THE scenery on leaving _Clifden_ is for a time bleak and monotonous,
but soon becomes varied and beautiful. You pass, by _Streamstown_ and
_Ballinakill_, through the pleasant village with its pretty cottages,
fuchsia-hedges, and general look of neatness and comfort, which it owes
to Mr. Ellis, an English resident, and who, (so it was told to me, as
our friend Herodotus hath it) is much respected, although a Quaker, by
the Roman Catholics around. Between this place and _Kylemore_, you
enter upon one of the grandest scenes, to my taste, to be found in all
_Connamara_, a kind of mountain pass, with the rocks rising to a great
height, in huge blocks and broken masses, piled one above another, and
sometimes jutting over the road in fearful contiguity, densely timbered
from base to summit, the gray stone contrasting beautifully with the
bright green foliage of the trees. Here the eagles build, and had become
so numerous, (so our driver said), that the owner had had recourse
to _poison_. It sounded awfully in our ears, like trapping a fox or
shooting an albatross; and, surely, if the king of birds must be slain
(and I cannot deny that his majesty's conduct, in perpetually flying off
with lambs, is open to some criticism) he might fall more nobly to the
rifle of the sportsman.
We reached the solitary inn by _Kylemore Lake_ for luncheon; and I
purposely make these memoranda about meals, and take my time from the
kitchen clock, because the delightful air of _Connamara_ very speedily
induces that vacuum, which nature and the tourist yearn to fill. So
Frank and I danced in triumph around our undisputed lobster, Blades
languishing at _Clifden_, and a fellow passenger, who had stopped at
_Kylemore_, and whom, being almost hairless, we distinguished as “Balder
the Beautiful,” having previously lunched, as we came along, upon the
largest biscuit I ever met with, and which, when he first produced it,
we both of us mistook for a Fox-and-Goose board. Contemplating the shell
and other débris, in a state of placid plethora, and reflecting, in a
spirit of tooth-pick philosophy, what a glorious economy it would be for
us undergraduates, and what a grim despair for the tailors, if we, like
the lobster, could annually cast our clothing, and reappear, as he does,
in customary suit of solemn black, without any pecuniary investment,--I
was startled by the wild conduct of Francis, who, suddenly springing
from his chair, and favouring me with a slap upon the back, which
immediately induced a determination of bitter beer to the head,
exclaimed, at the very apex of his voice, “_And now, old cock, for a
salmon!_” Forthwith he entered into solemn consultation with our worthy
host, Mr. Duncan, and produced for his inspection a small library of
Fly-books. Alas, the inspector looked grave and shook his head, as an
examiner surveying infirm Latin. “One or two _might_ raise a fish;” but
this was said in a tone, which quite convinced me, that, unless Frank
should come across a salmon, which happened to be helplessly drunk, his
entomological specimens would be treated with most profound contempt.
What was to be done? Mr. D.'s own flies had been stolen, during a recent
illness, by his visitors; and, indeed, as they were kept, with true
Irish liberality, in the hall of the inn, one can scarcely wonder at
the felonious fact. But he was determined, the weather being most
propitious, and the lake full of “fish,” (not to mention the
white trout, of which there is abundance) that Frank should not be
disappointed, and forthwith commenced the operation, most interesting to
me who had never seen it, of “tying a fly.” He began with a bare hook,
a piece of fishing gut, and a few bits of silk and feathers; and lo,
in about three minutes, there issued from his consummate manipulation a
gorgeous fly, so beautiful, and, withal, so plump and appetising, that
for a salmon to see it was to look and die. Then armed with a gaff,
which would have landed a sturgeon, or made a glorious pastoral staff
for His Grace the Archbishop of Brobdingnag, and which was borne before
him, as the crozier of Saint Grellen was carried before the tribes of
Hy-Many, when, ages ago, they conquered here in Connaught, away went
Frank to his boat; and I, rodless, to wander, wondering, among the great
mountains and to cull a bouquet of ferns and flowers. This I had just
arranged satisfactorily, and was thinking how admirably that little
wayside rush (_epiphorum_), with its snow-white silky flag, would serve
for some Lilliputian clerk of the course to drop before a ruck of fairy
jocks, and start them for a Queen Mab's Plate, when a ringing shout in
the distance, which might have been emitted by a triumphant fox-hunter,
or by an Indian scalping his foe, drew my attention to the lake, and I
could see dear old Frank standing in the boat, and holding up a glorious
salmon, with its silver scales glittering in the sun.
