Little does he know who voyages in a canal-boat, dragged along some
three miles and a half per hour, ignominiously at the tails of two
ambling hackneys, what pride, pomp, and circumstance await him at the
first town he enters. Seated on the deck, watching with a Dutchman's
apathy the sedgy banks, whose tall naggers bow their heads beneath the
ripple that eddies from the bow--now lifting his eyes from earth to sky,
with nothing to interest, nothing to attract him, turning from the
gaze of the long dreary tract of bog and moorland, to look upon his
fellow-travellers, whose features are perhaps neither more striking
nor more pleasing--the monotonous jog of the postillion before, the
impassive placidity of the helmsman behind; the lazy smoke that seems to
lack energy to issue from the little chimney; the brown and leaden
look of all around--have something dreamy and sleep-compelling, almost
impossible to resist. And, already, as the voyager droops his head, and
lets fall his eyelids, a confused and misty sense of some everlasting
journey, toilsome, tedious, and slow, creeps over his besotted
faculties; when suddenly the loud bray of the horn breaks upon his
ears--the sound is re-echoed from a distance--the far-off tinkle of a
bell is borne along the water, and he sees before him, as if conjured
up by some magician's wand, the roofs and chimneys of a little village.
Meanwhile the excitement about him increases: the deck is lumbered with
hampers and boxes, and parcels--the note of departure to many a cloaked
and frieze-coated passenger has rung; for, strange as it may seem,
in that little assemblage of mud hovels, with their dunghills and
duck-pools around them, with its one-slated house and its square chapel,
there are people who live there; and, stranger still, some of those who
have left it, and seen other places, are going back there again, to drag
on life as before. But the plot is thickening: the large brass bell at
the stern of the boat is thundering away with its clanging sound; the
banks are crowded with people; and as if to favour the melodramatic
magic of the scene, the track-rope is cast off, the weary posters
trot away towards their stable, and the stately barge floats on to its
destined haven without the aid of any visible influence. He who watches
the look of proud, important bearing that beams upon 'the captain's'
face at a moment like this, may philosophise upon the charms of that
power which man wields above his fellow-men. Such, at least, were some
of my reflections; and I could not help muttering to myself, if a man
like this feel pride of station, what a glorious service must be the
navy!
Watching with interest _the_ nautical skill with which, having fastened
a rope to the stern, the boat was swung round, with her head in the
direction from whence she came, intimating thereby the monotonous
character of her avocations, I did not perceive that one by one the
passengers were taking their departure.
'Good-bye, Captain,' cried Father Tom, as he extended his ample hand to
me; 'we'll meet again in Loughrea. I'm going on Mrs. Carney's car, or
I'd be delighted to join you in a conveyance; but you'll easily get one
at the hotel.'
I had barely time to thank the good father for his kind advice, when
I perceived him adjusting various duodecimo Carneys in the well of the
car, and then having carefully included himself in the frieze coat that
wrapped Mrs. Carney, he gave the word to drive on.
As the day following was the time appointed for naming the horses and
the riders, I had no reason for haste. Loughrea, from what I had heard,
was a commonplace country town, in which, as in all similar places
every new-comer was canvassed with a prying and searching curiosity. I
resolved, therefore, to stop where I was; not, indeed, that the scenery
possessed any attractions. A prospect more bleak, more desolate, and
more barren, it would be impossible to' conceive--a wide river with low
and reedy banks, moving sluggishly on its yellow current, between broad
tracts of bog or callow meadow-land; no trace of cultivation, not even a
tree was to be seen.
Such is Shannon Harbour. No matter, thought I, the hotel at least looks
well. This consolatory reflection of mine was elicited by the prospect
of a large stone building of some storeys high, whose granite portico
and wide steps stood in strange contrast to the miserable mud hovels
that flanked it on either side. It was a strange thought to have placed
such a building in such a situation. I dismissed the ungrateful notion,
as I remembered my own position, and how happy I felt to accept its
hospitality.
A solitary jaunting-car stood on the canal side--the poorest specimen
of its class I had ever seen. The car--a few boards cobbled up by some
country carpenter--seemed to threaten disunion even with the coughing of
the wretched beast that wheezed between its shafts; while the driver, an
emaciated creature of any age from sixteen to sixty, sat shivering upon
the seat, striking from time to time with his whip at the flies that
played about the animal's ears, as though anticipating their prey.
'Banagher, yer honour? Loughrea, sir? Bowl ye over in an hour and a
half. Is it Portumna, sir?'
