loses its festive character, when it falls upon one's own head, especially when that head is profusely crowned, as I soon discovered mine to be, with fronds of the Hart's-tongue Fern,—collected at Mucross, but entirely forgotten, until, bending lower than usual, I saw—
“frondes volitare caducas.”
I am afraid that I did not wear my chaplet so gracefully as Dante his, in that beautiful picture by Scheffer: on the contrary, I felt quite as ill at ease and uncomfortable as an Oxford friend, who, having won a steeple-chase last winter in France, was sent for by the Préfêt of the place, andcrowned with a laurel wreath!What a pleasing harmony there must have been between his Bays and his dirty Boots!
Completing my manuscript, and leaving it in our joint-stock writing-case, I took a walk to the Post-Office at Killarney; and I do not think that it was at all gentlemanly in Francis to tamper with my poetry, on his return from fishing; erasing the alternate lines, and substituting rubbish of his own, as follows:—
KILLARNEY.When the pale moon streaksMy Macgillicuddy's 1 cheeks,And the day-god shootsThrough the shutters, oped by Boots;1 He persisted in addressing me by this extraordinaryappellative throughout our sojourn at Killarney.And from sweet lnnisfallen,—Jolly place to walk with gal in!Which so lovely, and so lone, is,—Why, it ain't, its full of conies, 1Hark! a voice comes o'er the wave,Now, old Buffer, up and shave!As I watch the Heron's wing,—More fool you, you'll cut your chin!Sailing stately, slowly flapping,—Better work away with Mappin!Ah, sweet morning's face is fair,—Not so yours, soap'd like that ere!And she dons her summer garment,—Get on yours, you lazy varmint!Jubilant in all her graces,As if going to Hampton races,Smiling, proud in all her riches,—Where's that fellow put my-?This good news to man narrating—“Plaze, your 'onour, breakfast's waiting,&c. &c. &c.1 Or if it isn't, “Rabbit Island,” which is close to, oughtto be. See remarks by the Aurora Borealis in the Christmasnumber of theEdinburgh Review; Mrs. Hemans,RacingCalendar, vol. 408; and Bendigo, passim.—Frank C.
But Frank is one of those men with whom it is impossible to be angry; and if he were standing in his thickest shooting-boots, on your most susceptible corn, he would smile in your face with such exceeding suavity, that you would almost consider the proceeding funny. So we sat down to discuss, in affectionate unison, the delicious trout which he had caught (how could I eat his fish and be sulky?), amplifying our ordinary allowance of sherry, in honour of the Naiads and Dryads in general, and of the Naiads, who look after the trout, in particular.
These libations, assisted by potheen and pipe, make us very cheery in the smoke-room. Frank declared that I talked for two hours about Absenteeism to a Lincolnshire farmer, who was fast asleep; and I certainly heard him discoursing, with a mimetic brogue, upon the state of Ireland, as though he had lived in the country all his life. So, desirous to keep ourselves “within the limits of becoming mirth,” and not to induce that metaphysical state, “quand celui qui parle n'entend rien, et celui qu'écouté n'entend plus,” we judiciously retired to roost.
“That very night, ere gentle sleep,” with “slumber's chain had bound me,” and “as I lay a-thinking,” I composed a little drama, for the benefit of Frank; and, rising early next morning, brought out upon the stage, or rather upon the passage,—
Frank and the Boots.
The scene, like the hero, is laid in bed. The room is strewed with wearing apparel in great disorder. The appearance of the candle suggests the probability of its having been extinguished by a blow from a clothes-brush. Soft music from the Somnambula which changes to “Who's dat Knocking at the Door?”
Frank, (awaking)Who's there?
Boots. Sure, your 'onour, it's Boots.
Frank.Well, what do you want?
Boots.Plaze, yer 'onour, man's brought yer a hagle.
Frank.Who sent him? How much does he want for it?Boots. Miles, yer 'onour, Miles the guide. The man'll take tin shillings, yer 'onour; and he's an illigant hagle, with a power o' bake.
Frank. Tell him I'll have it, and let him wait till I come down.
Boots. I will, yer 'onour.
Curtain
(Pulled aside by Frank, to facilitate conversation)
Falls.
Interval of half an hour, during which I go to bed in high spirits, and Frank dreams that the Zoological Society have offered him a hundred for his new purchase.
Scene, as before.
Frank, (aroused by renewed knocking)Now then! what the deuce is up?
Boots. There's another man, yer 'onour, wants to sell you a hagle.
Frank. Oh, hang it! Tell him I've got one, and ask the gentleman in Number Twenty whether he would like to buy it.
