PENELOPE'S IRISH EXPERIENCES by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Published 1901. To my first Irish friend, Jane Barlow. Contents. Part First--Leinster. I. We emulate the Rollo books. II. Irish itineraries. III. We sight a derelict. IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry. V. The Wearing of the Green. VI. Dublin, then and now. Part Second--Munster. VII. A tour and a detour. VIII. Romance and reality. IX. The light of other days. X. The belles of Shandon. XI. 'The rale thing. ' XII. Life at Knockarney House. XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancin'. ' XIV. 'Mrs. Mullarkey's iligant locks. ' XV. Penelope weaves a web. XVI. Salemina has her chance. Part Third--Ulster. XVII. The glens of Antrim. XVIII. Limavady love-letters. XIX. 'In ould Donegal. ' XX. We evict a tenant. XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae. Part Fourth--Connaught. XXII. The weeping west. XXIII. Beams and motes. XXIV. Humours of the road. XXV. The wee folk. Part Fifth--Royal Meath. XXVI. Ireland's gold. XXVII. The three chatelaines of Devorgilla. XXVIII. Round towers and reflections. XXIX. Aunt David's garden. XXX. The quest of the fair strangers. XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen! XXXII. 'As the sunflower turns. ' Part First--Leinster. Chapter I. We emulate the Rollo books. 'Sure a terrible time I was out o' the way, Over the sea, over the sea, Till I come to Ireland one sunny day, -- Betther for me, betther for me: The first time me fut got the feel o' the ground I was strollin' along in an Irish city That hasn't its aquil the world around For the air that is sweet an' the girls that are pretty. ' --Moira O'Neill. Dublin, O'Carolan's Private Hotel. It is the most absurd thing in the world that Salemina, Francesca, and Ishould be in Ireland together. That any three spinsters should be fellow-travellers is not in itselfextraordinary, and so our former journeyings in England and Scotlandcould hardly be described as eccentric in any way; but now that I ama matron and Francesca is shortly to be married, it is odd, to say theleast, to see us cosily ensconced in a private sitting-room of a Dublinhotel, the table laid for three, and not a vestige of a man anywhere tobe seen. Where, one might ask, if he knew the antecedent circumstances, are Miss Hamilton's American spouse and Miss Monroe's Scottish lover? Francesca had passed most of the winter in Scotland. Her indulgentparent had given his consent to her marriage with a Scotsman, butinsisted that she take a year to make up her mind as to which particularone. Memories of her past flirtations, divagations, plans for a life ofsingle blessedness, all conspired to make him incredulous, and the loyalSalemina, feeling some responsibility in the matter, had elected toremain by Francesca's side during the time when her affections weresupposed to be crystallising into some permanent form. It was natural enough that my husband and I should spend the firstsummer of our married life abroad, for we had been accustomed to do thisbefore we met, a period that we always allude to as the Dark Ages; butno sooner had we arrived in Edinburgh, and no sooner had my husbandpersuaded our two friends to join us in a long, delicious Irish holiday, than he was compelled to return to America for a month or so. I think you must number among your acquaintances such a man as Mr. William Beresford, whose wife I have the honour to be. Physically thetype is vigorous, or has the appearance and gives the impression ofbeing vigorous, because it has never the time to be otherwise, sinceit is always engaged in nursing its ailing or decrepit relatives. Intellectually it is full of vitality; any mind grows when it isexercised, and the brain that has to settle all its own affairs and allthe affairs of its friends and acquaintances could never lack energy. Spiritually it is almost too good for earth, and any woman who lives inthe house with it has moments of despondency and self-chastisement, in which she fears that heaven may prove all too small to contain theperfect being and its unregenerate family as well. Financially it has at least a moderate bank account; that is, itis never penniless, indeed it can never afford to be, because it isperemptory that it should possess funds in order to disburse them toneedier brothers. There is never an hour when Mr. William Beresford isnot signing notes and bonds and drafts for less fortunate men; givingsmall loans just to 'help a fellow over a hard place'; educatingfriends' children, starting them in business, or securing appointmentsfor them. The widow and the fatherless have worn such an obvious path tohis office and residence that no bereaved person could possibly losehis way, and as a matter of fact no one of them ever does. This specialjourney of his to America has been made necessary because, first, hiscousin's widow has been defrauded of a large sum by her man of business;and second, his college chum and dearest friend has just died in Chicagoafter appointing him executor of his estate and guardian of his onlychild. The wording of the will is, 'as a sacred charge and with fullpower. ' Incidentally, as it were, one of his junior partners has beenordered a long sea voyage, and another has to go somewhere for mudbaths. The junior partners were my idea, and were suggested solely thattheir senior might be left more or less free from business care, butit was impossible that Willie should have selected sound, robustpartners--his tastes do not incline him in the direction of selfishease; accordingly he chose two delightful, estimable, frail gentlemenwho needed comfortable incomes in conjunction with light duties. I am railing at my husband for all this, but I love him for it just thesame, and it shows why the table is laid for three. "Salemina, " I said, extending my slipper toe to the glowing peat, whichby extraordinary effort had been brought up from the hotel kitchen, as abit of local colour, "it is ridiculous that we three women should be inIreland together; it's the sort of thing that happens in a book, and ofwhich we say that it could never occur in real life. Three persons donot spend successive seasons in England, Scotland and Ireland unlessthey are writing an Itinerary of the British Isles. The situation ispossible, certainly, but it isn't simple, or natural, or probable. Weare behaving precisely like characters in fiction, who, having beenpopular in the first volume, are exploited again and again until theirpopularity wanes. We are like the Trotty books or the Elsie Dinmoreseries. England was our first volume, Scotland our second, and here weare, if you please, about to live a third volume in Ireland. We fall inlove, we marry and are given in marriage, we promote and take partin international alliances, but when the curtain goes up again, ouraccumulations, acquisitions--whatever you choose to callthem--have disappeared. We are not to the superficial eye thespinster-philanthropist, the bride to be, the wife of a year; we arethe same old Salemina, Francesca and Penelope. It is so dramatic that myhusband should be called to America; as a woman I miss him and need him;as a character I am much better single. I don't suppose publishers likemarried heroines any more than managers like married leading ladies. Then how entirely proper it is that Ronald Macdonald cannot leave hisnew parish in the Highlands. The one, my husband, belongs to the firstvolume; Francesca's lover to the second; and good gracious, Salemina, don't you see the inference?" "I may be dull, " she replied, "but I confess I do not. " "We are three?" "Who is three?" "That is not good English, but I repeat with different emphasis WE arethree. I fell in love in England, Francesca fell in love in Scotland-"And here I paused, watching the blush mount rosily to Salemina's greyhair; pink is very becoming to grey, and that, we always say, accountsmore satisfactorily for Salemina's frequent blushes than her modesty, which is about of the usual sort. "Your argument is interesting, and even ingenious, " she replied, "butI fail to see my responsibility. If you persist in thinking of me asa character in fiction, I shall rebel. I am not the stuff of whichheroines are made; besides, I would never appear in anything so cheapand obvious as a series, and the three-volume novel is as much out offashion as the Rollo books. " "But we are unconscious heroines, you understand, " I explained. "Whilewe were experiencing our experiences we did not notice them, but theyhave attained by degrees a sufficient bulk so that they are visibleto the naked eye. We can look back now and perceive the path we havetravelled. " "It isn't retrospect I object to, but anticipation, " she retorted; "nothistory, but prophecy. It is one thing to gaze sentimentally at the roadyou have travelled, quite another to conjure up impossible pictures ofthe future. " Salemina calls herself a trifle over forty, but I am not certain ofher age, and think perhaps that she is uncertain herself. She has goodreason to forget it, and so have we. Of course she could consult theBible family record daily, but if she consulted her looking-glassafterward the one impression would always nullify the other. Her hair issilvered, it is true, but that is so clearly a trick of Nature that itmakes her look younger rather than older. Francesca came into the room just here. I said a moment ago that she wasthe same old Francesca, but I was wrong; she is softening, sweetening, expanding; in a word, blooming. Not only this, but Ronald Macdonald'slikeness has been stamped upon her in some magical way, so that, although she has not lost her own personality, she seems to have addeda reflection of his. In the glimpses of herself, her views, feelings, opinions, convictions, which she gives us in a kind of solution, asit were, there are always traces of Ronald Macdonald; or, to be morepoetical, he seems to have bent over the crystal pool, and his image isreflected there. You remember in New England they allude to a bride as 'she that was'a so-and-so. In my private interviews with Salemina I now habituallyallude to Francesca as 'she that was a Monroe'; it is so significantof her present state of absorption. Several times this week I have beenobliged to inquire, "Was I, by any chance, as absent-minded and dull inPettybaw as Francesca is under the same circumstances in Dublin?" "Quite. " "Duller if anything. " These candid replies being uttered in cheerful unison I change thesubject, but cannot resist telling them both casually that the buildingof the Royal Dublin Society is in Kildare Street, just three minutes'from O'Carolan's, and that I have noticed it is for the promotion ofHusbandry and other useful arts and sciences. Chapter II. Irish itineraries. 'And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand, Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand, And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command, For the fair hills of holy Ireland. ' --Sir Samuel Ferguson. Our mutual relations have changed little, notwithstanding thatbetrothals and marriages have intervened, and in spite of the factthat Salemina has grown a year younger; a mysterious feat that she hasaccomplished on each anniversary of her birth since the forming of ouralliance. It is many months since we travelled together in Scotland, but onentering this very room in Dublin, the other day, we proceeded to showour several individualities as usual: I going to the window to see theview, Francesca consulting the placard on the door for hours of tabled'hote, and Salemina walking to the grate and lifting the ugly littlepaper screen to say, "There is a fire laid; how nice!" As the matron Ihave been promoted to a nominal charge of the travelling arrangements. Therefore, while the others drive or sail, read or write, I am buriedin Murray's Handbook, or immersed in maps. When I sleep, my dreamsare spotted, starred, notched, and lined with hieroglyphics, circles, horizontal dashes, long lines, and black dots, signifying hotels, coachand rail routes, and tramways. All this would have been done by Himself with the greatest ease in theworld. In the humbler walks of Irish life the head of the house, if heis of the proper sort, is called Himself, and it is in the shadow ofthis stately title that my Ulysses will appear in this chronicle. I am quite sure I do not believe in the inferiority of woman, but I havea feeling that a man is a trifle superior in practical affairs. If I amin doubt, and there is no husband, brother, or cousin near, from whom toseek advice, I instinctively ask the butler or the coachman rather thana female friend; also, when a female friend has consulted the Bradshawin my behalf, I slip out and seek confirmation from the butcher's boy orthe milkman. Himself would have laid out all our journeyings for us, andwe should have gone placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is, we are already pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, andIreland bids fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelterfashion imaginable. Francesca's propositions are especially nonsensical, being provocativeof fruitless discussion, and adding absolutely nothing to the sum ofhuman intelligence. "Why not start without any special route in view, and visit the townswith which we already have familiar associations?" she asked. "We shouldhave all sorts of experiences by the way, and be free from the blightinginfluences of a definite purpose. Who that has ever travelled fails tocall to mind certain images when the names of cities come up in generalconversation? If Bologna, Brussels, or Lima is mentioned, I think atonce of sausages, sprouts, and beans, and it gives me a feeling offriendly intimacy. I remember Neufchatel and Cheddar by their cheeses, Dorking and Cochin China by their hens, Whitby by its jet, or York byits hams, so that I am never wholly ignorant of places and their subtleassociations. " "That method appeals strongly to the fancy, " said Salemina drily. "Whatsubtle associations have you already established in Ireland?" "Let me see, " she responded thoughtfully; "the list is not a long one. Limerick and Carrickmacross for lace, Shandon for the bells, Blarneyand Donnybrook for the stone and the fair, Kilkenny for the cats, andBalbriggan for the stockings. " "You are sordid this morning, " reproved Salemina; "it would be better ifyou remembered Limerick by the famous siege, and Balbriggan as theplace where King William encamped with his army after the battle of theBoyne. " "I've studied the song-writers more than the histories and geographies, "I said, "so I should like to go to Bray and look up the Vicar, then toColeraine to see where Kitty broke the famous pitcher; or to Tara, wherethe harp that once, or to Athlone, where dwelt Widow Malone, ochone, andso on; just start with an armful of Tom Moore's poems and Lover's andFerguson's, and, yes, " I added generously, "some of the nice moderns, and visit the scenes they've written about. " "And be disappointed, " quoth Francesca cynically. "Poets see everythingby the light that never was on sea or land; still I won't deny that theyhelp the blind, and I should rather like to know if there are still anyNora Creinas and Sweet Peggies and Pretty Girls Milking their Cows. " "I am very anxious to visit as many of the Round Towers as possible, "said Salemina. "When I was a girl of seventeen I had a very dear friend, a young Irishman, who has since become a well-known antiquary andarchaeologist. He was a student, and afterwards, I think, a professorhere in Trinity College, but I have not heard from him for many years. " "Don't look him up, darling, " pleaded Francesca. "You are so much oursuperior now that we positively must protect you from all elevatinginfluences. " "I won't insist on the Round Towers, " smiled Salemina, "and I thinkPenelope's idea a delightful one; we might add to it a sort of literarypilgrimage to the homes and haunts of Ireland's famous writers. " "I didn't know that she had any, " interrupted Francesca. This is a favourite method of conversation with that spoiled youngperson; it seems to appeal to her in three different ways: she likesto belittle herself, she likes to shock Salemina, and she likes to haveinformation given her on the spot in some succinct, portable, convenientform. "Oh, " she continued apologetically, "of course there are Dean Swift andThomas Moore and Charles Lever. " "And, " I added "certain minor authors named Goldsmith, Sterne, Steele, and Samuel Lover. " "And Bishop Berkeley, and Brinsley Sheridan, and Maria Edgeworth, andFather Prout, " continued Salemina, "and certain great speech-makers likeBurke and Grattan and Curran; and how delightful to visit all the placesconnected with Stella and Vanessa, and the spot where Spenser wrote theFaerie Queene. " "'Nor own a land on earth but one, We're Paddies, and no more, '" sang Francesca. "You will be telling me in a moment that Thomas Carlylewas born in Skereenarinka, and that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Julietin Coolagarranoe, " for she had drawn the guidebook toward her and madegood use of it. "Let us do the literary pilgrimage, certainly, beforewe leave Ireland, but suppose we begin with something less intellectual. This is the most pugnacious map I ever gazed upon. All the names seemto begin or end with kill, bally, whack, shock, or knock; no wonder theIrish make good soldiers! Suppose we start with a sanguinary trip to theKill places, so that I can tell any timid Americans I meet in travellingthat I have been to Kilmacow and to Kilmacthomas, and am going to-morrowto Kilmore, and the next day to Kilumaule. " "I think that must have been said before, " I objected. "It is so obvious that it's not unlikely, " she rejoined; "then letus simply agree to go afterwards to see all the Bally places fromBallydehob on the south to Ballycastle or Ballymoney on the north, and from Ballynahinch or Ballywilliam on the east to Ballyvaughan orBallybunnion on the west, and passing through, in transit, Ballyragget, Ballysadare, Ballybrophy, Ballinasloe, Ballyhooley, Ballycumber, Ballyduff, Ballynashee, Ballywhack. Don't they all sound jolly and grotesque?" "They do indeed, " we agreed, "and the plan is quite worthy of you; wecan say no more. " We had now developed so many more ideas than we could possibly use thatthe labour of deciding among them was the next thing to be done. Each ofus stood out boldly for her own project, --even Francesca clinging, fromsheer wilfulness, to her worthless and absurd itineraries, --until, inorder to bring the matter to any sort of decision, somebody suggestedthat we consult Benella; which reminds me that you have not yet thepleasure of Benella's acquaintance. Chapter III. We sight a derelict. 