EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

_Valentine's Day, 1834_.

The herons this day (according to their custom as Sophy tells me) sat

all in a row in the horse park in solemn deliberation upon their own

affairs: the opening of their budget I suppose. They have much upon

their hands this session, and there must be a battle soon, on which the

fate of the empire must depend; magpies and scarecrows abound, and such

clouds of starlings darkened the air for many minutes opposite the

library window, settling at last upon the three great beech trees, that

Sophy and I would have given a crown imperial you had been by, dear

Pakenham, to see them.

You ended your Journal and the announcement of your appointment to

Amballa with exulting in the new kingdoms of flowers you would have to

subdue, and with the hope that your mother would write to Lady Pakenham

for her delightful letter to her son. You will have heard long before

this reaches you, my dear, that Lady Pakenham is no more; she died last

autumn. I wish that this news could have reached that kind heart of

hers. Honora and I went the very day we received your journal to

Coolure, to thank Admiral Pakenham; he met us on the steps in a tapestry

nightcap. He has grown very old, and has had several strokes of palsy,

but none have touched his heart. When Honora read to him the whole

passage out of your journal and your own warm expressions of pleasure

and gratitude, life and joy lighted in his dear old eyes. Honora only

changed the words, "dear Lady Pakenham" into the "dear Pakenhams of

Coolure." He asked, "Who wrote?" and looked very earnestly in my eyes. I

was afraid to say Lady Pakenham, and I answered, "You know," and pressed

his hand. He did know, passed his hand over his eyes and said, "Like

her: she was a good woman."

_February 19_.

I yesterday found in my writing-desk a copy I had made of the letter

Lord Carrington wrote to me in answer to mine announcing your former

Futtehgur appointment; and now that it can go free I enclose it. I like

an expression of Lord Mahon's about him in a note I lately received from

him. "My grandfather is in excellent health, and I cannot offer you a

better wish than that you may at eighty-one possess the same activity,

the same quickness of intellect, the same gushing, warm-hearted

benevolence which distinguishes him." Gushing benevolence: I like that

expression.

Sophy despatched a letter for you last week, in which I am sure she told

you all domestic occurrences. Barry has bought Annaghmore in the King's

County: an excellent house; and Sophy and Barry and all the children are

to stay with us till Sophy's health--very delicate--is strengthened, and

till they have furnished what rooms they mean to inhabit at Annamore;

this looks better than with the _gh_, but Sophy stickles for the old

Irish spelling.

Molly and Hetty, and Crofton and child, are all flourishing; poor old

George is declining as gently and comfortably as can be. When we go to

see him, his eyes light up and his mouth crinkles into smiles, and he,

as well as Molly, never fails to ask for Master Pakenham. Though _Helen_

cannot reach you for a year, Fanny has desired Bentley to send you a

copy before it is published. I should tell you beforehand that there is

no humour in it, and no Irish character. It is impossible to draw

Ireland as she now is in a book of fiction--realities are too strong,

party passions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their

faces in the looking-glass. The people would only break the glass, and

curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature--distorted nature, in a

fever. We are in too perilous a case to laugh, humour would be out of

season, worse than bad taste. Whenever the danger is past, as the man in

the sonnet says,

We may look back on the hardest part and laugh.

Then I shall be ready to join in the laugh. Sir Walter Scott once said

to me, "Do explain to the public why Pat, who gets forward so well in

other countries, is so miserable in his own." A very difficult question:

I fear above my power. But I shall think of it continually, and listen,

and look, and read.

Thank you, my dear brother, for your excellent and to me particularly

interesting last letter, in which you copied for me the good

observations on the state of your part of India, and the collection of

the revenue, rents, etc. Many of the observations on India apply to

Ireland; similarity of certain general causes operating on human nature

even in countries most different and with many other circumstances

dissimilar, produce a remarkable resemblance in human character and

conduct. I admire your generous indignation against oppression and

wringing by "any indirection from the poor peasant his vile trash." Some

of the disputes that you have to settle at Cucherry, and some of the

viewings that you record of boundaries, etc., about which there are

quarrels, put me in mind of what I am called upon to do here continually

in a little way. I hope Honora and Sophy have given you satisfaction

about the exact place of the new walks; as I cannot draw I can do

nothing in that way, but I can tell you that I have been planting

rhododendrons and arbutus in front of the euonymus tree. I hope you will

have a good garden in your new residence, and that you will not be too

hot in it. How you could find that your having more to do, made you more

able to endure the horrid heat you describe, passes my comprehension.

Heat always makes me so indolent, imbecile, and irritable. I remember

all this in the only heat _to call heat_, that I was ever exposed to in

Paris and Switzerland; I could not even speak, much less write. If I had

been under your 107 degrees I should have melted away to the very bone,

and never, never, never could have penned that _dropping_ letter as you

did to Honora, and with that _puddle_ ink too. Well! we are very, very,

very much obliged to you, dear Pakenham, for all the labour you go

through for us, and we hope that under the shade of the Himalaya

mountains you will be able to write, at your ease and without all manner

of _stodge_ in your ink.

_21st_.

This morning brought through Harriet, Margaret Craig's joy at your

promotion, and--Honora says I must go out this delightful sunshine

morning, and look at all the full-blown crocuses, violets, heath, and

pyrus japonica. I have a standard pyrus now--vulgar things compared with

your _Indian Prides_.

Oh! my dear Pakenham, I am sure you are shocked at the death of Sir John

Malcolm! both he and Sir James Macintosh, the two whose genius you so

admired, and whose conversation you so enjoyed just before you left

England--both gone!

_March 8_.

Ever since I finished my last to you I have had my head so immersed in

accounts that I have never been able till this moment to fulfil my

intention of giving you my travels in Connemara.

I travelled with Sir Culling and Lady Smith (Isabella Carr). Sir

Culling, of old family, large fortune and great philanthropy, extending

to poor little Ireland and her bogs, and her Connemara, and her

penultimate barony of Erris and her ultimate Giants' Causeway, and her

beautiful lake of Killarney. And all these things he determined to see.

Infant and nurse, and lady's-maid, and gentleman's gentleman, and Sir

Culling and the fair Isabella all came over to Ireland last September,

just as Fanny had left us, and she meeting them in Dublin, and

conceiving that nurse and baby would not do for Connemara, wrote

confidentially to beg us to invite them to stay at Edgeworthstown, while

father and mother, and maid, and man, were to proceed on their travels.

They spent a pleasant week, I hope, at Edgeworthstown. I am sure Honora

did everything that was possible to make it pleasant to them, and we

regretted a million of times that your mother was not at home. Sir

Culling expected to have had all manner of information as to roads,

distances, and time, but Mrs. Edgeworth not being at home, and Miss

Edgeworth's local knowledge being such as you know, you may guess how he

was disappointed. Mr. Shaw and the Dean of Ardagh, who dined with him

here, gave him directions as far as Ballinasloe and a letter to the

clergyman there. The fair of Ballinasloe was just beginning, and Sir

Culling was determined to see that, and from thence, after studying the

map of Ireland and roadbooks one evening, he thought he should get

easily to Connemara, Westport, and the Barony of Erris, see all that in

a week, and come back to Edgeworthstown, take up Bambino and proceed on

a northern or a southern tour.

