A DRIVE THROUGH A BOG
While Lockwood continued thus to doubt and debate with himself, Walpole was
already some miles on his way to Kilgobbin. Not, indeed, that he had made
any remarkable progress, for the ‘mare that was to rowle his honour over in
an hour and a quarter,’ had to be taken from the field where she had been
ploughing since daybreak, while ‘the boy’ that should drive her, was a
little old man who had to be aroused from a condition of drunkenness in a
hayloft, and installed in his office.
Nor were these the only difficulties. The roads that led through the bog
were so numerous and so completely alike that it only needed the dense
atmosphere of a rainy day to make it matter of great difficulty to discover
the right track. More than once were they obliged to retrace their steps
after a considerable distance, and the driver’s impatience always took the
shape of a reproach to Walpole, who, having nothing else to do, should
surely have minded where they were going. Now, not only was the traveller
utterly ignorant of the geography of the land he journeyed in, but his
thoughts were far and away from the scenes around him. Very scattered
and desultory thoughts were they, at one time over the Alps and with
‘long-agoes’: nights at Rome clashing with mornings on the Campagna; vast
salons crowded with people of many nations, all more or less busy with that
great traffic which, whether it take the form of religion, or politics, or
social intrigue, hate, love, or rivalry, makes up what we call ‘the world’;
or there were sunsets dying away rapidly--as they will do--over that great
plain outside the city, whereon solitude and silence are as much masters as
on a vast prairie of the West; and he thought of times when he rode back at
nightfall beside Nina Kostalergi, when little flashes would cross them of
that romance that very worldly folk now and then taste of, and delight in,
with a zest all the greater that the sensation is so new and strange to
them. Then there was the revulsion from the blaze of waxlights and the
glitter of diamonds, the crash of orchestras and the din of conversation,
the intoxication of the flattery that champagne only seems to ‘accentuate,’
to the unbroken stillness of the hour, when even the footfall of the horse
is unheard, and a dreamy doubt that this quietude, this soothing sense of
calm, is higher happiness than all the glitter and all the splendour of the
ball-room, and that in the dropping words we now exchange, and in the stray
glances, there is a significance and an exquisite delight we never felt
till now; for, glorious as is the thought of a returned affection, full
of ecstasy the sense of a heart all, all our own, there is, in the first
half-doubtful, distrustful feeling of falling in love, with all its chances
of success or failure, something that has its moments of bliss nothing of
earthly delight can ever equal. To the verge of that possibility Walpole
had reached--but gone no further--with Nina Kostalergi. The young men of
the age are an eminently calculating and prudent class, and they count the
cost of an action with a marvellous amount of accuracy. Is it the turf and
its teachings to which this crafty and cold-blooded spirit is owing? Have
they learned to ‘square their book’ on life by the lessons of Ascot and
Newmarket, and seen that, no matter how probably they ‘stand to win’ on
this, they must provide for that, and that no caution or foresight is
enough that will not embrace every casualty of any venture?
There is no need to tell a younger son of the period that he must not marry
a pretty girl of doubtful family and no fortune. He may have his doubts on
scores of subjects: he may not be quite sure whether he ought to remain a
Whig with Lord Russell, or go in for Odgerism and the ballot; he may be
uncertain about Colenso, and have his misgivings about the Pentateuch;
he may not be easy in his mind about the Russians in the East, or the
Americans in the West; uncomfortable suspicions may cross him that the
Volunteers are not as quick in evolution as the Zouaves, or that England
generally does not sing ‘Rule Britannia’ so lustily as she used to do. All
these are possible misgivings, but that he should take such a plunge as
matrimony, on other grounds than the perfect prudence and profit of the
investment, could never occur to him.
As to the sinfulness of tampering with a girl’s affections by what in slang
is called ‘spooning,’ it was purely absurd to think of it. You might as
well say that playing sixpenny whist made a man a gambler. And then, as
to the spooning, it was _partie égale_, the lady was no worse off than
the gentleman. If there were by any hazard--and this he was disposed to
doubt--‘affections’ at stake, the man ‘stood to lose’ as much as the woman.
But this was not the aspect in which the case presented itself, flirtation
being, in his idea, to marriage what the preliminary canter is to the
race--something to indicate the future, but so dimly and doubtfully as not
to decide the hesitation of the waverer.