'O Bay of Dublin, my heart you're troublin', Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream. ' Lady Dufferin. To perform the introduction properly I must go back a day or two. Wehad elected to cross to Dublin directly from Scotland, an easy nightjourney. Accordingly we embarked in a steamer called the Prince or theKing of something or other, the name being many degrees more princely orkingly than the craft itself. We had intended, too, to make our own comparison of the Bay of Dublinand the Bay of Naples, because every traveller, from Charles Lever'sJack Hinton down to Thackeray and Mr. Alfred Austin has always made it apoint of honour to do so. We were balked in our conscientious endeavour, because we arrived at the North Wall forty minutes earlier than the hourset by the steamship company. It is quite impossible for anything inIreland to be done strictly on the minute, and in struggling not to behopelessly behind time, a 'disthressful counthry' will occasionally beahead of it. We had been told that we should arrive in a drizzling rain, and that no one but Lady Dufferin had ever on approaching Ireland seenthe 'sweet faces of the Wicklow mountains reflected in a smooth andsilver sea. ' The grumblers were right on this special occasion, althoughwe have proved them false more than once since. I was in a fever of fear that Ireland would not be as Irish as we wishedit to be. It seemed probable that processions of prosperous aldermen, school directors, contractors, mayors, and ward politicians, returningto their native land to see how Herself was getting on, the crathur, might have deposited on the soil successive layers of Irish-Americanvirtues, such as punctuality, thrift, and cleanliness, until they hadquite obscured fair Erin's peculiar and pathetic charm. We longed forthe new Ireland as fervently as any of her own patriots, but we wishedto see the old Ireland before it passed. There is plenty of it left(alas! the patriots would say), and Dublin was as dear and as dirty aswhen Lady Morgan first called it so, long years ago. The boat was metby a crowd of ragged gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of themstockingless, and in men's shoes, and several of them with flowers intheir unspeakable hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting carsbecause we had not been expected so early, and the jarveys were inattendance on the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for apiece of lost luggage that I saw the stewardess assisting a young womanoff the gang plank, and leading her toward a pile of wool bags onthe dock. She sank helplessly on one of them, and leaned her head onanother. As the night had been one calculated to disturb the physicalequilibrium of a poor sailor, and the breakfast of a character todiscourage the stoutest stomach, I gave her a careless thought of pityand speedily forgot her. Two trunks, a holdall, a hatbox--in whichreposed, in solitary grandeur, Francesca's picture hat, intended forthe further undoing of the Irish gentry--a guitar case, two bags, threeumbrellas; all were safe but Salemina's large Vuitton trunk and myvalise, which had been last seen at Edinburgh station. Salemina returnedto the boat, while Francesca and I wended our way among the heaps ofluggage, followed by crowds of ragamuffins, who offered to run for acar, run for a cab, run for a porter, carry our luggage up the streetto the cab-stand, carry our wraps, carry us, 'do any mortial thing for apenny, melady, an' there is no cars here, melady, God bless me sowl, andthat He be good to us all if I'm tellin' you a word of a lie!' Entirely unused to this flow of conversation, we were obliged to stopevery few seconds to recount our luggage and try to remember what wewere looking for. We all met finally, and I rescued Salemina from thevoluble thanks of an old woman to whom she had thoughtlessly given athree-penny bit. This mother of a 'long wake family' was wishing thatSalemina might live to 'ate the hin' that scratched over her grave, and invoking many other uncommon and picturesque blessings, but we wereobliged to ask her to desist and let us attend to our own business. "Will I clane the whole of thim off for you for a penny, your ladyship'shonour, ma'am?" asked the oldest of the ragamuffins, and I gladlyassented to the novel proposition. He did it, too, and there seemed tobe no hurt feelings in the company. Just then there was a rattle of cabs and side-cars, and ourself-constituted major-domo engaged two of them to await our pleasure. At the same moment our eyes lighted upon Salemina's huge Vuitton, whichhad been dragged behind the pile of wool sacks. It was no wonder ithad escaped our notice, for it was mostly covered by the person of thesea-sick maiden whom I had seen on the arm of the stewardess. She wasseated on it, exhaustion in every line of her figure, her head upon mytravelling bag, her feet dangling over the edge until they just touchedthe 'S. P. , Salem, Mass. , U. S. A. ' painted in large red letters on theend. She was too ill to respond to our questions, but there was nomistaking her nationality. Her dress, hat, shoes, gloves, face, figurewere American. We sent for the stewardess, who told us that she hadarrived in Glasgow on the day previous, and had been very ill all theway coming from Boston. "Boston!" exclaimed Salemina. "Do you say she is from Boston, poorthing?" ("I didn't know that a person living in Boston could ever, under anycircumstances, be a 'poor thing, '" whispered Francesca to me. ) "She was not fit to be crossing last night, and the doctor on theAmerican ship told her so, and advised her to stay in bed for three daysbefore coming to Ireland; but it seems as if she were determined to getto her journey's end. " "We must have our trunk, " I interposed. "Can't we move her carefullyover to the wool sacks, and won't you stay with her until her friendscome?" "She has no friends in this country, ma'am. She's just travelling forpleasure like. " "Good gracious! what a position for her to be in, " said Salemina. "Can'tyou take her back to the steamer and put her to bed?" "I could ask the captain, certainly, miss, though of course it'ssomething we never do, and besides we have to set the ship to rights andgo across again this evening. " "Ask her what hotel she is going to, Salemina, " we suggested, "and letus drop her there, and put her in charge of the housekeeper; of courseif it is only sea-sickness she will be all right in the morning. " The girl's eyes were closed, but she opened them languidly as Saleminachafed her cold hands, and asked gently if we could not drive her to anhotel. "Is--this--your--baggage?" she whispered. "It is, " Salemina answered, somewhat puzzled. "Then don't--leave me here, I am from Salem--myself, " whereupon withoutany more warning she promptly fainted away on the trunk. The situation was becoming embarrassing. The assemblage grew larger, and a more interesting and sympathetic audience I never saw. To an Irishcrowd, always warm-hearted and kindly, willing to take any troublefor friend or stranger, and with a positive terror of loneliness, orseparation from kith and kin, the helpless creature appealed in everyway. One and another joined the group with a "Holy Biddy! what's this atall?" "The saints presarve us, is it dyin' she is?" "Look at the iligant duds she do be wearin'. " "Call the docthor, is it? God give you sinse! Sure the docthors is onlya flock of omadhauns. " "Is it your daughter she is, ma'am?" (This to Salemina. ) "She's from Ameriky, the poor mischancy crathur. " "Give her a toothful of whisky, your ladyship. Sure it's nayther bitenor sup she's had the morn, and belike she's as impty as a quarry-hole. " When this last expression from the mother of the long weak family fellupon Salemina's cultured ears she looked desperate. We could not leave a fellow-countrywoman, least of all could Saleminaforsake a fellow-citizen, in such a hapless plight. "Take one cab with Francesca and the luggage, Penelope, " she whispered. "I will bring the girl with me, put her to bed, find her friends, and see that she starts on her journey safely; it's very awkward, butthere's nothing else to be done. " So we departed in a chorus of popular approval. "Sure it's you that have the good hearts!" "May the heavens be your bed!" "May the journey thrive wid her, the crathur!" Francesca and I arrived first at the hotel where our rooms were alreadyengaged, and there proved to be a comfortable little dressing, ormaid's, room just off Salemina's. Here the Derelict was presently ensconced, and there she lay, in a sortof profound exhaustion, all day, without once absolutely regainingher consciousness. Instead of visiting the National Gallery as I hadintended, I returned to the dock to see if I could find the girl'sluggage, or get any further information from the stewardess before sheleft Dublin. "I'll send the doctor at once, but we must learn all possibleparticulars now, " I said maliciously to poor Salemina. "It would be soawkward, you know, if you should be arrested for abduction. " The doctor thought it was probably nothing more than the completeprostration that might follow eight days of sea-sickness, but thepatient's heart was certainly a little weak, and she needed the utmostquiet. His fee was a guinea for the first visit, and he would drop inagain in the course of the afternoon to relieve our anxiety. We tookturns in watching by her bedside, but the two unemployed ones lingeredforlornly near, and had no heart for sightseeing. Francesca did, however, purchase opera tickets for the evening, and secretly engagedthe housemaid to act as head nurse in our absence. As we were dining at seven, we heard a faint voice in the little roombeyond. Salemina left her dinner and went in to find her charge slightlybetter. We had been able thus far only to take off her dress, shoes, andsuch garments as made her uncomfortable; Salemina now managed to slip ona nightdress and put her under the bedcovers, returning then to her coldmutton cutlet. "She's an extraordinary person, " she said, absently playing with herknife and fork. "She didn't ask me where she was, or show any interestin her surroundings; perhaps she is still too weak. She said she wasbetter, and when I had made her ready for bed, she whispered, 'I've gotto say my prayers'. "'Say them by all means, ' I replied. "'But I must get up and kneel down, she said. "I told her she must do nothing of the sort; that she was far too ill. "'But I must, ' she urged. 'I never go to bed without saying my prayerson my knees. ' "I forbade her doing it; she closed her eyes, and I came away. Isn't shequaint?" At this juncture we heard the thud of a soft falling body, and rushingin we found that the Derelict had crept from her bed to her knees, andhad probably not prayed more than two minutes before she fainted for thefifth or sixth time in twenty-four hours. Salemina was vexed, angeland philanthropist though she is. Francesca and I were so helpless withlaughter that we could hardly lift the too conscientious maiden intobed. The situation may have been pathetic; to the truly pious mind itwould indeed have been indescribably touching, but for the moment thehumorous side of it was too much for our self-control. Salemina, inrushing for stimulants and smelling salts, broke her only comfortableeyeglasses, and this accident, coupled with her other anxietiesand responsibilities, caused her to shed tears, an occurrence sounprecedented that Francesca and I kissed and comforted her and tuckedher up on the sofa. Then we sent for the doctor, gave our opera ticketsto the head waiter and chambermaid, and settled down to a cheerful homeevening, our first in Ireland. "If Himself were here, we should not be in this plight, " I sighed. "I don't know how you can say that, " responded Salemina, withconsiderable spirit. "You know perfectly well that if your husband hadfound a mother and seven children helpless and deserted on that dock, he would have brought them all to this hotel, and then tried to find thefather and grandfather. " "And it's not Salemina's fault, " argued Francesca. "She couldn't helpthe girl being born in Salem; not that I believe that she ever heard ofthe place before she saw it printed on Salemina's trunk. I told you itwas too big and red, dear, but you wouldn't listen! I am the strongestAmerican of the party, but I confess that U. S. A. In letters five incheslong is too much for my patriotism. " "It would not be if you ever had charge of the luggage, " retortedSalemina. "And whatever you do, Francesca, " I added beseechingly, "don't impugnthe veracity of our Derelict. While we think of ourselves as ministeringangels I can endure anything, but if we are the dupes of an adventuress, there is nothing pretty about it. By the way, I have consulted theEnglish manageress of this hotel, who was not particularly sympathetic. 'Perhaps you shouldn't have assumed charge of her, madam, ' she said, 'but having done so, hadn't you better see if you can get her into ahospital?' It isn't a bad suggestion, and after a day or two we willconsider it, or I will get a trained nurse to take full charge of her. I would be at any reasonable expense rather than have our pleasureinterfered with any further. " It still seems odd to make a proposition of this kind. In former times, Francesca was the Croesus of the party, Salemina came second, and Ilast, with a most precarious income. Now I am the wealthy one, Francescais reduced to the second place, and Salemina to the third, but it makesno difference whatever, either in our relations, our arrangements, or, for that matter, in our expenditures. Chapter IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry. 'A fair maiden wander'd All wearied and lone, Sighing, "I'm a poor stranger, And far from my own. " We invited her in, We offered her share Of our humble cottage And our humble fare; We bade her take comfort, No longer to moan, And made the poor stranger Be one of our own. ' Old Irish Song. The next morning dawned as lovely as if it had slipped out of Paradise, and as for freshness, and emerald sheen, the world from our windows waslike a lettuce leaf just washed in dew. The windows of my bedroom lookedout pleasantly on St. Stephen's Green, commonly called Stephen's Green, or by citizens of the baser sort, Stephens's Green. It is a good Englishmile in circumference, and many are the changes in it from the time itwas first laid out, in 1670, to the present day, when it was made into apublic park by Lord Ardilaun. When the celebrated Mrs. Delany, then Mrs. Pendarves, first saw it, thecentre was a swamp, where in winter a quantity of snipe congregated, and Harris in his History of Dublin alludes to the presence of snipeand swamp as an agreeable and uncommon circumstance not to be met withperhaps in any other great city in the world. A double row of spreading lime-trees bordered its four sides, one ofwhich, known as Beaux' Walk, was a favourite lounge for fashionableidlers. Here stood Bishop Clayton's residence, a large building with afront like Devonshire House in Piccadilly: so writes Mrs. Delany. It wassplendidly furnished, and the bishop lived in a style which proves thatIrish prelates of the day were not all given to self-abnegation andmortification of the flesh. A long line of vehicles, outside-cars and cabs, some of them batteredand shaky, others sufficiently well-looking, was gathering on two sidesof the Green, for Dublin, you know, is 'the car-drivingest city inthe world. ' Francesca and I had our first experience yesterday in theintervals of nursing, driving to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, theFour Courts, and Grafton Street (the Regent Street of Dublin). It iseasy to tell the stranger, stiff, decorous, terrified, clutching therail with one or both hands, but we took for our model a pretty Irishgirl, who looked like nothing so much as a bird on a swaying bough. Itis no longer called the 'jaunting, ' but the outside car and thereis another charming word lost to the world. There was formerly aninside-car too, but it is almost unknown in Dublin, though still foundin some of the smaller towns. An outside-car has its wheels practicallyinside the body of the vehicle, but an inside car carries its wheelsoutside. This definition was given us by an Irish driver, but luciddefinition is not perhaps an Irishman's strong point. It is clearer tosay that the passenger sits outside of the wheels on the one, inside onthe other. There are seats for two persons over each of the twowheels, and a dickey for the driver in front, should he need to use it. Ordinarily he sits on one side, driving, while you perch on the other, and thus you jog along, each seeing your own side of the road, anddiscussing the topics of the day across the 'well, ' as the covered-incentre of the car is called. There are those who do not agree with itschampions, who call it 'Cupid's own conveyance'; they find the seat toosmall for two, yet feel it a bit unsociable when the companion occupiesthe opposite side. To me a modern Dublin car with rubber tires and agood Irish horse is the jolliest vehicle in the universe; there is aliveliness, an irresponsible gaiety, in the spring and sway of it; anease in the half-lounging position against the cushions, a unique charmin 'travelling edgeways' with your feet planted on the step. You mustnot be afraid of a car if you want to enjoy it. Hold the rail if youmust, at first, though it's just as bad form as clinging to your horse'smane while riding in the Row. Your driver will take all the chances thata crowded thoroughfare gives him; he would scorn to leave more than aninch between your feet and a Guinness' beer dray; he will shake yourflounces and furbelows in the very windows of the passing trams, but heis beloved by the gods, and nothing ever happens to him. The morning was enchanting, as I said, and, above all, the Derelict wasbetter. "It's a grand night's slape I had wid her intirely, " said the housemaid;"an' sure it's not to-day she'll be dyin' on you at all, at all; she'shad the white drink in the bowl twyst, and a grand cup o' tay on the topo' that. " Salemina fortified herself with breakfast before she went in to aninterview, which we all felt to be important and decisive. The timeseemed endless to us, and endless were our suppositions. "Perhaps she has had morning prayers and fainted again. " "Perhaps she has turned out