THE TRIALS OF A CONDUCTOR
WE took a last look about the town, next morning, not forgetting the
Glendining monument, which has the fascination supreme ugliness
sometimes possesses; and then we walked on down to the station, where a
loquacious old woman accosted Betty with a tale of woe which culminated
in an appeal for aid; and it was suddenly borne in on me that not once
in the whole of Connaught had we encountered a beggar. Not even a child
had held out its hand or indicated in any way that it desired or
expected alms. And I do not know that I can pay any greater compliment
to the people of that distressful province than by setting down this
fact. We were in Mayo now--and Mayo is different!
The first town out of Westport is Castlebar, which, as Murray puts it,
"has all the buildings usual in a county town, viz. Asylum, Gaol,
Court-house and Barracks," and they can be seen looming up above the
other buildings as the train passes, some half mile away. Beyond
Castlebar, the line crosses the so-called plains of Mayo, a vast expanse
of naked limestone rock, very ugly and sinister; and then to the left is
a village dominated by a round tower; and finally we came to
Claremorris, where we were to change cars.
Claremorris, no doubt, also has an asylum, a jail, a court-house and a
barracks; but we didn't go out to see, for nobody seemed to know just
when our train might be expected, and we were afraid to run any risks.
So we sat down on the platform, and Betty fell into talk with a clean,
nice-looking old man, who was carefully gathering up all the dodgers and
posters and old newspapers that were lying around, and folding them up
and putting them in his pocket, I suppose to read at leisure after he
got home. And he told about where he lived, and how many children he
had, and described the disposition of each of them; and then he
questioned Betty about her condition in life, and age, and size of
family, and all the time he was looking intently at her mouth.
"Tell me, miss," he said, at last, "is them your own teeth you've got?"
"Indeed they are," laughed Betty, and clashed them to prove it.
"I would hardly believe it," he went on, and looked closer. "I niver saw
any like them."
"They're strong as iron," and Betty clashed them again.
"And white as snow. I wish my daughter was here, for she will not
believe me when I tell her."
Good teeth, as I have remarked before, are the exception in Ireland; and
most of those that appear good at first glance, turn out, at second
glance, to be fabrications of the dentist. Perhaps it has always been
so. Irish poets are fond of dwelling on the glories of Irish hair, and
it is still glorious; they tell over and over again of the brightness of
Irish eyes, and they are still bright; they describe how many times the
beauty of Irish complexions, and there is none to match them anywhere
else in the world; but I do not remember that any of them refer to
Irish teeth. It is a pity, for many a pretty face is ruined by the ugly
teeth a smile discloses.
We got away from Claremorris, finally, after narrowly escaping being
carried back to Westport, and proceeded northward over a new line which
has been built across the plains of County Mayo. There were few
passengers, and we had a compartment to ourselves, except for two
priests who rode with us for a short distance, and who wanted to know
all about President Wilson, of whom they had heard many splendid things.
Just where we crossed into County Sligo I don't know; but we were in it
at Collooney, a village more prosperous than most, with a number of
mills; and then we came to Ballysadare, where there are some famous
salmon fisheries.
As we ran on past Ballysadare, a hill like a truncated cone loomed up on
the left, and in the centre of the level top was something that looked
like a huge bump, and as we drew nearer, we saw that it was a great
cairn of loose stones piled on top of each other. The hill was
Knocknarea, and the cairn, which is six hundred feet around and
thirty-five feet high, is said to have been piled over the body of
Meave, Queen of Connaught, by her tribesmen, in the first century after
Christ. Meave was killed while bathing in Lough Ree by Conal Carnach,
who, angry at her share in the death of the mighty Cuchulain, put a
stone into a sling and cast it at her with such sure aim that he
inflicted a mortal wound. There is some dispute as to whether she was
really borne to the top of Knocknarea for burial; but the cairn is
called "Miscan Meave," or "Meave's Heap," and if it does not actually
cover her body, it probably commemorates her death. She lived so long
ago that her name has passed into folk-lore--in England as Queen Mab.