If, then, Walpole was never for a moment what mothers call serious in his
attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi, he was not the less fond of her
society; he frequented the places where she was likely to be met with, and
paid her that degree of ‘court’ that only stopped short of being particular
by his natural caution. There was the more need for the exercise of this
quality at Rome, since there were many there who knew of his engagement
with his cousin, Lady Maude, and who would not have hesitated to report on
any breach of fidelity. Now, however, all these restraints were withdrawn.
They were not in Italy, where London, by a change of venue, takes its
‘records’ to be tried in the dull days of winter. They were in Ireland,
and in a remote spot of Ireland, where there were no gossips, no clubs, no
afternoon-tea committees, to sit on reputations, and was it not pleasant
now to see this nice girl again in perfect freedom? These were, loosely
stated, the thoughts which occupied him as he went along, very little
disposed to mind how often the puzzled driver halted to decide the road, or
how frequently he retraced miles of distance. Men of the world, especially
when young in life, and more realistic than they will be twenty years
later, proud of the incredulity they can feel on the score of everything
and everybody, are often fond of making themselves heroes to their own
hearts of some little romance, which shall not cost them dearly to indulge
in, and merely engage some loose-lying sympathies without in any way
prejudicing their road in life. They accept of these sentimentalities as
the vicar’s wife did the sheep in the picture, pleased to ‘have as many as
the painter would put in for nothing.’
Now, Cecil Walpole never intended that this little Irish episode--and
episode he determined it should be--should in any degree affect the
serious fortunes of his life. He was engaged to his cousin, Lady Maude
Bickerstaffe, and they would be married some day. Not that either was very
impatient to exchange present comfort--and, on her side, affluence--for a
marriage on small means, and no great prospects beyond that. They were not
much in love. Walpole knew that the Lady Maude’s fortune was small, but the
man who married her must ‘be taken care of,’ and by either side, for there
were as many Tories as Whigs in the family, and Lady Maude knew that
half-a-dozen years ago, she would certainly not have accepted Walpole; but
that with every year her chances of a better _parti_ were diminishing; and,
worse than all this, each was well aware of the inducements by which the
other was influenced. Nor did the knowledge in any way detract from their
self-complacence or satisfaction with the match.
Lady Maude was to accompany her uncle to Ireland, and do the honours of his
court, for he was a bachelor, and pleaded hard with his party on that score
to be let off accepting the viceroyalty.
Lady Maude, however, had not yet arrived, and even if she had, how should
she ever hear of an adventure in the Bog of Allen!
But was there to be an adventure? and, if so, what sort of adventure?
Irishmen, Walpole had heard, had all the jealousy about their women that
characterises savage races, and were ready to resent what, in civilised
people, no one would dream of regarding as matter for umbrage. Well, then,
it was only to be more cautious--more on one’s guard--besides the tact,
too, which a knowledge of life should give--
‘Eh, what’s this? Why are you stopping here?’
This was addressed now to the driver, who had descended from his box, and
was standing in advance of the horse.
‘Why don’t I drive on, is it?’ asked he, in a voice of despair. ‘Sure,
there’s no road.’
‘And does it stop here?’ cried Walpole in horror, for he now perceived that
the road really came to an abrupt ending in the midst of the bog.
‘Begorra, it’s just what it does. Ye see, your honour,’ added he, in a
confidential tone, ‘it’s one of them tricks the English played us in
the year of the famine. They got two millions of money to make roads in
Ireland, but they were so afraid it would make us prosperous and richer
than themselves, that they set about making roads that go nowhere.
Sometimes to the top of a mountain, or down to the sea, where there was no
harbour, and sometimes, like this one, into the heart of a bog.’
‘That was very spiteful and very mean, too,’ said Walpole.
‘Wasn’t it just mean, and nothing else! and it’s five miles we’ll have to
go back now to the cross-roads. Begorra, your honour, it’s a good dhrink
ye’ll have to give me for this day’s work.’
‘You forget, my friend, that but for your own confounded stupidity, I
should have been at Kilgobbin Castle by this time.’
‘And ye’ll be there yet, with God’s help!’ said he, turning the horse’s
head. ‘Bad luck to them for the road-making, and it’s a pity, after all, it
goes nowhere, for it’s the nicest bit to travel in the whole country.’
‘Come now, jump up, old fellow, and make your beast step out. I don’t want
to pass the night here.’
‘You wouldn’t have a dhrop of whisky with your honour?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Nor even brandy?’
‘No, not even brandy.’
‘Musha, I’m thinking you must be English,’ muttered he, half sulkily.
‘And if I were, is there any great harm in that?’