[Illustration: 114]
Hurrying back, I was just in time to meet the conquering hero as he came
ashore; and I am quite sure that neither Julius Cæsar, nor any other
human being, ever landed with greater dignity. Had he been coming to
weigh after winning “the Liverpool,” or into the Pavilion at Lords'
after an innings of five hundred, he could not have looked more happy
and glorious, and I felt it a privilege to strew the path he trod upon
with three bits of heather and my pocket-handkerchief.
There was an amusing little dialogue, as he left his bark:--
“Boatman!” quoth the illustrious fisherman, “how much is the boat?”
“Sure, your onour, the boat'll be in the bill. Your onour'll give the
boatman what you please.”
“But what is generally given!”
“Well, your 'onour, some'll give two shillings, and some eighteen pince.
_A tailor'd be for giving eighteen pince_.”
How much Frank gave, I know not; but from the expression of
satisfaction, which brightened the faces of his aquatic friends, I infer
that he exceeded in munificence a whole street of tailors. And, indeed,
he was bound so to do, since, in our eyes, “was never salmon yet that
shone so fair,” as we bore it in triumph to our inn; and I sang, in the
joy of my heart, to the
They may rail at this land, they may slander and slang it,
But we've found it a land to admire and enjoy;
And until they convince us _au contraire_, why, hang it,
We will speak as we find, won't we, Frank, my dear boy?
_Air “They may rail at this Life.”_
So long as Kylemore has such lakes and such fishing,
As from Duncan's Hotel at this moment we see,
And of salmon for dinner we bring such a dish in,--
_Connamara's_ the planet for you, Frank, and me!
So we carried it to the kitchen, where it cost my friend no little
effort to transfer his captive to the cook; and I am quite convinced,
that could he have escaped ridicule, he would have preferred to take
that fish to bed with him. I am glad he did not; for a firmer, flakier,
curdier salmon never gladdened a _table d'hôte_, and there were
“lashings and lavings” for our party of eight, when we met at dinner
that evening.
After the banquet, Frank caused us to be rowed in triumph over the
scene of his victory, sitting in the stern with an enormous regalia, and
surveying the waters with a grand complacency, which made me feel myself
quite contemptible. Very different would my sensations have been, had
I been then acquainted with the fact, which my friend subsequently
revealed to me, that he had hooked and _lost_ two much finer fish than
that on which we dined.
The boatmen--one of whom, from his sapient and solemn manner, had the
sobriquet of Lord Bacon; and the other, a fine, cheery young fellow,
wearing his rightful appellation of Johnny Joyce--joined us in our
tobacco and talk, “turning to mirth all things of earth, as only”
Irishmen can. When two of the visitors came out of the inn, lingered
a few seconds in conversation at the gate, and then started for their
evening walk, in opposite directions, as Englishmen are wont,--“Bedad,”
said my Lord Bacon, “the gentlemen have quarrelled, more's the pity.
Sure, one of 'em has been ating the biggest dinner, and made the other
jealous. _That's_ the jealous one,” he continued, pointing to our friend
Balder the Beautiful, “there's something in _the set of his back_,
which says that he is disappointed.” And there really was a misanthropic
expression, to be observed upon the shoulders in question, which we
might not otherwise have noticed, but which was immediately patent to an
Irishman, who detects more quickly, and ridicules more cleverly, though
he cannot despise more heartily than we do, any exposition of a sulky
temperament. I remember going to a horse-fair with Paddy O'Hara, of
Merton, and that we overtook on the road an agriculturist of a staid and
sullen deportment. He was riding by a rustic groom who led a handsome,
but somewhat heavy-looking horse, too good for harness, but scarcely
good enough for hunting, though the farmer evidently regarded him as
quite the animal for High Leicestershire. Well, we pulled up the tandem,
that we might examine the tit (thinking ourselves amazingly knowing
in horse-flesh, as undergraduates do), and O'Hara led off with a “Good
morning!”
“Good morning,” replied Agricola, but very sternly.
“It's lonely your horse is looking this morning, sir,” continued Pat, as
serious as a mute.
“Don't know what you mean,” said the farmer.
“Oh, sure,” replied O'Hara, with an expression of intense grief, as
though his heart bled for the poor quadruped, “it's desolate, and
melancholy, and beraved he's looking, and very, very lonely--_without
the plough!_”
And he blew such a blast upon our long horn, as made the welkin ring;
and the big horse, he pranced and reared, and the farmer and his man
they blasphemed in unison, as we sped merrily onwards.