You will be surprised that I should--seeing they knew so little what

they were about--have chosen to travel with them; and I confess it was

imprudent and very unlike my usual dislike to leave home without any of

my own people with me. But upon this occasion I fancied I should see all

I wanted to see of the wonderful ways of going on and manners of the

natives better for not being with any of my own family, and especially

for its not being suspected that I was an authoress and might put them

in a book. In short, I thought it was the best opportunity I could ever

have of seeing a part of Ireland which, from time immemorial, I had been

curious to see. My curiosity had been raised even when I first came to

Ireland fifty years ago, by hearing my father talk of the King of

Connemara, and his immense territory, and his ways of ruling over his

people with almost absolute power, with laws of his own, and setting all

other laws at defiance. Smugglers and caves, and murders and mermaids,

and duels, and banshees, and fairies, were all mingled together in my

early associations with Connemara and Dick Martin,--"Hair-trigger Dick,"

who cared so little for his own life or the life of man, and so much for

the life of animals, who fought more duels than any man of even his

"Blue-blaze-devil" day, and who brought the bill into Parliament for

preventing cruelty to animals; thenceforward changing his cognomen from

"Hair-trigger Dick" to "Humanity Martin." He was my father's

contemporary, and he knew a number of anecdotes of him. _Too besides_, I

once saw him, and remember that my blood crept slow and my breath was

held when he first came into the room, a pale, little insignificant-

looking mortal he was, but he still kept hold of my imagination, and his

land of Connemara was always a land I longed to visit. Long afterwards,

a book which I believe you read, _Letters from the Irish Highlands_,

written by the family of Blakes of Renvyle, raised my curiosity still

further, and wakened it for new reasons, in a new direction. Further and

further and higher, Nimmo and William deepened my interest in that

country, and, in short, and at length all these motives worked together.

Add to them a book called _Wild Sports of the West_, of which Harriet

read to me all the readable parts till I rolled with laughing. Add also

that I had lately heard Mr. Rothwell give a most entertaining account of

a tour he had taken in Erris, and to the house of a certain Major

Bingham who must be the most diverting and extraordinary original upon

earth--and shall I die without seeing him? thought I--now or never.

At the first suggestion I uttered that I should like to see him and

Erris, and the wonders of Connemara, Lady Culling Smith and Sir Culling

burst into delight at the thought of having me as their travelling

companion, so it was all settled in a moment. Honora approved, Aunt Mary

hoped it would all turn out to my satisfaction, and off we set with four

horses mighty grand in their travelling carriage, which was a summer

friend, open or half-open. A half head stuck up immovable with a window

at each ear, an apron of wood, varnished to look like japanned leather

hinged at bottom, and having at top where it shuts a sort of fairy-board

window which lets down in desperately bad weather.

Our first day was all prosperous and sunshine, and what Captain Beaufort

would call plain sailing. To Ballymahon the first stage. Do you remember

Ballymahon, and the first sight of the gossamer in the hedges sparkling

with dew, going there packed into the chaise with your four sisters and

me to see the museum of a Mr. Smith, who had a Cellini cup and a Raphael

plate, and miniatures of Madame de Maintenon, and wonders

innumerable--but Sophy at this moment tells me that I am insisting upon

your remembering things that happened before you were born, and that

even Francis was only one year old at the time of this breakfast, and it

was she herself who was so delighted with that first view of the

gossamer in the glittering sunshine.

But I shall never get on to Athlone, much less to Connemara. Of Athlone

I have nothing to say but what you may learn from the _Gazetteer_,

except that, while we were waiting in the antiquated inn there, while

horses were changing, I espied a print hanging smoked over the

chimney-piece, which to my _connoisseur_ eyes seemed marvellously good,

and upon my own judgment I proposed for it to the landlady, and bought

it for five shillings (frame excepted); and when I had it out of the

frame, and turned it round, I found my taste and judgment gloriously

justified. It was from a picture of Vandyke's--the death of Belisarius;

and here it is now hanging up in the library, framed in satin wood, the

admiration of all beholders, Barry Fox above all.

But to proceed. It was no easy matter to get out of Athlone, for at the

entrance to the old-fashioned, narrowest of narrow bridges we found

ourselves wedged and blocked by drays and sheep, reaching at least a

mile; men cursing and swearing in Irish and English; sheep baaing, and

so terrified, that the shepherds were in transports of fear brandishing

their crooks at our postillions, and the postillions in turn brandishing

their whips on the impassive backs of the sheep. The cocked gold-edged

hat of an officer appeared on horseback in the midst, and there was

silence from all but the baaing sheep. He bowed to us ladies, or to our

carriage and four, and assured us that he would see us safe out, but

that it would be a work of time. While this work of time was going on,

one pushed his way from behind, between sheep and the wheel on my side

of the carriage, and putting in his head called out to me, "Miss

Edgeworth, if you are in it, my master's in town, and will be with you

directly almost, with his best compliments. He learned from the landlady

your name. He was in the inn that minute, receiving rents he is, if you

will be kind enough to wait a minute, and not stir _out of that_."

Kind enough I was, for I could not help myself, if I had been ever so

unkindly disposed towards my unknown friend. Up came, breathless, a

well-known friend, Mr. Strickland. Introduced amidst the baaing of the

sheep to my travelling companions, and, as well as I could make myself

heard in the din, I made him understand where we were going next, and

found, to my great satisfaction, that he would overtake us next day at

Ballinasloe, if we could stay there next day; and we could and must, for

it was Sunday. I cannot tell you--and if I could you would think I

exaggerated--how many hours we were in getting through the next ten

miles; the road being continually covered with sheep, thick as wool

could pack, all _coming from_ the sheep-fair of Ballinasloe, which, to

Sir Culling's infinite mortification, we now found had taken place the

previous day. I am sure we could not have had a better opportunity and

more leisure to form a sublime and just notion of the thousands and tens

of thousands which must have been on the field of sale. This retreat of

the ten thousand never could have been effected without the generalship

of these wonderfully skilled shepherds, who, in case of any disorder

among their troops, know how dexterously to take the offender by the

left leg or the right leg with their crooks, pulling them back without

ever breaking a limb, and keeping them continually in their ranks on the

weary, long march.

We did not reach Ballinasloe till it was almost dark. There goes a

story, you know, that no woman must ever appear at Ballinasloe Fair;

that she would be in imminent peril of her life from the mob. The

daughters of Lord Clancarty, it was said, "had tried it once, and scarce

were saved by fate." Be this as it may, we were suffered to drive very

quietly through the town; and we went quite through it to the outskirts

of scattered houses, and stopped at the door of the Vicarage. And well

for us that we had a letter from the Dean of Ardagh to the Rev. Mr.

Pounden, else we might have spent the night in the streets, or have paid

guineas apiece for our beds, all five of us, for three nights. Mr. and

Mrs. Pounden were the most hospitable of people, and they were put to a

great trial--dinner just over, and that day had arrived unexpectedly one

family of relations, and expectedly another, with children without end.

