'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.'