As we had some thoughts of spending a day at a place in this
neighbourhood called _Coolna Carton_, we asked Johnny Joyce if there was
much to see there. And the answer which we got was “_Divil a taste!_”
“But surely,” we remonstrated, “there is wild mountain and lake
scenery?”
“Oh, faith,” said Johnny, “there's mountains and sthrames, _if it's the
likes o' them_ that ye're wanting;” and he looked at us, as though he
would have added, “but you, surely, cannot be such fools!”
Ah, Johnny Joyce! there's a homily for us all in that “_divil a taste!_”
The beautiful, so close to us, over head, under foot, we prize not; the
great hills are voiceless to the mountaineer; and the lowlander sees
no loveliness in valleys thick with corn. Ashore, we sigh for the wild
magnificence of ocean; and, at sea, our unquiet spirit yearns for the
landscape's rest and peace. Let us ask for eyes to read, and loving
hearts to understand, the declarations of wisdom and of goodness
God-written everywhere!
We spent a pleasant evening in the common-room of our inn. There was,
among others, a landscape-painter, who, manfully confessing that he
“could do nothing with _Connamara_,” showed us, nevertheless, some very
interesting sketches; and there was a clever, merry, young graduate, of
our sister university at Dublin, as full of good sense as good humour.
He told us, as we sipped our punch, how that whiskey derived its name
from the Irish _uiske_, the water; “the only water,” quoth he, “that's
good for a gentleman to drink;” how that _usquebaugh_ meant “water of
life,” as _aqua vitae_ in Latin, and _eau de vie_ in French; and how
this reminded him that the _Phoenix Park_ in Dublin, derived its name
from _Finniske_, or _Fionuisge, fair-water,_ and was so called from a
spring in the neighbourhood, once much resorted to as a chalybeate spa.
As we became confidential, I asked him what he thought of Ireland's
prospects?
“Well,” he said, after a long, reflective pull at his little, black,
_dudeen_, “I am not so sanguine as some with regard to the prosperity
of Ireland. That which Pope said of man in general, seems to me to be
especially true with regard to an Irishman in particular, he 'never is,
but always to be, blessed.' Every history, or book of travels, written
no matter when or by whom, always has the same moral,--Ireland is
emerging from a state of misery and degradation--followed by some
fine, old-crusted quotations with regard to our capabilities, and the
wonderful results which might be achieved, 'if only the hand of man did
join with the hand of nature.'” 1
1 Lord Bacon, the original, not the boatman.
“Pity,” I thought, “that the hand of man should be unhappily
preoccupied--with a blunderbuss!”
“No,” he continued, “physicians, Danish, Saxon, and Norman, have
prescribed for us (generally a course of bleeding and depletion) with so
little success; the grand panacea, Protestantism, has been administered
to us,--as gently as a ball to some restive horse, with a twitch upon
our national nose, and a thrust down our national throat,--with so few
favourable results, that I begin to fear our malady is chronic, and that
affliction must be regarded as our normal.
“I have heard before,” I remarked, “that Ireland has not been considered
by her medical advisers to be a very good _subject_.”
“I see,” he answered, “but we are more loyal, perhaps, than you are
inclined to suppose, and quite as much so as you have a right to expect.
Some people seem surprised that we Irish do not set up statues of
Turgesius, the Norwegian gentleman, who favoured us with a tax called
_Nosestate. Money_, by which he merely meant, that, if we declined
to pay, he should remove the facial adjunct alluded to; that we do not
paint memorial pictures of Prince John and his Normans ridiculing our
Irish Chiefs, when they came to welcome them at Waterford, and chaffing
them about their long hair and their short yellow shirts, which, I
grant, must have been rather funny; that we exhibit no restlessness for
the canonisation of Cromwell, and make no pious pilgrimages to the tomb
of Dutch William. Now, I by no means say, with Junius, that 'Ireland
has been uniformly plundered and oppressed,' but I do say that the bride
which Pope Adrian, himself an Englishman, gave, with a gay marriage-ring
of emeralds, to your second Henry, has not been very lovingly dealt
with.”
