It is difficult to think this morning that it was only last evening I
left London. Lying on one's back on a soft carpet of pine spirules on
the slope of the hill, the deep green of the water in the harbour
shows through the pine branches. There is a plumage of bracken around
wonderful green feathers, that are rising on their slender stems from
the thick brown carpet of nature's plush, which hushes one's footsteps
through the wood and makes them noiseless, except when one treads on a
crisp tory top. There is a delightful hush under this cool roof
pillared by the brown tree-trunks, but it is not silence. There is a
soft hum that comes ceaselessly to one's ear, sometimes anear,
sometimes afar, from one knows not where, from bees, perhaps, busy
amongst the hurts or honeysuckle just below. Up above a wood-pigeon
keeps cooing that ceaseless question, or is it a question, or the
plaint call of his pigeon heart for love? or has he lost his love, and
croons a mourning for her? Distinct from and louder than the murmur of
the bees is a rustling of the water from below where the outgoing tide
from the river meets the water of the harbour; and mingled with that,
one can just faintly catch the hushed sound of an occasional wave on
the rocks. It is a holiday with the breakers, and the sea moves its
fringe as gently as if fanning itself to sleep. The river winds around
below, and down to its edge the hills are tree-covered--not there
altogether with pines, but with rounded luxurious clumps of dark
trees, recalling Doré's idea of a forest--they are exactly Doré's
trees. It does not look from here as if the river went up farther, but
around that bend is the deep green water called Drake's Pool. It was
there that Admiral Drake, outnumbered and chased along the Irish coast
by the Spanish fleet, hid from them. The Spaniards came into the
harbour and searched around, but never thought there was an opening
through the trees. And there Drake waited with his high-pooped ships
until they went away. Close to the trees that grow around the steep
margin of the pool and always darken the green water, even in daytime,
fishermen who go there at night to fish for conger tell that when the
moon has been clouded at midnight they have seen the shapes of
queer-looking ships, and on their high sterns the forms of men in
outlandish costumes, sitting around drinking.
Right on the summit of this hill which commands the harbour is the
Giant's Grave; and _à propos_ of commanding the harbour, Napoleon I.
knew of it, and had a plan for the invasion of Ireland, in which was
included the idea of occupying this hill, from which he could command
from the rear the forts at the harbour's mouth. He would have planted
his guns on the Giant's Grave. We know little of the history of that
giant, except that he carried off the wife of another giant who lived
on the Great Island opposite, and held her here in his fastness amid
the pine trees against all efforts to wrest her from him. A huge rock
that he hurled back in one of these fights is still to be seen on the
shore of Spike Island.
A twittering flutter of white and grey below me a few yards away. It
is a rabbit--and now another. Their ears are cocked, but they do not
appear to notice me in the least. They hop about quite noiselessly on
the brown carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost
musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to
be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder
what these rabbits are saying to each other. They seem very alert and
interested. Now a third appears on the scene. Two of them are
beginning to play, at least I thought so at first--and I feel in this
peaceful wood I should have left it at that, but having to recollect
the heading of these chapters I have to record the fact that they are
fighting. I never saw rabbits fight before, but they are fighting like
mad. I now see, in fact, the origin of the expression making "the fur
fly." The third is just skipping around watching intently with big
round eyes and its ears erect--perhaps the third is timekeeper, or
perhaps it is the story of the giants over again. The new-comer was
getting the best of it. I am sorry now that I could not resist the
temptation of taking a shot at them with my fountain pen. They fled
instantly. Perhaps the little rabbit lady is glad--she may be licking
the wounds of her Lancelot in their burrow a few yards away while he
is telling her that he would have beaten the other fellow all right in
the end if that darned fool hadn't thrown his fountain pen, while she
agrees, as she works her little rabbit tongue soothingly, although
privately she has her "doots."
How interesting it would be to be able to study the lives of all these
little people in this wood! There are terrible weasels here who wage a
sanguinary warfare against the rabbits--a guerilla war that no war
correspondent I know of has yet got his pass for. The seagulls are
beginning to talk now in a New York pitch of voice, and one can get an
occasional gleam of their wings through the blue-green pine branches.
I think it is their dinner-time when the tide goes out and spreads a
table-strip of slob for them on the shore.
How thankful we ought to be to have such dear stupid neighbours as the
English, who don't come in hordes of tourists to desecrate this
delightful land! Those who love it with intimacy of knowledge--this
wild coast with its rock fingers stretching into the Atlantic and
harbours around which the trees nestle for shelter from the winter
storms--the ruined castles with empty "magic casements, opening on the
foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn"--own it still for
their pleasure, moss-grown with history as vivid as the lichens on its
rocks or ruins.
Perhaps from a sense of justice, our neighbours think the invasion of
Cromwell's army was enough, and that we ought to be spared from
something worse, so that the hordes rush off perspiring over the
Continent and elsewhere, and just a few nice people come and come
again to the South of Ireland, and say they like that cordial greeting
that always is waiting for the Englishman personally, who only in the
abstract is disliked. Then the Irish railways and hotel-keepers act in
a very nice and gentlemanly fashion; the former do not force on the
notice of the tourist hordes that a train leaves Euston or Paddington
every evening which would land them here at 10.30 in the morning for a
few shillings. The latter are quite content with the knowledge they
have themselves that they possess now as comfortable and
well-fitted-up hotels as any in the world.
A little old Irish lady was reduced to selling apples in the street.
"Fresh apples, fresh apples!" she would call out; then, to herself, "I
hope no one will hear me."
I do not know, indeed, whether we have to thank most our kind
neighbours or the railway and hotel people for the blessing we enjoy
in this Land of the Evening Calm that still keeps
"A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
One fills one's lungs with the delicious air, aromatic with pine
perfume, to send it out in a sigh of infinite content.
From across the water comes a sound of music; it is some one playing a
cornet. The air the unseen musician is playing sounds familiar. He is
only practising--learning---- Ye gods! Is there no place where one can
get away from that air? But yet, does not it speak volumes for the
remoteness of this harbourage of repose to realise that the unseen
musician is only now _learning_ "The Honeysuckle and the Bee"?
[Illustration: Japs Entering Pekin.]