And how they did stow them and us, to this hour I cannot conceive: they

had, to be sure, one bed-chamber in a house next door, which, luckily,

Lord and Lady Somebody had not arrived to occupy. Be it how it might,

here we stayed till Monday; and on Sunday there was to be a charity

sermon for the benefit of the schools, under the patronage of Lord and

Lady Clancarty, and the sermon was preached by Archdeacon Pakenham; and

after the sermon--an excellent sermon on the appropriate text of the

good Samaritan--an immense crowd before the windows filled the fair

green, and we went out to see. The crowd of good, very good-natured

Irishmen, gentle and simple mixed, opened to let the ladies and English

stranger in to see: and fine horses and fine leaping we saw, over a

loose wall built up for the purpose in the middle of the fair green; and

such shouting, and such laughing, and such hurraing for those that

cleared and for those that missed. As for the rest of the cattle-fair,

we _lift_ on Monday morning before the thick of it came on.

I forgot to tell you that on Sunday arrived Mr. Strickland, and he with

maps and road-books explained to Sir Culling where he should go, and how

he was to accomplish his objects. It was settled that we were to go to

Loughrea, and to see certain ruins by going a few miles out of our way;

and this we accomplished, and actually did see, by an uncommonly fine

sunset, the beautiful ruins of Clonmacnoise; and we slept this night at

Loughrea, where we had been assured there was a capital inn, and may be

it was, but the rats or the mice ran about my room so, and made such a

noise in the holes of the floor, that I could not sleep, but was

thankful they did not get on or into my bed.

Next day to Galway, and still it was fine weather, and bright for the

open carriage, and we thought it would always be so. Galway, wet or dry,

and it was dry when I saw it, is the dirtiest town I ever saw, and the

most desolate and idle-looking. As I had heard much from Captain

Beaufort and Louisa of the curious Spanish buildings in Galway, I was

determined not to go through the town without seeing these; so, as soon

as we got to the inn, I summoned landlord and landlady, and begged to

know the names of the principal families in the town. I thought I might

chance to light upon somebody who could help us. In an old history of

Galway which Mr. Strickland picked up from a stall at Ballinasloe, I

found prints of some of the old buildings and names of the old families;

and the landlord having presented me with a list as long as an

alderman's bill of fare of the names of the gentlemen and ladies of

Galway, I pitched upon the name of a physician, a Dr. Veitch, of whom I

had found a fine character in my book. He had been very good to the poor

during a year of famine and fever. To him I wrote, and just as I had

finished reading his panegyric to Lady Smith, in he walked; and he

proved to be an old acquaintance. He was formerly a surgeon in the army,

and was quartered at Longford at the time of the rebellion: remembered

our all taking shelter there, how near my father was being killed by the

mob, and how courageously he behaved. Dr. Veitch had received some

kindness from him, and now he seemed anxious, thirty-five years

afterwards, to return that kindness to me and my companions. He walked

with us all over Galway, and showed us all that was worth seeing, from

the new quay _projecting_, and the new green Connemara marble-cutters'

workshop, to the old Spanish houses with projecting roofs and piazza

walks beneath; and, wading through seas of yellow mud thick as

stirabout, we went to see archways that had stood centuries, and above

all to the old mayoralty house of that mayor of Galway who hung his own

son; and we had the satisfaction of seeing the very window from which

the father with his own hands hung his own son, and the black marble

marrowbones and death's head, and inscription and date, 1493. I daresay

you know the story; it formed the groundwork very lately of a tragedy.

The son had--from jealousy as the tragedy has it, from avarice according

to the vulgar version--killed a Spanish friend; and the father, a modern

Brutus, condemns him, and then goes to comfort him. I really thought it

worth while to wade through mud to see these awful old relics of other

times and other manners. But, coming back again, at every turn it was

rather disagreeable to have "fish" bawled into one's ears, and "fine

flat fish" flapped in one's face. The fish-market was fresh supplied,

and Galway is famous for _John Dorees_. "A John Doree, ma'am, for

eighteen-pence--a shilling--sixpence!" A John Doree could not be had for

guineas in London. Quin, the famous actor, wished he was all throat when

he was eating a John Doree. But still it was not pleasant, at every turn

and every crossing, to have ever so fine John Dorees flapped in one's

face. Sir Culling bought one for sixpence, and it was put into the

carriage; and we took leave of Dr. Veitch, and left Galway.

From Galway Sir Culling was obliged to take job horses, as he was warned

that we were entering a country where post horses were not to be found,

and were never even heard of. Dr. Veitch bid us not think of entering

Connemara this night. "You will have to send after me soon, if you don't

take care. You have no idea of the places you are going into, and that

you may have to sleep in."

The next place we were to go to, and where Dr. Veitch advised us to

sleep, was Outerard, a small town or village, where he told us was an

inn, or an hotel, as even in these out-of-the-world regions it is now

called. It was but fifteen miles, and this with four horses was not two

hours' drive; and Sir Culling thought it would be sad waste of daylight

to sleep at Outerard, for still he measured his expected rate of

travelling by his Bath Road standard. Though we left Galway at three, we

were not at Outerard till past seven, with our fine, fresh horses; and

excellent horses they really were, and well harnessed too, with

well-accoutred postillions in dark blue jackets and good hats and boots,

all proper, and an ugly little dog running joyously along with the

horses. Outerard, as well as we could see it, was a pretty

mountain-scattered village, with a pond and trees, and a sort of

terrace-road, with houses and gardens on one side, and a lower road with

pond and houses on the other. There is a spa at Outerard to which

bettermost sort of people come in the season; but this was not the

season, and the place had that kind of desolate look, mixed with

_pretensions_ too, which a watering-place out of season always has.

When we came to the hotel, our hearts sank within us. Dusk as it was,

there was light enough to guess, at first sight, that it would never do

for sleeping--half covered with overgrown ivy, damp, forlorn, windows

broken, shattered look all about it. With difficulty we got at the

broken gate into the very small and dirty courtyard, where the four

horses could hardly stand with the carriage. Out came such a master and

such a maid! and such fumes of whiskey-punch and tobacco. Sir Culling

got down from his barouche-seat, to look if the house was practicable;

but soon returned, shaking his head, and telling us in French that it

was quite impossible; and the master of the inn, with half threats, half

laughter, assured us we should find no other place in Outerard. I

inquired for the Priest's house. I was on the point of asking, "Has the

Priest any family?" but recollected myself in time, and asked whether

the Priest's house was large enough to hold us. "Not an atom of room to

spare in it, ma'am." Then I inquired for the Chief of the Police, the

Clergyman, or the Magistrate? "Not in it, neither, none; but the Chief

of the Police's house is there on the top of the hill; but you will not

get in."

We went there, however, and up the hill toiled, and to the door of a

sort of spruce-looking lanthorn of a house, without tree or shrub near

it. But still it might be good to sleep in; and, nothing daunted by the

maid's prophecies and ominous voice, we determined to try our fate. Sir

Culling got down and rubbed his hands; while, after his man's knocking

at the door several times, no one came to open it, though through the

large drawing-room window we saw figures gliding about. At last the door

half opened by hands unseen, and Sir Culling, pushing it wholly open,

went in; and we sat in the carriage, waiting as patiently as we could.