to be Salemina's long-lost cousin. " "Perhaps she is upbraiding Salemina for kidnapping her when she wasinsensible. " "Perhaps she is relating her life history; if it is a sad one, Saleminais adopting her legally at this moment. " "Perhaps she is one of Mr. Beresford's wards, and has come over tocomplain of somebody's ill treatment. " Here Salemina entered, looking flushed and embarrassed. We thought it abad sign that she could not meet our eyes without confusion, but I maderoom for her on the sofa, and Francesca drew her chair closer. "She is from Salem, " began the poor dear; "she has never been out ofMassachusetts in her life. " "Unfortunate girl!" exclaimed Francesca, adding prudently, as she sawSalemina's rising colour, "though of course if one has to reside in asingle state, Massachusetts offers more compensations than any other. " "She knows every nook and corner in the place, " continued Salemina;"she has even seen the house where I was born, and her name is BenellaDusenberry. " "Impossible!" cried Francesca. "Dusenberry is unlikely enough, butwho ever heard of such a name as Benella! It sounds like a flavouringextract. " "She came over to see the world, she says. " "Oh! then she has money?" "No--or at least, yes; or at least she had enough when she left Americato last for two or three months, or until she could earn something. " "Of course she left her little all in a chamois-skin bag under herpillow on the steamer, " suggested Francesca. "That is precisely what she did, " Salemina replied, with a pale smile. "However, she was so ill in the steerage that she had to pay twenty-fiveor thirty dollars extra to go into the second cabin, and this naturallyreduced the amount of her savings, though it makes no difference sinceshe left them all behind her, save a few dollars in her purse. She saysshe is usually perfectly well, but that she was very tired when shestarted, that it was her first sea-voyage, and the passage was unusuallyrough. " "Where is she going?" "I don't know; I mean she doesn't know. Her maternal grandmother wasborn in Trim, near Tara, in Meath, but she does not think she has anyrelations over here. She is entirely alone in the world, and that givesher a certain sentiment in regard to Ireland, which she heard a greatdeal about when she was a child. The maternal grandmother must have goneto Salem at a very early age, as Benella herself savours only of NewEngland soil. " "Has she any trade, or is she trained to do anything whatsoever?" askedFrancesca. "No, she hoped to take some position of 'trust. ' She does not care atall what it is, so long as the occupation is 'interestin' work, ' shesays. That is rather vague, of course, but she speaks and appears like anice, conscientious person. " "Tell us the rest; conceal nothing, " I said sternly. "She--she thinks that we have saved her life, and she feels that shebelongs to us, " faltered Salemina. "Belongs to us!" we cried in a duet. "Was there ever such a base rewardgiven to virtue; ever such an unwelcome expression of gratitude! Belongto us, indeed! We can't have her; we won't have her. Were you perfectlyfrank with her?" "I tried to be, but she almost insisted; she has set her heart uponbeing our maid. " "Does she know how to be a maid?" "No, but she is extremely teachable, she says. " "I have my doubts, " remarked Francesca; "a liking for personal serviceis not a distinguishing characteristic of New Englanders; they arenot the stuff of which maids are made. If she were French or German orSenegambian, in fact anything but a Saleminian, we might use her; wehave always said we needed some one. " Salemina brightened. "I thought myself it might be rather nice--that is, I thought it might be a way out of the difficulty. Penelope had thoughtat one time of bringing a maid, and it would save us a great deal oftrouble. The doctor thinks she could travel a short distance in a fewdays; perhaps it is a Providence in disguise. " "The disguise is perfect, " murmured Francesca. "You see, " Salemina continued, "when the poor thing tottered along thewharf the stewardess laid her on the pile of wool sacks-" "Like a dying Chancellor, " again interpolated the irrepressible. "And ran off to help another passenger. When she opened her eyes, shesaw straight in front of her, in huge letters, 'Salem, Mass. , U. S. A. 'It loomed before her despairing vision, I suppose, like a great arkof refuge, and seemed to her in her half-dazed condition not only areminder, but almost a message from home. She had then no thought ofever seeing the owner; she says she felt only that she should liketo die quietly on anything marked 'Salem, Mass. ' Go in to see herpresently, Penelope, and make up your own mind about her. See if youcan persuade her to--to--well, to give us up. Try to get her out of thenotion of being our maid. She is so firm; I never saw so feeble a personwho could be so firm; and what in the world shall we do with her if shekeeps on insisting, in her nervous state?" "My idea would be, " I suggested, "to engage her provisionally, if wemust, not because we want her, but because her heart is weak. I shalltell her that we do not feel like leaving her behind, and yet weourselves cannot be detained in Dublin indefinitely; that we will trythe arrangement for a month, and that she can consider herself free toleave us at any time on a week's notice. " "I approve of that, " agreed Francesca, "because it makes it easier todismiss her in case she turns out to be a Massachusetts Borgia. Youremember, however, that we bore with the vapours and vagaries, the sighsand moans of Jane Grieve in Pettybaw, all those weeks, and not one of ushad the courage to throw off her yoke. Never shall I forget her at yourwedding, Penelope; the teardrop glistened in her eye as usual; I thinkit is glued there! Ronald was sympathetic, because he fancied she wasweeping for the loss of you, but on inquiry it transpired that she wasthinking of a marriage in that 'won'erfu' fine family in Glasgy, 'with whose charms she had made us all too familiar. She asked to beremembered when I began my own housekeeping, and I told her truthfullythat she was not a person who could be forgotten; I repressed my feelingthat she is too tearful for a Highland village where it rains mostof the year, also my conviction that Ronald's parish would chasten mesufficiently without her aid. " I did as Salemina wished, and had a conference with Miss Dusenberry. Ihope I was quite clear in my stipulations as to the perfect freedomof the four contracting parties. I know I intended to be, and I wasembarrassed to see Francesca and Salemina exchange glances next day whenBenella said she would show us what a good sailor she could be, on thereturn voyage to America, adding that she thought a person would be muchless liable to sea-sickness when travelling in the first cabin. Chapter V. The Wearing of the Green. 'Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, No son of Erin will offer me harm-- For tho' they love woman and golden store, Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more!' Thomas Moore. "This is an anniversary, " said Salemina, coming into the sitting-room atbreakfast-time with a book under her arm. "Having given up all hope ofany one's waking in this hotel, which, before nine in the morning, isprecisely like the Sleeping Beauty's castle, I dressed and determined tolook up Brian Boru. " "From all that I can recall of him he was not a person to meet beforebreakfast, " yawned Francesca; "still I shall be glad of a littlefresh light, for my mind is in a most chaotic state, induced by theintellectual preparation that you have made me undergo during the pastmonth. I dreamed last night that I was conducting a mothers' meetingin Ronald's new parish, and the subject for discussion was the SmallLivings Scheme, the object of which is to augment the stipends of theministers of the Church of Scotland to a minimum of 200 pounds perannum. I tried to keep the members to the point, but was distractedby the sudden appearance, in all corners of the church, of people whohadn't been 'asked to the party. ' There was Brian Boru, Tony Lumpkin, Finn McCool, Felicia Hemans, Ossian, Mrs. Delany, Sitric of the SilkenBeard, St. Columba, Mickey Free, Strongbow, Maria Edgeworth, and theVenerable Bede. Imagine leading a mothers' meeting with those peoplein the pews, --it was impossible! St. Columbkille and the Venerable Bedeseemed to know about parochial charges and livings and stipends andglebes, and Maria Edgeworth was rather helpful; but Brian and Sitricglared at each other and brandished their hymn-books threateningly, while Ossian refused to sit in the same pew with Mickey Free, whobehaved in an odious manner, and interrupted each of the speakers inturn. Incidentally a group of persons huddled together in a far cornerrose out of the dim light, and flapping huge wings, flew over my headand out of the window above the altar. This I took to be the Flight ofthe Earls, and the terror of it awoke me. Whatever my parish dutiesmay be in the future, at least they cannot be any more dreadful anddisorderly than the dream. " "I don't know which is more to blame, the seed that I sowed, or thesoil on which it fell, " said Salemina, laughing heartily at Francesca'swhimsical nightmares; "but as I said, this is an anniversary. The famousbattle of Clontarf was fought here in Dublin on this very day eighthundred years ago, and Brian Boru routed the Danes in what was the laststruggle between Christianity and heathenism. The greatest slaughtertook place on the streets along which we drove yesterday from BallyboughBridge to the Four Courts. Brian Boru was king of Munster, you remember"(Salemina always says this for courtesy's sake), "or at least you haveread of that time in Ireland's history when a fair lady dressed in finesilk and gold and jewels could walk unmolested the length of the land, because of the love the people bore King Brian and the respect theycherished for his wise laws. Well, Mailmora, the king of Leinster, hadquarrelled with him, and joined forces with the Danish leaders againsthim. Broder and Amlaff, two Vikings from the Isle of Man, brought withthem a 'fleet of two thousand Denmarkians and a thousand men coveredwith mail from head to foot, ' to meet the Irish, who always fought intunics. Joyce says that Broder wore a coat of mail that no steel wouldbite, that he was both tall and strong, and that his black locks wereso long that he tucked them under his belt, --there's a portrait for yourgallery, Penelope. Brian's army was encamped on the Green of Aha-Clee, which is now Phoenix Park, and when he set fire to the Danish districts, the fierce Norsemen within the city could see a blazing, smoking pathwaythat reached from Dublin to Howth. The quarrel must have been all themore virulent in that Mailmora was Brian's brother-in-law, and Brian'sdaughter was the wife of Sitric of the Silken Beard, Danish king ofDublin. " "I refuse to remember their relationships or alliances, " said Francesca. "They were always intermarrying with their foes in order to gainstrength, but it generally seems to have made things worse ratherthan better; still I don't mind hearing what became of Brian after hisvictory; let us quite finish with him before the eggs come up. I supposeit will be eggs?" "Broder the Viking rushed upon him in his tent where he was praying, cleft his head from his body, and he is buried in Armagh Cathedral, "said Salemina, closing the book. "Penelope, do ring again for breakfast, and just to keep us from realising our hunger read 'Remember the Gloriesof Brian the Brave. '" We had brought letters of introduction to a dean, a bishop, and a Rt. Hon. Lord Justice, so there were a few delightful invitations when themorning post came up; not so many as there might have been, perhaps, had not the Irish capital been in a state of complete dementia over thepresence of the greatest Queen in the world. [*] Privately, I think thatthose nations in the habit of having kings and queens at all should havefour, like those in a pack of cards; then they could manage to give alltheir colonies and dependencies a frequent sight of royalty, and preventmuch excitement and heart-burning. * Penelope's experiences in Scotland, given in a former volume, ended, the meticulous proof-reader will remember, with her marriage in the year of the Queen's Jubilee. It is apparent in the opening chapters of this story that Penelope came to Ireland the following spring, which, though the matter is hardly important, was not that of the Queen's memorable visit. The Irish experiences are probably the fruit of several expeditions, and Penelope has chosen to include this vivid impression of Her Majesty's welcome to Ireland, even though it might convict her of an anachronism. Perhaps as this is not an historical novel, but a 'chronicle of small beer, ' the trifling inaccuracy may be pardoned. --K. D. W. It was worth something to be one of the lunatic populace when the littlelady in black, with her parasol bordered in silver shamrocks, drovealong the gaily decorated streets, for the Irish, it seems to me, desirenothing better than to be loyal, if any persons to whom they can beloyal are presented to them. "Irish disaffection is, after all, but skin-deep, " said our friend thedean; "it is a cutaneous malady, produced by external irritants. Belowthe surface there is a deep spring of personal loyalty, which needs onlya touch like that of the prophet's wand to enable it to gush forth inhealing floods. Her Majesty might drive through these crowded streetsin her donkey chaise unguarded, as secure as the lady in that poem ofMoore's which portrayed the safety of women in Brian Boru's time. Theold song has taken on a new meaning. It begins, you know, -- 'Lady, dost thou not fear to stray So lone and lonely through this dark way?' and the Queen might answer as did the heroine, 'Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, No son of Erin will offer me harm. '" It was small use for the parliamentary misrepresentatives to advisetreating Victoria of the Good Deeds with the courtesy due to a foreignsovereign visiting the country. Under the miles of flags she drove, red, white, and blue, tossing themselves in the sweet spring air, and up fromthe warm hearts of the surging masses of people, men and women alike, Crimean soldiers and old crones in rags, gentry and peasants, went agreeting I never before heard given to any sovereign, for it was a sighof infinite content that trembled on the lips and then broke into a deepsob, as a knot of Trinity College students in a spontaneous burst ofsong flung out the last verse of 'The New Wearing of the Green. ' [**] 'And so upon St. Patrick's Day, Victoria, she has said Each Irish regiment shall wear the Green beside the Red; And she's coming to ould Ireland, who away so long has been, And dear knows but into Dublin she'll ride Wearing of the Green. ' ** Alfred Perceval Graves. The first cheers were faint and broken, and the emotion that quiveredon every face and the tears that gleamed in a thousand eyes made it themost touching spectacle in the world. 'Foreign Sovereign, indeed!'She was the Queen of Ireland, and the nation of courtiers and heroworshippers was at her feet. There was the history of five hundred yearsin that greeting, and to me it spoke volumes. Plenty of people there were in the crowd, too, who were heartily 'aginthe Government'; but Daniel O'Connell is not the only Irishman whocould combine a detestation of the Imperial Parliament with a passionateloyalty to the sovereign. There was a woman near us who 'remimbered the last time Her NobleHighness come, thirty-nine years back, --glory be to God, thim was thetimes!'--and who kept ejaculating, "She's the best woman in the wurrld, bar none, and the most varchous faymale!" As her husband made no reply, she was obliged in her excitement to thump him with her umbrella andrepeat, "The most varchous faymale, do you hear?" At which he retorted, "Have conduct, woman; sure I've nothin' agin it. " "Look at the size of her now, " she went on, "sittin' in that grandcarriage, no bigger than me own Kitty, and always in the black, thedarlin'. Look at her, a widdy woman, raring that large and heavy familyof children; and how well she's married off her daughters (more luck toher!), though to be sure they must have been well fortuned! They dobe sayin' she's come over because she's plazed with seein' estatedgintlemen lave iverything and go out and be shot by thim bloody Boers, bad scran to thim! Sure if I had the sons, sorra a wan but I'd lavego! Who's the iligant sojers in the silver stays, Thady? Is it the LifeGuards you're callin' thim?" There were two soldiers' wives standing on the pavement near us, andone of them showed a half-sovereign to the other, saying, "'Tis the lastday's airnin' iver I seen by him, Mrs. Muldoon, ma'am! Ah, there's thimsays for this war, an' there's thim says agin this war, but Heaven laveHimself where he is, I says, for of all the ragin' Turcomaniacs iver amisfortunate woman was curst with, Pat Brady, my full private, he bates'em all!" Here the band played 'Come back to Erin, ' and the scene wasindescribable. Nothing could have induced me to witness it had Irealised what it was to be, for I wept at Holyrood when I heard theplaintive strains of 'Bonnie Charlie's noo Awa' floating up to theGallery of Kings from the palace courtyard, and I did not wish Francescato see me shedding national, political, and historical tears so soonagain. Francesca herself is so ardent a republican that she weepsonly for presidents and cabinet officers. For my part, although I amthoroughly loyal, I cannot become sufficiently attached to a presidentin four years to shed tears when I see him driving at the head of aprocession. Chapter VI. Dublin, then and now. 