From the indications given in the last chapter, the intelligent reader
will probably have gathered the fact that we did not sleep well.
“It isn’t the little bit they ates I begridges them,” quoted my cousin,
as in one of the long watches of the night she wearily lit her candle
for the nineteenth time, “but ’tis the continial thramplin’ they keeps
up.”
Even when the greater part of these foes was either gorged or slain, the
sleep that hummed its mellow harmonies in the loft over our heads held
far from us, tossing and stifling among feathers and flock pillows. It
must have been about two a.m., and I had just, by various strategies,
induced myself to go to sleep, when I was once more awakened, this time
by a convulsive clutch of my arm.
“Don’t stir!” whispered my second cousin, in a voice so low that it
felt like one of my own dreams, “but listen!”
A stealthy sound, as of a slow, barefooted advance, crept to us, buried
though we were in the perfumed depths of the flock pillows.
“Whatever it is, it came out from under the bed,” breathed my cousin,
“and it has gone twice round the room--looking for our money, I expect!”
The steps ceased for a moment, then there came a sound as of a little
rush towards the bed, and in an instant something with loud flappings
and rustlings had descended upon us, and rested heavily, with hollow
cacklings of contentment, upon our buried forms (for I suppose I need
hardly state that we had both bolted under the bedclothes).
“I believe it’s only the goose after all!” I said, as soon as I was
sufficiently recovered to speak.
“Only the goose!” returned my second cousin, with concentrated fury; “I
don’t see much to be grateful for in that. And how do you know it isn’t
the gander? I’m simply stifling here, but I know the brute would peck
me if I went out from under the clothes. I wish to goodness it _had_
been a burglar. Anyhow, they don’t peck.”
This was indisputable; as was also the fact that the bird had to be
dislodged. She had worked herself into a position that was probably more
satisfactory to her than it was to me, and judging, as I was well able
to do, by her weight, she must have been a remarkably strong and
vigorous bird.
“Get the matches ready,” I said, gathering myself for an effort. Then,
curving myself till the goose must have thought she was sitting on a
camel, I gave a heaving plunge. There was a croak, a flop, and a minute
afterwards the light of a match revealed a monstrous grey goose standing
in pained astonishment on the floor near the bed.
Fortunately the profundities of Joyce repose knew no disturbance, and,
still more providentially, the three shilling umbrella was within reach
of the bed. Opening this as a safeguard against an attack, which in our
then thin costume we should be ill-fitted to
[Illustration: “REVEALED A MONSTROUS GREY GOOSE.”]
withstand, we gently but firmly ushered the majestic goose-lady into the
kitchen, and, getting back to bed slept in peace till the usual hideous
farmhouse clamour began. We need not dilate upon it here. The
war-whoopings of the cocks, the exhausting self-satisfaction of the hens
over a feat which, however praiseworthy in itself, lacks originality;
the yells of the pigs, and their impatient snuffings and bangings
against the kitchen door; all, all, were alike detestable, and we
welcomed almost with ecstasy the lowering of the first pair of Joyce
legs, which told us that the family, like a certain distinguished
cricketer, were going out “leg before.”
My cousin and I are old travellers, and we have two properties, a spirit
lamp and a folding indiarubber bath, without which we never take the
road. It is my belief that if my second cousin were told that a chariot
of fire was at the door, waiting to waft her to the skies, she would
rush upstairs for the indiarubber bath and the spirit lamp. After this I
suppose I need hardly say that they had accompanied us to Connemara. We
do not for an instant wish to insinuate that the bath, as an
institution, does not obtain in those parts. We have every reason to
believe that it flourishes there; but a melancholy experience has taught
us that the age of chivalry is dead, so far as hotels are concerned, and
if there is a scarcity or competition in any department, whether of
newspapers, or green peas, or baths, the most recent paper, and the
first helping, and the last available bath is reserved by the truckling
domestics for the largely-eating, heavily-tipping male traveller. We
have had moments of fury, when violent death has stalked behind the
chambermaid who has just informed us that “the last bat’ in the house is
afther goin’ in to the gentleman in No. 11.”
But at such times the remembrance of the indiarubber bath floats sweetly
into our minds; and we reflect that its tin rival would have cost
sixpence or a shilling. Its gentle influence, combined with a dash of
chill penury, represses our noble rage, and we endure the favouritism of
the hotel _employés_ with calm; knowing also that retribution is coming
for her whose duty it will be to deal with the weird and wobbling thing
that will, on the smallest provocation from the unskilled in its ways,
become a mere mass of gaping mouths, pouring forth accusation of her and
her treatment of the slightest visitor.