Knocknarea, with its strange shape, dominates the whole landscape, and
is in sight all the way to Sligo, for the train describes a half-circle
around it. Sligo itself is a considerable town, with more bustle about
its streets than is usual in western Ireland, and the proprietor of its
principal hotel is a canny individual who follows the precept, once so
popular with American railroads, of charging all the traffic will bear.
When I asked the price of a double room, he looked me over, and then he
said ten shillings the night.
"Ten shillings a night!" I echoed, in some surprise, for I had not
expected to encounter rates so metropolitan on the west coast of
Ireland; and then I asked to see the room, thinking it might be
something palatial. But it was quite an ordinary room; clean and airy
and comfortable enough; but I judged the usual charge for it was about
five shillings. There are few things I detest more than being
overcharged. "Come along," I said to Betty. "There's another hotel in
this town; we'll have a look at it."
The proprietor was waiting nervously in the lobby.
"What's the matter?" he asked, as we came down. "Isn't the room all
right?"
"Oh, it's right enough," I said; "but I'm not going to pay two prices
for it."
"But this is the best hotel in Sligo," he protested. "There's an
American millionaire and his wife staying here right now."
"Well, I'm not a millionaire," I said; "and even if I were, I wouldn't
pay ten shillings for that room," and I started to walk out, for I
didn't want to argue about it.
But he followed me to the door.
"What would you pay, now?" he asked, ingratiatingly.
I looked at him in surprise, for I hadn't had any idea of fixing his
rates for him.
"Five shillings," I said.
"You may have it for six," he countered.
I hesitated. I didn't like the man; but it was a nice room, and the
dining-room looked clean. Probably we should fare worse if we went
farther.
"All right," I agreed finally; and I am bound to admit that he never
showed any malice, but treated us as nicely as possible during all our
stay in Sligo. Perhaps he is a retired jarvey, and this is just his way
of doing business.
* * * * *
Sligo, with its well-built houses and bustling streets, has every
appearance of being prosperous, and I have been told that it is one of
the few towns in Ireland which is growing in population. It has had its
share of battles and sieges, for Red Hugh O'Donnell captured it from the
English, and then the English captured it from Red Hugh, and camped in
the monastery and did what they could to destroy it; but enough of it
remains to make a most interesting ruin, and we set out at once to see
it.
It is a Norman foundation, dating from 1252, but a good deal of the
existing structure is later than that. The most interesting feature, to
my mind, is the row of eight narrow lancet windows lighting the choir of
the church. I like these early lancets, and I am inclined to question
whether the wide windows and elaborate tracery of later Gothic are as
dignified and severely beautiful. There is a grace and simplicity about
these tall, narrow openings, with their pointed arches, which cannot be
surpassed.
There are some interesting monuments, too, in the choir, notably a most
elaborate one to O'Conor Sligo against the south wall. O'Conor and his
wife, life-size, kneel facing each other in two niches, over and below
and on either side of which are sculptured cherubs and saints and skulls
and swords and drums and spades and hooks and hour-glasses, together
with the arms of the family and an appropriate motto or two. From the
choir, a low door gives access to the charnel-house, and beyond that is
the graveyard; while from the nave there is an entrance to the
cloisters, three sides of which are very well preserved, though the
level of the ground almost touches the base of the pillars.
It is, I should say, at least four feet higher than it was when the
cloisters were built, and this accretion is mostly human dust, for the
graveyard has been in active use for a good many centuries. Burials grew
so excessive, at last, that before one body could be placed in the
ground, another had to be dug out of it; and gruesome stories are told
of the ruthless way in which old skeletons were torn from the graves and
thrown out upon the ground and allowed to lie there, a scandal to the
whole county. All that has changed now, and there wasn't a bone in sight
the day we visited the place. Indeed, the old caretaker waxed very
indignant about the way he had been wronged.
"'Tis in that book you have in your hand the slander is," he said, and
nodded toward my red-bound Murray, and I read the sentence aloud:
"The exposure of human remains, and the general
neglect here and in other church ruins, are a
scandal to the local authorities."