Boots. I will, yer 'onour.
Boots. (Returning after a putative intervieiv with No. 20.)Plaze, yer 'onour, the gintleman's bin and bought him, and I was to give his best love to yer 'onour, and his hagle's waiting in the passage, to fight yer 'onour's hagle for a new hat.
During this latter sentence, my voice, I regret to say, went back to its ordinary tone; Frank was out of bed in an instant; and I had only just time to regain No. 20, when a heavy boot went by with great velocity, falling, as Frank afterwards told me, at the feet of an astonished elderly clergyman, who, coming out of his room at that instant, and seeing my friend in his cuttysark, evidently inferred an escape from the asylum, and bolted immediately, self and door.
But sure enough, when we came down to breakfast, there was a veritable eagle at the door of the hotel, wild with anger, in an iron cage, and the property of a small tourist, who was starting for Connamara with this delectable companion, a large Arbutus table, ditto case of Killarney ferns, and a hillock of general luggage. With theseimpedi-menta, his estates appeared to be sufficiently in-cumbered, and I was not surprised that he declined to purchase a shillelagh, 1 with a head about the size of his own, although solemnly assured that “it had been cut in the dark moon”—an inestimable advantage doubtless, though to me the meaning of the sentence is as obscure as the luminary in question.
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Alas, alas! our own luggage is now brought down, and we are awaiting our bill somewhat curiously, after the recent revival in theTimes2 of complaints, commenced by Arthur Young in 1776, and repeated by Mr. Wright in 1822, on the subject of Killarneycharges. But we both spoke in favour of the bill, and it was carried through the house (viâthe lobby, to the bar) without any division, except that of the sum total between Frank and myself. You cannot have guides, and horses, and boats, and buglers (especially where the demand is temporary and irregular), without paying highly for them; but these expenses are fairly stated before they are incurred, and decrease materially if you prolong your stay (as we would fain have done), and begin to find your own amusement, afoot, or in a boat.
1 Shillelagh is, or was, a famous wood in Wicklow, fromwhich the timber was brought for the roof of WestminsterHall.2 In the autumn of 1858.
Farewell,Killarney!—How often, far away from thy scenes of beauty, have I, leaning back with closed eyes, beheld thee, pictured by memory, and engraved by fond imagination! How often have I essayed to realize thee in the subtle semblances of Art!—How often, in the clouds of sunset (and here most happily), have I rejoiced to trace thy tranquil waters and thy tree-clad hills!—and still, as some lover, clasping with a sigh the likeness of his darling, yearns for her living self, so long I for that happy hour when I shall return to thee, gladly, as thine eagles soaring homeward, and see thee face to face.
THE omnibus took us to the town of Killarney, and there we mounted the Glengarriff Car. People do not look particularly wise when seated, in a public street, upon a vehicle to which no horses are attached; but we were anxious to secure our places on “the Lake side,” and being surrounded by the pretty dealers in arbutus-ware (there were two, who, I am convinced, could have persuadedSt. Senanusto buy a set of blue-bottle studs in bog-oak), we did not feel at all uncomfortable. But even Irish cars must fulfil their mission; and we started at last, bristling with paper knives.
Halting awhile, to take up passengers at the Mucross Hotel, we were again besieged by another bevy of these fancy timber merchants; and here a little scene occurred, which, however trivial it may appear from my feeble account of it, was very touching in reality. A woman, who had been, you could see, as pretty in her prime as the prettiest of her younger companions, but whose beauty was fast fading away, came and offered her basket to a coarse specimen of the genus “Gent,” who was seated on our side of the car, and who very abruptly, and thoughtlessly I dare say,—
“But evil is wrought for want of thought,As well as want of heart,”—
repulsed her, saying, “that he should buy from the young uns if he bought at all.” I saw a look of intense pain pass over her face, as though she were hurt at heart; and, although the others made way for her, with sweet sisterly kindness, when Frank called her to him, and though he bought her most elaborate bracelets, and I a box of cunning workmanship, designed, I believe, for gloves, but subsequently used by a small niece of mine as a bed for her youngest doll, the sliding lid, drawn up to the sleeper's chin, forming a counterpane of unrivalled splendour; although, I say, we did all in our power to comfort, the storm-clouds, when we left, hung heavily over her, and the first rain-drops glistened in her pale-blue eyes.