At the Widow Joyce’s hot water was unexpectedly abundant, and the spirit
lamp was not called into requisition. We were given to understand that
the Meejer was loud and instant in his demands for “plenty of biled
water,” but how he performed his ablutions with it it is not for us to
say. Except they lent him a churn, there was, so far as we could see, no
vessels competent to undertake the duties of a bath, and a churn in such
a capacity would, we should think, leave a good deal to be desired. We
were, however, independent of such makeshifts. The chief drawback to an
indiarubber bath is its propensity to slop; but on an earthen floor slop
is little accounted, and all would have been well if my second cousin
had not persisted in trying to empty it through the air-hole broken by
the Meejer in the window. She did this nominally out of kindness to the
Widow Joyce, but really because she thought she could pour its contents
on the widow’s cat, who was sunning herself on the window-sill. As a
matter of fact, I think our luncheon-basket suffered more than the
cat--but we will not pursue the subject. My cousin now recognises that
it requires an exceptionally high and hardy intellect to control an
indiarubber bath, even in repose, and few, very few, are able to direct
it in action.
When we went out that morning, we found it was that “gift of God, a
perfect day.” Everything looked washed and brilliant after the rain; the
little lake was twinkling all over in sharp points of light till it
looked as if it were bristling with new pins, and the mountains had left
off their half-mourning costumes of black and grey, and wore charming
confections of softest green and lavender. We stood out in the sunshine,
on the narrow strip that ran between the cottage and the lake, and threw
some languid stones at the widow’s geese, who were bobbing along before
the wind, led on their voyage by the stout disturber of our slumbers.
The air was singing with the noise of streams; each pale blue ravine had
a white line dividing it; at the back of the cottage a little over-fed
river came foaming into the lake at a pace that ought to have given it
indigestion after all it had swallowed the night before, and the plash
of the contents of the indiarubber bath, as the widow emptied it on the
step of the front door, gave the last note in the chord of water-music.
We had had an excellent breakfast, founded on fresh eggs and hot griddle
cake, with a light top dressing of potted meat; we had paid our modest
reckoning, and Pat James, the eldest hope of the house of Joyce, was
harnessing “the pony.” That “the pony” was giving Pat James a time, not
to say seven times and a half time, was obvious from the shouts that
came to us through the stable-door, but finally, round the corner of the
cow-house, Sibbie’s cross, prim face appeared with Pat James leading
her, and the governess-cart reeling over the big ruts in the lane
behind her.
“He’s very crabbed, Miss,” said Pat James, in tones of soft reproach,
“he’s afther hittin’ me the divil’s own puck inside in the stable.”
There was a spiteful gleam in Sybylla’s bright eye that spoke to the
truth of his statement, and we felt sorry for Pat James.
We took a mutually affectionate farewell of the Widow Joyce, promising
to convey her respects to the Meejer if we met him in England, as she
seemed to think probable, and we set forth to make our way back to “the
big road below,” accompanied by Pat James, whose mother had charged him
to see us safe over the first bad bit of the road.
He was an idyllically picturesque creature of seventeen or eighteen,
with large, gentle grey eyes, set in a golden-brown face several shades
darker in value than they were, and the most charming voice and manner
imaginable. The cat, on whom my cousin had basely tried to empty the
bath, came with him; sometimes strolling behind with a set face of
unconsciousness, but with a tail that twitched with inward plottings,
and sometimes making possessed scuttles on ahead, with a sort of
squirrel’s tail held high, and a little dreadful air of being moved by
some unseen power. Pat James was evidently rather ashamed of it, and at
such moments would throw stones at it to cover his confusion.
“We have it for a dog, Miss,” he said in answer to our enquiries, “and
it have the way now to be running with us when we’d be going out.”
Here he threw another stone at the cat who had usurped the position of
household dog, which had the effect of wafting it across the road under
Sibbie’s nose, and thereby alarming her seriously. He left us after
about half a mile, and when we saw him last he was sitting on a big
rock, his slouched felt hat and creamy flannel “bawneen” looking all
that could be desired against their background of clear blue sky, whilst
the cat performed unearthly gambols in the heather at his bare feet.
“After all,” we said to each other, as we turned into the main road, and
set Sibbie’s long nose for Recess, “it was just as well we missed our
way, for if we hadn’t we should have missed Pat James.”
The road that was to be our portion was the one known as the New Line,
leading out of the Recess and Clifden road into another road that leads
through the Pass of Kylemore, and on into Letterfrack, where we meant to
spend the night. Sibbie was fresh and full of going, and the long level
road, following the curves of Lough Inagh and Lough Derryclare, inspired
her with a fine and unusual zeal. The accustomed boats, each with its
little patient whipping figure, were paddling about the lakes, and,
according to our custom, we reined in the fiery Sibbie to watch them.
They were a depressing spectacle, and, as usual, our cold, though
anything but fishy, eye blighted all their chances of a rise. We left
them all flogging away like Dublin cabdrivers, and made up our minds
that if we wanted to spend thirty shillings a day on fish, we would do
it at the Stores.
Our way lay through a long up-sloping tract of heathery, boggy valley,
with the splendid towers and pinnacles of the Twelve Pins hanging high
over the lakes on our left, and on our right the last outworks of the
Maam Turc ranges rising almost from the road. It was an utterly lonely
place. The small black-faced sheep pervaded the landscape, speckling the
mountains like grains of rice, and we could see them filing along the
ledges over purple depths where more than one climber has been killed.