"Now, I ask ye to look around, sir," continued the caretaker, excitedly,
"and tell me if ye see anywhere aught to warrant such words as them
ones. Human remains, indeed! Ye see, sir, it was like this. The day the
felly was here who wrote that book, I had just picked up a bone which
had got uncovered on me, and slipped it under a tomb temporary like,
till I could find time to bury it decent; and then he come by, and saw
it, and that was what he writ. The bones do be workin' up to the surface
all the time--and how can that be helped, I should like to know? But I
put them under again as soon as I see them. As for neglect--look about
ye and tell me if ye see neglect."
I assured him that everything seemed to be in good shape, for the grass
had just been cut and everything was very tidy. And then he told me that
he and his helper had been working on the place for a week past,
because, in a few days, the Irish Antiquarian Society was to meet at
Sligo, and its members would be poking their noses about everywhere.
From which I inferred that, perhaps, at ordinary times, the place may be
rather ragged, and that an occasional bone _may_ escape the guardian's
watchful eye.
When we got back to the hotel and entered the dining-room for dinner, we
were amused to find that the American millionaire and wife, of whom the
proprietor had boasted, were no other than the personally-conducted
couple who had come with us on the coach from Leenane to Westport. They
were eating grumpily, while their guide, who ate with them, was doing
his best to impart an air of cheerfulness to the meal by chattering away
about the country. The head-waiter hovered near in a tremor of anxiety,
and almost jumped out of his skin whenever the guide raised his finger.
I went into the smoking-room, later on, to write some letters; and
presently the door opened, and the guide slipped in, and closed the door
carefully, and sat down with a sigh, and got out a pipe and filled and
lighted it, and rang for a whiskey and soda. And then I caught his eye,
and I couldn't help smiling at its expression, and in a minute we were
talking. He was a special Cook guide, he told me, and the two people
with him were from Chicago.
"I fancied," he went on, "when I took this engagement, that I was going
to have an easy time of it with just two people, but I have never worked
so hard in my life. The man is all right; but all the woman wants to do
is to keep moving on. You know Glengarriff? Well, then you know what a
jolly place it is, and what a splendid trip it is over the hills from
Macroom. Would you believe me, that woman would not even turn her head
to look at that view. I would say to her, 'Now, Mrs. Blank, isn't that
superb!' and she would just bat her eyelids; and when we got to
Glengarriff, she raised a most awful row because we had to stay there
over night, and because there was no light but candles in the bedrooms.
"I don't know why such people travel at all," he went on wearily. "Yes I
do, too--she travels just to buy post-cards and send them back home. She
buys a hundred at every stop, and as soon as she gets them addressed and
posted, she is ready to start on. Ruins? Why she won't look at ruins.
She wouldn't even get out of the carriage at Muckross Abbey--but she
thinks that new Catholic cathedral at Killarney a marvel of beauty. It
is the only thing she has grown enthusiastic about since she has been in
Ireland. We had planned to stay at Killarney four days, but she wanted
to go on before she had been there four hours. I tell you, sir, it's
disheartening."
I asked him how long he had been conducting for Cook, and he said only
for a short time, for he was an actor by profession, and hoped to return
to the stage some day. But by a run of bad luck, he had been involved in
three or four failures, and had been driven to Cook's to make a living.
He had been to America, and he told me with what company, but I have
forgotten, and then he was going on to tell me what roles he had played
and which of them had been his greatest successes, and the worn,
harassed look left his face--and just then the door opened and the
Chicagoan stuck his head in, and frowned when he saw us talking and
laughing together; and my companion grew suddenly sober, and went out to
see what was wanted, and I didn't see him again. I suppose they were on
their way at daybreak.
Sligo is the centre of one of the most interesting districts in Ireland
for the antiquarian. There is that great cairn on the top of Knocknarea,
and on the plain of Carrowmore near the mountain's foot is such a
collection of megalithic remains as exists nowhere else in the British
Isles, while on the summit of a hill overshadowing Lough Gill is a
remarkable enclosure, resembling Stonehenge, but far more extensive.
It was for Carrowmore we set off on foot, next morning, determined to
spend the day, which was beautifully bright and warm, in a leisurely
ramble over the plain, which, four thousand years ago, was the scene of
a great battle, in which the De Dananns were again the victors, as they
were at Moytura, below Lough Mask. This battle is known as Northern
Moytura, and here the De Dananns met and conquered Balor of the Evil Eye
and his Formorians, and after that they were undisputed masters of Erin
for a thousand years, until the Milesians, or Gaels, sailing from
south-western Europe, beached their boats upon the shore of Kenmare Bay.