'I found in Innisfail the fair, In Ireland, while in exile there, Women of worth, both grave and gay men, Many clerics, and many laymen. ' James Clarence Mangan. Mrs. Delany, writing from Dublin in 1731, says: 'As for the generalityof people that I meet with here, they are much the same as in England--amixture of good and bad. All that I have met with behave themselves verydecently according to their rank; now and then an oddity breaks out, butnever so extraordinary but that I can match it in England. There is aheartiness among them that is more like Cornwall than any I have known, and great sociableness. ' This picturesque figure in the life of her daygives charming pictures in her memoirs of the Irish society of the time, descriptions which are confirmed by contemporary writers. She was thewife of Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, the companion of duchesses and queens, and the friend of Swift. Hannah More, in a poem called 'Sensibility, 'published in 1778, gives this quaint and stilted picture of her:-- 'Delany shines, in worth serenely bright, Wisdom's strong ray, and virtue's milder light. And she who blessed the friend and graced the page of Swift, still lends her lustre to our age. Long, long protract thy light, O star benign, Whose setting beams with added brightness shine!' The Irish ladies of Delany's day, who scarcely ever appeared on foot inthe streets, were famous for their grace in dancing, it seems, as themen were for their skill in swimming. The hospitality of the upperclasses was profuse, and by no means lacking in brilliancy or in grace. The humorous and satirical poetry found in the fugitive literature ofthe period shows conclusively that there were plenty of brightspirits and keen wits at the banquets, routs, and balls. The curse ofabsenteeism was little felt in Dublin, where the Parliament secured thepresence of most of the aristocracy and of much of the talent of thecountry, and during the residence of the viceroy there was the influenceof the court to contribute to the sparkling character of Dublin society. How they managed to sparkle when discussing some of the heavy dinnermenus of the time I cannot think. Here is one of the Dean of Down'sbills of fare:-- Turkeys endove Boyled leg of mutton Greens, etc. Soup Plum Pudding Roast loin of veal Venison pasty Partridge Sweetbreads Collared Pig Creamed apple tart Crabs Fricassee of eggs Pigeons No dessert to be had. Although there is no mention of beverages we may be sure that thisarray of viands was not eaten dry, but was washed down with a plentifulvariety of wines and liquors. The hosts, either in Dublin or London, who numbered among their dinnerguests such Irishmen as Sheridan or Lysaght, Mangan or Lever, Curranor Lover, Father Prout or Dean Swift, had as great a feast of wit andrepartee as one will be apt soon to hear again; although it must havebeen Lever or Lover who furnished the cream of Irish humour, and FatherProut and Swift the curds. If you are fortunate enough to be bidden to the right houses in Irelandto-day, you will have as much good talk as you are likely to listen toanywhere else in this degenerate age, which has mostly forgotten how toconverse in learning to chat; and any one who goes to the Spring Showat Ball's Bridge, or to the Punchestown or Leopardstown races, or to theDublin horse show, will have to confess that the Irishwomen can disputethe palm with any nation. 'Light on their feet now they passed me and sped, Give you me word, give you me word, Every girl wid a turn o' the head Just like a bird, just like a bird; And the lashes so thick round their beautiful eyes Shinin' to tell you it's fair time o' day wid them, Back in me heart wid a kind of surprise, I think how the Irish girls has the way wid them!' Their charm is made up of beautiful eyes and lashes, lustre of hair, poise of head, shapeliness of form, vivacity and coquetry; and thereis a matchless grace in the way they wear the 'whatever, ' be it thechiffons of the fashionable dame, or the shawl of the country colleen, who can draw the two corners of that faded article of apparel shyly overher lips and look out from under it with a pair of luminous grey eyes ina manner that is fairly 'disthractin'. ' Yesterday was a red-letter day, for I dined in the evening at DublinCastle, and Francesca was bidden to the concert in the Throne Roomafterwards. It was a brilliant scene when the assembled guests awaitedtheir host and hostess, the shaded lights bringing out the satins andvelvets, pearls and diamonds, uniforms, orders, and medals. Suddenlythe hum of voices ceased as one of the aides-de-camp who preceded thevice-regal party announced 'their Excellencies. ' We made a sort ofpassage as these dignitaries advanced to shake hands with a few of thosethey knew best. The Lord Lieutenant then gave his arm to the lady ofhighest rank (alas, it was not I!); her Excellency chose her propersquire, and we passed through the beautifully decorated rooms to St. Patrick's Hall in a nicely graded procession, magnificence at the head, humility at the tail. A string band was discoursing sweet music thewhile, and I fitted to its measures certain well-known lines descriptiveof the entrance of the beasts into the ark. 'The animals went in two by two, The elephant and the kangaroo. ' As my escort was a certain brilliant lord justice, and as the wittiestdean in Leinster was my other neighbour, I almost forgot to eat in mypleasure and excitement. I told the dean that we had chosen Scottishancestors before going to our first great dinner in Edinburgh, feelingthat we should be more in sympathy with the festivities and moreacceptable to our hostess, but that I had forgotten to provide myselffor this occasion, my first function in Dublin; whereupon the good deanpromptly remembered that there was a Penelope O'Connor, daughter of theKing of Connaught. I could not quite give up Tam o' the Cowgate (ThomasHamilton) or Jenny Geddes of fauld-stule fame, also a Hamilton, but Iadded the King of Connaught to the list of my chosen forebears with muchdelight, in spite of the polite protests of the Rev. Father O'Hogan, whosat opposite, and who remarked that 'Man for his glory To ancestry flies, But woman's bright story Is told in her eyes. While the monarch but traces Through mortal his line, Beauty born of the Graces Ranks next to divine. ' I asked the Reverend Father if he were descended from Galloping O'Hogan, who helped Patrick Sarsfield to spike the guns of the Williamites atLimerick. "By me sowl, ma'am, it's not discinded at all I am; I am one o' thecommon sort, just, " he answered, broadening his brogue to make me smile. A delightful man he was, exactly such an one as might have sprung fullgrown from a Lever novel; one who could talk equally well with his flockabout pigs or penances, purgatory or potatoes, and quote Tom Moore andLover when occasion demanded. Story after story fell from his genial lips, and at last he saidapologetically, "One more, and I have done, " when a pretty woman, sitting near him, interpolated slyly, "We might say to you, yourreverence, what the old woman said to the eloquent priest who finishedhis sermon with 'One word, and I have done'". "An' what is that, ma'am?" asked Father O'Hogan. "'Och! me darlin' pracher, may ye niver be done!'" We all agreed that we should like to reconstruct the scene for a momentand look at a drawing-room of two hundred years ago, when the LadyLieutenant after the minuets at eleven o'clock went to her basset table, while her pages attended behind her chair, and when on ball nightsthe ladies scrambled for sweetmeats on the dancing-floor. As to theirprobable toilets, one could not give purer pleasure than by quoting Mrs. Delany's description of one of them:-- 'The Duchess's dress was of white satin embroidered, the bottom of thepetticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds, and everybreadth had an old stump of a tree, that ran up almost to the top ofthe petticoat, broken and ragged, and worked with brown chenille, roundwhich twined nasturtiums, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, and all sortsof running flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat.... Therobings and facings were little green banks covered with all sorts ofweeds, and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twining branchesof the same sort as those on the petticoat. Many of the leaves werefinished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like thegilding of the sun. I never saw a piece of work so prettily fancied. ' She adds a few other details for the instruction of her sister Anne:-- 'Heads are variously adorned; pompons with some accompaniment offeathers, ribbons, or flowers; lappets in all sorts of curli-murlis;long hoods are worn close under the chin; the ear-rings go round theneck(!), and tie with bows and ends behind. Night-gowns are worn withouthoops. ' Part Second--Munster. Chapter VII. A tour and a detour. '"An' there, " sez I to meself, "we're goin' wherever we go, But where we'll be whin we git there it's never a know I'll know. "' Jane Barlow. We had planned to go direct from Dublin to Valencia Island, where thereis not, I am told, 'one dhry step 'twixt your fut an' the States';but we thought it too tiring a journey for Benella, and arranged for alittle visit to Cork first. We nearly missed the train owing to thelate arrival of Salemina at the Kingsbridge station. She had been buyingmalted milk, Mellin's Food, an alcohol lamp, a tin cup, and getting allthe doctor's prescriptions renewed. We intended, too, to go second or third class now an then, in order tostudy the humours of the natives, but of course we went 'first' on thisoccasion on account of Benella. I told her that we could not followBritish usage and call her by her surname. Dusenberry was too long andtoo--well, too extraordinary for daily use abroad. "P'r'aps it is, " she assented meekly; "and still, Mis' Beresford, whena man's name is Dusenberry, you can't hardly blame him for wanting hischild to be called by it, can you?" This was incontrovertible, and I asked her middle name. It was Frances, and that was too like Francesca. "You don't like the sound o' Benella?" she inquired. "I've always setgreat store by my name, it is so unlikely. My father's name was Benjaminand my mother's Ella, and mine is made from both of 'em; but you cancall me any kind of a name you please, after what you've done for me, "and she closed her eyes patiently. 'Call me Daphne, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me thine, ' which is exactly what we are not ready to do, I thought, in a poeticparenthesis. Benella looks frail and yet hardy. She has an unusual and perhapsunnecessary amount of imagination for her station, some nativecommon-sense, but limited experience; she is somewhat vague andinconsistent in her theories of life, but I am sure there is vitality, and energy too, in her composition, although it has been temporarilydrowned in the Atlantic Ocean. If she were a clock, I should think thatsome experimenter had taken out her original works, and substitutedothers to see how they would run. The clock has a New England caseand strikes with a New England tone, but the works do not match italtogether. Of course I know that one does not ordinarily engage alady's-maid because of these piquant peculiarities; but in our case thecircumstances were extraordinary. I have explained them fully to Himselfin my letters, and Francesca too has written pages of illuminatingdetail to Ronald Macdonald. The similarity in the minds of men must sometimes come across them witha shock, unless indeed it appeals to their sense of humour. Himselfin America, and the Rev. Mr. Macdonald in the north of Scotland, bothanswered, in course of time, that a lady's-maid should be engagedbecause is a lady's-maid and for no other reason. Was ever anything duller than this, more conventional, more commonplaceor didactic, less imaginative? Himself added, "You are a romantic idiot, and I love you more than tongue can tell. " Francesca did not say whatRonald added; probably a part of this same sentence (owing to theaforesaid similarity of men's minds), reserving the rest for the frankintimacy of the connubial state. Everything looked beautiful in the uncertain glory of the April day. The thistle-down clouds opened now and then to shake out a delicate, brilliant little shower that ceased in a trice, and the sun smiledthrough the light veil of rain, turning every falling drop to a jewel. It was as if the fairies were busy at aerial watering-pots, withoutany more serious purpose than to amuse themselves and make the earthbeautiful; and we realised that Irish rain is as warm as an Irishwelcome, and soft as an Irish smile. Everything was bursting into new life, everything but the primroses, andtheir glory was departing. The yellow carpet seemed as bright as everon the sunny hedgerow banks and on the fringe of the woods, but when weplucked some at a wayside station we saw that they were just past theirgolden prime. There was a grey-green hint of verdure in the sallowsthat stood against a dark background of firs, and the branches ofthe fruit-trees were tipped with pink, rosy-hued promises of May justthreatening to break through their silvery April sheaths. Raindropswere still glistening on the fronds of the tender young ferns and on thegreat clumps of pale, delicately scented bog violets that we found ina marshy spot and brought in to Salemina, who was not in her usualspirits; who indeed seemed distinctly anxious. She was enchanted with the changeful charm of the landscape, and foundMrs. Delany's Memoirs a book after her own heart, but ever and anonher eyes rested on Benella's pale face. Nothing could have beenmore doggedly conscientious and assiduous than our attentions to theDerelict. She had beef juice at Kildare, malted milk at Ballybrophy, tea at Dundrum; nevertheless, as we approached Limerick Junction we wereobliged to hold a consultation. Salemina wished to alight from thetrain at the next station, take a three hours' rest, then jog on to anycomfortable place for the night, and to Cork in the morning. "I shall feel much more comfortable, " she said, "if you go on and amuseyourselves as you like, leaving Benella to me for a day, or even for twoor three days. I can't help feeling that the chief fault, or at leastthe chief responsibility, is mine. If I hadn't been born in Salem, orhadn't had the word painted on my trunk in such red letters she wouldn'thave fainted on it, and I needn't have saved her life. It is too lateto turn back now; it is saved, or partly saved, and I must persevere insaving it, at least until I find that it's not worth saving. " "Poor darling!" said Francesca sympathisingly. "I'll look in Murrayand find a nice interesting place. You can put Benella to bed in theSouthern Hotel at Limerick Junction, and perhaps you can then drivewithin sight of the Round Tower of Cashel. Then you can take up theafternoon train and go to--let me see--how would you like Buttevant?(Boutez en avant, you know, the 'Push forward' motto of the Barrymores. )It's delightful, Penelope, " she continued; "we'd better get off, too. Itis a garrison town, and there is a military hotel. Then in the vicinityis Kilcolman, where Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene: so there is thebeginning of your literary pilgrimage the very first day, without anyplotting or planning. The little river Aubeg, which flows by KilcolmanCastle, Spenser called the Mulla, and referred to it as 'Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep. ' That, by the way, is no more thanour Jane Grieve could have done for the rivers of Scotland. What do yousay? and won't you be a 'prood woman the day' when you sign the hotelregister 'Miss Peabody and maid, Salem, Mass. , U. S. A'" I thought most favourably of Buttevant, but on prudently inquiring theguard's opinion, he said it was not a comfortable place for an invalidlady, and that Mallow was much more the thing. At Limerick Junction, then, we all alighted, and in the ten minutes' wait saw Benella escortedup the hotel stairway by a sympathetic head waiter. Detached from Salemina's fostering care and prudent espionage, separated, above all, from the depressing Miss Dusenberry, we plannedevery conceivable folly in the way of guidebook expeditions. Theexhilarating sense of being married, and therefore properly equipped toundertake any sort of excursion with perfect propriety, gave added zestto the affair in my eyes. Sleeping at Cork in an Imperial Hotel was fartoo usual a proceeding, --we scorned it. As the very apex of boldness andreckless defiance of common-sense, we let our heavy luggage go on to thecapital of Munster, and, taking our handbags, entered a railway carriagestanding on a side track, and were speedily on our way, --we knew notwhither, and cared less. We discovered all too soon that we were goingto Waterford, the Star of the Suir, -- 'The gentle Shure, that making way By sweet Clonmell, adorns rich Waterford'; and we were charmed at first sight with its quaint bridge spanning thesilvery river. It was only five o'clock, and we walked about the fineold ninth-century town, called by the Cavaliers the Urbs Intacta, because it was the one place in Ireland which successfully resisted theall-conquering Cromwell. Francesca sent a telegram at once to MISS PEABODY AND MAID, Great Southern Hotel, Limerick Junction. Came to Waterford instead Cork. Strongbow landed here 1771, defeating Danes and Irish. Youghal to-morrow, pronounced Yawl. Address, Green Park, Miss Murphy's. How's Derelict? FRANELOPE. It was absurd, of course, but an absurdity that can be achieved at thecost of eighteen-pence is well worth the money. Nobody but a Baedeker or a Murray could write an account of our doingsthe next two days. Feeling that we might at any hour be recalled toBenella's bedside, we took a childlike pleasure in crowding as much aspossible into the time. This zeal was responsible for our leaving theUrbs Intacta, and pushing on to pass the night in something smaller andmore idyllic. I dissuaded Francesca from seeking a lodging in Ballybricken byinforming her that it was the heart of the bacon industry, and the homeof the best-known body of pig-buyers in Ireland; but her mind was fixedupon Kills and Ballies. On asking our jarvey the meaning of Bally asa prefix, he answered reflectively: "I don't think there's annythingonderhanded in the manin', melady; I think it means BALLY jist. " The name of the place where we did go shall never be divulged, lest acurious public follow in our footsteps; and if perchance it have notour youth, vigour, and appetite for adventure, it might die there in theprincipal hotel, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. The house is said to bethree hundred and seventy-five years old, but we are convinced that thisis a wicked understatement of its antiquity. It must have been builtsince the Deluge, else it would at least have had one general springcleaning in the course of its existence. Cromwell had been there too, and in the confusion of his departure they must have forgotten to sweepunder the beds. We entered our rooms at ten in the evening, havingdismissed our car, knowing well that there was no other place to stopthe night. We gave the jarvey twice his fare to avoid altercation, 'but divil a penny less would he take, ' although it was he who hadrecommended the place as a cosy hotel. "It looks like a small littlehouse, melady, but 'tis large inside, and it has a power o' beds in it. "We each generously insisted on taking the dirtiest bedroom (they hadboth been last occupied by the Cromwellian soldiers, we agreed), butrelinquished the idea, because the more we compared them the moreimpossible it was to decide which was the dirtiest. There were no lockson the doors. "And sure what matther for that, Miss? Nobody has a right(i. E. Business) to be comin' in here but meself, " said the aged womanwho showed us to our rooms. Chapter VIII. Romance and reality. 'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. ' Charles Wolfe. At midnight I heard a faint tap at my door, and Francesca walked in, hereyes wide and bright, her cheeks flushed, her long, dark braid of hairhanging over her black travelling cloak. I laughed as I saw her, shelooked so like Sir Patrick Spens in the ballad play at Pettybaw, --amemorable occasion when Ronald Macdonald caught her acting that tragicrole in his ministerial gown, the very day that Himself came from Paristo marry me in Pettybaw, dear little Pettybaw! "I came in to find out if your bed is as bad as mine, but I see you havenot slept in it, " she whispered. "I was just coming in to see if yours could be any worse, " I replied. "Do you mean to say that you have tried it, courageous girl? I blew outmy candle, and then, after an interval in which to forget, sat down onthe outside as a preliminary; but the moon rose just then, and I couldget no further. " I had not unpacked my bag. I had simply slipped on my macintosh, selected a wooden chair, and, putting a Cromwellian towel over it, seated myself shudderingly on it and put my feet on the rounds, quotingMoore meantime-- 'And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!" Francesca followed my example, and we passed the night in readingCeltic romances to each other. We could see the faint outline ofsweet Slievenamann from our windows--the mountain of the fair women ofFeimheann, celebrated as the hunting-ground of the Finnian Chiefs. 