'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.