It was to mark the graves of the warriors who fell in that dim-distant
fray that the circles and cromlechs which dot its site were probably
erected; but the Irish have another theory, which we shall hear
presently.
I shall not soon forget that walk, at first through the busy streets of
the town, past solid, well-built houses of brick, with bright shops on
the lower floor and living-rooms above; then into the poorer and
quainter quarter, where the houses are all one-storied, built of rubble,
roofed with straw, and, as we could see through the open doors, stuffed
with trash, as all these little Irish houses seem to be; and finally
out along the country road, between fragrant hedges, occasionally
passing a pretty villa, set in the midst of handsome grounds--and then
we came to a place where the road branched, and we stopped.
Our guide-book gave no definite directions as to how to get to
Carrowmore. "On Carrowmore," it says, with magnificent vagueness,
"within three miles south-west of Sligo, is a large and most interesting
series of megalithic remains"; nor does it tell how far the remains are
apart, or how to find them. If it had been Baedeker, now, we would not
have stood there hesitant at the cross-roads, because he would not only
have told us which way to turn, but would have provided a diagram, and
led us step by step from one cromlech to the other. There is no Baedeker
for Ireland, which is a pity, for I have never yet found a guide to
equal that painstaking German.
There was no one to ask, so we took the road which led toward
Knocknarea; but after we had gone some distance, a telegraph-boy came by
on his wheel, and told us that we should have taken the other road; so
we walked back to the branch and turned up it. The road mounted
steadily, and after about a mile of up-hill work, we came to a cluster
of thatched houses, and I went up to one of them to ask the way of a
woman who was leaning over her half-door.
I think I have already said somewhere that Irish directions are the
vaguest in the world--perhaps this is the reason Murray is so vague,
since it is written by an Irishman!--and the conversation on this
occasion ran something like this:
"Good morning," I began. "It is a fine day, isn't it?"
"It is so, glory be to God."
"Can you tell me how to get to the cromlechs?"
"The cromlechs? What might that be?"
"The big stone monuments that are back here in the fields somewhere."
"Ah--so it is the big stones you would be after?"
"Yes. Can you tell me how to get to them?"
"I might," said the woman cautiously. She had been looking at me all
this time with the brightest of eyes, and then she looked at Betty, who
had remained behind at the gate. "Is yon one your wife?" she asked, with
a nod in Betty's direction.
"Yes."
"You would be from America."
"Yes."
"Have you people hereabouts?"
"Oh, no; we haven't any relatives in Ireland."
"And would you be comin' all this way just to see the big stones?"
"We want to see everything," I explained. "The stones are near here,
aren't they?"
"They are so. Just a step up yonder lane, and you are right among them."
She was preparing to ask further questions; but this direction seemed
definite enough, so I thanked her and fled, and Betty and I proceeded to
take a step up the lane. We took many steps without seeing any stones;
and finally we turned up a narrow by-lane, and came to a tiny cottage,
hidden in the trees. We were greeted by a noisy barking, and then a man
hurried out of the cottage and quieted the dog and told us not to be
alarmed. We told him we were looking for the stones.
"There be some just a small step from here," he said; "but you would
never find them by yourselves, so I will go with you. You are from
America, I'm thinking?"
"Yes," I admitted, wondering, with sinking heart, if it was going to
begin all over again.
"I have four brothers in America, and all doing well, glory be to God,
though seldom it is that I hear from them."
"How did you happen to stay in Ireland?" I asked.
"One must stay with the mother," he explained simply. "I was the oldest,
so that was for me to do."
He was a nice-looking man of middle age, with a kindly, intelligent
face, and eyes very bright; and while his clothes were old and worn,
they were clean.
"She is dead now, God rest her soul," he added, with a little convulsion
of the face I didn't understand till later, "and I am alone here."
"What," I said; "not married?"
"No," he answered, with a smile, "there's just Tricker and me."
