Tis sorry that you’ll be to hear that ould Denny Callan is dead,
sir,” said the station-master--he was, strictly speaking, the
junction-master--at Mallow, to whom I had confided my hopes of
eventually reaching my destination at St Barter’s, in the same county.
He had been courteously voluble, and sometimes even explicit, in giving
me advice on this subject; he also took an optimistic view of the
situation. All things considered, and with a moderate share of good
luck, I might reasonably hope to reach St Barter’s House within a couple
of hours. That point, which was becoming one of great interest to me,
being settled, he thought that he was entitled to assume that I should
be grieved to hear of the death of “ould Denny Callan.” He assumed too
much. I had never heard the name of the lamented Mr Callan. I could not
pretend to be overwhelmed with grief at the news that some one was dead
whom I had never heard of being alive.
“Tubbe sure, you’re a stranger, sir--what am I thinking of at all--or
you’d know all about the road to St Barter’s,” said the official. “Oh,
but you’d have liked ould Denny, sir, if you’d but have known him. A
more harmless crayture you couldn’t find, search high or low. ‘Tis a
great favourite that he was with the gentlemen--ay, and for that matter,
the ladies--though I wouldn’t like to say a word against him that’s
gone. Oh, they all come away from St Barter’s with a good word for
Denny. Well, well, he’s at rest, and I don’t expect that you’ll have to
wait much longer for your train, sir.”
When I had got out of my compartment in the express from Dublin an hour
before, I was told that I should only have to wait for ten minutes to
make the connection that would take me on to Blarney--the station for
St Barter’s--but the train which was reputed to be able to perform this
service for me had not yet been signalled. After the lapse of another
twenty minutes I began to think that the stationmaster had taken too
roseate a view of my future. It did not seem likely that I should, in
the language of the ‘Manual,’ “attain my objective” that day.
I had reached a stage of bewildering doubt, which was not mitigated by
the arrival at the junction of a long train, and the announcement of the
guard to the passengers, “Change here for Ameriky,”--it was explained
to me that the train was full of emigrants bound for America via
Queenstown,--when the station-master bustled up to tell me that the
Blarney special had just been signalled from Kilmallock--the Blarney
special was getting on very well, and with good luck should be available
for passengers from Mallow within half an hour.
The good luck on which this estimate was founded was not lacking.
My train crawled alongside the platform only five minutes over the
half-hour, and the official wished me a continuance of good luck,
adding--
“It wouldn’t be like going back to the same place now that poor ould
Denny is gone, if you had ever been there before, sir. Best his sowl!
‘Tis the harmless crayture that he was. You’ll be sorry that you didn’t
know him, sir, when you find the place a bit lonesome.”
I was half-way to Blarney before my sluggish mind was able to appreciate
the contingencies suggested by the station-master. I had never before
been to St Barter’s, but if I had ever been there I should regret my
returning to the place now that a certain person, of whose existence I
had been unaware, was gone. That was how I worked out the matter, and
before I had concluded the operation I had become quite emotional in
regard to the demise of Denny. I shook my head mournfully at the thought
that I should never see him--that I had come too late--too late! I had
no idea that the local colour, which is associated by tradition with
this neighbourhood, was so potent; but, indeed, when the obliging
station-master at Blarney, who entered into conversation with me while
the porter was looking after my luggage, remarked--
“So poor ould Denny is gone at last, sir!” I shook my head sadly.
“Poor old Denny! poor old Denny!” I said with a sigh. “Ah, we’ll all
miss poor old Denny. He was the most harmless man--St Barter’s will not
be the same without him.”
The station-master did his best to comfort me for half an hour--that was
the exact space that I had to wait for the car which was to carry me to
St Barter’s. When it did arrive, the excuse given by the red-haired boy
who had charge of the “wee mare” was that it was a grand wake entirely
that Denny had last night.
He told me more about it (with statistics of certain comestibles,
mostly liquid) when driving along one of the loveliest roads possible to
imagine, past the grey square tower of Blarney Castle, embowered among
its trees, and on by the side of the greenest slopes I had ever seen,
beneath the branches of one of the groves renowned in history and in
song. A broad stream flowed parallel with the road, and every glimpse
that I had through the trees on both sides was of emerald hills--some
in the distance, others apparently sending their soft ridges athwart the
road. I felt that at last I was in Ireland.
