It was nearly four o’clock before we got out of the Ballinahinch avenue
on to the Clifden road. A young horse had got loose in the yard just as
Sibbie was having her toilet made for the start, and the clattering of
hoofs and cracking of whips that ensued had so upset her old-maidish
sensibilities, that she refused to leave the stable, till finally, by a
noble inspiration on our part, she was backed out of it. She had started
from the yard in a state of mingled resentment and terror; even still
her ears were fluttering like the wings of a butterfly, and she showed a
desire to canter that seemed to us unhealthy. The shrunken oat bag lay
at our feet; decidedly she had had more luncheon than was good for her
while we were walking ourselves off our legs in the woods of
Ballinahinch. The broad lake lay on our left, showing coldly and
mysteriously through the changing swathes of mist, and above us, on our
left, the long slopes of bog and heather stretched upwards till they
steepened into the dignity of actual mountains.
“If I thought the weather could not hear me,” observed my second cousin,
“I should say it was going to clear up. It looks almost as if there were
sunlight on those children’s petticoats ahead of us.” An enchanting
group was advancing to meet us; half-a-dozen or so of children, boys and
girls petticoated alike in mellow varieties of the dull red or creamy
white Galway flannel, a few cattle wandered in front of them, and in
their midst a long-suffering donkey was being ridden by three of them
and beaten by the remainder. We were so absorbed in sitting with our
heads on one side to better appreciate the artistic unity of the picture
that we took no heed of the dangerous forward slant of Sibbie’s ears. No
one could have supposed that in her short intimacy with “the quality”
she could have already developed a fine-ladyish affectation of horror at
the sight of an estimable poor relation; yet so it was. Casting one
wild look at the appalling spectacle, she sprang sideways across the
road, whirled the trap round, only avoiding the black bog-ditch by a
hair’s breadth, and fled at full speed in the direction from which she
had just come.
My cousin and I were for the moment paralysed by surprise, and by the
sudden horrid proximity of the bog-ditch, which was hospitably prepared
to take us all in and do for us, and think nothing of it. Sibbie’s
strong little brown back was hooped with venomous speed, and her head
was out of sight between her forelegs. The telegraph posts were blended
into a black streak, the lakes swam past us like thoughts in a dream, it
seemed useless to get out to go to her head; obviously, Sibbie was
running away. The governess cart quite entered into the spirit of the
thing, and leaped and bounded along in a way that--considering its age
and profession--we thought very unbecoming. It is perhaps a _façon de
parler_ to say that I was driving. To put it more accurately, I
[Illustration: “HANGING ON EACH TO OUR REIN.”]
had been driving, and now I was trying very hard to do the opposite.
However, after laying the seeds of two blisters in vain, I was
ignominiously compelled to hand one rein to my cousin. Hanging on each
to our rein, we lay back in the trap, getting a good leverage for our
pull over the ridge of the luncheon basket. I shudder to think of the
result had those reins broken. Two human Catherine wheels would have
been seen revolving rapidly over the stern of the governess-cart, and as
for Sibbie---- But the reins were staunch, and though at first a want of
unanimity caused us to swing from side to side of the road in a series
of vandykes, the combined weight of the expedition slowly told, and
Sibbie’s ears were hauled into sight. Back and up they came till they
were laid along her back, and her long nose pointed skywards in a fury
of helpless protest, while her gallop grudgingly slackened.
Of course my hat had blown off early in the proceedings, but nothing
else had happened. I handed my rein to my cousin without a word, and got
out of the trap.
“No doubt this had been extremely amusing,” I said, “but I am going to
buckle the reins as low down on this bit as they will go.”
And I did so. I hate people who do nothing but laugh on an emergency,
simply because they think it looks brave.
As I turned Sibbie round I saw, nearly a quarter of a mile away, a child
standing by a telegraph post, holding in its hand a white disc that I
knew must be my hat, and I also saw with much pleasure that the other
children, with the cows and the donkey, had left the road, and were
climbing up the hillside. So, with hearts overflowing with a great
thanksgiving that “Earl Percy,” _i.e._, the mail-car and its English
tourists, had not “seen our fall,” we drove back again at a cautious
jog, Sibbie obviously as much on the look-out as we were for anything
that she could reasonably shy at. The girl with the hat was regarded by
her with an anguish of suspicion, only allayed by my getting out of the
cart while the hat was smuggled in, and leading her--a process which
always suggests taking a child by the hand to give it confidence.