Take heed, ye maidens beautiful (I feel a little saturnine this morning, and shall put no more lemon in my punch, whatever Francis may say), be ye Belles of the Park or the Pattern, to this extremity ye must come at last! You, Lady Constance Plantagenet, who promised to waltz with me at the County Ball, and pretended to have forgotten (though it was written upon those gem-studded tablets), when Lord Hanwell (he has at least three slates off his roof, and always went, when in the Artillery, by thesobriquetof “Lincoln and Bennett,” being notoriously as mad astwohatters), was pleased to invite you to the dance! And you, Susan Holmes, beauty of our village, looking coldly now at Will Strong, the keeper, the hardest hitter in “our Eleven,” and the handsomest fellow in the parish, because the young squire's friend, with the big moustache (Will wanted to know whether he came fromSkye), made a fool of you at the Servants' Ball! You, Lady Constance, ignoring your engagements, and you, Susan Holmes, oblivious of the fact that your papa is only a blacksmith; be assured, both of you, that the light will fade from those flashing eyes, and the roses will be blanched on those glowing cheeks, and that—
“Violets pluckt, the sweetest showersWill ne'er make grow again.”
What moral deduction can I draw but this:—Marry, marry, ye damsels beautiful, the men whom ye loveat heart; and so perpetuate your loveliness, and live again in your daughters!
The cold salmon, on which we lunched atKenmare, was so especially delicious, that when I turned to Frank, an hour afterwards, on the car, and asked him what o'clock it was, not perceiving that he was asleep, he murmured something about “a slice of the thin;” and the tourist in Ireland finds this fish so good and abundant, that he almost begins to apprehend “a favourable eruption” of scales, and feels disposed to snap at the larger flies which come within the prehensiveness of his dental powers.
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The little town ofKenmareis very pleasantly and healthfully placed. Mr. Frazer says that the bay, by which it stands, is the most beautiful in all Ireland, but we did not see enough of it to corroborate this grand eulogium. With the exception of the handsome Suspension Bridge, neat Church, and National Schools, the buildings are mean and miserable. To judge from the size of the Post-Office and “Bridewell,” there is very little correspondence or crime. At the broken windows of “the Female Industrial School,” we saw two young girls, of such industrious habits, that they had not had time to wash themselves. “The Dispensary,” I presume, had cured everybody, for we saw no signs of surgeon, surgery, or patients,—only a dingy old hen in the passage, who, probably, had overlayed herself, or had contracted that prevailing malady, “the Gapes,” the name whereof makes one yawn in writing it. Undoubtedly, the edifice which pleased us the most, was a narrow, tumble-down hut of two small stories, and one of these securely shuttered, which announced itself to the world as “Michael Brenan's Tea and Coffee Rooms, with Lodging and Stabling.
LeavingKenmare(and is not that a sweet little cottage, on the right as you rise the hill, with the hydrangea glowing amid the dark evergreens, like hope in seasons of sorrow?), we met some scores of the peasantry, grave and decorous, on their way, the driver told us, to a funeral. Whence did they come? Between Kenmare and Glen-garriff we saw very few habitations, yet troops of children came running after the car as heretofore, amply demonstrating that the Irish Paterfamilias knows more of Addition and Multiplication than of the Frenchman's Rule-of-Three (“two boys and a girl are a family for a king”), and ever finds himself in a satisfactory position to converse with his enemies in the gate. The stern Lycurgus, who, according to Plutarch, was so very severe upon the unmarried Spartans, that he made them walk in procession, more scantily' draped than their statues, though the promenade took place in winter, and compelled them to sing songs derisive of celibacy, chaffing themselves to music, as they walked along,—would be gratified indeed, if he could revisit the earth, and see what Ireland is doing with a grand fecundity, for the Census of 1861.
220m
The vestments of these juveniles again attracted our notice, reminding us—
“Of love, that never found its earthly close?”
for some of them must have been about as cool as Cupid, and suggesting that impatience, with regard to apparel, which characterised of old even the Kings of Ireland.
Henry Castide, selected on account of his knowledge of the language to teach and Anglicise four Irish Kings, who had sworn allegiance to Richard, relates in a conversation withFroissart, that these royal personages “had another custom, which I knew to be common in this country, which was the not wearing breeches. I had, in consequence, plenty of breeches made of linen and cloth, which I gave to the Kings and their attendants, and accustomed them to wear them. I took away many rude articles as well in their dress as other things, and had great difficulty at the first to induce them to wear robes of silken-cloth, trimmed with squirrel-skin, or minever, for the Kings only wrapped themselves up in an Irish cloak.” 1
This cloak, no doubt, very much resembled the garment worn by that Irish chieftain, of whomSir Walter Scott, when in Ireland, related an anecdote, very highly-seasoned, to the Squireen, and who, during one of the rebellions againstQueen Elizabeth, was honoured by a visit from a French Envoy. “This comforter of the rebels was a Bishop, and his union of civil and religious dignity secured for him all possible respect and attention. The Chief, receiving him in state, was clad in a yellow mantle ('to wit, a dirty blanket,' interposes the Squireen), but this he dropt in the interior, and sat upon it, mother-naked, in the midst of his family and guests by the fire.” 2 After this aristocratic pattern was fashioned, I suppose, the mantle ofThady Quirk, of which he tells us (in “Castle Rackrent”), “it holds on by a single button round my throat, cloak fashion,” so thatThadycould as promptly prepare himself for repose, as that heroine of whom the poet sings,—
“One single pin at night let looseThe robes which veiled her beauty.”