'No, my good friend,' replied I, 'I stop at the hotel.'
Had I proposed to take a sail down the Shannon on my portmanteau, I
don't think the astonishment could have been greater. The bystanders,
and they were numerous enough by this time, looked from one to the other
with expressions of mingled surprise and dread; and indeed had I, like
some sturdy knight-errant of old, announced my determination to pass
the night in a haunted chamber, more unequivocal evidences of their
admiration and fear could not have been evoked.
'In the hotel!' said one.
'He is going to stop at the hotel!' cried another.
'Blessed hour!' said a third, 'wonders will never cease!'
Short as had been my residence in Ireland, it had at least taught me one
lesson--never to be surprised at anything I met with. So many views
of life peculiar to the land met me at every turn, so many strange
prejudices, so many singular notions, that were I to apply my previous
knowledge of the world, such as it was, to my guidance here, I should
be like a man endeavouring to sound the depths of the sea with an
instrument intended to ascertain the distance of a star. Leaving,
therefore, to time the explanation of the mysterious astonishment around
me, I gathered together my baggage, and left the boat.
The first impressions of a traveller are not uncommonly his best. The
finer and more distinctive features of a land require deep study and
long acquaintance, but the broader traits of nationality are caught in
an instant, or not caught at all Familiarity destroys them, and it is
only at first blush that we learn to appreciate them with force. Who
that has landed at Calais, at Rotterdam, or at Leghorn, has not felt
this? The Flemish peasant, with her long-eared cap and heavy sabots--the
dark Italian, basking his swarthy features in the sun, are striking
objects when we first look on them; but days and weeks roll on, the
wider characteristics of human nature swallow up the smaller and more
narrow features of nationality, and in a short time we forget that the
things which have surprised us at first are not what we have been used
to from our infancy.
Gifted with but slender powers of observation, such as they were, this
was to me always a moment of their exercise. How often in the rural
districts of my own country had the air of cheery comfort and healthy
contentment spoken to my heart; how frequently, in the manufacturing
ones, had the din of hammers, the black smoke, or the lurid flame of
furnaces, turned my thoughts to those great sources of our national
wealth, and made me look on every dark and swarthy face that passed as
on one who ministered to his country's weal! But now I was to view a
new and very different scene. Scarcely had I put foot on shore when
the whole population of the village thronged around me. What are these,
thought I? What art do they practise? what trade do they profess? Alas!
their wan looks, their tattered garments, their outstretched hands, and
imploring voices, gave the answer--they were all beggars! It was not as
if the old, the decrepit, the sickly, or the feeble, had fallen on
the charity of their fellow-men in their hour of need; but here were
all--all--the old man and the infant, the husband and the wife, the aged
grandfather and the tottering grandchild, the white locks of youth,
the whiter hairs of age--pale, pallid, and sickly--trembling between
starvation and suspense, watching with the hectic eye of fever every
gesture of him on whom their momentary hope was fixed; canvassing, in
muttered tones, every step of his proceeding, and hazarding a doubt upon
its bearing oh their own fate.
'Oh, the heavens be your bed, noble gentleman! look at me! The Lord
reward you for the little sixpence that you have in your fingers there!
I 'm the mother of ten of them.'
'Billy Cronin, yer honour; I'm dark since I was nine years old.'
'I'm the ouldest man in the town-land,' said an old fellow with a white
beard, and a blanket strapped round him.
[Illustration: 2-0248]
While bursting through the crowd came a strange, odd-looking figure,
in a huntsman's coat and cap, but both so patched and tattered, it was
difficult to detect their colour. 'Here's Joe, your honour,' cried he,
putting his hand to his mouth at the same moment. 'Tally-ho! ye ho! ye
yo!' he shouted, with a mellow cadence I never heard surpassed. 'Yow!
yow! yow!' he cried, imitating the barking of dogs, and then uttering
a long, low wail, like the bay of a hound, he shouted out, 'Hark away
t hark away!' and at the same moment pranced into the thickest of the
crowd, upsetting men, women, and children as he went--the curses of
some, the cries of others, and the laughter of nearly all ringing
through the motley mass, making their misery look still more frightful.