On the side of a gracious slope, gradually approached by broad zigzag
drives which follow the swelling curves of long grassy billows,
the buildings of St Barter’s stand. They are neither venerable nor
imposing--only queer. It seemed to me that everybody must have been
concerned in their construction except an architect. But the compiler
of a guide-book could, with every desire to be economical of his space,
fill half a dozen pages with a description of the landscape which faces
the windows of the front. The green terraces below the gardens dip
toward the brink of a glen through which a trout stream rushes, and the
woods of this sylvan hollow straggle up the farther slope, and spread
over it in a blaze of autumnal gold that glows half through the winter.
Where the wooded slopes and the range of green hills begin, undulating
into a soft distance of pasturages, with here and there a white
farmhouse shining out of the shadow of an orchard, and at the dividing
line of the low slopes, the turret of Blarney Castle appears above the
dark cloud of its own woods.
Before I found myself facing this entrancing landscape, I could not for
the life of me understand why my client, who might have lived where
she pleased, should spend half the year at St Barter’s. But now I
understood, and I took back the words which I had spoken more than
once, when in mid-channel the previous night. A family solicitor may be
pardoned for occasionally calling a client a fool. I had called several
of my most valued clients by this name. I did so for the same reason
that Adam gave for calling the fox a fox--because it was a fox. But I
had never to retract until now. “Hydros” are horrors as a rule, but St
Barter’s is a beatitude.
A couple of hours after lunch--the water which was placed on our table
was as exhilarating as champagne--sufficed for the transaction of the
business which had brought me to Ireland, and I was free to return by
the night train. I had, however, no mind to be so businesslike; for the
scenery had clasped me tightly in its embrace, and in addition I found
that the resident medico had been in my form at Marlborough, and I was
delighted to meet him again. I had lost sight of him for nine or ten
years.
It was by the side of Dr Barnett that I strolled about the grounds and
learned something of the history of the curious old place.
“Rambling? I should think it is rambling,” he said, acquiescing in my
remark. “How could it be anything else, considering the piecemeal way
in which it was built? It was begun by a very brilliant and highly
practical physician more than fifty years ago. When the house, as it was
then, was fully occupied, and he got a letter from a person of quality
inquiring for rooms, he simply put the inquirer off for a week, then set
to, built on a few more rooms, and had them ready for occupation within
the time stated. This went on for several years. If the Lord Lieutenant
had written for a suite of apartments he would have had them ready in
ten days. That sort of thing produces this style of architecture. St
Barter’s is the finest example extant of the pure rambling. But it is
the healthiest place in the world. People come here expecting to die
within a fortnight, and they live on for thirty years.”
“But now and again there is a death,” said I. “What about poor ould
Denny? The most harmless crayture----”
Dr Barnett stared at me.
“Was it in the London papers?” he cried. “Oh, I see; you have been
talking to the driver of the car. Poor ould Denny! He was everybody’s
friend.”
“And yet quite harmless? The place will never seem the same to me as it
would have done if I had not arrived too late to see Denny. Was he your
assistant, or what?”
The doctor laughed.
“He was simply ‘poor ould Denny!”’ he said. “That was his profession.
It was pretty comprehensive, I can tell you. He was here when the house
would be overcrowded with ten guests. He roofed a whole wing with his
own hands. Then he dug the pit for the gasometer, thirty years ago, and
he lived to dam the trout stream that works the dynamo for the electric
light. He was also an accomplished _masseur_, and set up the hatchery
that supplied the stream with trout.”
“His name should have been Crichton, not Callan. Anything else?”
“He could do tricks on the billiard table, and he knew all that there is
to be known about hair-cutting.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all--no, stay! he was a sculptor’s model for some time. I can
show you the result of his labours in this direction, if you would care
to see it.”
“I certainly should care to see it.”
“Come along, then.”
He led me half-way round the building, from where the two storeys of the
centre block dwindled away to the single bedroom sheds of one wing. We
passed by the side of the terrace garden, and I made a remark respecting
the fine carving on some of the stone vases.
“They were the work of the sculptor who chose Denny for his model,” said
the doctor. “Here we are.”
I followed him between two fine cedars, and in another instant we were
face to face with a very striking colossal figure of a man holding aloft
a goblet. The head and the torso were very powerful, but the latter was
joined on to a conventional Greek pedestal, at the foot of which there
peeped out four tiny hoofs of satyrs.
