'When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main,
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'
Oliver Goldsmith.
It is almost over, our Irish holiday, so full of delicious, fruitful
experiences; of pleasures we have made and shared, and of other people's
miseries and hardships we could not relieve. Almost over! Soon we shall
be in Dublin, and then on to London to meet Francesca's father; soon be
deciding whether she will be married at the house of their friend the
American ambassador, or in her own country, where she has really had no
home since the death of her mother.
The ceremony over, Mr. Monroe will start again for Cairo or
Constantinople, Stockholm or St. Petersburg; for he is of late years
a determined wanderer, whose fatherly affection is chiefly shown
in liberal allowances, in pride of his daughter's beauty and many
conquests, in conscientious letter-writing, and in frequent calls
upon her between his long journeys. It is because of these paternal
predilections that we are so glad Francesca's heart has resisted all
the shot and shell directed against it from the batteries of a dozen
gay worldlings and yielded so quietly and so completely to Ronald
Macdonald's loyal and tender affection.
At tea-time day before yesterday, Salemina suggested that Francesca and
I find the heart of Aunt David's labyrinth, the which she had discovered
in a less than ten minutes' search that morning, leaving her Gaelic
primer behind her that we might bring it back as a proof of our success.
You have heard in Pearla's Celtic fairy tale the outcome of this little
expedition, and now know that Ronald Macdonald and Himself planned the
joyful surprise for us, and by means of Salemina's aid carried it out
triumphantly.
Ronald crossing to Ireland from Glasgow, and Himself from Liverpool,
had met in Dublin, and travelled post-haste to the Shamrock Inn in
Devorgilla, where they communicated with Salemina and begged her
assistance in their plot.
I was looking forward to my husband's arrival within a week, but Ronald
had said not a word of his intended visit; so that Salemina was properly
nervous lest some one of us should collapse out of sheer joy at the
unexpected meeting.
I have been both quietly and wildly happy many times in my life, but I
think yesterday was the most perfect day in all my chain of years. Not
that in this long separation I have been dull, or sad, or lonely. How
could I be? Dull, with two dear, bright, sunny letters every week,
letters throbbing with manly tenderness, letters breathing the sure,
steadfast, protecting care that a strong man gives to the woman he has
chosen. Sad, with my heart brimming over with sweet memories and
sweeter prophecies, and all its tiny crevices so filled with love that
discontent can find no entrance there! Lonely, when the vision of the
beloved is so poignantly real in absence that his bodily presence adds
only a final touch to joy! Dull, or sad, when in these soft days of
spring and early summer I have harboured a new feeling of companionship
and oneness with Nature, a fresh joy in all her bounteous resource
and plenitude of life, a renewed sense of kinship with her mysterious
awakenings! The heavenly greenness and promise of the outer world seem
but a reflection of the hopes and dreams that irradiate my own inner
consciousness.
My art, dearly as I loved it, dearly as I love it still, never gave
me these strange, unspeakable joys with their delicate margin of pain.
Where are my ambitions, my visions of lonely triumphs, my imperative
need of self-expression, my ennobling glimpses of the unattainable, my
companionship with the shadows in which an artist's life is so rich? Are
they vanished altogether? I think not; only changed in the twinkling
of an eye, merged in something higher still, carried over, linked on,
transformed, transmuted, by Love the alchemist, who, not content with
joys already bestowed, whispers secret promises of raptures yet to come.
The green isle looked its fairest for our wanderers. Just as a woman
adorns herself with all her jewels when she wishes to startle or
enthrall, wishes to make a lover of a friend, so Devorgilla arrayed
herself to conquer these two pairs of fresh eyes, and command their
instant allegiance.
It was a tender, silvery day, fair, mild, pensive, with light shadows
and a capricious sun. There had been a storm of rain the night before,
and it was as if Nature had repented of her wildness, and sought
forgiveness by all sorts of winsome arts, insinuating invitations, soft
caresses, and melting coquetries of demeanour.
Broona and Jackeen had lunched with us at the Old Hall, and, inebriated
by broiled chicken, green peas, and a half holiday, flitted like
fireflies through Aunt David's garden, showing all its treasures to the
two new friends, already in high favour.
Benella, it is unnecessary to say, had confided her entire past life
to Himself after a few hours' acquaintance, while both he and Ronald,
concealing in the most craven manner their original objections to the
part she proposed to play in our triangular alliance, thanked her, with
tears in their eyes, for her devotion to their sovereign ladies.
We had tea in the Italian garden at Rosnaree, and Dr. Gerald, arm in arm
with Himself, walked between its formal flower borders, along its paths
of golden gravel, and among its spirelike cypresses and fountains, where
balustrades and statues, yellowed and stained with age (stains which
Benella longs to scrub away), make the brilliant turf even greener by
contrast.
Tea was to have been followed in due course by dinner, but we all agreed
that nothing should induce us to go indoors on such a beautiful evening;
so baskets were packed, and we went in rowboats to a picnic supper on
Illanroe, a wee island in Lough Beg.
I can close my eyes to-day and see the picture--the lonely little lake,
as blue in the sunshine as the sky above it, but in the twilight first
brown and cool, then flushed with the sunset. The distant hills, the
rocks, the heather, wore tints I never saw them wear before. The singing
wavelets 'spilled their crowns of white upon the beach' across the lake,
and the wild-flowers in the clear shallows near us grew so close to the
brink that they threw their delicate reflections in the water, looking
up at us again framed in red-brown grasses.
By and by the moon rose out of the pearl-greys and ambers in the east,
bevies of black rooks flew homeward, and stillness settled over the face
of the brown lake. Darkness shut us out from Devorgilla; and though we
could still see the glimmer of the village lights, it seemed as if we
were in a little world of our own.
It was useless for Salemina to deny herself to the children, for was
she not going to leave them on the morrow? She sat under the shadow of
a thorn bush, and the two mites, tired with play, cuddled themselves by
her side, unreproved. She looked tenderly, delectably feminine. The moon
shone full upon her face; but there are no ugly lines to hide, for there
are no parched and arid places in her nature. Dews of sympathy, sweet
spring floods of love and compassion, have kept all fresh, serene, and
young.
We had been gay, but silence fell upon us as it had fallen upon the
lake. There would be only a day or two in Dublin, whither Dr. Gerald was
going with us, that he might have the last word and hand-clasp before we
sailed away from Irish shores; and so near was the parting that we were
all, in our hearts, bidding farewell to the Emerald Isle.
Good-bye, Silk of the Kine! I was saying to myself, calling the friendly
spot by one of the endearing names given her by her lovers in the sad
old days. Good-bye, Little Black Rose, growing on the stern Atlantic
shore! Good-bye, Rose of the World, with your jewels of emerald and
amethyst, the green of your fields and the misty purple of your hills!
Good-bye, Shan Van Vocht, Poor Little Old Woman! We are going
back, Himself and I, to the Oilean Ur, as you used to call our new
island--going back to the hurly-burly of affairs, to prosperity and
opportunity; but we shall not forget the lovely Lady of Sorrows looking
out to the west with the pain of a thousand years in her ever youthful
eyes. Good-bye, my Dark Rosaleen, good-bye!