The figures in black and white came to the window, and each had

pocket-handkerchiefs in their hands or at their eyes. Sir Culling

reappeared, ordered the horses to be turned about again; and when he had

remounted his barouche-seat, which he did with all convenient speed, he

informed us that a lady had died in this house a few days before, of

cholera; that she had this day been buried; that under any other

circumstances the master and mistress would have been happy to receive

us, but now it was quite impossible, for our sake and their own. The

damp, broken-windowed hole was preferable; so back we went. But as we

went along the _high_ road, down in the _low_ road on the other side of

the pond, through the duskiness we saw lights in several houses; and in

front of one long house which looked whiter than the rest, we stopped at

an opening in the road where was a path which led to the valley beneath,

and Sir Culling, who proved in this our need an active knight, sallied

down to adventure another trial; and in a few minutes after _im_merging

into this mud castle, and emerging from it, he waved his arm over his

head in sign of triumph, and made a sign to the postillions to turn down

into the valley, which they did without overturning us; and to our

satisfaction we found ourselves housed at Mrs. O'Flaherty's, who did not

keep an inn, observe; her admitting us, observe, depended upon our

clearly understanding that she did not so demean herself. But she in the

season let her house as a boarding-house to the quality, who came to

Outerard to drink the waters or to bathe. So, to oblige us poor

travellers, without disgrace to the blood and high descent of the

O'Flaherties, she took us in, as we were quality, and she turned her two

sons out of their rooms and their beds for us; and most comfortably we

were lodged. And we ate the John Doree we had brought with us, and I

thought it not worth all the talking about it I had heard; and, for the

first time in my days or nights, I this night tasted a _toombler_ of

anti-Parliament whiskey, _alias_ poteen, and water; and of all the

detestable tastes that ever went into my mouth, or smells that ever went

under my nose, I think this was the worst--literally smoke and fire

spirit. Isabella observed that she had often drank Innishowon and water

with dear Agnes and Joanna Baillie. There's no disputing about tastes;

therefore I did not dispute, only set down the tumbler, and sip took

never more; for I could as soon have drank the chimney smoking. The

doors, just opening with a latch, received us into our bed-rooms, with

good turf fires on the hearth, coved ceilings, and presses, and all like

bed-rooms in an English farm-house more than an Irish: wonderful

comfortable for Outerard, after fear of the cholera and the dead woman

especially.

Next day, sun shining and a good breakfast, our spirit of travelling

adventure up within us, we determined that, before proceeding on our

main adventure into Connemara, we would make a little episode to see a

wonderful cave in the neighbourhood. Our curiosity to see it had been

excited by the story of the lady and the white trout in _Lover's

Legends_. It is called the Pigeon-hole; not the least like a

pigeon-hole, but it is a subterraneous passage, where a stream flows

which joins the waters of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. Outerard is on

the borders of Lough Corrib, and we devoted this day to boating across

Lough Corrib, to see this famous cavern, which is on the opposite side

of the lake, and also to see a certain ruined monastery. We passed over

the lake, admiring its beauty and its many islands--little bits of

islands, of which the boatmen tell there are three hundred and

sixty-five; be the same more or less, one for every day in the year at

least. We saw the ruins, which are very fine; but I have not time to say

more about them. We crossed the churchyard and a field or two, and all

was as flat, and bare, and stony as can be imagined; and as we were

going and going farther from the shore of the lake, I wondered how and

when we were to come to this cavern. The guide called me to stop, and I

stopped; and well I did: I was on the brink of the Pigeon-hole--just

like an unfenced entrance to a deep deep well. The guide went down

before us, and was very welcome! Down and down and down steps almost

perpendicular, and as much as my little legs could do to reach from one

to the other; darker and darker, and there were forty of them I am sure,

well counted--though certainly I never counted them, but was right glad

when I felt my feet at the bottom, on _terra firma_ again, even in

darkness, and was told to look up, and that I had come down sixty feet

and more. I looked up and saw glimmering light at the top, and as my

eyes recovered, more and more light through the large fern leaves which

hung over the opening at top, and the whole height above looked like the

inside of a limekiln, magnified to gigantic dimensions, with

lady-fern--it must be lady-fern, because of the fairies--and lichens,

names unknown, hanging from its sides. The light of the sun now

streaming in I saw plainly, and felt why the guide held me fast by the

arm--I was on the brink of the very narrow dark stream of water, which

flowed quite silently from one side of the cavern to the other! To that

other side, my eye following the stream as it flowed, I now looked, and

saw that the cavern opened under a high archway in the rock. How high

that was, or how spacious, I had not yet light enough to discern. But

now there appeared from the steps down which we had descended an old

woman with a light in her hand. Our boy-guide hailed her by the name of

Madgy Burke. She scrambled on a high jut of rock in the cavern; she had

a bundle of straw under one arm, and a light flickering in the other

hand, her grizzled locks streaming, her garments loose and tattered, all

which became suddenly visible as she set fire to a great wisp of straw,

and another and another she plucked from her bundle and lighted, and

waved the light above and underneath. It was like a scene in a melodrama

of Cavern and Witch--the best cavern scene I ever beheld. As she

continued to throw down, from the height where she stood, the lighted

bundles of straw, they fell on the surface of the dark stream below, and

sailed down the current, under the arch of the cavern, lighting its roof

at the vast opening, and looking like tiny fire-ships, one after another

sailing on, and disappearing. We could not help watching each as it

blazed, till it vanished. We looked till we were tired, then turned and

clambered up the steps we had scrambled down, and found ourselves again

in broad daylight, in upper air and on the flat field; and the illusion

was over, and there stood, turned into a regular old Irish beggar-woman,

the Witch of Outerard, and Madgy Burke stood confessed, and began to

higgle with Sir Culling and to flatter the English quality for a

sixpence more.

Meanwhile we were to cross Lough Corrib; and well for us that we had the

prudence to declare, early in the morning, that we would not take a

sail-boat, for a sail-boat is dangerous in the sudden squalls which rise

in these mountain regions and on these lakes, very like the Swiss lakes

for that matter. For instance, on the Lake de Lucerne, I have seen

sunshine and glassy surface change in five minutes to storm and cloud so

black and thick, that Mont Pilate himself could not be discerned through

it more than if he never stood there in all his sublimity.

Our day had changed, and very rough was the lake; and the boatmen, to

comfort us and no doubt amuse themselves, as we rose up and down on the

billows, told us stories of boats that had been lost in these storms,

and of young Mr. Brown last year, that was drowned in a boat within view

of his brother standing on that island, which we were just then to pass.

"And when so near he could almost have reached him, you'd have thought."

"And why didn't he, then?" said I.

"Oh, bless you, ma'am, he couldn't; for," said the boatman, dropping his

oar, which I did not like at all, "for, mind you, ma'am, it was all done

in the clap of one's hand," and he clapped his hands.

"Well, take up your oar," cried I; which he did, and rowed amain, and we

cleared Brown's Island, and I have no more dangers, fancied or other, to

tell you; and after two hours' hard rowing, which may give you the

measure of the width of Lough Corrib at this place, we landed, and were

right glad to eat Mrs. O'Flaherty's ready dinner, Lough Corrib

trout--not the White Lady trout.

Sir Culling had intended to pursue his road this evening and reach Lough

Corrib Lodge to sleep, but before we got the first mouthful of dinner

into our mouths it was stone-dark, whatever kind of darkness that is,

and we agreed on old George's excellent principle to leave it till

"morning, ma'am, if you please."