[Illustration: 252]
Throwing what silver I had about me amongst them, I made my way towards
the hotel--not alone, however, but heading a procession of my ragged
friends, who, with loud praises of my liberality, testified their
gratitude by bearing me company. Arrived at the porch, I took my luggage
from the carrier, and entered the house. Unlike any other hotel I had
ever seen, there was neither stir nor bustle, no burly landlord, no
buxom landlady, no dapper waiter with napkin on his arm, no pert-looking
chambermaid with a bedroom candlestick. A large hall, dirty and
unfurnished, led into a kind of bar, upon whose unpainted shelves a few
straggling bottles were ranged together, with some pewter measures and
tobacco-pipes; while the walls were covered with placards, setting forth
the regulations for the Grand Canal Hotel, with a list, copious and
abundant, of all the good things to be found therein, with the prices
annexed; and a pressing entreaty to the traveller, should he not feel
satisfied with his reception, to mention it in a 'book kept for that
purpose by the landlord.' I cast my eye along the bill of fare so
ostentatiously put forth--I read of rump-steaks and roast-fowls, of
red rounds and sirloins, and I turned from the spot resolved to explore
farther. The room opposite was large and spacious, and probably destined
for the coffee-room, but it also was empty; it had neither chair nor
table, and save a pictorial representation of a canal-boat, drawn
by some native artist with a burnt stick upon the wall, it had no
decoration. Having amused myself with the _Lady Caher_--such was the
vessel called--I again set forth on my voyage of discovery, and bent
my steps towards the kitchen. Alas! my success was no better there. The
goodly grate, before which should have stood some of that luscious fare
of which I had been reading, was cold and deserted; in one corner, it
was true, three sods of earth, scarce lighted, supported an antiquated
kettle, whose twisted spout was turned up with a misanthropic curl at
the misery of its existence. I ascended the stairs, my footsteps echoed
along the silent corridor, but still no trace of human habitant could I
see, and I began to believe that even the landlord had departed with the
larder.
At this moment the low murmur of voices caught my ear. I listened, and
could distinctly catch the sound of persons talking together at the
end of the corridor. Following along this, I came to a door, at which,
having knocked twice with my knuckles, I waited for the invitation to
enter. Either indisposed to admit me, or not having heard my summons,
they did not reply; so turning the handle gently, I opened the door, and
entered the room unobserved. For some minutes I profited but little by
this step; the apartment, a small one, was literally full of smoke, and
it was only when I had wiped the tears from my eyes three times that I
at length began to recognise the objects before me.
Seated upon two low stools, beside a miserable fire of green wood, that
smoked, not blazed, upon the hearth, were a man and a woman. Between
them a small and rickety table supported a tea equipage of the humblest
description, and a plate of fish whose odour pronounced them red
herrings. Of the man I could see but little, as his back was turned
toward me; but had it been otherwise, I could scarcely have withdrawn my
looks from the figure of his companion. Never had my eyes fallen on
an object so strange and so unearthly. She was an old woman, so old,
indeed, as to have numbered nearly a hundred years; her head, uncovered
by cap, or quoif, displayed a mass of white hair that hung down her
back and shoulders, and even partly across her face, not sufficiently,
however, to conceal two dark orbits, within which her dimmed eyes
faintly glimmered; her nose was thin and pointed, and projecting to the
very mouth, which, drawn backwards at the angles by the tense muscles,
wore an expression of hideous laughter. Over her coarse dress of some
country stuff she wore, for warmth, the cast-off coat of a soldier,
giving to her uncouth figure the semblance of an aged baboon at a
village-show. Her voice, broken with coughing, was a low, feeble treble,
that seemed to issue from passages where lingering life had left scarce
a trace of vitality; and yet she talked on, without ceasing, and moved
her skinny fingers among the tea-cups and knives upon the table, with a
fidgety restlessness, as though in search of something.
[Illustration: 252]
'There, acushla, don't smoke; don't now! Sure it is the ruin of your
complexion. I never see boys take to tobacco this way when I was young.'
'Whisht, mother, and don't be bothering me,' was the cranky reply, given
in a voice which, strange to say, was not quite unknown to me.
'Ay, ay,' said the old crone; 'always the same, never mindin' a word I
say; and maybe in a few years I won't be to the fore to look after you
and watch you.'
Here the painful thought of leaving a world, so full of its seductions
and sweets, seemed too much for her feelings, and she began to cry. Her
companion, however, appeared but little affected, but puffed away his
pipe at his ease, waiting with patience till the paroxysm was past.
'There, now,' said the old lady, brightening up, 'take away the
tay-things, and you may go and take a run on the common; but mind you
don't be pelting Jack Moore's goose; and take care of Bryan's sow, she
is as wicked as the devil now that she has boneens after her. D'ye hear
me, darlin', or is it sick you are? Och, wirra! wirra! What's the matter
with you, Corny _mabouchal?_'
'Corny!' exclaimed I, forgetful of my incognito.
