'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.