'One day Finn and Oscar Followed the chase in Sliabh-na-mban-Feimheann, With three thousand Finnian chiefs Ere the sun looked out from his circle. ' In the Finnian legend, the great Finn McCool, when much puzzled in thechoice of a wife, seated himself on its summit. At last he decided tomake himself a prize in a competition of all the fair women in Ireland. They should start at the foot of the mountain, and the one who firstreached the summit should be the great Finn's bride. It was Grainne Oge, the Gallic Helen, and daughter of Cormac, the king of Ireland, who wonthe chieftain, 'being fleetest of foot and longest of wind. ' We almost forgot our discomforts in this enthralling story, and slepton each other's nice clean shoulders a little, just before the dawn. Andsuch a dawn! Such infinite softness of air, such dew-drenched verdure!It is a backward spring, they say, but to me the woods are even lovelierthan in their summer wealth of foliage, when one can hardly distinguishthe beauty of the single tree from that of its neighbours, since thecolours are blended in one universal green. Now we see the featherytassels of the beech bursting out of their brown husks, the russet huesof the young oak leaves, and the countless emerald gleams that 'breakfrom the ruby-budded lime. ' The greenest trees are the larch, thehorse-chestnut, and the sycamore, three naturalised citizens whoapparently still keep to their native fashions, and put out theirfoliage as they used to do in their own homes. The young alders and thehawthorn hedges are greening, but it will be a fortnight before wecan realise the beauty of that snow-white bloom, with its bitter-sweetfragrance. The cuckoo-flower came this year before instead of after thebird, they tell us, showing that even Nature, in these days of anarchyand misrule, is capable of taking liberties with her own laws. Thereis a fragrance of freshly turned earth in the air, and the rooks arestreaming out from the elms by the little church, and resting for a bitin a group of plume-like yews. The last few days of warmth and sunshinehave inspired the birds, and as Francesca and I sit at our windowsbreathing in the sweetness and freshness of the morning, there is aconcert of thrushes and blackbirds in the shrubberies. The littlebirds furnish the chorus or the undertone of song, the hedge-sparrows, redbreasts, and chaffinches, but the meistersingers 'call the tune, 'and lead the feathered orchestra with clear and certain notes. It is agolden time for the minstrels, for nest-building is finished, and thefeeding of the younglings a good time yet in the future. We can see onelittle brown lady hovering warm eggs under her breast, her bright eyespeeping through a screen of leaves as she glances up at her singinglord, pouring out his thanks for the morning sun. There is only a hintof breeze, it might almost be the whisper of uncurling fern fronds, butsoft as it is, it stirs the branches here and there, and I know that itis rocking hundreds of tiny cradles in the forest. When I was always painting in those other days before I met Himself, onemight think my eyes would have been even keener to see beauty thannow, when my brushes are more seldom used; but it is not so. There issomething, deep hidden in my consciousness, that makes all lovelinesslovelier, that helps me to interpret it in a different and in a largersense. I have a feeling that I have been lifted out of the individualand given my true place in the general scheme of the universe, and, insome subtle way that I can hardly explain, I am more nearly related toall things good, beautiful, and true than I was when I was wholly anartist, and therefore less a woman. The bursting of the leaf-buds bringsme a tender thought of the one dear heart that gives me all its spring;and whenever I see the smile of a child, a generous look, the flash ofsympathy in an eye, it makes me warm with swift remembrance of the one Ilove the best of all, just 'as a lamplight will set a linnet singing forthe sun. ' Love is doing the same thing for Francesca; for the smaller feelingsmerge themselves in the larger ones, as little streams lose themselvesin oceans. Whenever we talk quietly together of that strange, new, difficult life that she is going so bravely and so joyously to meet, Iknow by her expression that Ronald's noble face, a little shy, alittle proud, but altogether adoring, serves her for courage and forinspiration, and she feels that his hand is holding hers across thedistance, in a clasp that promises strength. At five o'clock we longed to ring for hot water, but did not dare. Evenat six there was no sound of life in the cosy inn which we have namedThe Cromwell Arms ('Mrs. Duddy, Manageress; Comfort, Cleanliness, Courtesy; Night Porter; Cycling Shed'). From seven to half-past we readpages and pages of delicious history and legend, and decided to go fromCappoquin to Youghal by steamer, if we could possibly reach the place ofdeparture in time. At half-past seven we pulled the bell energetically. Nothing happened, and we pulled again and again, discovering at lastthat the connection between the bell-rope and the bell-wire had longsince disappeared, though it had been more than once established withbits of twine, fishing-line, and shoe laces. Francesca then went acrossthe hall to examine her methods of communication, and presently I hearda welcome tinkle, and another, and another, followed in due season bya cheerful voice, saying, "Don't desthroy it intirely, ma'am; I'll becoming direckly. " We ordered jugs of hot water, and were told that itwould be some time before it could be had, as ladies were not in thehabit of calling for it before nine in the morning, and as the damper ofthe kitchen-range was out of order. Did we wish it in a little canteenwith whisky and a bit of lemon-peel, or were we afther wantin' it ina jug? We replied promptly that it was not the hour for toddy, but thehour for baths, with us, and the decrepit and very sleepy night porterdeparted to wake the cook and build the fire; advising me first, in afriendly way, to take the hearth brush that was 'kapin' the windy up, and rap on the wall if I needed annything more. ' At eight o'clock weheard the porter's shuffling step in the hall, followed by a howl and apolite objurgation. A strange dog had passed the night under Francesca'sbed, and the porter was giving him what he called 'a good hand and futdownstairs. ' He had put down the hot water for this operation, and ontaking up the burden again we heard him exclaim: "Arrah! look at thatnow! May the divil fly away with the excommunicated ould jug!" Itwas past saving, the jug, and leaked so freely that one had to beexceedingly nimble to put to use any of the smoky water in it. "Thimfools o' turf do nothing but smoke on me, " apologised the venerableservitor, who then asked, "would we be pleased to order breakquist. " Wewere wise in our generation, and asked for nothing but bacon, eggs, andtea; and after a smoky bath and a change of raiment we seated at ourrepast in the coffee-room, feeling wonderfully fresh and cheerful. Bylooking directly at each other most of the time, and making experimentaljourneys from plate to mouth, thus barring out any intimate knowledge ofthe tablecloth and the waiter's linen, we managed to make a breakfast. Francesca is enough to give any one a good appetite. Ronald Macdonaldwill be a lucky fellow, I think, to begin his day by sitting oppositeher, for her eyes shine like those of a child, and one's gaze lingersfondly on the cool freshness of her cheek. Breakfast over and the billsettled, we speedily shook off as much of the dust of Mrs. Duddy's hotelas could be shaken off, and departed on the most decrepit sidecar thatever rolled on two wheels, being wished a safe journey by a slatternlymaid who stood in the doorway, by the wide Mrs. Duddy herself, whorealised in her capacious person the picturesque Irish phrase, 'thefull-of-the-door of a woman, ' and by our friend the head waiter, wholeaned against Mrs. Duddy's ancestral pillars in such a way that themorning sun shone full upon his costume and revealed its weaknesses toour reluctant gaze. The driver said it was eleven miles to Cappoquin, the guide-bookfourteen, but this difference of opinion, we find, is only thedifference between Irish and English miles, for which our driver had anunspeakable contempt, as of a vastly inferior quality. He had, on theother hand, a great respect for Mrs. Duddy and her comfortable, cleanly, and courteous establishment (as per advertisement), and the warmestadmiration for the village in which she had appropriately locatedherself, a village which he alluded to as 'wan of the natest towns inthe ring of Ireland, for if ye made a slip in the street of it, be thehelp of God ye were always sure to fall into a public-house!' "We had better not tell the full particulars of this journey toSalemina, " said Francesca prudently, as we rumbled along; "though, oddly enough, if you remember, whenever any one speaks disparagingly ofIreland, she always takes up cudgels in its behalf. " "Francesca, now that you are within three or four months of beingmarried, can you manage to keep a secret?" "Yes, " she whispered eagerly, squeezing my hand and inclining hershoulder cosily to mine. "Yes, oh yes, and how it would raise my spiritsafter a sleepless night!" "When Salemina was eighteen she had a romance, and the hero of it wasthe son of an Irish gentleman, an M. P. , who was travelling in America, or living there for a few years, --I can't remember which. He was nothingmore than a lad, less than twenty-one years old, but he was very much inlove with Salemina. How far her feelings were involved I never knew, but she felt that she could not promise to marry him. Her mother was aninvalid, and her father a delightful, scholarly, autocratic, selfish oldgentleman, who ruled his household with a rod of iron. Salemina coddledand nursed them both during all her young life; indeed, little as sherealised it, she never had any separate existence or individuality untilthey both died, when she was thirty-one or two years old. " "And what became of the young Irishman? Was he faithful to his firstlove, or did he marry?" "He married, many years afterward, and that was the time I firstheard the story. His marriage took place in Dublin, on the very day, I believe, that Salemina's father was buried; for Fate has the mostrelentless way of arranging these coincidences. I don't remember hisname, and I don't know where he lives or what has become of him. Iimagine the romance has been dead and buried in rose-leaves for years;Salemina never has spoken of it to me, but it would account for hersentimental championship of Ireland. " Chapter IX. The light of other days. 'Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me. ' Thomas Moore. If you want to fall head over ears in love with Ireland at the veryfirst sight of her charms, take, as we did, the steamer from Cappoquinto Youghal, and float down the vale of the Blackwater-- 'Swift Awniduff, which of the Englishman Is cal' de Blackwater. ' The shores of this Irish Rhine are so lovely that the sail on asunny day is one of unequalled charm. Behind us the mountains rangedthemselves in a mysterious melancholy background; ahead the river wendedits way southward in and out, in and out, through rocky cliffs andwell-wooded shores. The first tributary stream that we met was the little Finisk, on thehigher banks of which is Affane House. The lands of Affane are said tohave been given by one of the FitzGeralds to Sir Walter Raleigh for abreakfast, a very high price to pay for bacon and eggs, and it was herethat he planted the first cherry-tree in Ireland, bringing it from theCanary Islands to the Isle of Weeping. Looking back just below here, we saw the tower and cloisters of MountMelleray, the Trappist monastery. Very beautiful and very lonely looked'the little town of God, ' in the shadows of the gloomy hills. We wishedwe had known the day before how near we were to it, for we could haveclaimed a night's lodging at the ladies' guest-house, where all creeds, classes, and nationalities are received with a cead-mile-failte, [*] andwhere any offering for food or shelter is given only at the visitorspleasure. The Celtic proverb, 'Melodious is the closed mouth, ' might bewritten over the cloisters; for it is a village of silence, and only themonks who teach in the schools or who attend visitors are absolved fromthe vow. *A hundred thousand welcomes. Next came Dromana Castle, where the extraordinary old Countess ofDesmond was born, --the wonderful old lady whose supposed one hundredand forty years so astonished posterity. She must have married Thomas, twelfth Earl of Desmond, after 1505, as his first wife is known to havebeen alive in that year. Raleigh saw her in 1589, and she died in 1604:so it would seem that she must have been at least one hundred and ten orone hundred and twelve when she met her untimely death, --a death broughtabout entirely by her own youthful impetuosity and her fondness forathletic sports. Robert Sydney, second Earl of Leicester, makes thefollowing reference to her in his Table-Book, written when he wasambassador at Paris, about 1640:-- 'The old Countess of Desmond was a marryed woman in Edward IV. Time inEngland, and lived till towards the end of Queen Elizabeth, so she mustneedes be neare one hundred and forty yeares old. She had a new sett ofteeth not long afore her death, and might have lived much longer had shenot mett with a kinde of violent death; for she would needes climbea nut-tree to gather nuts; so falling down she hurt her thigh, whichbrought a fever, and that fever brought death. This my cousin WalterFitzwilliam told me. ' It is true that the aforesaid cousin Walter may have been a betterraconteur than historian; still, local tradition vigorously opposesany lessening of the number of the countess's years, pinning its faithrather on one Hayman, who says that she presented herself at the Englishcourt at the age of one hundred and forty years, to petition for herjointure, which she lost by the attainder of the last earl; and it alsoprefers to have her fall from the historic cherry-tree that Sir Walterplanted, rather than from a casual nut-tree. Down the lovely river we went, lazily lying back in the sun, almost theonly passengers on the little craft, as it was still far too early fortourists; down past Villierstown, Cooneen Ferry, Strancally Castle, withits 'Murdering Hole' made famous by the Lords of Desmond, through theBroads of Clashmore; then past Temple Michael, an old castle of theGeraldines, which Cromwell battered down for 'dire insolence, ' untilwe steamed slowly into the harbour of Youghal--and, to use our driver'sexpression, there is no more 'onderhanded manin'' in Youghal than thetown of the Yew Wood, which is much prettier to the eye and sweeter tothe ear. Here we found a letter from Salemina, and expended another eighteenpencein telegraphing to her:-- PEABODY, Coolkilla House, near Mardyke Walk, Cork. We are under Yew Tree at Myrtle Grove where Raleigh and Spensersmoked, read manuscript Faerie Queene, and planted first potato. Delighted Benella better. Join you to-morrow. Don't encouragearchaeologist. PENESCA. We had a charming hour at Myrtle Grove House, an unpretentious, gableddwelling, for a time the residence of the ill-fated soldier captain, SirWalter Raleigh. You remember, perhaps, that he was mayor of Youghal in1588. After the suppression of the Geraldine rebellion, the vast estatesof the Earl of Desmond and those of one hundred and forty of the leadinggentlemen of Munster, his adherents, were confiscated, and proclamationwas made all through England inviting gentlemen to 'undertake' theplantation of this rich territory. Estates were offered at two or threepence an acre, and no rent was to be paid for the first five years. Manyof these great 'undertakers, ' as they were called, were English noblemenwho never saw Ireland; but among them were Raleigh and Spenser, whoreceived forty-two thousand and twelve thousand acres respectively, andin consideration of certain patronage 'undertook' to carry the businessof the Crown through Parliament. Francesca was greatly pleased with this information, culled mostly fromJoyce's Child's History of Ireland. The volume had been bought in Dublinby Salemina and presented to us as a piece of genial humour, but itbecame our daily companion. I made a rhyme for her, which she sent Miss Peabody, to show her that wewere growing in wisdom, notwithstanding our separation from her. 