Shall we admit that, after all, the first stage of our journey was
accomplished by means of the mail-car? We had been assured, on reliable
authority, that Oughterard, fourteen Irish miles from Galway, was the
place where we should find what we wanted, and with a dubious faith we
climbed the steep side of the mail car, and wedged ourselves between a
stout priest and an English tourist. Above us towered the mail baskets,
and a miscellaneous pile of luggage, roped together with that ingenuity
that necessity has developed in the Irish carman, and crowning all, the
patriarchal countenance of a goat looked down upon us in severe
amazement from over the rim of an immense hamper.
We have said in our haste that we never hold on on jaunting-cars, but
as the dromedary to the park hack, so is the mail-car to the ordinary
“outside” of its species. It is large enough to hold six people on each
side, and is dragged by three horses at a speed that takes no account of
ruts and patches of stones and sharp corners, or of the fact that the
unstable passenger has nothing to grasp at in time of need, except his
equally unstable fellow-traveller. We held on to the priest and the
tourist with all the power of our elbows, and derived at least some
moral support from the certainty that when we fell off the car we
should, like Samson, carry widespread disaster with us. But somehow
people do not fall off these cars; and even the most unschooled of
Saxons sits and swings and bows on the narrow seat with a security that
must surprise himself.
An Irish mile is, roughly speaking, a mile and a quarter English, so we
leave to the accomplished reader the computation of the distance from
Galway to Oughterard according to the rightful standard. It is not in
the ordinary sense a very interesting drive; the guide-books pass it
over in a breath in their haste to blossom out into the hotels and
fisheries of Connemara; but to the eye that comes fresh to it from the
offensively sleek and primly-partitioned pastures of England this first
impression of Galway and its untrammelled bogs and rocks will be as
lasting as any that come after. We ourselves might have framed many
moving sentences about the desolate houses standing amongst the
neglected timber within their broken demesne walls, but “all our mind
was clouded with a doubt,” and from the peculiar protrusion of my
cousin’s nether lip, I could gather that her moodiness was the outward
token of an agitated mental parade of all the Oughterard horseflesh with
which she was acquainted.
We spent that night at Oughterard in Miss Murphy’s comfortable little
hotel, and the next morning found us embarked once more in search of a
means of travel. The trap had been unearthed--the trap of our brightest
dreams--a governess-cart that would just hold two people and a
reasonable amount of luggage; but the horse was the trouble. Various
suggestions had been made: some had been feasible, and the one thing on
which we were firmly decided, viz., the governess-cart, seemed an
impossibility.
“Well, Miss, ye see, she’s only just in off grass; sure she’ll rejoice
greatly in the coorse of the next few days, and she’d fit the shafts
well enough so.”
Thus spoke the proprietor of many flocks and herds to whom we had
addressed ourselves. “It’s a pity there’s nothing would suit ye only the
little thrap, but surely ye might thry her whatever.”
“She” was a farm mare of mountainous proportions, who after violent
exertions had been squeezed between the shafts of the governess-cart,
and she now stood gazing plaintively at us, and switching her flowing
tail, while the shafts made grooves for themselves in her fat sides.
“Sit in now, Miss, and dhrive her out o’ the yard.” My second cousin got
in with ease, the step of the trap being almost on the ground, owing to
the unnatural elevation of its shafts, and the mare strode heavily
forward. My cousin clutched the front rail convulsively.
“I am slipping out!” she said with a sudden tension in her voice. Had
she thought of it she might have held on by the tail, which hung down
like a massive bell-rope above her, but as it was, after a moment or two
of painful indecision, she made a hurried but safe exit over the door of
the trap. The fate of the expedition trembled in the balance, and the
group of spectators who had formed round us began to look concerned. The
mare was extracted with some difficulty from the pinioning shafts, and
all things were as they were, the governess-cart with its shafts on the
ground, and my cousin and I with our hearts in our boots, when a voice
came to us from the crowd--
“Johnny Flaherty have a nice jinnet.”
“A betther never shtud in Galway!” said another voice. “She’s able to
kill anny horse on the road.”