“The wedding,” I said, “has not been, as yet, productive of much
happiness; but you must remember, that if the husband has been harsh
at times, and disagreeable, the conduct of the lady has been very
aggravating and suspicious. Hath she not flirted with _Monsieur_ and
_Jonathan?_ Hath she not decked herself with ribbons of obnoxious hue,
and gone after strange priests, whom John Bull honoureth not? Could he
have foreseen the troublous consequences of the union, he might have
wished to imitate the example of Jupiter, who, having considered the
subject in all its bearings, devoured Metis, his wife, lest she should
produce an offspring wiser than himself.”
“_Pergite Pierides!_ Go it, Lemprière!” here broke in that boisterous
Frank, who, I regret to say, has an ubiquitous ear, and a consequent
power of joining the conversation from any distance, and when you least
expect him. “What are you two mythological bloaters driving at?”
“Francis,” I replied, reprovingly, “your mind, a feeble one at best, is
unhinged by success and whiskey. Calm yourself, and go to bed.”
But he only crowed like a cock.
“The fact is,” resumed my Irish friend, “we are too near a great country
ever to be great ourselves, and are too proud, unhappily, to perform on
violin No. 2.”
“You won't be angry with me,” I said, “if I doubt your ability, under
the most favourable circumstances, ever to play a first fiddle in the
Monster Concert of Nations. You may let me say so, for I love the Irish.
I should be disloyal to friendships, which I value dearly, forgetful of
a thousand merry-makings enhanced by Irish humour, and of many a sorrow
relieved by Irish sympathy, if I did not speak well of Irishmen, to say
nothing of the interesting fact, that, on several delightful occasions,
I have been in love with your sweet Irish girls. But if I have read
your history aright, you have never, nationally, shown any ambition or
aptitude to hold a prominent place.”
“Confound your impudence,” he answered, “did you never read in that
self-same history, that Ireland was once 'the school of Europe,'
'Insula Sanctorum,' and I don't know what, before those Danish ruffians
destroyed the monasteries,--from the purest and most pious motives,
doubtless, like your own dear Henry VIII.!”
“I have read,” I rejoined, “that a Scotch gentleman (for 'Saint Patrick
was a gentleman,' if ever there was one) preached Druidism out of this
country, and gave you, in its place, the blessings of a heaven-sent
faith; and I know, furthermore, that Irishmen, such as Sedulius, your
poet, and your Saints, Columbkill, and Aidan, and Finian, and Cuthbert,
names known and beloved through Christendom, have been ever esteemed and
honoured among the champions of our holy religion; but I am speaking of
Ireland politically, and maintain, that, even in the brighter epoch,
of which you treat, say from the fifth to the ninth century, Ireland,
socially and generally, was in a state of trouble and disquietude.
Indeed it would seem from your history that until a recent period,
which (I say it with all reverent earnestness) may God prolong, you have
either been repelling invaders, or fighting among yourselves, or both,
ever since Partholan, the sixth in descent from Magog, Noah's second
son, took Ireland, with his thousand men. Why, even in what you would
consider a period of profound peace, you have been about as orderly as a
lot of schoolboys, when the master is absent, or a pack of young hounds,
who have got away from their huntsman; and suggest in every phase of
your existence, the stern remark of your greatest Irishman,1 'Ireland is
to be governed only by an army.' _L'Empire, c'est l'Epée!_” 2
1 Wellington.
2 Punch's version of Louis Napoleon's words, “_L'Empire,
c'est la Paix_”
“You seem to think,” he said, “with another illustrious countryman
of mine, Mr. John Cade, that 'then are we in order, when most out of
order,' and that Ireland, like the lady in the farce, 1 only 'glories
in her topsy-turvy-tude;' but when you speak of the schoolmaster
being abroad, do you not in great measure account for eccentricities,
repeating that grand enigma, 'What makes treason reason, and Ireland
wretched?' and answering, 'absent T.' Collisions and explosions may be
looked for on the Rail, when they, who should be its Directors, never
come near the line; and in my opinion the best thing that could happen
to Ireland would be the revival of the Act against non-residence which
was made in 1379.” 2
1 _The King's Gardener_.