So the morning came, and a fine morning still it was; and we set out,

leaving Mrs. O'Flaherty curtseying and satisfied. I cannot make out any

wonders, or anything like an adventure between Outerard and Corrib

Lodge; only the road was rough and the country like the Isle of

Anglesea, as if stones and fragments of rock had showered down on the

earth and tracts of bog-heath such as England never saw and Scotland

seldom sees, except in the Highlands. We were only about twice the time

that Sir Culling had calculated on getting over this part of the road

with our powerful Galway horses and steady drivers, and reaching Corrib

Lodge Sir Culling said: "These roads are not so very bad, we shall get

on, Miss Edgeworth, very well, you will see."

Corrib Lodge is a neat bleak-looking house, which Mr. Nimmo built for

his own residence when he was overseer of the roads, now turned into an

inn, kept by his Scotch servant, who used to come with him to

Edgeworthstown, and he gave us bread and butter and milk, and moreover,

hare-soup, such as the best London tavern might have envied. For

observe, that hares abound in these parts, and there is no sin in

killing them, and how the cook came to be so good I cannot tell you, but

so it certainly was. Invigorated and sanguine, we were ready to get into

the carriage again, purposing to reach Clifden this evening--it was now

three o'clock; we had got through half our thirty-six miles; no doubt we

could easily, Sir Culling argued, manage the other half before dark. But

our wary Scotch host shook his head and observed, that if his late

master Mr. Nimmo's road was but open so we might readily, but Mr.

Nimmo's new road was not opened, and why, because it was not finished.

Only one mile or so remained unfinished, and as that one mile of unmade

unfinished road was impassable by man, boy, or Connemara pony, what

availed the new road for our heavy carriage and four horses? There was

no possibility of _going round_, as I proposed; we must go the old road,

if road it could be called, all bog and bog-holes, as our host explained

to us: "It would be wonderful if we could get over it, for no carriage

had ever passed, nor ever thought of attempting to pass, nothing but a

common car these two years at least, except the Marquis of Anglesea and

suite, _and_ his Excellency was on horseback." As for such a carriage as

Sir Culling's, the like, as men and boys at the door told us, had never

been seen in these parts.

Sir Culling stood a little daunted. We inquired--I particularly, how far

it was to Ballinahinch Castle, where the Martins live, and which I knew

was some miles on this side of Clifden. I went into Corrib Lodge and

wrote with ink on a visiting ticket with "Miss Edgeworth" on it, my

compliments, and Sir Culling and Lady Smith's, a petition for a night's

hospitality, to use in case of our utmost need.

The Scotchman could not describe exactly how many _bad steps_ there

were, but he forewarned us that they were bad enough, and as he

sometimes changed the words _bad steps_ into _sloughs_, our Galway

postillions looked graver and graver, hoped they should get their horses

over, but did not know; they had never been this road, never farther

than Outerard, but they would do all that men and beasts could do.

The first bad step we came to was indeed a slough, but only a couple of

yards wide across the road. The horses, the moment they set their feet

upon it, sank up to their knees, and were whipped and spurred, and they

struggled and floundered, and the carriage, as we inside passengers

felt, sank and sank. Sir Culling was very brave and got down to help.

The postillions leaped off, and bridles in hand gained the _shore_, and

by dint of tugging, and whipping, and hallooing, and dragging of men and

boys, who followed from Corrib Lodge, we were got out and were on the

other side.

Farther on we might fare worse from what we could learn, so in some

commotion we got out and said we would rather walk. And when we came to

the next bad step, the horses, seeing it was a slough like the first,

put back their ears and absolutely refused to set foot upon it, and they

were, the postillions agreed, quite right; so they were taken off and

left to look on, while by force of arms the carriage was to be got over

by men and boys, who shouting, gathered from all sides, from mountain

paths down which they poured, and from fields where they had been at

work or loitering; at the sight of the strangers they flocked to

help--such a carriage had never been seen before--to help common cars,

or jaunting cars over these bad steps they had been used. "This heavy

carriage! sure it was impossible, but sure they might do it." And they

talked and screamed together in English and Irish equally unintelligible

to us, and in spite of all remonstrance about breaking the pole--pole,

and wheels, and axle, and body, they seized of the carriage, and

standing and jumping from stone to stone, or any tuft of bog that could

bear them, as their practised eyes saw; they, I cannot tell you how,

dragged, pushed, and _screamed_ the carriage over. And Sir Culling got

over his way, and Lady Smith would not be carried, but leaping and

assisted by men's arms and shouts, she got to the other side. And a

great giant, of the name of Ulick Burke, took me up in his arms as he

might a child or a doll, and proceeded to carry me over--while I,

exceedingly frightened and exceedingly civil, and (as even in the moment

of most danger I could not help thinking and laughing within me at the

thought) very like Rory in his dream on the eagle's back, in his journey

to the moon, I kept alternately flattering my giant, and praying--"Sir,

sir, pray set me down; do let me down now, sir, pray."

"Be asy; be _quite_, can't you, dear, and I'll carry you over to the

other side safely, all in good time," floundering as he went.

"Thank you, sir, thank you. Now, sir, now set me down, if you will be so

very good, on the bank."

Just as we reached the bank he stumbled and sank knee-deep, but threw

me, as he would a sack, to shore, and the moment I felt myself on _terra

firma_, I got up and ran off, and never looked back, trusting that my

giant knew his own business; and so he did, and all dirt and bog water,

was beside me again in a trice. "Did not I carry you over well, my lady?

Oh, it's I am used to it, and helped the Lord Anglesea when he was in

it."

So as we walked on, while the horses were coming over, I don't know how,

Ulick and a tribe of wild Connemara men and boys followed us, all

talking at once, and telling us there were twenty or thirty such bad

steps, one worse than another, farther and farther on. It was clear that

we could not walk all the twelve miles, and the men and Sir Culling

assuring us that they would get us safe over, and that we had better get

into the carriage again, and in short that we _must_ get in, we

submitted.

I confess, Pakenham, I was frightened nearly out of my wits. At the next

trial Lady Culling Smith was wonderfully brave, and laughed when the

carriage was hauled from side to side, so nearly upset, that how each

time it escaped I could not tell; but at last, when down it sank, and

all the men shouted and screamed, her courage fell, and she confessed

afterwards she thought it was all over with us, and that we should never

be got out of this bog-hole. Yet out we were got; but how? what with the

noise, and what with the fright, far be it from me to tell you. But I

know I was very angry with a boy for laughing in the midst of it: a

little dare-devil of a fellow, as my giant Ulick called him; I could

with pleasure have seen him ducked in bog water! but forgot my anger in

the pleasure of safe landing, and now I vowed I could and would walk the

whole ten miles farther, and would a thousand times rather.

My scattered senses and common sense returning, it now occurred to me

that it would be desirable to avail myself of the card I had in my bag,

and beg a night's lodging at our utmost need. It was still broad

daylight, to be sure, and Sir Culling still hoped we should get on to

Clifden before dark. But I did request he would despatch one of these

gossoons to Ballinahinch Castle with my card immediately. It could do no

harm I argued, and Lady Smith seconded me with, "Yes, dear Culling,

_do_," and my dear giant Ulick backed me with, "Troth, you're right

enough, ma'am. Troth, sir, it will be dark enough soon, and long enough

before you're clean over them sloughs, farthest on beyant where we can

engage to see you over. Sure, here's my own boy will run with the speed

of light with the lady's card."