"Tricker?"
"Sure that's the dog, and a great help he is to me. Come here, Tricker,
and show the lady and gentleman what you can do." The shaggy black dog
came and sat down in front of him, looking up at him with shining eyes.
"You would hardly believe it, miss, but Tricker gathers all my eggs for
me, and he can tell a duck egg from a hen egg. If I do be having a bit
of company, I will tell Tricker to go out and bring in some duck eggs,
and I have never known him to make a mistake. Or perhaps I will be
wanting some water from the spring, and I just give Tricker the bucket
and send him for it. Or perhaps I will be wanting some coal, and then I
just tell Tricker to fetch it."
There was a little pile of coal lying in one corner of the yard, and I
had noticed it with some surprise, for we had seen nothing but turf in
the west of Ireland; but our host told us that the coal came from
Donegal and that it was better than turf and even cheaper in the long
run.
"Tricker," he said, "take in some coal!"
Tricker ran to the coal and picked up a lump in his jaws and trotted
through the open door of the house and laid the lump down on the hearth
inside; then he came back and took in another lump, and then a third,
and finally his master stopped him.
"He would be taking it all in if I left him to himself," he said. "He is
not very well, for he was kicked by the mare the other day, and I
thought for a time he was going to die on me. But he did not, glory be
to God, and I think he will soon be well again. And now, if you will
come this way, I will be showing you the stones."
He led the way across a field, which he said was his, and then over a
stone wall into another; and in the middle of it was a depressed tomb
with slabbed sides, in which, I suppose, at some far-off time, the body
of some chieftain had been laid; and then our guide showed us the path
which we must follow to get to the cromlechs; and then I put my hand in
my pocket.
"Ah, no," he protested, drawing back.
"For Tricker," I said; "to get him some dainty, because he's ill."
His face softened.
"Ah, well, sir," he said, "if you put it like that, I'll take it, and
Tricker and I both thank ye kindly; and you, miss. God speed ye," and he
stood watching us for quite a while, as we made our way up toward the
road which ran along the edge of the ridge above us.
As soon as we gained it, we saw the first of the cromlechs; and then, in
a farther field, we saw another--great stones, standing upright in a
circle of smaller ones, with a mighty covering slab on top, grey and
lichened, and most impressive. They are supposed, as I have said, to
mark the graves of warriors who fell in battle four thousand years ago;
but the Irish peasantry explain them in a more romantic way, as the beds
which Diarmuid prepared nightly for his mistress, Grainne, during the
year they fled together up and down Ireland to escape the wrath of her
husband, the mighty Finn MacCool.
Grainne, you will remember, was the daughter of King Cormac, and she it
was who won that race up Slievenamon for the honour of Finn's hand.
There was a splendid wedding at Tara; but as Grainne sat at the feast,
she looked at the man she had just married, and saw that the weight of
years was on him; and then she looked about the board and noticed a
"freckled, sweet-worded man, who had the curling, dusky black hair, and
cheeks berry-red," and she asked who he was, and she was told that he
was Diarmuid, "the white-toothed, of lightsome countenance, the best
lover of women and of maidens that was in the whole world." And Grainne
looked on him again, and her heart melted in her bosom; and she mixed a
drink and sent it about the board, until there came upon all the company
"a stupor of sleep and deep slumber."
Then she arose from her seat and went straight to Diarmuid, and laid a
bond upon him that he should take her away; and Diarmuid, who was leal
to Finn, asked his comrades what he should do, and they all said he must
bide by the bond she had laid on him, for he was bound to refuse no
woman, though his death should come of it.
"Is that the counsel of you all to me?" asked Diarmuid.
"It is," said Ossian and Oscar and all the rest; and then Diarmuid rose
from his place, and his eyes were wet with tears, and he said farewell
to his comrades, for he knew that from that day he was no longer a
member of the goodly company of the Fianna, but only a hunted man.
And he and Grainne fled from Tara to Athlone, and crossed the Shannon by
the ford there, with Finn's trackers close behind them; and for a year
and a day they travelled through the length and breadth of Ireland; and
every night Diarmuid built for his love a chamber of mighty stones, and
carpeted it with sweet grass, and crept softly in beside her and held
her in his arms till morning, so that no hurt might come to her. And
there the chambers remain to this day, 366 of them, to prove the story
true.