2 Moore's _History of Ireland_, vol. iii., p. 113.
“Would it not,” I asked, “be a wiser and more agreeable inducement, if
you could assure the returning landlord that his plans of improvement
would not be disturbed by an injection of lead into his brain? At all
events, I think, we shall see shortly what resident men can do. The
estates, which absenteeism, as much as anything, has encumbered and
finally estranged, will be occupied, to a great extent, by their new
owners:--will these ever make Paddy _industrious?_”
“Sure,” he answered, “we'll be the grandest nation upon earth, the
moment we get a taste of encouragement. Meanwhile I'll concede, that
we're a trifle awkward to manage, and, when we're not famished by dearth
of food, nor depressed by a drought of whiskey, that we're mighty fond
of a scrimmage. And you'll allow, I take it, that no men fight in
a gentaler form than we do: your Irish regiments have done you good
service on the battle-field, to say nothing of our having supplied you
with the grandest warrior of your history. And long may we fight, side
by side, and keep out of all hot water, but _this_,” and he touched my
glass with his own, and sang with a voice so pliable and mellow, that
even the knight of the surly shoulders,--whom we also named
Thersites, described by Homer as “the ugliest chap of all who came to
Troy,”--smiled and nodded in accompaniment,--
“O quam bonum est!
O quam jucundum est!
Poculis fraternis gaudere!”
And so we became, as Dennis O'Shaughnessy 1 bids, the “sextons to
animosity and care;” and having buried them decently, were going to
bed, when dulcet notes from a musical instrument, which the performer
thereupon alluded to as his “feelute,” and which was joyously warbling
an Irish jig, attracted us to the kitchen. And what mortal man “that
hadn't wooden legs,” could see blushing Biddy Joyce footing it merrily,
and not feel himself as irresistibly disposed to dance, as a nigger
when he hears a fiddle? In thirty seconds Frank and I were involved in
a series of such swift, untiring saltations, as the world hath not seen,
since Mevelava, the Dervish, danced for four days to the flute of Hamsa!
When we awoke the next morning (Sunday), “the richest cloudland in
Europe,” as Kohl terms Ireland, was investing such abundance of its
surplus capital in the lakes and mountains of _Connamara_, that it
was impossible to leave our inn; and as difference of creed unhappily
prevented a common service, every man became his own priest, and every
bed-room an oratory. My friend, the Irish graduate, played some most
solemn and impressive music, including the “Cujus Animam,” from the
_Stabat Mater_, upon a Concertina, which now breathed forth notes sweet
and clear, like a flute, and anon was grand and organ-like. At a later
period, a perfume, which, at first, I supposed to be incense, issued
from his dormitory; but it ultimately resolved itself into Latakia.
At last, the clouds began to break, and the grand old mountains to
emerge from the mist, like the scenery in a dissolving view; the
sunlight seemed to reach one's heart; and we sallied forth for a walk,
the Irishman, Frank, and I, as happy as bees on the first warm day of
spring, or as the gallant _Kane_, when, after a long Arctic winter,
he saw the sun shine once more, and felt “as though he were bathing in
perfumed waters.” The conversation, as we strolled towards Letter-Frack,
was theological and brisk. Paddy said that “_our_ Church resembled a
branch broken from the Vine, withering and moribund from inanition;” and
we affirmed that “_his_ Church was like a tree unpruned, all leaves, and
no fruit.” Then he pretended to have heard that Mr. Spurgeon had refused
the See of Canterbury, and that Lord Shaftesbury was bringing in a Bill
to abolish the Apostles' Creed. “You miscellaneous Christians,” he said,
“will shortly have nothing to believe in common, unless it be--_Dr.
Cumming!_”
“And you, magnificent Christians,” I rejoined, “who, by the way, have
had your rival Popes, and still have divisions among you, you have
already got _more_ to believe than Scripture, tradition, or common
sense acknowledge. As to our being 'miscellaneous,' we churchmen have no
communion with the sects, though you delight to identify us with them,
and though some disloyal teachers among us may 'apply the call of
dissent to their own lost sheep, and tinkle back their old women by
sounding the brass of the Methodists,' 1 our Church, unswerving, still
maintains the old, catholic faith, and earnestly entreats deliverance
from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism.”
1 Horace Walpole.
And so we went on, strophe, and antistrophe, with an occasional epode
from Frank (who kindly applauded both parties, encouraging us, more
liberally than respectfully, with “_Bravo Babylon!” “Now heretic!_” and
the like), and only arrived at unanimity, when it was proposed that we
should return and dine.
Our host, Mr. Duncan, told us this evening, with other very interesting
details, concerning the Famine of 1847, how that, at a public meeting in
the neighbourhood, he had said, somewhat incautiously, that rather than
the people should starve, they might take his sheep from the hills; and
how that, when want and hunger increased, they kept in remembrance his
generous words, and, taking advantage, like Macbeth, of “the unguarded
Duncan,” turned ninety of his sheep into mutton.
[Illustration: 133]