I put it into his hand with the promise of half a crown, and how he did

take to his heels!

We walked on, and Ulick, who was a professional wit as well as a giant,

told us the long-ago tale of Lord Anglesea's visit to Connemara, and how

as he walked beside his horse this gentleman-lord, as he was, had axed

him which of his legs he liked best.

Now Ulick knew right well that one was a cork leg, but he never let on,

as he told us, and pretended the one leg was just the same as t'other,

and he saw no differ in life, "which pleased my lord-liftenant greatly,

and then his lordship fell to explaining to me why it was cork, and how

he lost it in battle, which I knew before as well as he did, for I had

larned all about it from our Mr. Martin, who was expecting him at the

castle, but still I never let on, and handled the legs one side of the

horse and t'other and asy found out, and tould him, touching the cork,

'sure this is the more _honourable_.'"

Which observation surely deserved, and I hope obtained half a crown. Our

way thus beguiled by Ulick's Irish wit, we did not for some time feel

that we could not walk for ever. Lady Culling Smith complained of being

stiff and tired, and we were compelled to the carriage again, and

presently heavy dews of evening falling, we were advised to let down

those fairy-board shutters I described to you, which was done with care

and cost of nails. I did it at last, and oh! how I wished it up again

when we were boxed up, and caged in without the power of seeing more

than glimpses of our danger--glimpses heightening imagination, and, if

we were to be overturned, all this glass to be broken into our eyes and

ears.

Well! well! I will not wear your sympathy and patience eighteen times

out, with the history of the eighteen sloughs we went, or were got,

through at the imminent peril of our lives. Why the carriage was not

broken to pieces I cannot tell, but an excellent strong carriage it was,

thank Heaven, and the builder whoever he was.

I should have observed to you that while we yet could look about us, we

had continually seen, to increase our sense of vexation, Nimmo's new

road looking like a gravel walk running often parallel to our path of

danger, and yet for want of being finished there it was, useless and

most tantalising.

Before it grew quite dark, Sir Culling tapped at our dungeon window, and

bid us look out at a beautiful place, a paradise in the wilds. "Look

out? How?"--"Open the little window at your ear, and this just before

you--push the bolt back."--"But I can't."

With the help of an ivory cutter lever, however, I did accomplish it,

and saw indeed a beautiful place belonging, our giant guide told us, to

Dean Mahon, well wooded and most striking in this desert.

It grew dark, and Sir Culling, very brave, walking beside the carriage,

when we came to the next bad step, sank above his knees; how they

dragged him out I could not see, and there were we in the carriage stuck

fast in a slough, which, we were told, was the last but one before

Ballinahinch Castle, when my eyes were blessed with a twinkling light in

the distance--a boy with a lantern. And when, breathless, he panted up

to the side of the carriage and thrust up lantern and note (we still in

the slough), how glad I was to see him and it! and to hear him say,

"Then Mr. Martin's very unaasy about yees--so he is."

"I am very glad of it--very glad indeed," said I. The note in a nice

lady's hand from Mrs. Martin greeted us with the assurance that Miss

Edgeworth and her English friends should be welcome at Ballinahinch

Castle.

Then from our mob another shout! another heave! another drag, and

another lift by the spokes of the wheels. Oh! if they had broken!----but

they did not, and we were absolutely out of this slough. I spare you the

next and last, and then we wound round the _Lake-road_ in the dark, on

the edge of Ballinahinch lake on Mr. Martin's new road, as our dear

giant told us, and I thought we should never get to the house, but at

last we saw a chimney on fire, at least myriads of sparks and spouts of

flame, but before we reached it, it abated, and we came to the door

without seeing what manner of house or castle it might be, till the hall

door opened and a butler--half an angel he appeared to us--appeared at

the door. But then in the midst of our impatience I was to let down and

buckle up these fairy boards--at last swinging and slipping it was

accomplished, and out we got, but with my foot still on the step we all

called out to tell the butler we were afraid some chimney was on fire.

Without deigning even to look up at the chimney, he smiled and motioned

us the way we should go. He was as we saw at first view, and found

afterwards, the most imperturbable of men.

And now that we are safely housed, and housed in a castle too, I will

leave you, my dear Pakenham, for the present.

_March 12_.

What became of the chimney on fire, I cannot tell--the Imperturbable was

probably right in never minding it; he was used to its ways of burning

out, and being no more thought of.

He showed us into a drawing-room, where we saw by firelight a lady

alone--Mrs. Martin, tall and thin, in deep mourning. Though by that

light, but dimly visible, and by our eyes _dazed_ as they were just

coming out of the dark, but imperfectly seen, yet we could not doubt at

first sight that she was a lady in the highest sense of the word,

perfectly a gentlewoman. And her whole manner of receiving us, and the

ease of her motions, and of her conversation, in a few moments convinced

me that she must at some time of her life have been accustomed to live

in the best society--the best society in Ireland; for it was evident

from her accent that she was a _native_--high-life Dublin tone of about

forty years ago. The curls on her forehead, mixed with gray, prematurely

gray, like your mother's, much older than the rest of her person.

She put us at ease at once, by beginning to talk to us, as if she was

well acquainted with my family--and so she was from William, who had

prepossessed her in our favour, yet she did not then allude to him,

though I could not but understand what she meant to convey--I liked her.

Then came in, still by firelight, from a door at the farther end of the

room, a young lady, elegantly dressed in deep mourning. "My

daughter--Lady Culling Smith--Miss Edgeworth:" slight figure, head held

up and thrown back. She had the resolution to come to the very middle of

the room and make a deliberate and profound curtsey, which a

dancing-master of Paris would have approved; seated herself upon the

sofa, and seemed as if she never intended to speak. Mrs. Martin showed

us up to our rooms, begging us not to dress unless we liked it before

dinner; and we did not like it, for we were very much tired, and it was

now between eight and nine o'clock. Bedchambers spacious. Dinner, we

were told, was ready whenever we pleased, and, well pleased, down we

went: found Mr. Martin in the drawing-room--a large Connemara gentleman,

white, massive face; a stoop forward in his neck, the consequence of a

shot in the Peninsular War.

"Well! will you come to dinner? dinner's ready. Lady Culling Smith, take

my arm; Sir Culling, Miss Edgeworth."

A fine large dining-room, and standing at the end of the table an

odd-looking person, below the middle height, youngish, but the top and

back of his head perfectly bald, like a bird's skull, and at each temple

a thick bunch of carroty red curly hair, thick red whiskers and light

blue eyes, very fair skin and carnation colour. He wore a long green

coat, and some abominable coloured thing round his throat, and a look as

if he could not look at you, and would. I wondered what was to become of

this man, and he looked as if he wondered too. But Mr. Martin, turning

abruptly, said, "M'Hugh! where are you, man? M'Hugh, sit down man,

here!"

And M'Hugh sat down. I afterwards found he was an essential person in

the family: M'Hugh here, M'Hugh there; very active, acute, and ready,

and bashful, a daredevil kind of man, that would ride, and boat, and

shoot in any weather, and would at any moment hazard his life to save a

fellow-creature's. Miss Martin sat opposite to me, and with the light of

branches of wax candles full upon her, I saw that she was very young,

about seventeen, very fair, hair which might be called red by rivals and

auburn by friends, her eyes blue-gray, prominent, like pictures I have

seen by Leonardo da Vinci.