'You have thought of Sir Walter as soldier and knight, Edmund Spenser, you've heard, was well able to write; But Raleigh the planter, and Spenser verse-maker, Each, oddly enough, was by trade 'Undertaker. '' It was in 1589 that the Shepherd of the Ocean, as Spenser calls him, sailed to England to superintend the publishing of the Faerie Queene:so from what I know of authors' habits, it is probable that Spenser didread him the poem under the Yew Tree in Myrtle Grove garden. It seemslong ago, does it not, when the Faerie Queene was a manuscript, tobaccojust discovered, the potato a novelty, and the first Irish cherry-treejust a wee thing newly transplanted from the Canary Islands? Were ourown cherry-trees already in America when Columbus discovered us, or didthe Pilgrim Fathers bring over 'slips' or 'grafts, ' knowing that theywould be needed for George Washington later on, so that he might furnishan untruthful world with a sublime sentiment? We re-read Salemina'sletter under the Yew Tree:-- Coolkilla House, Cork. MY DEAREST GIRLS, --It seems years instead of days since we parted, andI miss the two madcaps more than I can say. In your absence my lifeis always so quiet, discreet, dignified, --and, yes, I confess it, somonotonous! I go to none but the best hotels, meet none but thebest people, and my timidity and conservatism for ever keep me inconventional paths. Dazzled and terrified as I still am when youprecipitate adventures upon me, I always find afterwards that Ihave enjoyed them in spite of my fears. Life without you is like astenographic report of a dull sermon; with you it is by turns a dramaticstory, a poem, and a romance. Sometimes it is a penny-dreadful, as whenyou deliberately leave your luggage on an express train going south, enter another standing upon a side track, and embark for an unknowndestination. I watched you from an upper window of the Junction Hotel, but could not leave Benella to argue with you. When your respectedhusband and lover have charge of you, you will not be allowed suchpranks, I warrant you. Benella has improved wonderfully in the last twenty-four hours, and Iam trying to give her some training for her future duties. We can neverforget our native land so long as we have her with us, for she is aperfect specimen of the Puritan spinster, though too young in years, perhaps, for determined celibacy. Do you know, we none of us mentionedwages in our conversations with her? Fortunately she seems more aliveto the advantages of foreign travel than to the filling of her emptycoffers. (By the way, I have written to the purser of the ship that shecrossed in, to see if I can recover the sixty or seventy dollars sheleft behind her. ) Her principal idea in life seems to be that of findingsome kind of work that will be 'interestin'' whether it is lucrative ornot. I don't think she will be able to dress hair, or anything of thatsort--save in the way of plain sewing, she is very unskilful with herhands; and she will be of no use as courier, she is so provincial andinexperienced. She has no head for business whatever, and cannot helpFrancesca with the accounts. She recites to herself again and again, 'Four farthings make one penny, twelvepence make one shilling, twentyshillings make one pound'; but when I give her a handful of money andask her for six shillings and sixpence, five and three, one pound two, or two pound ten, she cannot manage the operation. She is docile, wellmannered, grateful, and really likable, but her present philosophy oflife is a thing of shreds and patches. She calls it 'the science, ' as ifthere were but one; and she became a convert to its teachings thispast winter, while living in the house of a woman lecturer in Salem, a lecturer, not a 'curist, ' she explains. She attended to the door, ushered in the members of classes, kept the lecture-room in order, andso forth, imbibing by the way various doctrines, or parts of doctrines, which she is not the sort of person to assimilate, but with which she isexperimenting: holding, meantime, a grim intuition of their foolishness, or so it seems to me. 'The science' made it easier for her to seek herancestors in a foreign country with only a hundred dollars in her purse;for the Salem priestess proclaims the glad tidings that all the wealthof the world is ours, if we will but assert our heirship. Benellabelieved this more or less until a week's sea-sickness undermined allher new convictions of every sort. When she woke in the little bedroomat O'Carolan's, she says, her heart was quite at rest, for she knew thatwe were the kind of people one could rely on! I mustered courage tosay, "I hope so, and I hope also that we shall be able to rely upon you, Benella!" This idea evidently had not occurred to her, but she accepted it, and Icould see that she turned it over in her mind. You can imagine that thisvague philosophy of a Salem woman scientist superimposed on a foundationof orthodoxy makes a curious combination, and one which will only betemporary. We shall expect you to-morrow evening, and we shall be quite ready to goon to the Lakes of Killarney or wherever you wish. By the way, I metan old acquaintance the morning I arrived here. I went to see Queen'sCollege; and as I was walking under the archway which has carved uponit, 'Where Finbarr taught let Munster learn, ' I saw two gentlemen. Theylooked like professors, and I asked if I might see the college. Theysaid certainly, and offered to take my card into some one who woulddo the honours properly. I passed it to one of them: we looked at eachother, and recognition was mutual. He (Dr. La Touche) is giving a courseof lectures here on Irish Antiquities. It has been a great privilege tosee this city and its environs with so learned a man; I wish you couldhave shared it. Yesterday he made up a party and we went to Passage, which you may remember in Father Prout's verses:-- 'The town of Passage is both large and spacious, And situated upon the say; 'Tis nate and dacent, and quite adjacent To come from Cork on a summer's day. There you may slip in and take a dippin' Fornent the shippin' that at anchor ride; Or in a wherry cross o'er the ferry To Carrigaloe, on the other side. ' Dr. La Touche calls Father Prout an Irish potato seasoned with Atticsalt. Is not that a good characterisation? Good-bye for the moment, as I must see about Benella's luncheon. Yours affectionately S. P. Chapter X. The belles of Shandon. 'The spreading Lee that, like an Island fayre, Encloseth Corke with his divided floode. ' Edmund Spenser. We had seen all that Youghal could offer to the tourist; we wereyearning for Salemina; we wanted to hear Benella talk about 'thescience'; we were eager to inspect the archaeologist, to see if he'would do' for Salemina instead of the canon, or even the minor canon, of the English Church, for whom we had always privately destined her. Accordingly we decided to go by an earlier train, and give our familya pleasant surprise. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when our cartrundled across St. Patrick's Bridge, past Father Mathew's statue, andwithin view of the church and bells of Shandon, that sound so grand onthe pleasant waters of the river Lee. Away to the west is the two-armedriver. Along its banks rise hills, green and well wooded, with beautifulgardens and verdant pastures reaching to the very brink of the shiningstream. It was Saturday afternoon, and I never drove through a livelier, quainter, more easy-going town. The streets were full of people sellingvarious things and plying various trades, and among them we saw manya girl pretty enough to recall Thackeray's admiration of the Corkagianbeauties of his day. There was one in particular, driving a donkey in astraw-coloured governess cart, to whose graceful charm we succumbed onthe instant. There was an exquisite deluderin' wildness about her, a vivacity, a length of eyelash with a gleam of Irish grey eye, 'thegreyest of all things blue, the bluest of all things grey, ' that mightwell have inspired the English poet to write of her as he did of his ownIrish wife; for Spenser, when he was not writing the Faerie Queene, or smoking Raleigh's fragrant weed, wooed and wedded a fair colleen ofCounty Cork. 'Tell me, ye merchant daughters, did ye see So fayre a creature in your town before? Her goodlie eyes, like sapphyres shining bright; Her forehead, ivory white; Her lips like cherries, charming men to byte. ' Now we turned into the old Mardyke Walk, a rus in urbe, an avenue a milelong lined with noble elm-trees; forsaken now as a fashionable promenadefor the Marina, but still beautiful and still beloved, though frequentedchiefly by nurse-maids and children. Such babies and such children, ofall classes and conditions--so jolly, smiling, dimpled, curly-headed;such joyous disregard of rags and dirt; such kindness one to the otherin the little groups, where a child of ten would be giving an anxiouseye to four or five brothers and sisters, and mothering a contented babyin arms as well. Our driver, though very loquacious, was not quite intelligible. Hepronounced the simple phrase 'St. Patrick's Street' in a way to astonishthe traveller; it would seem impossible to crowd as many h's into threewords, and to wrap each in flannel, as he succeeded in doing. He seemedpleased with our admiration of the babies, and said that Irish childrendid be very fat and strong and hearty; that they were the very bestsoldiers the Queen had, God kape her! They could stand anny hardship andanny climate, for they were not brought up soft, like the English. He also said that, fine as all Irish children undoubtedly were, Corkproduced the flower of them all, and the finest women and the finestmen; backing his opinion with an Homeric vaunt which Francesca took downon the spot:-- 'I'd back one man from Corkshire To bate ten more from Yorkshire: Kerrymen Agin Derrymen, And Munster agin creation, Wirrasthrue! 'tis a pity we aren't a nation!' Here he slackened his pace as we passed a small bosthoon driving adonkey, to call out facetiously, "Be good to your little brother, achree!" "We must be very near Coolkilla House by this time, " said Francesca. "That isn't Salemina sitting on the bench under the trees, is it? Thereis a gentleman with her, and she never wears a wide hat, but it lookslike her red umbrella. No, of course it isn't, for whoever it is belongsto that maid with the two children. Penelope, it is borne in upon methat we shouldn't have come here unannounced, three hours ahead of thetime arranged. Perhaps, whenever we had chosen to come, it would havebeen too soon. Wouldn't it be exciting to have to keep out of Salemina'sway, as she has always done for us? I couldn't endure it; it would makeme homesick for Ronald. Go slowly, driver, please. " Nevertheless, as we drew nearer we saw that it was Salemina; or at leastit was seven-eighths of her, and one-eighth of a new person with whomwe were not acquainted. She rose to meet us with an exclamation ofastonishment, and after a hasty and affectionate greeting, presentedDr. La Touche. He said a few courteous words, and to our relief made noallusions to round towers, duns, raths, or other antiquities, and badeus adieu, saying that he should have the honour of waiting upon us thatevening with our permission. A person in a neat black dress and little black bonnet with white lawnstrings now brought up the two children to say good-bye to Salemina. It was the Derelict, Benella Dusenberry, clothed in maid's apparel, andlooking, notwithstanding that disguise, like a New England schoolma'am. She was delighted to see us, scanned every detail of Francesca'stravelling costume with the frankest admiration, and would have allowedus to carry our wraps and umbrellas upstairs if she had not beenreminded by Salemina. We had a cosy cup of tea together, and told ourvarious adventures, but Salemina was not especially communicative abouthers. Oddly enough, she had met the La Touche children at the hotel inMallow. They were travelling with a very raw Irish nurse, who had nocontrol of them whatever. They shrieked and kicked when taken to theirrooms at night, until Salemina was obliged to speak to them, in orderthat Benella's rest should not be disturbed. "I felt so sorry for them, " she said--"the dear little girl put tobed with tangled hair and unwashed face, the boy in a rumpled, untidynightgown, the bedclothes in confusion. I didn't know who they were norwhere they came from, but while the nurse was getting her supper I madethem comfortable, and Broona went to sleep with my strange hand in hers. Perhaps it was only the warm Irish heart, the easy friendliness ofthe Irish temperament, but I felt as if the poor little things must beneglected indeed, or they would not have clung to a woman whom they hadnever seen before. " (This is a mistake; anybody who has the opportunityalways clings to Salemina. ) "The next morning they were up at daylight, romping in the hall, stamping, thumping, clattering, with a tin carton wheels rattling behind them. I know it was not my affair, and I wasguilty of unpardonable rudeness, but I called the nurse into my room andspoke to her severely. No, you needn't smile; I was severe. 'Will youkindly do your duty, and keep the children quiet as they pass throughthe halls?' I said. 'It is never too soon to teach them to obey therules of a public place, and to be considerate of older people. ' Sheseemed awestruck. But when she found her tongue she stammered, 'Sure, ma'am, I've tould thim three times this day already that when theirfather comes he'll bate thim with a blackthorn stick!' "Naturally I was horrified. This, I thought, would explain everything:no mother, and an irritable, cruel father. "'Will he really do such a thing?' I asked, feeling as if I must knowthe truth. "'Sure he will not, ma'am!' she answered cheerfully. 'He wouldn't lift afeather to thim, not if they murdthered the whole counthryside, ma'am. ' "Well, they travelled third class to Cork, and we came first, so we didnot meet, and I did not ask their surnames; but it seems that they werebeing brought to their father, whom I met many years ago in America. " As she did not volunteer any further information, we did not like to askher where, how many years ago, or under what circumstances. 'Teasing' ofthis sort does not appeal to the sophisticated at any time, but it seemsunspeakably vulgar to touch on matters of sentiment with a woman ofmiddle age. If she has memories, they are sure to be sad and sacredones; if she has not, that perhaps is still sadder. We agreed, however, when the evening was over, that Dr. La Touche was probably the love ofher youth--unless, indeed, he was simply an old friend, and the degreeof Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is verylikely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they alwaysincline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that ofthe woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she couldget him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural orprovincial New England. The professor is grave, but very genial when he fully recalls the factthat he is in company, and has not, like the Trappist monks, taken vowsof silence. Francesca behaved beautifully, on the whole, and made noembarrassing speeches, although she was in her gayest humour. Saleminablushed a little when the young sinner dragged into the conversation theremark that, undoubtedly, from the beginning of the sixth century to theend of the eighth, Ireland was the University of Europe, just as Greecewas in the late days of the Roman Republic, and asked our guest whenIreland ceased to be known as 'Insula sanctorum et doctorum, ' the islandof saints and scholars. We had seen her go into Salemina's bedroom, and knew perfectly well thatshe had consulted the Peabody notebook, lying open on the desk; but theprofessor looked as surprised as if he had heard a pretty paroquet quoteGibbon. I don't like to see grave and reverend scholars stare at prettyparoquets, but I won't belittle Salemina's exquisite and peculiar charmby worrying over the matter. 'Wirra, wirra! Ologone! Can't ye lave a lad alone, Till he's proved there's no tradition left of any other girl-- Not even Trojan Helen, In beauty all excellin'-- Who's been up to half the divilment of Fan Fitzgerl?' Of course Francesca's heart is fixed upon Ronald Macdonald, but thatfact has not altered the glance of her eyes. They no longer say, 'Wouldn't you like to fall in love with me, if you dared?' but theystill have a gleam that means, 'Don't fall in love with me; it is nouse!' And of the two, one is about as dangerous as the other, and eachhas something of 'Fan Fitzgerl's divilment. 'Wid her brows of silky black Arched above for the attack, Her eyes they dart such azure death on poor admiring man; Masther Cupid, point your arrows, From this out, agin the sparrows, For you're bested at Love's archery by young Miss Fan. ' Of course Himself never fell a prey to Francesca's fascinations, butthen he is not susceptible; you could send him off for a ten-mile drivein the moonlight with Venus herself, and not be in the least anxious. Dr. La Touche is grey for his years, tall and spare in frame, and thereare many lines of anxiety or thought in his forehead; but a wonderfulsmile occasionally smooths them all out, and gives his face a rarethough transient radiance. He looks to me as if he had loved too manybooks and too few people; as if he had tried vainly to fill his heartand life with antiquities, which of all things, perhaps, are the mostbloodless, the least warming and nourishing when taken in excess or asa steady diet. Himself (God bless him!) shall never have that patientlook, if I can help it; but how it will appeal to Salemina! There arewomen who are born to be petted and served, and there are those who seemborn to serve others. Salemina's first idea is always to make tangledthings smooth (like little Broona's curly hair); to bring sweet anddiscreet order out of chaos; to prune and graft and water and weed andtend things, until they blossom for very shame under her healing touch. Her mind is catholic, well ordered, and broad, --for ever full of otherpeople's interests, never of her own: and her heart always seems tome like some dim, sweet-scented guest-chamber in an old New Englandmansion, cool and clean and quiet, and fragrant of lavender. It has beena lovely, generous life, lived for the most part in the shadow of otherpeople's wishes and plans and desires. I am an impatient person, I confess, and heaven seems so far away when certain things are inquestion: the righting of a child's wrong, or the demolition of abarrier between two hearts; above all, for certain surgical operations, more or less spiritual, such as removing scales from eyes that refuseto see, and stops from ears too dull to hear. Nobody shall have ourSalemina unless he is worthy, but how I should like to see her lifeenriched and crowned! How I should enjoy having her dear little overwornsecond fiddle taken from her by main force, and a beautiful firstviolin, or even the baton for leading an orchestra, put into herunselfish hands! And so good-bye and 'good luck to ye, Cork, and your pepper-boxsteeple, ' for we leave you to-morrow! Chapter XI. 