“What do you think of it? my friend inquired?” I told him that I
thought there was a good deal of strength in the modelling of the
figure, but I could not understand the satyrs’ hoofs.
“I take it for granted that the sculptor left the hair unfinished,’ I
added; for one could not help remarking the roughness of the masses at
the top of the head. The sculptor had merely blocked out the heavy locks
of hair; he had made no attempt to define them.
“The story of the work is rather a sad one,” said the doctor. “The
sculptor was a nephew of the man who built this place. He had worked in
a good studio in Italy, and was, I believe, a pupil of the distinguished
Irishman, Foley. He was devoted to his profession, and exhibited in some
of the London galleries. But every one knows that it is very difficult
to make a name--and a profit--as a sculptor, and he realised this truth
only when he had spent the greater part of his small patrimony. He came
here, and built for himself that cottage which you see at the other side
of the terrace, and, in order to keep himself employed, he carved
all these vases and urns which you have been admiring. Unfortunately,
however, among the doctor’s patients at the house there was a wealthy
linen merchant from Ulster--one of that vulgar crowd who had become
suddenly prosperous when the American Civil War prevented the export of
cotton from the southern ports; and this gentleman, meeting the sculptor
daily, and feeling probably that he would like to pose before the world
as a patron of Art, gave him a commission to execute a colossal figure
to support a lamp at the entrance to the new house which he was building
for himself. He made no stipulation as to the design, only the cost was
not to exceed a thousand pounds, and the work was to be ready within
a year. Of course, the poor sculptor was delighted. He accepted the
commission, and, thinking of the artistic rather than the business side
of the transaction, never dreamt of drawing up an agreement with his
generous patron. Before a month had passed, he had obtained his material
and made his clay sketches. Looking about for a model for the figure,
he was struck by the fine proportions of Denny, and had no difficulty in
inducing him to add to his other occupations the more restful one of a
sculptor’s model. For several months the work progressed satisfactorily,
and it was very near its completion, when the model contracted a malady
which necessitated the shaving of his head and interrupted his sittings.
The sculptor was not greatly inconvenienced, however. He turned his
attention for some weeks to the carving of the pedestal, and got that
completed before his model was able to resume his sittings. But even
then the sculptor could only deal with the torso, for Denny’s crown was
as bald as an egg. In a couple of months, however, the doctor assured
him that he would have as luxuriant a crop as would qualify him to
pose for one of the artists who produce the advertisements for
hair-restorers. The work was now practically finished. As the model
remarked, the edifice only needed the thatch to be put on the roof to
make it presentable. Then the proud artist wrote to his patron, telling
him that his commission was executed, and inviting him to come and
see it. After the lapse of a week or two the patron arrived, and was
conducted by the sculptor to view his masterpiece. The patron viewed
it in silence for some minutes, and then burst into a fit of laughter.
‘Man, dear!’ he managed at last to gasp in the raucous accent of his
native province--‘Man, dear! what’s that thing, anyway? Tell us what it
is, if you can. A Greek figure? They must have had funny figures, them
Greeks, if they had feet like yon. You must take me for a queer fool if
you fancy that I’d let the like o’ yon stand fornenst my house. You may
make a fool of yourself as much as you please, but I’ll take good care
that you don’t make a fool of me!’ What could a refined man say to a
brute like this? Well, he said nothing. He stood there in silence, with
his eyes fixed upon the face that he had carved, and the patron left him
staring at it. He stared at it all day, and the doctor, walking round
the garden that night, saw him staring at it in the moonlight, and led
him away to the cottage, and sent him to bed. He never rose from that
bed, except once. Two days later, his housemaid entered his room and
found him kneeling at his window--the statue could be seen where he had
placed it--where it now stands--and he was quite dead.”
I could not speak for some time after the doctor had told me the story,
for I felt that it was the saddest I had ever heard.
“His heart was broken,” I said. “But perhaps you will tell me that
science has proved that such a rupture is impossible.”
“I will tell you nothing of the sort,” said he. “A broken heart is the
best possible way to describe the effect upon a sensitive brain of such
a shock as the sculptor sustained. His heart was broken. I am sorry that
I hadn’t a livelier story for you. People come to Ireland expecting to
be amused; but it seems to me that the history of the island from the
earliest times is one prolonged lament. The finest music of the national
melodies is to be found in the most mournful.”