But Miss Martin must not make me forget the dinner, and such a dinner!

London _bon vivants_ might have blessed themselves! Venison such as Sir

Culling declared could not be found in England, except from one or two

immense parks of noblemen favoured above their peers; salmon, lobsters,

oysters, game, all well cooked and well served, and well placed upon the

table: nothing loaded, all _in_ good taste, as well as _to_ the taste;

wines, such as I was not worthy of, but Sir Culling knew how to praise

them; champagne, and all manner of French wines.

In spite of a very windy night, I slept admirably well, and wakened with

great curiosity to see what manner of place we were in. From the front

windows of my room, which was over the drawing-room, I looked down a

sudden slope to the only trees that could be seen, far or near, and only

on the tops of them. From the side window a magnificent but desolate

prospect of an immense lake and bare mountains.

When I went down, and to the hall door at which we had entered the night

before, I was surprised to see neither mountains, lake, nor river--all

flat as a pancake--a wild, boundless sort of common, with showers of

stones; no avenue or regular approach, no human habitation within view:

and when I walked up the road and turned to look at the castle, nothing

could be less like a castle. From the drawing I send you (who it was

done by I will tell you by and by), you would imagine it a real castle,

bosomed high in trees. Such flatterers as those portrait-painters of

places are! And yet it is all true enough, if you see it from the right

point of view. Much I wished to see more of the inhabitants of this

castle, but we were to pursue our way to Clifden this day; and with

these thoughts balancing in my mind of _wish_ to stay, and _ought_ to

go, I went to breakfast--coffee, tea, hot rolls, ham, all luxuries.

Isabella did not make her appearance, but this I accounted for by her

having been much tired. She had complained of rheumatic pains, but I had

thought no more about them. Little was I aware of all that was to be.

"L'homme propose: Dieu dispose." Lady Culling Smith at last appeared,

hobbling, looking in torture, leaning on her husband's arm, and trying

to smile on our hospitable hosts, all standing up to receive her. Never

did I see a human creature in the course of one night so changed. When

she was to sit down, it was impossible: she could not bend her knees,

and fell back in Sir Culling's arms. He was excessively frightened. His

large powerful host carried her upstairs, and she was put to bed by her

thin, scared-looking, but excellent and helpful maid; and this was the

beginning of an illness which lasted above three weeks. Little did we

think, however, at the beginning how bad it would be. We thought it only

rheumatism, and I wrote to Honora that we should be detained a few days

longer--from day to day put off. Lady Culling Smith grew alarmingly ill.

There was only one half-fledged doctor at Clifden: the Martins disliked

him, but he was sent for, and a puppy he proved, thinking of nothing but

his own shirt-buttons and fine curled hair. Isabella grew worse and

worse--fainting-fits; and Mrs. and Miss Martin, both accustomed to

prescribe for the country-people in want of all medical advice in these

lone regions, went to their pharmacopoeias and medicine-chest, and

prescribed various strong remedies, and ran up and down stairs, but

could not settle what the patient's disease was, whether gout or

rheumatism; and these required quite different treatment: hands and lips

were swelled and inflamed, but not enough to say it was positively gout,

then there was fear of drawing the gout to the stomach, and if it was

not gout!--All was terror and confusion; and poor Sir Culling,

excessively fond of Isabella, stood in tears beside her bed. He had sat

up two nights with her, and was now seized with asthmatic spasms himself

in his chest. It was one of the worst nights you can imagine, blowing a

storm and raining cats and dogs. Mr. and Mrs. Martin and Sir Culling

thought Lady Smith so dangerously ill that it was necessary to send a

man on horseback thirty miles to Outerard for a physician: and who could

be sent such a night? one of the Galway postillions on one of the

post-horses (you will understand that we were obliged to keep these

horses and postillions at Ballinahinch, as no other horses could be

procured). The postillion was to be _knocked up_, and Sir Culling and

Mr. Martin went to some den to waken him.

Meanwhile I was standing alone, very sorrowful, on the hearth in the

great drawing-room, waiting to hear how it could be managed, when in

came Mr. M'Hugh, and coming quite close up to me, said, "Them Galway

boys will not know the way across the bogs as I should: I'd be at

Outerard in half the time. I'll go, if they'll let me, and with all the

pleasure in life."

"Such a night as this! Oh no, Mr. M'Hugh!"

"Oh yes; why not?" said he. And this good-hearted, wild creature would

have gone that instant, if we would have let him!

However, we would not, and he gave instructions to the Galway boy how to

keep clear of the sloughs and bog-holes; observing to me that "them

stranger horses are good for little in Connemara--nothing like a

Connemara pony for that!" As Ulick Burke said, "The ponies are such

knowing little creatures, when they come to a slough they know they'd

sink in, and their legs of no use to them, they lie down till the men

that can stand drag them over with their legs kneeling under them."

The Galway boy got safe to Outerard, and next morning brought back Dr.

Davis, a very clever, agreeable man, who had had a great deal of

experience, having begun life as an army surgeon: at any rate, he was

not thinking of himself, but of his patient. He thought Isabella

dangerously ill--unsettled gout. I will not tire you with all the

history of her illness, and all our terrors; but never would I have left

home on this odd journey if I could have foreseen this illness. I cannot

give you an idea of my loneliness of feeling, my utter helplessness,

from the impossibility of having the advantage of the sympathy and sense

of any of my own family. We had not, for one whole week, the comfort of

even any one letter from any of our distant friends. We had expected to

be by this time at Castlebar, and we had desired Honora to direct our

letters there. Sir Culling with great spirit sent a Connemara messenger

fifty miles to Castlebar for the letters, and when he came back he

brought but one!

No mail-coach road comes near here: no man on horseback could undertake

to carry the letters regularly. They are carried three times a week from

Outerard to Clifden, thirty-six miles, by three gossoons, or more

properly bog-trotters, and very hard work it is for them. One runs a day

and a night, and then sleeps a day and a night, and then another takes

his turn; and each of these boys has £15 a year. I remember seeing one

of these postboys leaving Ballinahinch Castle, with his leather bag on

his back, across the heath and across the bog, leaping every now and

then, and running so fast! his bare, white legs thrown up among the

brown heath. These postboys were persons of the greatest consequence to

us: they brought us news from home, and to poor Lady Culling Smith

accounts of her baby, and of her friends in England. We began to think

we should never see any of them again.

I cannot with sufficient gratitude describe to you the hospitality and

unvaried kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Martin during all these trials. Mr.

Martin, rough man as he seemed outside, was all soft and tender within,

and so very considerate for the English servants. Mrs. Martin told me

that he said to her, "I am afraid that English man and maid must be very

uncomfortable here--so many things to which they have been used, which

we have not for them! Now we have no beer, you know, my dear, and

English servants are always used to beer." So Mr. Martin gave them cider

instead, and every day he took to each of them himself a glass of

excellent port wine; and to Isabella, as gout-cordial, he gave Bronte,

the finest, Sir Culling said, he ever tasted. And never all the time did

Mr. and Mrs. Martin omit anything it was in their power to do to make us

comfortable, and to relieve us from the dreadful feeling of being

burthensome and horrible intruders! They did succeed in putting me

completely at ease, as far as they were concerned. I do not think I

could have got through all the anxiety I felt during Lady Culling

Smith's illness, and away from all my own people, and waiting so

shockingly long for letters, if it had not been for the kindness of Mrs.