It was a long way, about six Irish miles, back to the turn that we had
been instructed would take us to Letterfrack, and the invalid sunshine
had already swaddled itself again in cotton wool and retired for the
night. If my second cousin has a failing, it is that she believes
herself to possess “an eye for country,” a gift fraught with peril to
its possessor. Unfortunately, she had, before starting, studied on a map
the relative positions of Ballinahinch, Recess, and Letterfrack, and now
that she was face to face with the situation her eye for country flashed
fire at the idea of having to traverse two sides of a triangle instead
of one, which was pretty much what we were called upon to do.
“It is absurd,” she said, hotly, “to go back almost to Recess to go by
that ‘new line’ to Letterfrack, when I am almost _sure_ I remember
seeing on the Ordnance Map a dear little roadeen that would take us
through the mountains somehow on to the Kylemore road.”
From the use of the affectionate diminutive “roadeen,” I knew that my
cousin was trying to engage my sympathies, and though I tried to steel
my heart against the suggestion, there certainly was something
attractive in the thought of a short cut.
“It ought to be a little further on,” she continued, “by a little lake;
and you know it’s getting pretty late now.”
I now recognise that this was the moment at which to have stamped upon
the scheme, and to have made the time-honoured remark that we had no
time for short cuts. But I let it slide by me, and when we reached a
narrow, but to all appearance sufficient mountain road, bending
plausibly away to the left, we mutually succumbed to its fascinations.
For a mile or so it was really very fair. It certainly did occur to me
that it might be awkward if we met anything larger than a wheelbarrow,
as the governess-cart easily monopolised the space between the usual
bog-ditches, but as, so far, the district seemed quite uninhabited, we
did not trouble ourselves on that account. The road became steeper and
stonier as we advanced, but Sibbie toiled on gallantly, the pride of
having run away clearly still working in her and encouraging her in a
way no mere whip could have done. The cotton-wool into which the sun had
retreated had now covered all the sky, and was wrapping up the mountain
tops as if they were jewellery, which, as they were armoured from head
to foot in sheets of grey rock, seemed to us unnecessary care. We were
getting deeper and deeper into the hills, and the higher we got the
heavier the rain became. It felt as though some important heavenly pipe
had burst, and we were getting near the scene of the explosion. The
three shilling umbrella did its best; it humped its back against the
torrent like an old cab-horse, and really kept my second cousin fairly
dry. But things were going very badly with the luncheon basket, and,
though we did not mention it to each other, the belief in the short cut
was dying in us.
The road ahead was narrowing in a way not to be accounted for by the
laws of perspective; it was becoming suspiciously grassy, and rocks of
a size usually met with only in the highest Druidical circles lay about
so near to the track that steering was becoming a difficulty. A
wild-looking woman, wearing a coarse white flannel petticoat over her
red hair instead of a cloak, came paddling along with barefooted
indifference to the wet, and stopped to stare at us with a frank and
open-mouthed amazement which was not reassuring.
“Shall we ask her the way?” I suggested.
“It’s no good,” replied my cousin, sombrely; “we must go on now. It’s
too narrow to turn round. Let’s get on to those cottages and ask someone
there.”
(The belief in the short cut here heaved its final groan and expired.)
We had climbed to a kind of small plateau in the heart of the hills, and
on the farther side of the little indigo lake round which the track
wound were a couple of cottages. We beat Sibbie into a trot, and made
for the nearer of the two, and the barking of the usual cur having
brought a young man out of the house, my cousin proceeded to discourse
him.
“Are we going right for Kylemore?”
“Yo’re not.”
“Where does this road lead to?”
“To the Widda Joyce’s beyant.”
“And is that the end of it? Can’t we get on any farther?”
The young man looked at us much as an early Roman might have regarded
the Great Twin Brethren.
“Bedad I dunno what yerselves is able to do; but there’s no answerable
road for a cart whatever.”
Our eyes met in dumb despair, but my second cousin still rose above the
waves. (This metaphor is most appropriate, as we could not have been
much wetter if we had been drowned.)
“Where is the nearest hotel?” she asked, with all the severity of an
examining Q.C.
“Back in Recess. Ye’d be hard set to get there to-night.”
“Think now, like a good boy, is there no sort of a place hereabouts
where they’d put us up for the one night?”
The despairing relapse into the vernacular had its effect.
“Well, faith, I wouldn’t say but the Widda Joyce ’d be apt to be able to
do it. There was an English gintleman, a Major, that she had there for
the fishin’----”
In what capacity the English Major was used in the fishing we did not
stop to inquire; he might have been employed as a float for all we
cared; it was about all we felt ourselves fit for.