I wish I could tell the remainder of the legend, but there is no space
here; besides you will find it and many others like it very beautifully
told in one of the most fascinating Irish books I know--Stephen Gwynne's
"Fair Hills of Ireland"; a book which I have pillaged remorselessly, and
which I recommend to every one planning to visit the Island of the
Saints.
There are really more than 366 of the cromlechs, though nobody knows the
exact number; and they are the most venerable monuments reared by man in
Ireland. The growth of peat around certain of them proves that they have
stood where they now stand for at least four thousand years. How the
huge covering stones, sometimes weighing hundreds of tons, were lifted
into place, no one knows, just as no one knows how the Egyptians raised
their great monoliths from the quarry.
There are two most impressive cromlechs at Carrowmore, quite close
together, and my pictures of them are opposite the next page. The first
one we came to stands near the road in a pasture, and it was merely a
question of clambering over a wall to get to it; but to reach the other,
it was necessary to cross a newly-cultivated field; and as there were
some men working in it, I asked permission to do so.
"Ah," said one of them, "so it is the big stones you have come to see.
You're very welcome. I only wish you could take them with you."
"So do I," I said. "We haven't anything like them in America. Everybody
would want to see them."
"That is just the trouble here. There are always people coming to see
them, and they tramp about over my field, with no thought of the damage
they will be doing, and without asking my leave, as you have done. And
then it is at least half an acre of good land that the stones make good
for naught, and good land is not that plentiful in Ireland that we can
afford to waste any of it. And then there's the trouble of ploughing
around them."
[Illustration: CROMLECHS AT CARROWMORE]
The farmer was right, in a way, for a half acre of good land would have
been of far more value to him than this beautiful cromlech in the midst
of its circle of stones; but how happy I would have been to give it half
an acre, if I could have wafted it home to America! The circle is
considerably more than a hundred feet in diameter, and the stones which
compose it are great boulders, four or five feet high, set on end. The
cromlech itself is very imposing, with massive side supports, six or
seven feet high, and a mighty covering stone, flat on the under side. It
is like a giant bestriding the landscape; and Betty remarked that it
reminded her of the legs of Uncle Pumblechook, with several miles of
open country showing between them. My picture of it has Knocknarea in
the background, and if you look closely, you will see the little bump in
the middle of its summit which is the cairn of Queen Meave.
The hill was only a mile or so away, and I proposed going over to it,
but Betty vetoed that, for it meant some stiff climbing, and we had
already walked a good many miles; so we started back slowly along the
road to Sligo, and a beautiful road it was, with the purple hills in the
distance, and the green rolling fields on either side, and the
whitewashed cottages gathered close beside it. And the doors of all of
them were wide open, and the people who lived in them, hearing our
footsteps, came out to pass the time of day and make some comment on the
weather; and one old woman, who had been hoeing her potatoes, was so
eager to talk that we stopped and sat down on the low wall in front of
her cottage, and stayed for half an hour.
She began with the usual questions--where we were from, if we were
married, how old we were, and so on; and then she started to tell us
about herself, omitting no detail, however intimate.
"I have been to America," she said; "for seven years I lived there, and
a grand place it is; and you will be wondering why I ever came back to
County Sligo. 'Twas because of this bit of land, which would be mine,
and this houseen, which is a poor one, but I was born there, and I will
die there, glory be to God. I would ask you in, but it is that dirty, I
am ashamed of it. There is so much to be done in the field that I have
had no time for the house; besides, I am getting old and my legs are
very bad. I got a bottle from the doctor, and I do be taking a sip of it
now and then, but it does me no good. I am thinking there is nothing
will cure me.
"We were not always down in the world like this," she rattled on. "There
was a time when we were well off. That was before my man was hurted. He
was a county councillor, then, and as handsome a man as you would be
seeing in a day's walk; and many's the time he has gone to Dublin with a
flower in his button-hole, and me looking after him with pride, for he
was always a good head to me. But a horse kicked him, and broke his leg
and his arm, and he has not had the right use of either since; and so
we started going down; and when one starts doing that, there's no
stopping.