An excited discussion followed, in the course of which it was brought
forward as the jennet’s strongest
[Illustration: “SHE’S A LITTLE GIDDY ABOUT THE HEAD, MISS.”]
recommendation that she was the daughter of the lady whose majestic
build had lost to us the enjoyment of her admirable moral qualities.
Finally a portion of the crowd detached itself and ran up the street,
returning in a few minutes with Johnny Flaherty and a long-legged,
long-eared brown animal, which, as it approached, cast an eye of sour
suspicion upon us and its mother. There was no doubt but that this
creature would fit the trap, but with haunting memories of the
iniquities of mules and their like we asked if it was gentle.
“She’s a little giddy about the head, Miss,” said the owner diffidently;
“but if ye’ll not touch the ears she’s the quietest little thing at all.
Back in, Sibbie!”
Sibbie backed in with an almost unwholesome docility, and was harnessed
in the twinkling of an eye, the lookers-on assisting enthusiastically.
She was led out of the yard. We got in with Mr. Flaherty, and before the
crowd had time to cross themselves we were out of sight.
“Perfection!” I gasped, with the wind whistling in my teeth as Sibbie
sped like a rat between the shafts that had given her good mother her
first insight into tight lacing. “She goes splendidly--the very thing!
but now isn’t it time to go back and get in our things?”
My cousin did not answer; she was driving, and something told me that
the same idea had occurred to her. She was leaning rigidly back, and one
of her gloves had burst at the knuckles. Johnny Flaherty extended a
large hand and laid it on the reins.
“She’s over-anxious for the road,” he said apologetically, as he brought
the jennet to a standstill; “but I’ll put a curb-chain on her for ye.”
We turned and wheeled back into Oughterard, a positive adoration for
Sibbie, with her discreet brown quarters and slender, rapier-like legs,
welling up in us. Now, thinking over these things, it seems possible
that her week’s hire approached her net value, but at the time of
bargaining we felt that her price was far above rubies.
As this is the record of a genuine expedition, it is perhaps advisable
to say that our luggage consisted of a portmanteau, a dressing bag, a
well-supplied luncheon basket, and a large and reliable gingham
umbrella, purchased for the sum of three shillings in Oughterard. We
viewed the elaborate stowing of
[Illustration: “WE VIEWED THE STOWING OF THE GOVERNESS-CART.”]
these in the governess cart, and then went to Mr. Flaherty for his final
sailing orders.
“Ye’ll mind her passing Flanigan’s; she have a fashion of running in
there; and as for passing our own place, I have a boy standin’ there now
in the archway with a stick, the way he’d turn her back out of it if
she’d make a dart for the stable, and I’ll put a rope in the thrap for
fear anything might break on ye.”
Mr. Flaherty looked a little anxious as he gave us these directions, and
when he had gone for the rope, an old woman, who had been regarding us
with a sympathetic solicitude, came up to my cousin and took her by the
arm.
“That the Lord may save yees! that’s all I’ll say,” she groaned; “if
’twas a horse itself, I’d say nothin’, but thim mules is nayther here
nor there. Sure asthore, ye couldn’t tell the minnit he’d turn into a
boghole, when he doesn’t know ye, and thim Cunnemarra roads has nothin’
before him to shtop him only the grace of God! and the wather up aich
side of the road by yees as deep as a well!”
It was painful to find that Oughterard credited the jennet with the sole
conduct of the expedition, and regarded us as helpless dependents on her
will and pleasure. But the old woman’s agitation was quite unaffected,
and the last thing we heard, as we flourished down the main street, was
her voice uplifted in prayerful lamentation.
Owing possibly to the fact that Mr. Flaherty’s boy was demonstrating
with the pitch-fork in the archway leading to the stable, Sibbie made no
attempt to “dart” into it as her owner had anticipated, and nothing
marred the dignity of our departure. We turned cautiously over the
crooked bridge, and drove along beside the river, running black under
tall trees, with patches of foam sailing fast on it. Villas with trimly
clipped ivy and flower-beds all ablaze were on our other hand, suburban
in self-respecting neatness, romantic by force of surroundings and of
something old-fashioned and solid in their build.