'The rale thing. ' 'Her ancestors were kings before Moses was born, Her mother descended from great Grana Uaile. ' Charles Lever. Knockarney House, Lough Lein. We are in the province of Munster, the kingdom of Kerry, the town ofBallyfuchsia, and the house of Mrs. Mullarkey. Knockarney House isnot her name for it; I made it myself. Killarney is church of thesloe-trees; and as kill is church, the 'onderhanded manin'' of 'arney'must be something about sloes; then, since knock means hill, Knockarneyshould be hill of the sloe-trees. I have not lost the memory of Jenny Geddes and Tam o' the Cowgate, butPenelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught, is more frequentlypresent in my dreams. I have by no means forgotten that there was atime when I was not Irish, but for the moment I am of the turf, turfy. Francesca is really as much in love with Ireland as I, only, since shehas in her heart a certain tender string pulling her all the while tothe land of the heather, she naturally avoids comparisons. Salemina, too, endeavours to appear neutral, lest she should betray aninexplicable interest in Dr. La Touche's country. Benella and I aloneare really free to speak the brogue, and carry our wild harps slungbehind us, like Moore's minstrel boy. Nothing but the ignorance of hernational dishes keeps Benella from entire allegiance to this island; butshe thinks a people who have grown up without a knowledge of doughnuts, baked beans, and blueberry-pie must be lacking in moral foundations. There is nothing extraordinary in all this; for the Irish, like theCeltic tribes everywhere, have always had a sort of fascinating powerover people of other races settling among them, so that they becomecompletely fused with the native population, and grow to be more Irishthan the Irish themselves. We stayed for a few days in the best hotel; it really was quite good, and not a bit Irish. There was a Swiss manager, an English housekeeper, a French head waiter, and a German office clerk. Even Salemina, wholoves comforts, saw that we should not be getting what is known as thereal thing, under these circumstances, and we came here to this--whatshall I call Knockarney House? It was built originally for a fishinglodge by a sporting gentleman, who brought parties of friends to stopfor a week. On his death is passed somehow into Mrs. Mullarkey's fairhands, and in a fatal moment she determined to open it occasionally to'paying guests, ' who might wish a quiet home far from the madding crowdof the summer tourist. This was exactly what we did want, and here weencamped, on the half-hearted advice of some Irish friends in the town, who knew nothing else more comfortable to recommend. "With us, small, quiet, or out-of-the-way places are never clean; orif they are, then they are not Irish, " they said. "You had better seeIreland from the tourist's point of view for a few years yet, until wehave learned the art of living; but if you are determined to know thehumours of the people, cast all thought of comfort behind you. " So we did, and we afterward thought that this would be a good motto forMrs. Mullarkey to carve over the door of Knockarney House. (My name forit is adopted more or less by the family, though Francesca persists indating her letters to Ronald from 'The Rale Thing, ' which it undoubtedlyis. ) We take almost all the rooms in the house, but there are afew other guests. Mrs. Waterford, an old lady of ninety-three, fromMullinavat, is here primarily for her health, and secondarily to disposeof threepenny shares in an antique necklace, which is to be raffled forthe benefit of a Roman Catholic chapel. Then we have a fishing gentlemanand his bride from Glasgow, and occasional bicyclers who come in fora dinner, a tea, or a lodging. These three comforts of a home aresometimes quite indistinguishable with us: the tea is frequently made upof fragments of dinner, and the beds are always sprinkled with crumbs. Their source is a mystery, unless they fall from the clothing of thechambermaids, who frequently drop hairpins and brooches and buttonsbetween the sheets, and strew whisk brooms and scissors under theblankets. We have two general servants, who are supposed to do all the work of thehouse, and who are as amiable and obliging and incapable as they wellcan be. Oonah generally waits upon the table, and Molly cooks; atleast she cooks now and then when she is not engaged with Peter in thevegetable garden or the stable. But whatever happens, Mrs. Mullarkey, asa descendant of one of the Irish kings, is to be looked upon only as aninspiring ideal, inciting one to high and ever higher flights of happyincapacity. Benella ostensibly oversees the care of our rooms, but sheis comparatively helpless in such a kingdom of misrule. Why demand cleanlinen when there is none; why seek for a towel at midday when it isnever ironed until evening; how sweep when a broom is all inadequateto the task? Salemina's usual remark, on entering a humble hostelryanywhere, is: "If the hall is as dirty as this, what must the kitchenbe! Order me two hard-boiled eggs, please!" "Use your 'science, ' Benella, " I say to that discouraged New Englandmaiden, who has never looked at her philosophy from its practical orhumorous side. "If the universe is pure mind and there is no matter, then this dirt is not a real thing, after all. It seems, of course, as if it were thicker under the beds and bureaus than elsewhere, butI suppose our evil thoughts focus themselves there rather than in thecentre of the room. Similarly, if the broom handle is broken, denythe dirt away--denial is much less laborious than sweeping; bring 'thescience' down to these simple details of everyday life, and you willmake converts by dozens, only pray don't remove, either by suggestion orany cruder method, the large key that lies near the table leg, for itis a landmark; and there is another, a crochet needle, by the washstand, devoted to the same purpose. I wish to show them to the Mullarkey whenwe leave. " Under our educational regime, the 'metaphysical' veneer, badly appliedin the first place, and wholly unsuited to the foundation material, is slowly disappearing, and our Benella is gradually returning to hernormal self. Perhaps nothing has been more useful to her developmentthan the confusion of Knockarney House. Our windows are supported on decrepit tennis rackets and worn-out hearthbrushes; the blinds refuse to go up or down; the chairs have weak backsor legs; the door knobs are disassociated from their handles. As for ourfood, we have bacon and eggs, with coffee made, I should think, of brownbeans and liquorice, for breakfast; a bit of sloppy chicken, or fish andpotato, with custard pudding or stewed rhubarb, for dinner; and a coldsupper of--oh! anything that occurs to Molly at the last moment. Nothingever occurs either to Molly or Oonah at any previous moment, and in thatthey are merely conforming to the universal habit. Last week, when wewere starting for Valencia Island, the Ballyfuchsia stationmasterwas absent at a funeral; meantime the engine had 'gone cold on theengineer, ' and the train could not leave till twelve minutes after theusual time. We thought we must have consulted a wrong time-table, andasked confirmation of a man who seemed to have some connection with therailway. Goaded by his ignorance, I exclaimed, "Is it possible you don'tknow the time the trains are going?" "Begorra, how should I?" he answered. "Faix, the thrains don't always beknowin' thimselves!" The starting of the daily 'Mail Express' from Ballyfuchsia is a timeof great excitement and confusion, which on some occasions increasesto positive panic. The stationmaster, armed with a large dinner-bell, stands on the platform, wearing an expression of anxiety ludicrouslyunsuited to the situation. The supreme moment had really arrived sometime before, but he is waiting for Farmer Brodigan with his daughterKathleen, and the Widdy Sullivan, and a few other local worthies who area 'thrifle late on him. ' Finally they come down the hill, and he pacesup and down the station ringing the bell and uttering the warning cry, "This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops! This thrain nevershtops!"--giving one the idea that eternity, instead of Killarney, must be the final destination of the passengers. The clock in theBallyfuchsia telegraph and post office ceases to go for twenty-fourhours at a time, and nobody heeds it, while the postman always has a fewmoments' leisure to lay down his knapsack of letters and pitch quoitswith the Royal Irish Constabulary. However, punctuality is perhaps anindividual virtue more than an exclusively national one. I am not surethat we Americans would not be more agreeable if we spent a month inIreland every year, and perhaps Ireland would profit from a month inAmerica. At the Brodigans' (Mr. Brodigan is a large farmer, and our nearestneighbour) all the clocks are from ten to twenty minutes fast or slow;and what a peaceful place it is! The family doesn't care when it has itsdinner, and, mirabile dictu, the cook doesn't care either! "If you have no exact time to depend upon, how do you catch trains?" Iasked Mr. Brodigan. "Sure that's not an everyday matter, and why be foostherin' over it? Butwe do, four times out o' five, ma'am!" "How do you like it that fifth time when you miss it?" "Sure it's no more throuble to you to miss it the wan time than to hurryfive times! A clock is an overrated piece of furniture, to my mind, Mrs. Beresford, ma'am. A man can ate whin he's hungry, go to bed whin he'ssleepy, and get up whin he's slept long enough; for faith and it's thimclocks he has inside of himself that don't need anny winding!" "What if you had a business appointment with a man in the town, andmissed the train?" I persevered. "Trains is like misfortunes; they never come singly, ma'am. Whereverthere's a station the trains do be dhroppin' in now and again, andwhat's the differ which of thim you take?" "The man who is waiting for you at the other end of the line may notagree with you, " I suggested. "Sure, a man can always amuse himself in a town, ma'am. If it's yourown business you're coming on, he knows you'll find him; and if it'shis business, then begorra let him find you!" Which quite reminded meof what the Irish elf says to the English elf in Moira O'Neill's fairystory: "A waste of time? Why, you've come to a country where there's nosuch thing as a waste of time. We have no value for time here. There islashings of it, more than anybody knows what to do with. " I suppose there is somewhere a golden mean between this completeoblivion of time and our feverish American hurry. There is a 'tedioushaste' in all people who make wheels and pistons and engines, and livewithin sound of their everlasting buzz and whir and revolution; andthere is ever a disposition to pause, rest, and consider on the part ofthat man whose daily tasks are done in serene collaboration with dew andrain and sun. One cannot hurry Mother Nature very much, after all, andone who has much to do with her falls into a peaceful habit of mind. Themottoes of the two nations are as well rendered in the vernacular as byany formal or stilted phrases. In Ireland the spoken or unspoken sloganis, 'Take it aisy'; in America, 'Keep up with the procession'; andbetween them lie all the thousand differences of race, climate, temperament, religion, and government. I don't suppose there is a nation on the earth better developed on whatmight be called the train-catching side than we of the Big Country, and it is well for us that there is born every now and again among us adreamer who is (blessedly) oblivious of time-tables and market reports;who has been thinking of the rustling of the corn, not of its price. Itis he, if we do not hurry him out of his dream, who will sound the idealnote in our hurly-burly and bustle of affairs. He may never discover atown site, but he will create new worlds for us to live in, and in thecourse of a century the coming Matthew Arnold will not be minded to callus an unimaginative and uninteresting people. Chapter XII. Life at Knockarney House. 'See where Mononia's heroes lie, proud Owen More's descendants, -- 'Tis they that won the glorious name and had the grand attendants!' James Clarence Mangan. It was a charming thing for us when Dr. La Touche gave us introductionsto the Colquhouns of Ardnagreena; and when they, in turn, took us to teawith Lord and Lady Killbally at Balkilly Castle. I don't know what thereis about us: we try to live a sequestered life, but there are certainkind forces in the universe that are always bringing us in contact withthe good, the great, and the powerful. Francesca enjoys it, but secretlyfears to have her democracy undermined. Salemina wonders modestly at hergood fortune. I accept it as the graceful tribute of an old civilisationto a younger one; the older men grow the better they like girls ofsixteen, and why shouldn't the same thing be true of countries? As long ago as 1589, one of the English 'undertakers' who obtained someof the confiscated Desmond lands in Munster wrote of the 'better sorte'of Irish: 'Although they did never see you before, they will make youthe best cheare their country yieldeth for two or three days, and takenot anything therefor.... They have a common saying which I am persuadedthey speake unfeinedly, which is, 'Defend me and spend me. ' Yet many doeutterly mislike this or any good thing that the poor Irishman dothe. ' This certificate of character from an 'undertaker' of the sixteenthcentury certainly speaks volumes for Irish amiability and hospitality, since it was given at a time when grievances were as real as plenty;when unutterable resentment must have been rankling in many minds; andwhen those traditions were growing which have coloured the whole textureof Irish thought, until, with the poor and unlettered, to be 'agin thegovernment' is an inherited instinct, to be obliterated only by time. We supplement Mrs. Mullarkey's helter-skelter meals with frequentluncheons and dinners with our new friends, who send us home on ourjaunting-car laden with flowers, fruit, even with jellies and jams. LadyKillbally forces us to take three cups of tea and a half-dozen marmaladesandwiches whenever we go to the Castle; for I apologised for ourappetites, one day, by confessing that we had lunched somewhat frugally, the meal being sweetened, however, by Molly's explanation that there wasa fresh sole in the house, but she thought she would not inthrude on itbefore dinner! We asked, on our arrival at Knockarney House, if we might breakfast ata regular hour, --say eight thirty. Mrs. Mullarkey agreed, withthat suavity which is, after her untidiness, her distinguishingcharacteristic; but notwithstanding this arrangement we break our fastsometimes at nine forty, sometimes at nine twenty, sometimes at nine, but never earlier. In order to achieve this much, we are obliged torise early and make a combined attack on the executive and culinarydepartments. One morning I opened the door leading from the hall intothe back part of the establishment, but closed it hastily, havinginterrupted the toilets of three young children, whose existence I hadnever suspected, and of Mr. Mullarkey, whom I had thought dead for manyyears. Each child had donned one article of clothing, and was apparentlysearching for the mate to it, whatever it chanced to be. Mrs. Mullarkeywas fully clothed, and was about to administer correction to one of thechildren who, unhappily for him, was not. I retired to my apartment toreport progress, but did not describe the scene minutely, nor mentionthe fact that I had seen Salemina's ivory-backed hairbrush put toexcellent if somewhat unusual and unaccustomed service. Each party in the house eats in solitary splendour, like the MacDermott, Prince of Coolavin. That royal personage of County Sligo did not, I believe, allow his wife or his children (who must have had theMacDermott blood in their veins, even if somewhat diluted) to sit attable with him. This method introduces the last element of confusioninto the household arrangements, and on two occasions we have had ourcustard pudding or stewed fruit served in our bedrooms a full hour afterwe had finished dinner. We have reasons for wishing to be first to enterthe dining-room, and we walk in with eyes fixed on the ceiling, byfar the cleanest part of the place. Having wended our way through anunderbrush of corks with an empty bottle here and there, and stumbledover the holes in the carpet, we arrive at our table in the window. It is as beautiful as heaven outside, and the table-cloth is at leastcleaner than it will be later, for Mrs. Waterford of Mullinavat has anunsteady hand. When Oonah brings in the toast rack now she balances it carefully, remembering the morning when she dropped it on the floor, but picked upthe slices and offered them to Salemina. Never shall I forget thatdear martyr's expression, which was as if she had made up her mind torenounce Ireland and leave her to her fate. I know she often must wonderif Dr. La Touche's servants, like Mrs. Mullarkey's, feel of the potatoesto see whether they are warm or cold! At ten thirty there is great confusion and laughter and excitement, forthe sportsmen are setting out for the day and the car has been waitingat the door for an hour. Oonah is carolling up and down the longpassage, laden with dishes, her cheerfulness not in the least impairedby having served seven or eight separate breakfasts. Molly has spilleda jug of milk, and is wiping it up with a child's undershirt. The Glasgyman is telling them that yesterday they forgot the corkscrew, the salt, the cup, and the jam from the luncheon basket, --facts so mirth-provokingthat Molly wipes tears of pleasure from her eyes with the milkyundershirt, and Oonah sets the hot-water jug and the coffee-pot on thestairs to have her laugh out comfortably. When once the car departs, comparative quiet reigns in and about the house until the passingbicyclers