Martin, and the great fondness I soon felt for her. She is not literary;

she is very religious--what would be called VERY GOOD, and yet she

suited me, and I grew very fond of her, and she of me. Little things

that I could feel better than describe inclined me to her, and our minds

were open to one another from the first day. Once, towards the end, I

believe, of the first week, when I began some sentence with an apology

for some liberty I was taking, she put her hand upon my arm, and with a

kind, reproachful look exclaimed, "Liberty! I thought we were past that

long since: are not we?"

She told me that she had actually been brought up with a feeling of

reverence for my father, and particularly for me, by a near relation of

hers, old Mr. Kirwan, the President of the Royal Irish Academy, who was

a great friend of my father's and puffer of me in early days. Then her

acquaintance afterwards with Mr. Nimmo carried on the connection. She

told me he showed her that copy of _Harry and Lucy_ which you had in

making the index, and showed her the bridge which he helped me over when

Harry was building it. But what touched and won me first and most in

Mrs. Martin was the manner in which she spoke of William--her true

feeling for his character. "Whenever he could get me alone," she said,

"he would talk to me of Honora or Mrs. Edgeworth and his aunt Mary and

you."

Some of the expressions she repeated I could not but feel sure were his,

and they were so affectionate towards me, I was much touched. _Too

besides_ Mrs. Martin made herself very agreeable by her quantity of

anecdotes, and her knowledge of the people with whom she had lived in

her youth, of whom she could, with great ability and admirable composed

drollery, give the most characteristic traits.

Miss Martin--though few books beyond an _Edinburgh_ or _Quarterly

Review_ or two appeared in the sitting-room--has books in quantities in

a closet in her own room, which is within her mother's; and "every

morning," said Mrs. Martin, "she comes in to me while I am dressing, and

pours out upon me an inundation of learning, fresh and fresh, all she

has been reading for hours before I am up. Mary has read prodigiously."

I found Mary one of the most extraordinary persons I ever saw. Her

acquirements are indeed prodigious: she has more knowledge of books,

both scientific and learned, than any female creature I ever saw or

heard of at her age--heraldry, metaphysics, painting and painters'

lives, and tactics; she had a course of fortification from a French

officer, and of engineering from Mr. Nimmo. She understands Latin,

Greek, and Hebrew, and I don't know how many modern languages. French

she speaks perfectly, learned from the French officer who taught her

fortification, M. Du Bois, who was one of Buonaparte's legion of honour,

and when the Emperor was _ousted_, fled from France, and earned his

bread at Ballinahinch by teaching French, which Miss Martin talks as if

she had been a native, but not as if she had been in good Parisian

society; with an odd mixture of a _ton de garnison_ which might be

expected from a pupil of one of Buonaparte's officers. She imbibed from

him such an admiration, such an enthusiasm for Buonaparte, that she

cannot bear a word said to his disparagement; and when Sir Culling

sometimes offended in that way, Miss Martin's face and neck grew

carnation colour, and down to the tips of her fingers she blushed with

indignation.

Her father the while smiled and winked at me. The father as well as the

mother dote upon her; and he has a softened way of always calling her

"my child" that interested me for both. "My child, never mind; what

signifies about Buonaparte?"

One morning we went with Miss Martin to see the fine green Connemara

marble-quarries. Several of the common people gathered round while we

were looking at the huge blocks: these people Miss Martin called her

TAIL. Sir Culling wished to obtain an answer to a question from some of

these people, which he desired Miss Martin to ask for him, being

conscious that, in his English tone, it would be unintelligible. When

the question had been put and answered, Sir Culling objected: "But, Miss

Martin, you did not put the question exactly as I requested you to state

it."

"No," said she, with colour raised and head thrown back, "No, because I

knew how to put it so that people could understand it. _Je sais mon

métier de reine."

This trait gives you an idea of her character and manner, and of the

astonishment of Sir Culling at her want of sympathy with his really

liberal and philanthropic views for Ireland, while she is full of her

tail, her father's fifty-miles-long avenue, and Aeschylus and Euripides,

in which she is admirably well read. Do think of a girl of seventeen, in

the wilds of Connemara, intimately acquainted with all the beauties of

Aeschylus and Euripides, and having them as part of her daily thoughts!

There are immense caves on this coast which were the _free-traders'_

resort, and would have been worth any money to Sir Walter. "Quite a

scene and a country for him," as Miss Martin one day observed to me;

"don't you think your friend Sir Walter Scott would have liked our

people and our country?"

It is not exactly a feudal state, but the _tail_ of a feudal state. Dick

Martin, father of the present man, was not only lord of all he surveyed,

but lord of all the lives of the people: now the laws of the land have

come in, and rival proprietors have sprung up in rival castles. Hundreds

would still, I am sure, start out of their bogs for Mr. Martin, but he

is called _Mister_, and the prestige is over. The people in Connemara

were all very quiet and submissive till some _refugee Terry-alts_ took

asylum in these bog and mountain fastnesses. They spread their

principles, and soon the clan combined against their chief, and formed a

plan of seizing Ballinahinch Castle, and driving him and all the

Protestant gentry out of the country. Mr. Martin is a man of desperate

courage, some skill as an officer, and _prodigious_ bodily strength,

which altogether stood him in stead in time of great danger. I cannot

tell you the whole long story, but I will mention one anecdote which

will show you how like the stories in Walter Scott are the scenes that

have been lately passing in Connemara. Mr. Martin summoned one of his

own followers, who had he knew joined the Terry-alts, to give up a gun

lent to him in days of trust and favour: no answer to the summons. A

second, a third summons: no effect. Mr. Martin then warned the man that

if he did not produce the gun at the next sessions he would come and

seize it. The man appeared at the house where Mr. Martin holds his

sessions--about the size of Lovell's schoolroom, and always fuller than

it can hold: Mr. Martin espied from his end of the room his friend with

the gun, a powerfully strong man, who held his way on, and stood full

before him.

"You sent for my gun, your honour, did you?"

"I did--three times; it is well you have brought it at last; give it to

me."

The man kneeled down on one knee, and putting the gun across the other

knee, broke it asunder, and throwing the pieces to Mr. Martin, cried,

"There it is for you. I swore that was the only way you should ever have

it, dead or alive. You have warned me, and now I warn you; take care of

yourself."

He strode out of the crowd. But he was afterwards convicted of Terry-alt

practices and transported. Now all is perfectly quiet, and Mr. Martin

goes on doing justice in his own peculiar fashion every week. When the

noise, heat, and crowd in his sessions court become beyond all bearing,

he roars with his stentorian voice to clear the court; and if that be

not done forthwith, he with his own two Herculean arms seizes the

loudest two disputants, knocks their heads together, thrusts them

bawling as they go out of the door and flings them asunder.

In his own house there never was a more gentle, hospitable, good-natured

man, I must say again and again, or else I should be a very ungrateful

woman.

Miss Martin has three ponies, which she has brought every day to the

great Wyatt window of the library, where she feeds them with potatoes.

One of them is very passionate; and once the potato being withheld a

moment too long at the hall door he fell into a rage, pushed in at the

door after her, and she ran for her life, got upstairs and was safe.