There is magnificent mountain scenery, naked as the chieftain, but much more interesting, between Kenmare and Glengarriff, so wild and stern, and desolate exceedingly, a solitude so complete and drear, that, werePrometheusbound upon these craggy rocks, he would be relieved to see the cruel vulture hungrily stooping for hisfoie-gras.Honour and thanks to the genius which designed, and to the patient energy which perfected, a way over these rugged Alps. Ireland must acknowledge her obligation to the stranger, for a Scotchman,Nimmo, made her most difficult roads, and an Italian,Bianconi, carries us over them.
1Froissart's Chronicles, book iv., chap. 64.2Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. iii., chap. xv.
224m
Reaching the summit, we pass through a tunnel, hewn in thesolidrock (why do we use this adjective always, as though rocks were ordinarily in a state of fusion?), and leave countyKerryforCork.
GRADUATES and undergraduates (O my brothers, how gladly shall I meet you once again, when the long vacation is past!), did you ever dine, as I have dined, with an elderly Don, severe in deportment and of boundless lore, who happened to be at once the author of a great treatise on “the Verbs in [Greek],” and (strange antithesis!) of a pretty daughter? If so, you will remember that hour of solemn converse, before the coffee was announced, when the grave Professor, broad of brow, took you, as it were, by the hand up the solemn heights ofOlympus, and showed to you, awfully admiring, the grand sublimities ofLonginus, the sombre valleys ofParnassus, and Philosophy's everlasting hills. And memory will suggest to you, more happily, more vividly, how, summoned by the butler, you at length came down from those amazing steeps, entered the drawing-room, found the pretty daughter; and, while papa chuckled in the distance, over a play ofAristophanes, easy to his apprehension asBuckstoneto ours, discoursed to her of the Commemoration Ball, and forgotMinervain the sunnier presence ofAphrodiet.
And you, my general readers, you, who, with that refinement of taste for which you are remarkable above all other readers, go to Concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms in the season, and, out of it, to dingy County Halls, whenever the Italians sing,—you, too, must help me with an analogy, and say,—can you not recall how, amid all that severe and stately music, some plaintive ballad, quaint madrigal, or hearty glee, refreshed your weary spirit, and won the sole encore? It was so, at all events, when last I went to an Operatic Meeting in the Halls of Crystal; and Alboni sang; and Giuglini sang; and of Inis and Icos good store; and we beat time, and “wasn't it delicious?”; but no song went home to our English hearts, roused us from our lethargic and drear gentility, and made us clap our English hands, save the song of “The Hardy Norsemen.”
Some such pleasant refreshment, and cheerful change, it is, coming away from those barren rocks of Kerry, those dark, cold lakes (numerous, it is said, as days in the year), to gaze upon the sunlitBay of Bantry, and the freshness and the beauty of greenGlengarriff! Glengarriffis, indeed,
“A miniature of loveliness, all graceSummed up, and closed in little.”
A miniature bay, miniature mountains, miniature waterfall, a glen, to which, as Moore writes of it, the
“ocean comes,To 'scape the wild wind's rancour.”
Yes, to the eye all was peace, but not so to the ear, for, when we went in to dinner, the noise made by a couple of waiters was something to exceed belief. One of them, it was evident, had been suddenly evoked from the stables, and had been garnished with an enormous white neckerchief, under the idea apparently that this threw a kind of glory over his costume of corduroy, and effectually hid the ostler in the accomplished domestic footman. His hair was arranged (with a curry-comb, I fancy) to imitate a cockatoo, and we were, naturally, jocose aboutPeveril of the Peak, and Ricquet with the Tuft, &c. To hear him and his superior coming down the boarded passage with the dinner, was like “the march of the Cameron men;” and they ran against each other, from time to time, with such a clattering of plates, and dish-covers, and knives, and jugs, and crockery in general, as would have done honour to the Druids on aWalpurgis Night.