'Ay, Corny, nayther more nor less than Corny himself,' said that
redoubted personage, as, rising to his legs, he deposited his pipe upon
the table, thrust his hands into his pockets, and seemed prepared to
give battle.
'Oh, Corney,' said I, 'I am delighted to find you here. Perhaps you can
assist me. I thought this was an hotel.'
'And why wouldn't you think it an hotel? hasn't it a bar and a
coffee-room? Isn't the regulations of the house printed, and stuck up
on all the walls? Ay, that's what the directors did--put the price on
everything, as if one was going to cheat the people. And signs on it,
look at the place now! Ugh! the Haythins! the Turks!'
'Yes, indeed, Corny, look at the place now,' glad to have an opportunity
to chime in with my friend's opinions.
'Well, and look at it,' replied he, bristling up; 'and what have you to
say agin it? Isn't it the Grand Canal Hotel?'
'Yes; but,' said I conciliatingly, 'an hotel ought at least to have a
landlord, or a landlady.'
'And what do you call my mother there?' said he, with indignant energy.
'Don't bate Corny, sir! don't strike the child!' screamed the old woman,
in an accent of heart-rending terror. 'Sure he doesn't know what he is
saying.'
'He is telling me it isn't the Grand Canal Hotel, mother,' shouted Corny
in the old lady's ears, while at the same moment he burst into a fit
of the most discordant laughter. By some strange sympathy the old woman
joined in, and I myself, unable to resist the ludicrous effect of a
scene which still had touched my feelings, gave way also, and thus we
all three laughed on for several minutes.
Suddenly recovering himself in the midst of his cachin-nations, Corny
turned briskly round, fixed his fiery eyes upon me, and said--
'And did you come all the way from town to laugh at my mother and me?'
I hastened to exonerate myself from such a charge, and in a few words
informed him of the object of my journey, whither I was going, and under
what painful delusion I laboured, in supposing the internal arrangements
of the Grand Canal Hotel bore any relation to its imposing exterior.
'I thought I could have dined here?'
'No, you can't,' was the reply, 'av ye're not fond of herrins.'
'And had a bed too?'
'Nor that either, av ye don't like straw.'
'And has your mother nothing better than that?' said I, pointing to the
miserable plate of fish.
'Whisht, I tell you, and don't be putting the like in her head:
sometimes she hears as well as you or me.' Here he dropped his voice
to a whisper. 'Herrins is so cheap that we always make her believe it's
Lent--this is nine years now she's fasting.' Here a fit of laughing at
the success of this innocent ruse again broke from Corny, in which, as
before, his mother joined.
'Then what am I to do,' asked I, 'if I can get nothing to eat here? Is
there no other house in the village?'
'No, devil a one.'
'How far is it to Loughrea?'
'Fourteen miles and a bit.'
'I can get a car, I suppose?'
'Ay, if Mary Doolan's boy is not gone back.'
The old woman, whose eyes were impatiently fixed upon me during this
colloquy, but who heard not a word of what was going forward, now broke
in--
'Why doesn't he pay the bill and go away? Devil a farthing I'll take off
it. Sure, av ye were a raal gentleman ye'd be givin' a fippenny-bit to
the gossoon there, that sarved you. Never mind, Corny dear, I'll buy a
bag of marbles for you at Banagher.'
Fearful of once more giving way to unseasonable mirth I rushed from the
room and hurried downstairs; the crowd that had so lately accompanied me
was now scattered, each to his several home. The only one who lingered
near the door was the poor idiot (for such he was) that wore the
huntsman's dress.
'Is the Loughrea car gone, Joe?' said I, for I remembered his name.
'She is, yer honour, she's away.'
'Is there any means of getting over to-night?'
'Barrin' walkin', there's none.'
'Ay; but,' said I, 'were I even disposed for that, I have got my
luggage.'
'Is it heavy?' said Joe.
'This portmanteau and the carpet-bag you see there.'
'I'll carry them,' was the brief reply.
'You 'll not be able, my poor fellow,' said I.
'Ay, and you on the top of them.'
'You don't know how heavy I am,' said I laughingly.
'Begorra, I wish you was heavier.'
'And why so, Joe?'
'Because one that was so good to the poor is worth his weight in goold
any day.'
I do not pretend to say whether it was the flattery, or the promise
these words gave me of an agreeable companion _en route_; but, certain
it is, I at once closed with his proposal, and, with a ceremonious bow
to the Grand Canal Hotel, took my departure, and set out for Loughrea.