The little black and brindled cattle stared at us defiantly as we drove
along, and the only human creature we met on the road was a grey old
bagpiper, who looked as though he might have lost his way among the
hills some time in the last century, and had only just found the New
Line when we met him.
It certainly was a perfect day and a perfect drive. The delicious
mountain wind, which was charged with all the subtle perfumes drawn from
bog and heather; the marvellous cloud effects on the great crags of the
Twelve Pins; the sparkle and rush of the brown streams under the
innumerable hog-backed bridges; the intense blue of the lakes, even the
yellow whiteness of the slow-climbing road, all combined to fill us with
that vague delightful yearning which can only be satisfied by lunch half
an hour earlier than usual.
One only sign of civilisation did we see between Recess and Kylemore,
and it was of a wholly unexpected type. A middle-sized house,
bow-windowed, gabled, stucco-covered, hideous beyond compare, standing
in the middle of a grass plot at the foot of one of the hills, and
looking as if some vulgar-minded fairy had transported it bodily from
Brixton or Clapham Rise. It had at first the effect of being deserted,
but, as we got nearer, a melancholy old horse strayed out of a sort of
dilapidated shed and stared at us, and an outside car propped against an
elaborately gabled end showed that he was not a mere derelict. As we
drove by, a cat climbed out of one broken pane of glass, and a cock
crept in by another, and then suddenly at three of the upstairs windows
there appeared the faces of three dirty little girls. The hall door was
shut, and the thin wiry grass round the house was untrampled. No other
living thing appeared, and we can only conclude that we stumbled in upon
the middle of a fairy tale. The house, of course, was the work of
enchantment, and the three princesses, who were held there in durance
vile, were about to be rescued by the princely cock whom we had seen
forcing an entrance, while the bad fairy--the cat, naturally--had to
creep out and throw up the sponge (of which, by-the-bye, the princesses
might with advantage have made practical use).
We left the New Line just as we came in sight of the Pass of Kylemore,
and the road on which we now found ourselves wound along the shore of
the lake, according to the custom in Connemara, where, unlike the rest
of Ireland, the roads are not planted along the backs of the highest
hills procurable. We pulled up on one of the bends of the road to look
at the view and make a sketch. That is the supremest of the advantages
of driving your own donkey-cart, you can generally stop when and
wherever you like. The only exception to this rule is when, as happened
at Ballinahinch, your donkey has had too many oats.
On this occasion the donkey was quite ready to stop, and she surveyed,
with a connoisseur’s cold eye, the unsurpassable view, while the evening
clouds thronged the gap between the steep tree-covered sides of Kylemore
on one side, and the stony severities of the Diamond Mountain on the
other, and sent changing lights and shadows hurrying over the wide lake,
and drove the labouring sketcher of these things almost to madness.
Mr. Mitchell Henry’s place, Kylemore Castle, stands close in among the
woods under the side of Kylemore Mountain, with a small lake shutting it
off from the road. It is a great, imposing grey mass of turrets and
towers, and, close by, the white spire of a charming little limestone
church is reflected among the trees in the lake, and gives an amazing
finish of civilisation to the whole view--in fact, civilisation and
fuchsia hedges are the leading notes from Kylemore to Letterfrack, wide
crimson banks of fuchsia lining
[Illustration: MR. MITCHELL HENRY’S PLACE, KYLEMORE CASTLE.]
the road, and prosperous farm buildings presiding over fat turnip
fields, until the road lifts again into the barer uplands whereon is
situated the village of Letterfrack.
No map we have as yet encountered pays Letterfrack the compliment of
marking it, but it is nevertheless a very fine place, with a post and
telegraph office, an industrial school, and a tolerably regular double
row of houses of all sorts. Our various delays of luncheon and
sketching, &c., along the road had made us later than usual, and we were
only just in time for the _table d’hôte_ at Mr. O’Grady’s
fuchsia-covered hotel. There was a wonderful sunset that evening, and
after dinner we wandered out to see as much as we could before bedtime.
It was the strangest country we had yet seen. A long down-sloping tract
of semi-cultivated land, and, starting up round its outskirts, tall,
crudely conical mountains, “such a landscape as a child would draw,” my
second cousin said. There was something volcanic and threatening about
these great dark tents, showing awfully against the red background of
the sunset. We were almost glad when everything melted into a grey
sea-fog--for the sea, though out of sight, was very near--and we had to
walk back the hotel; while from a shadowy cottage back of the road the
piercing screams of a concertina rendered in maddening iteration the
first theme of the “Sweethearts” waltz. Only one incident did we meet
with on our way back. Quite suddenly, out of the greyness, three men
appeared, and as they passed us, one of them turned and said, “Genoong i
dhieri,” which, being translated, is “God speed you.”
We said feebly “Good evening,” and it was not till we were nearing the
hotel that my second cousin remembered that she should have answered,
“Ge moch hay ritth,” which is the Irish method of saying, “The same to
you.”