"That's himself going there," she added, indicating an unkempt figure
limping painfully along the road with the help of a heavy cane. "He's
ashamed for you to see him, he's that dirty;" but curiosity proved
stronger than pride, in the end, and he finally came hobbling up to us,
a wreck of a man with dirty clothes and unkempt hair and unshaven face
and battered derby hat--and yet one could see that he had been a
handsome fellow once.
We mentioned our stopping at the house of the bachelor who owned
Tricker, and both our companions grew serious.
"Ah, poor boy," said the woman, "he does be havin' a hard time. There
was no one but his mother--all the others had gone to America; and he
looked after her as careful as a daughter could; but she was very
feeble, and he come home from the field one day to find her dead on the
hearth. She had fallen in the fire and burned, bein' too weak to get up.
It was a great shock to him, her dyin' in a way so painful and without a
priest; and we all felt for him, though he was to blame for not marryin'
some girl who could have looked after the old woman. He is well off, but
there's no girl could put the comether on him, though many have
tried,--nice girls, too, as nice as ever put a shawl across their
heads."
I remarked that we had been surprised at the number of bachelors in
Ireland; we had supposed that all Irishmen married and had "long
families," but it was not so at all. Some were too poor to marry, and
that we could understand; but many that were not poor preferred to stay
single. There were the Rafferty brothers, owners of the Connemara marble
quarry; there was the proprietor of the hotel at Castleconnell; and now
here was this man.
"It is so," the old woman agreed. "There be many bachelors
hereabouts--men too who could well afford to take a wife. The priest
gets very warm over it. Not long ago, he said some words about it in the
church--he said if it was left to him, he would be puttin' all these
bachelors in a boat with a rotten bottom, and sendin' them out to sea,
and sink or swim, small loss it would be whatever happened. For he said
they were poor creatures, who thought of nothing but their own pleasure,
who wasted their money in Dublin, instead of raising a family with it,
and who would come to no good end. And I'm thinking that was nothing to
what he had been saying to them in private. For of course, before he
said anything in public, he had been after them to let him speak to the
fathers of some of the nice girls there be about here."
Among the Irish, especially the Irish peasantry, marriage is still
largely a matter of arrangement between the families of the young
people; though I doubt if it is ever quite so carelessly done as in one
of Lever's books, where, after the bargain has been made, the father of
three daughters asks the suitor which one it is he wants, and the suitor
has them all brought in so that he may inspect them before he makes up
his mind. It is always a solemn occasion, however, with the suitor's
relatives ranged along one side of a table, and the bride's relatives
along the other--male relatives, be it understood, for it is not lucky
for a woman to take part in a match-making; and the bargaining is very
shrewd and quite without sentiment; but the marriages thus arranged
usually turn out well. For, if they are without romance, they are also
without illusion. The woman knows beforehand what will be expected of
her as wife and mother; the man is quite aware that matrimony has its
rough side; and so there is no rude awakening for either. It is really a
partnership, in which both are equal, and which both work equally hard
to make successful.
But I suspect that, in Ireland as elsewhere, marriage is not the
inevitable thing it once was, especially for the men. It may be, as the
priest said, that they have grown selfish and think only of their own
comfort; or it may be that their needs have become more complex and
their ideals harder to satisfy. Whatever the cause, Ireland certainly
has her full share of bachelors.
* * * * *
We went to a picture-show at Sligo, that night, and I have never seen a
livelier audience. There was, of course, a cowboy film which was
received with the keenest pleasure; and there was a lurid melodrama,
which culminated in the hero flinging the villain over a high cliff, at
which those present rose to their feet and stamped and cheered; and then
King George was shown reviewing the Life Guards, and the crowd watched
in moody silence--a silence that was painful and threatening. As the
troops marched past, gallant and glittering, a sight to stir the blood,
there was not the suspicion of a cheer or hand-clap--just a strange,
breathless silence. We were to witness the same thing thereafter in
"loyal" Derry--the most convincing evidence imaginable of the feeling
toward England which every Irishman, Protestant or Catholic, carries
deep in his heart.