‘By coorse not; how could ye help it? I suppose we’d all of us be better
if we could. Sit a bit more forward, your honour; the belly band does be
lifting her, and as you’re doing nothing, just give her a welt of that
stick in your hand, now and then, for I lost the lash off my whip, and I’ve
nothing but this!’ And he displayed the short handle of what had once been
a whip, with a thong of leather dangling at the end.
‘I must say I wasn’t aware that I was to have worked my passage,’ said
Walpole, with something between drollery and irritation.
‘She doesn’t care for bating--stick her with the end of it. That’s the way.
We’ll get on elegant now. I suppose you was never here before?’
‘No; and I think I can promise you I’ll not come again.’
‘I hope you will, then, and many a time too. This is the Bog of Allen
you’re travelling now, and they tell there’s not the like of it in the
three kingdoms.’
‘I trust there’s not!’
‘The English, they say, has no bogs. Nothing but coal.’
‘Quite true.’
‘Erin, _ma bouchal_ you are! first gem of the say! that’s what Dan
O’Connell always called you. Are you gettin’ tired with the stick?’
‘I’m tired of your wretched old beast, and your car, and yourself, too,’
said Walpole; ‘and if I were sure that was the castle yonder, I’d make my
way straight to it on foot.’
‘And why wouldn’t you, if your honour liked it best? Why would ye be
beholden to a car if you’d rather walk. Only mind the bog-holes: for
there’s twenty feet of water in some of them, and the sides is so straight,
you’ll never get out if you fall in.’
‘Drive on, then. I’ll remain where I am; but don’t bother me with your
talk; and no more questioning.’
‘By coorse I won’t--why would I? Isn’t your honour a gentleman, and haven’t
you a right to say what you plaze; and what am I but a poor boy, earning
his bread. Just the way it is all through the world; some has everything
they want and more besides, and others hasn’t a stitch to their backs, or
maybe a pinch of tobacco to put in a pipe.’
This appeal was timed by seeing that Walpole had just lighted a fresh
cigar, whose fragrant fumes were wafted across the speaker’s nose.
Firm to his determination to maintain silence, Walpole paid no attention
to the speech, nor uttered a word of any kind; and as a light drizzling
rain had now begun to fall, and obliged him to shelter himself under an
umbrella, he was at length saved from his companion’s loquacity. Baffled,
but not beaten, the old fellow began to sing, at first in a low, droning
tone; but growing louder as the fire of patriotism warmed him, he shouted,
to a very wild and somewhat irregular tune, a ballad, of which Walpole
could not but hear the words occasionally, while the tramping of the
fellow’s feet on the foot-board kept time to his song:--
‘’Tis our fun they can’t forgive us,
Nor our wit so sharp and keen;
But there’s nothing that provokes them
Like our wearin’ of the green.
They thought Poverty would bate us,
But we’d sell our last “boneen”
And we’ll live on cowld paytatees,
All for wearin’ of the green.
Oh, the wearin’ of the green--the wearin’ of the green!
‘Tis the colour best becomes us
Is the wearin’ of the green!’
‘Here’s a cigar for you, old fellow, and stop that infernal chant.’
‘There’s only five verses more, and I’ll sing them for your honour before I
light the baccy.’
‘If you do, then, you shall never light baccy of mine. Can’t you see that
your confounded song is driving me mad?’
‘Faix, ye’re the first I ever see disliked music,’ muttered he, in a tone
almost compassionate.
And now as Walpole raised the collar of his coat to defend his ears, and
prepared, as well as he might, to resist the weather, he muttered, ‘And
this is the beautiful land of scenery; and this the climate; and this the
amusing and witty peasant we read of. I have half a mind to tell the world
how it has been humbugged!’ And thus musing, he jogged on the weary road,
nor raised his head till the heavy clash of an iron gate aroused him, and
he saw that they were driving along an approach, with some clumps of pretty
but young timber on either side.
‘Here we are, your honour, safe and sound,’ cried the driver, as proudly
as if he had not been five hours over what should have been done in one
and a half. ‘This is Kilgobbin. All the ould trees was cut down by Oliver
Cromwell, they say, but there will be a fine wood here yet. That’s the
castle you see yonder, over them trees; but there’s no flag flying. The
lord’s away. I suppose I’ll have to wait for your honour? You’ll be coming
back with me?’
‘Yes, you’ll have to wait.’ And Walpole looked at his watch, and saw it was
already past five o’clock.