We did not ask the Widow Joyce if she could take us in. We simply walked
into her house and stayed there. We had heard a good deal of the Spanish
type of beauty that is said to abound in Connemara, but the Widow Joyce
was the first specimen of it that we had seen. A small, pale, refined
woman, with large brown eyes, and dark hair tucked shiningly away under
a snowy white frilled cap, she heard our story with flattering interest
and compassion, and we had hardly finished it before most of her eleven
children were started in different directions to prepare things for us
and “the pony.” By-the-bye, we noticed that during our travels Sibbie
was always given brevet rank, the delicate inference being that we were
far too refined and aristocratic to be associated with anything so
vulgar as a jennet.
A lovely clear fire of turf was burning on the hearth, and Mrs. Joyce
hospitably insisted on our each sitting on little stools inside the big
fireplace, and roasting there, till the steam of our sacrifice showed
how necessary a proceeding it was. In the meantime that sacred place
known as “Back-in-the-room” was being prepared for our reception; as far
though we should have preferred the kitchen with its clean earth floor
and blazing fire, Mrs. Joyce would not hear of our having our dinner
there.
“Sure the Meejer always ate his vittles back in the room,” she said; and
to this supreme precedent we found it necessary to conform.
We certainly owed a great deal to the Meejer. It was the Meejer, we
discovered, who had broken an air-hole in the hermetically-sealed
window. “An’ faith, though he give us the money to put in the glass
agin, we never got it done afther. It’s a very backwards place here.”
The Meejer’s sense of decorum had prescribed the muslin curtains that
shielded the interior from the rude gazer’s eye. The Meejer had
compelled the purchase of a jug and basin, and “a beautiful clane pair
o’ sheets, that not a one ever slep in but himself.” In fact, what of
civilisation there was, was due to his beneficent influence, and we rose
up and said that the Meejer was blessed. Our dinner was an admirable
meal; a blend of the resources of the luncheon-basket and of Mrs. Joyce;
its only drawback being that, forgetful, as she herself admitted, of the
precepts of the Meejer, she had put the teapot down “on the coals to
dhraw,” and the result was a liquid that would have instantly made me
sick, and would have kept my second cousin awake in agony till she died
next morning. So we avoided the tea.
[Illustration: “SITTING ON LITTLE STOOLS INSIDE THE BIG FIREPLACE.”]
“Back in the room” was a small whitewashed place with an earthern floor
as clean, though not quite as dry, as the one in the kitchen. A big
four-poster bed filled one end of it, and a red painted press, a square
table, a huge American chest with the washing apparatus on it, and two
or three chairs, were the rest of the furnishing. But though the
upholstery was of a simple character, it was evident that the decorative
sense was not lacking. The walls were lavishly hung with fervidly
coloured religious prints; two or three sheets of an illustrated fishing
fly-list had a place of honour near the widow’s patron saint over the
fireplace, the gorgeous salmon flies being probably regarded by the
younger Joyces as portraits of some new kind of angel; and drapery’s
adventitious aid was lent by the suspended wardrobe of the family, both
male and female, which relieved the severities of the bedposts, and gave
a little air of interesting mystery to the corners of the room. Rather
more than half the room had a rough ceiling of boards, and near the door
we noticed a ladder leading up to the loft thus made. We had felt
anxious about the bestowal of the widow and her family, not knowing what
duties the four-poster might not be called upon to perform, and as the
witching hour of ten o’clock drew nigh, and the low murmur of Joyce
discourse still continued, we had made up our minds to ask what the
arrangements might be, when there came a tap at the door.
“I beg yer honour’s pardon, Miss,” said our hostess’ soft, polite voice,
“but would there be any harm in meself and the children goin’ above up
to the loft?”
We said no, quite the contrary, and after some whispering and giggling
outside the door, a procession of Joyces slowly filed up the ladder,
headed by the younger sons of the house, and followed by the widow and
the daughters. The last pair of stout red legs was hoisted off the
ladder, the rustling and pounding overhead gradually subsided, and my
second cousin and I found ourselves face to face with the most serious
situation--not excepting either the bulldog or the runaway--of the
expedition. The fear of interruption had hitherto prevented us from
making as thorough investigation as we might have wished, and now we
“stared at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in
Darien.” Then she said--
“I’ll look.”
She turned down the bedclothes with a stiff, nervous hand. “They seem
pretty clean,” she said at last; “they mayn’t perhaps have been washed
very lately, but I think they must have dusted them. I can only see one
crumb and a used wax match.”
The account was not encouraging, but it might have been worse. Of the
sufferings of that night, however, as much cannot be said. After our
occupancy of that bed, not one used match, but twenty, might have been
collected. In explanation of this circumstance, I will merely quote one
line from the charming duet for bass and tenor in _The Lily of
Killarney_--
To light the way, to flea my love.