[Illustration: 078]
WE left Galway for Clifden at 9.30 next morning. The public conveyance
is a large-paper edition of the outside car, with an elevated seat for
the driver. There is one place to be avoided on some of these vehicles,
that nearest to the horses on the off-side, on account of the iron bar
of the drag, which operates from time to time very disagreeably on the
back and shoulders of the contiguous traveller. The scenery gradually
increases in interest. First we have trees, farms, houses, and the quiet
aspect of country life; then, we have delightful views at intervals,
of Lough Corrib and its islands, and the landscape becomes diversified,
less under culture, and more wild in consequence; and, lastly, the
sublime and solemn beauty of the mountains and lakes of Connamara.
Some of the residences amused us greatly. You see a large lodge by the
wayside, and look out, in the distance, for some princely castle, or
baronial hall, at any rate; but there is no need for any such optical
exertion, the mansion being close to you, eighty yards perhaps from the
entrance, and only a size larger, (a small size larger, as they say at
the glove-shops), than the lodge itself.
[Illustration: 079]
Some of the gateways, too, would have been very imposing, if most
of their principal ornaments had not been mutilated or missing. Our
favourite among the more perfect specimens, was adorned with a stone
pine-apple on one pillar, and a Swede turnip or pumpkin on the other;
and had a rich effect. Most of the field-gates have massive pillars of
stone, and would render the inclosures most secure, if there were not,
now and then, easy apertures through the turf-dykes, which form the
fence hard by, suggesting the idea of a front door barred and locked
against thieves, with one of the hall-windows wide open!
[Illustration: 080]
As to the people, there is little difference, so far as appearance
is concerned, between Paddy in England and Paddy at home; the same
flaccidity of hat; the same amplitude of shirt-collar, which would
cut his ears off if it were severely starched; the same dress coat of
frieze; drab breeches (aisy at the knees), grey-stockings, and brogues.
The same in aspect, but in action how different! In England, he will
rise with the sun, reap under its burning heat until it sets, and dance
in the barn at midnight. In Ireland, he seems to be always either going
to his work, or looking at his work, or resting from his work, or coming
away from his work, in brief, to be doing nothing, cordially assisted by
his friends and neighbours. The potatoes will prevent his famishing from
hunger, if the season be propitious; the peat-stack will keep him
from perishing by cold; and His Royal Highness, the Pig, will pay the
landlord his rent.
The women are, for the most part, good-looking, erect, and graceful
movers (for there are no corns in Connaught); and, from the bright
colours of their costume, their red petticoats and blue cloaks, are
ever a pleasant refreshment to the eye, and picturesque addition to the
scene. They are uniformly and painfully shy. Francis, and I, are both of
us what may be termed remarkably handsome men, but they wouldn't look
at us; and I shall never forget the agony of a young housemaid, who,
assisting the waiter one morning with a tub of water to my room, caught
sight of my dressing-gown through the open door, and instantly, though
the garment is of a pleasing pattern, and descends quite to the ground,
rushed off, like Dorothea from Cardenio and his companions, and, I
verily believe, is running now.
As regards children,--there are crosses in Ireland, which are saluted
by wives, who would be mothers also; and these crosses, or something
equally efficacious, appear to be universally embraced. Every cottage
sent forth a running accompaniment (_allegro_) to the car, healthful,
cheery children, and would be beautiful, in spite of their wretched
homes, and meagre diet, and rags, if their mothers could be induced to
recognise the utility of soap and a comb. Their raiment is very scant
and curious. Ould Larry's coat, with the tails cut off, makes young
Larry “an entire juvenile suit,” and the inexpressibles of Phelim _père_
form a noble panoply for Phelim _fils_, with his little arms thrust
through the pocket-holes. These tatterdemalions beg as they run by
the car, but seem indifferent as to the result, enjoying their
“constitutional,” and parting from us with a pleasant smile whether
we gave to them or not. Some of a literary turn of mind asked rather
urgently for “penny buy book,” but the imposition was a little too
patent, so very far from a bookseller's shop, and we recommended them to
quench their thirst for knowledge in the only volumes to be perused
(and that gratuitously) in the neighbourhood, the “books in the running
brooks.”
A few professional beggars come round, when there is a change of
horses (excellent horses they are), but are neither so frequent nor so
importunate, as we had been led to expect. One old lady had evidently
got the last new thing in begging, a letter to her “poor darlint boy as
was gone to Merrikey, and would ye bestow a thrifle, good gintlemen, to
pay the bit o' postage, God bless yer bewtifle young faces.” Of course,
we would, every mother's son of us. What an affectionate, exemplary
parent! When we returned, a few days afterwards, she was again in
correspondence with her beloved son, far away from her yearning
tenderness, beyond the broad Atlantic; and, indeed, I have reason
to believe from information which I gathered from the driver and our
fellow-passengers, that this disconsolate mother writes to her exile
child every day, except Sundays.
[Illustration: 084]
The miserable huts of the peasantry, seen by the feeble light which
comes through the doorway and smoke-hole (to talk about chimneys would
be an insult to architecture) give one the idea, not so much that the
pigs have got into the parlour, but that the family have migrated to
the sty. An unpaved clay floor below, a roof of straw and weeds, dank,
soaked, and rotting, overhead, a miserable bed in the corner, an iron
pot over a peat fire, are the principal items of the property. Before
the door is a sink, black and filthy, for the refuse. And yet the
inmates look hale and happy beyond what one would hope to see, and the
thought at once suggests itself, how much might be accomplished by such
a people, awaking to assert its dignity, and to discharge its duty. Here
and there are roofless cottages, gravestones, on which is written, as on
Albert Dürer's, “_Emigravit_” he has gone to seek over the wide seas the
comforts which here he could not, or would not, win; or he has gone “to
the land, which is very far off,” to hunger and thirst no more,--
“There fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A shadow on those features fair and thin;
And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.”
It is sad indeed to see these monuments, “where memory” (as an Irish
poet 1 sings) “sits by the altar she has raised to woe,” monuments of
suffering and dearth, amid scenes of surpassing beauty, and fields which
might stand thick with corn, but where, from the shameful indolence of
His creatures,
“_In vain _,with lavish kindness, the gifts of God are strewn.”
1 Curran.
There is no town between _Galway_ and _Clifden_, unless we compliment
with that title the large village of _Oughterarde_, pleasantly situated
hard by _Lough Corrib_, with its picturesque bridge, marvellously
transparent stream, handsome constables, and (comparatively speaking)
magnificent church. The Roman Catholic churches are, for the most part,
so very plain and poor, having little but the Cross, and a melancholy
imitation of Gothic mullions in wood, to denote their consecration, that
the building of _Oughterarde_ has quite an imposing effect, and we went
up the hill to see it. The leisure and liberty allowed to passengers by
car are amusingly refreshing in these days of steam; and I thought,
as we sauntered towards _Sainte Terre_, how astonished the guard of
an express train would be, to behold his fellow-travellers quietly
strolling off to inspect the cathedral, at _Peterborough, York, or
Lincoln_.
We found little to admire, as to architecture without, or ornament
within; but a priest, who went with us from the car, said it was
“beautiful,” and looked as if to him it was so indeed, as he knelt with
others reverently praying there. I thought of our grand old churches at
home, locked and barred, most of them, except for a few hours on Sunday
(as though the soul should be treated, like a boa-constrictor, with six
days sleep, and then a rabbit); and I envied that poor pilgrim through a
prayerless world his privilege and opportunity.