“This is the best village for its size this side of Galway,” said my
cousin, with a languid indifference that, as I well knew, masked the
seething self-satisfaction of the resident in the neighbourhood. “And
the place has improved so wonderfully. For instance, there’s the Widow’s
Almshouse. It isn’t so very long ago since an old woman said to my
grandmother, ‘That’s the Widdies’ Almhouse, and sorra widdy in it but
one little owld man,’ and now it’s simply bursting with widows--at
least, I mean----”
[Illustration: “MR. FLAHERTY’S BOY WAS DEMONSTRATING WITH A
PITCH-FORK.”]
This remarkable illustration of the prosperity of Oughterard was
suddenly interrupted. We had forgotten that the residence of the too
fascinating Mr. Flanigan was at hand, but not so Sibbie. With the
subtlety of her race, she cloaked her design in a fulsome
submissiveness, as the deadly spirit is sheathed in the syrup of the
liqueur, and turning in full career, without so much as an indication
from her long expressive ears, she made for the gate of which we had
been warned. By a special interposition of Providence it was closed, but
we were both jerked forward in a very humiliating way, and there was
much unseemly hectoring and lashing before we could drag her from the
haven where she would be. The seeds of distrust were from that moment
sown in our hearts, and we proceeded with a want of confidence that we
had never afterwards reason to regret.
A few moments of steep ascent brought us out on to the moor that is the
entrance to Connemara; a wide brown place of heather and bog, with the
sinuous shining of the Oughterard river saving it from the suspicion of
monotony. The level road ran out in front of us till it dwindled into a
white thread, the distant hills were no more than confidential blue
hints of what we were to see, the sun shone, the strong west wind made
us rejoice that we had stitched elastic into our hats, and the
exhilaration of our feelings found vent in one passion-fraught
word--luncheon.
A great many people have asked us why we did not make our journey
through Connemara on tricycles: the roads are so good, the mail-cars
offer such facilities for the transport of baggage, the speed and
simplicity are so great. To this we have our reply--what then of the
luncheon hamper? These objectors have not taken into account the
comfortable wayside halt by the picturesque and convenient lake; the
unpacking of the spirit lamp, and its glittering bride the tin kettle,
the dinner knives at sixpence apiece, the spoons at two-pence-halfpenny;
the potted meats, the Bath Olivers, the Bovril and the Burgundy. In the
abstract we are not fond of picnics, and agree with the Bard of “Ballads
from _Punch_” in thinking that--
They who in contempt, the Dryad’s haunts
Profane with empty bottles and loose papers,
Find tongues in tarts, ants running on their boots,
Wasps in the wine, and salt in everything!
But a long road and an early breakfast create an earnestness and
sincerity in the matter of luncheon that were lacking in the artificial
junketings of the Bard. Certainly, our stopping-places were not such as
a Dryad could haunt with any degree of comfort. On this first day we
pulled up under the lee of a low bank, one of the few roadside fences we
had come to in that waste of heather and grey-blue lakes, and spread out
our eatables on the seats of the cart with a kind of bashfulness of the
possible passer-by; a bashfulness soon to be hardened by custom into a
brazen contempt for even the passing mail-car and the fraternal backward
grin of its driver. Most people who have wolfed the furtive sandwich in
a crowded railway carriage have felt all of a sudden how gross and
animal was the action, but how, if persevered in, a callous indifference
may be attained; this was the case with us.
After that first lunch the complexion of things changed. The wind
sharpened into a wet whip, the clouds swooped down on the hilltops, the
lakes turned a ruffled black, like a Spanish hen with its plumage blown
the wrong way, and the first mishap to the
[Illustration: “WE PURSUED OUR WAY TO RECESS.”]
expedition occurred. I turned my head to look with mild surprise at the
end of an iron bedstead with which an ingenious farmer had closed an
opening in his stone wall, and as I did so my hat soared upwards from my
head, and flew like a live thing towards the lake by which we were
driving. I followed with as much speed as I possess, while my cousin lay
in idiot laughter in the cart, and had the pleasure of seeing my hat
plunge with the _élan_ of a Marcus Curtius into a bed of waterlilies by
the bank. From this I drew it, pale, half-drowned, but sane and
submissive; and placing it in solitary confinement at the bottom of the
trap, I donned a chilly knitted Tam o’Shanter, and we pursued our way to
Recess.