appear for luncheon or tea, when Oonah picks up the napkinsthat we have rolled into wads and flung under the dining-table, and spreads them on tea-trays, as appetising details for the wearytraveller. There would naturally be more time for housework if so largea portion of the day were not spent in pleasant interchange of thoughtand speech. I can well understand Mrs. Colquhoun's objections to thehousing of the Dublin poor in tenements, --even in those of a betterkind than the present horrible examples; for wherever they arehuddled together in any numbers they will devote most of their time toconversation. To them talking is more attractive than eating; it evenadds a new joy to drinking; and if I may judge from the groups I haveseen gossiping over a turf fire till midnight, it is preferable tosleeping. But do not suppose they will bubble over with joke andrepartee, with racy anecdote, to every casual newcomer. The touristwho looks upon the Irishman as the merry-andrew of the English-speakingworld, and who expects every jarvey he meets to be as whimsical asMickey Free, will be disappointed. I have strong suspicions that ragged, jovial Mickey Free himself, delicious as he is, was created by Lever tosatisfy the Anglo-Saxon idea of the low-comedy Irishman. You will livein the Emerald Isle for many a month, and not meet the clown or thevillain so familiar to you in modern Irish plays. Dramatists have madea stage Irishman to suit themselves, and the public and the gallery aredisappointed if anything more reasonable is substituted for him. Youwill find, too, that you do not easily gain Paddy's confidence. Misledby his careless, reckless impetuosity of demeanour, you might expect tobe the confidant of his joys and sorrows, his hopes and expectations, his faiths and beliefs, his aspirations, fears, longings, at the firstinterview. Not at all; you will sooner be admitted to a glimpse of thetravelling Scotsman's or the Englishman's inner life, family history, personal ambition. Glacial enough at first and far less voluble, hemelts soon enough, if he likes you. Meantime, your impulsive Irishfriend gives himself as freely at the first interview as at thetwentieth; and you know him as well at the end of a week as you arelikely to at the end of a year. He is a product of the past, behe gentleman or peasant. A few hundred years of necessary reserveconcerning articles of political and religious belief have bred cautionand prudence in stronger natures, cunning and hypocrisy in weaker ones. Our days are very varied. We have been several times into the town andspent an hour in the Petty Sessions Court with Mr. Colquhoun, who sitson the bench. Each time we have come home laden with stories 'as good asany in the books, ' so says Francesca. Have we not with our own eyes seenthe settlement of an assault and battery case between two of the mostnotorious brawlers in that alley of the town which we have dubbed 'ThePass of the Plumes. ' [*] Each barrister in the case had a handful of hairwhich he introduced on behalf of his client, both ladies apparentlyhaving pulled with equal energy. These most unattractive exhibitswere shown to the women themselves, each recognising her own hair, but denying the validity of the other exhibit firmly and vehemently. Prisoner number one kneeled at the rail and insisted on exposing theplace in her head from which the hair had been plucked; upon whichprisoner number two promptly tore off her hat, scattered hairpins tothe four winds, and exposed her own wounds to the judicial eye. Both prisoners 'had a dhrop taken' just before the affair; that softimpeachment they could not deny. One of them explained, however, thatshe had taken it to help her over a hard job of work, and through alittle miscalculation of quantity it had 'overaided her. ' The othertermagant was asked flatly by the magistrate if she had ever seenthe inside of a jail before, but evaded the point with much grace andingenuity by telling his Honour that he couldn't expect to meet a womananywhere who had not suffered a misforchin somewhere betwixt the cradleand the grave. *The original Pass of the Plumes is near Maryborough, and was so called from the number of English helmet plumes that were strewn about after O'Moore's fight with five hundred of the Earl of Essex's men. Even the all too common drunk-and-disorderly cases had a flavourof their own, for one man, being dismissed with a small fine undercondition that he would sign the pledge, assented willingly; but onbeing asked for how long he would take it, replied, 'I mostly take itfor life, your worship. ' We also heard the testimony of a girl who had run away from her employerbefore the completion of her six months' contract, her plea being thatthe fairies pulled her great toe at night so that she could not sleep, whereupon she finally became so lame that she was unable to work. Sheleft her employer's house one evening, therefore, and went home, andcuriously enough the fairies 'shtopped pulling the toe on her as soon asiver she got there!' Not the least enlivening of the prisoners was a decently educated personwho had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The constable assertedthat he was intoxicated, but the gentleman himself insisted that he wasmerely a poet in a more than usually inspired state. "I am in the poetical advertising line, your worship. It is true I wassurrounded by a crowd, but I was merely practising my trade. I don'tmind telling your worship that this holiday-time makes things a littlelively, and the tradesmen drink my health a trifle oftener than usual;poetry is dry work, your worship, and a poet needs a good deal of liquidrefreshment. I do not disturb the peace, your worship, at least not morethan any other poet. I go to a grocer's, and, standing outside, I makeup some rhymes about his nice sweet sugar or his ale. If I want toplease a butcher--well, I'll give you a specimen:-- 'Here's to the butcher who sells good meat-- In this world it's hard to beat; It's the very best that's to be had, And makes the human heart feel glad. There's no necessity to purloin, So step in and buy a good sirloin. ' I can go on in this style, like Tennyson's brook, for ever, yourworship. " His worship was afraid that he might make the offer good, andthe poet was released, after promising to imbibe less frequently when hefelt the divine afflatus about to descend upon him. These disagreements between light-hearted and bibulous persons who hauntthe courts week after week have nothing especially pathetic about them, but there are many that make one's heart ache; many that seem absolutelybeyond any solution, and beyond reach of any justice. Chapter XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancing. ' 'The light-hearted daughters of Erin, Like the wild mountain deer they can bound; Their feet never touch the green island, But music is struck from the ground. And oft in the glens and green meadows, The ould jig they dance with such grace, That even the daisies they tread on, Look up with delight in their face. ' James M'Kowen. One of our favourite diversions is an occasional glimpse of a'crossroads dance' on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, when all the youngpeople of the district are gathered together. Their religious duties areover with their confessions and their masses, and the priests encouragethese decorous Sabbath gaieties. A place is generally chosen where twoor four roads meet, and the dancers come from the scattered farmhousesin every direction. In Ballyfuchsia, they dance on a flat piece of roadunder some fir-trees and larches, with stretches of mountain coveredwith yellow gorse or purple heather, and the quiet lakes lying in thedistance. A message comes down to us at Ardnagreena--where we commonlyspend our Sunday afternoons--that they expect a good dance, and theblind boy is coming to fiddle; and 'so if you will be coming up, it'swelcome you'll be. ' We join them about five o'clock--passing, on ourway, groups of 'boys' of all ages from sixteen upwards, walking in twosand threes, and parties of three or four girls by themselves; for itwould not be etiquette for the boys and girls to walk together, suchstrictness is observed in these matters about here. When we reach the rendezvous we find quite a crowd of young men andmaidens assembled; the girls all at one side of the road, neatly dressedin dark skirts and light blouses, with the national woollen shawl overtheir heads. Two wide stone walls, or dykes, with turf on top, makecapital seats, and the boys are at the opposite side, as custom demands. When a young man wants a partner, he steps across the road and asksa colleen, who lays aside her shawl, generally giving it to a youngersister to keep until the dance is over, when the girls go back to theirown side of the road and put on their shawls again. Upon our arrival wefind the 'sets' are already in progress; a 'set' being a dance likea very intricate and very long quadrille. We are greeted with manyfriendly words, and the young boatmen and farmers' sons ask the ladies, "Will you be pleased to dance, miss?" Some of them are shy, and saythey are not familiar with the steps; but their would-be partners remarkencouragingly: "Sure, and what matter? I'll see you through. " Soon allare dancing, and the state of the road is being discussed with as muchinterest as the floor of a ballroom. Eager directions are given to themore ignorant newcomers, such as, "Twirl your girl, captain!" or "Turnyour back to your face!"--rather a difficult direction to carry out, butone which conveys its meaning. Salemina confided to her partner that shefeared she was getting a bit old to dance. He looked at her grey haircarefully for a moment, and then said chivalrously: "I'd not say thatthat was old age, ma'am. I'd say it was eddication. " When the sets, which are very long and very decorous, are finished, sometimes a jig is danced for our benefit. The spectators make a ring, and the chosen dancers go into the middle, where their steps are watchedby a most critical and discriminating audience with the most minute andintense interest. Our Molly is one of the best jig dancers among thegirls here (would that she were half as clever at cooking!); but if youwant to see an artist of the first rank, you must watch Kitty O'Rourke, from the neighbouring village of Dooclone. The half door of the barn iscarried into the ring by one or two of her admirers, whom she numbersby the score, and on this she dances her famous jig polthogue, sometimesalone and sometimes with Art Rooney, the only worthy partner for her inthe kingdom of Kerry. Art's mother, 'Bid' Rooney, is a keen matchmaker, and we heard her the other day advising her son, who was going toDooclone, to have a 'weeny court' with his colleen, to put a claneshirt on him in the middle of the week, and disthract Kitty intirely byshowin' her he had three of thim, annyway! Kitty is a beauty, and doesn't need to be made 'purty wid cows'--a featthat the old Irishman proposed to do when he was consummating a matchfor his plain daughter. But the gifts of the gods seldom come singly, and Kitty is well fortuned as well as beautiful; fifty pounds, her ownbedstead and its fittings, a cow, a pig, and a web of linen are supposedto be the dazzling total, so that it is small wonder her deluderin' waysare maddening half the boys in Ballyfuchsia and Dooclone. She has theprettiest pair of feet in the County Kerry, and when they are encased ina smart pair of shoes, bought for her by Art's rival, the big constablefrom Ballyfuchsia barracks, how they do twinkle and caper over that halfbarn door, to be sure! Even Murty, the blind fiddler, seems intoxicatedby the plaudits of the bystanders, and he certainly never plays so wellfor anybody as for Kitty of the Meadow. Blindness is still common inIreland, owing to the smoke in these wretched cabins, where sometimes ahole in the roof is the only chimney; and although the scores ofblind fiddlers no longer traverse the land, finding a welcome at allfiresides, they are still to be found in every community. Blind Murtyis a favourite guest at the Rooney's cabin, which is never so full thatthere is not room for one more. There is a small wooden bed in themain room, a settle that opens out at night, with hens in the strawunderneath, where a board keeps them safely within until they havefinished laying. There are six children besides Art, and my ambition isto photograph, or, still better, to sketch the family circle together;the hens cackling under the settle, the pig ('him as pays the rint')snoring in the doorway, as a proprietor should, while the children arepicturesquely grouped about. I never succeed, because Mrs. Rooney seesus as we turn into the lane, and calls to the family to make itselfready, as quality's comin' in sight. The older children can scrambleunder the bed, slip shoes over their bare feet, and be out in front ofthe cabin without the loss of a single minute. 'Mickey jew'l, ' the baby, who is only four, but 'who can handle a stick as bould as a man, ' isgenerally clad in a ragged skirt, slit every few inches from waist tohem, so that it resembles a cotton fringe. The little coateen that topsthis costume is sometimes, by way of diversion, transferred to the dog, who runs off with it; but if we appear at this unlucky moment, thereis a stylish yoke of pink ribbon and soiled lace which one of the girlspins over Mickey jew'l's naked shoulders. Moya, who has this eye for picturesque propriety, is a great friendof mine, and has many questions about the Big Country when we take ourwalks. She longs to emigrate, but the time is not ripe yet. "The girlsthat come back has a lovely style to thim, " she says wistfully, "butthey're so polite they can't live in the cabins anny more and becontint. " The 'boys' are not always so improved, she thinks. "You'dniver find a boy in Ballyfuchsia that would say annything rude to agirl; but when they come back from Ameriky, it's too free they've grownintirely. " It is a dull life for them, she says, when they have oncebeen away; though to be sure Ballyfuchsia is a pleasanter place thanDooclone, where the priest does not approve of dancing, and, howeversecretly you may do it, the curate hears of it, and will speak your namein church. It was Moya who told me of Kitty's fortune. "She's not the match thatFarmer Brodigan's daughter Kathleen is, to be sure; for he's a rich man, and has given her an iligant eddication in Cork, so that she can lookhigh for a husband. She won't be takin' up wid anny of our boys, widher two hundred pounds and her twenty cows and her pianya. Och, it's athriminjus player she is, ma'am. She's that quick and that strong thatyou'd say she wouldn't lave a string on it. " Some of the young men and girls never see each other before themarriage, Moya says. "But sure, " she adds shyly, "I'd niver be contintwith that, though some love matches doesn't turn out anny better thanthe others. " "I hope it will be a love match with you, and that I shall dance at yourwedding, Moya, " I say to her smilingly. "Faith, I'm thinkin' my husband's intinded mother died an old maid inDublin, " she answers merrily. "It's a small fortune I'll be havin' andfew lovers; but you'll be soon dancing at Kathleen Brodigan's wedding, or Kitty O'Rourke's, maybe. " I do not pretend to understand these humble romances, with theirfoundations of cows and linen, which are after all no more sordid thanbank stock and trousseaux from Paris. The sentiment of the Irish peasantlover seems to be frankly and truly expressed in the verses:-- 'Oh! Moya's wise and beautiful, has wealth in plenteous store, And fortune fine in calves and kine, and lovers half a score; Her faintest smile would saints beguile, or sinners captivate, Oh! I think a dale of Moya, but I'll surely marry Kate. . . . . . 'Now to let you know the raison why I cannot have my way, Nor bid my heart decide the part the lover must obey-- The calves and kine of Kate are nine, while Moya owns but eight, So with all my love for Moya I'm compelled to marry Kate!' I gave Moya a lace neckerchief the other day, and she was rarelypleased, running into the cabin with it and showing it to her motherwith great pride. After we had walked a bit down the boreen she excusedherself for an instant, and, returning to my side, explained that shehad gone back to ask her mother to mind the kerchief, and not let the'cow knock it'! Lady Kilbally tells us that some of the girls who work in the mills denythemselves proper food, and live on bread and tea for a month, tosave the price of a gay ribbon. This is trying, no doubt, to aphilanthropist, but is it not partly a starved sense of beauty assertingitself? If it has none of the usual outlets, where can imaginationexpress itself if not in some paltry thing like a ribbon? Chapter XIV. Mrs. Mullarkey's iligant locks. 'Where spreads the beautiful water to gay or cloudy skies, And the purple peaks of Killarney from ancient woods arise. ' William Allingham. Mrs. Mullarkey cannot spoil this paradise for us. When I wake in themorning, the fuchsia-tree outside my window is such a glorious mass ofcolour that it distracts my eyes from the unwashed glass. The air isstill; the mountains in the far distance are clear purple; everythingis fresh washed and purified for the new day. Francesca and I leave thehouse sleeping, and make our way to the bogs. We love to sit under ablossoming sloe-bush and see the silver pools glistening here and therein the turf cuttings, and watch the transparent vapour rising from thered-brown of the purple-shadowed bog fields. Dinnis Rooney, half awake, leisurely, silent, is moving among the stacks with his creel. How themissel thrushes sing in the woods, and the plaintive note of the curlewgives the last touch of mysterious tenderness to the scene. There is amoist, rich fragrance of meadowsweet and bog myrtle in the air; and howfresh and wild and verdant it is! 'For there's plenty to mind, sure, if on'y ye look to the grass at your feet, For 'tis thick wid the tussocks of heather, an' blossoms and herbs that smell sweet If ye tread thim; an' maybe the white o' the bog-cotton waves in the win', Like the wool ye might shear off a night-moth, an' set an ould fairy to spin; Or wee frauns, each wan stuck 'twixt two leaves on a grand little stem of its own, Lettin' on 'twas a plum on a tree. ' [*] * Jane Barlow. As for Lough Lein itself, who could speak its loveliness, lying like acrystal mirror beneath the black Reeks of the McGillicuddy, where, inthe mountain fastnesses, lie spell-bound the sleeping warriors who, withtheir bridles and broadswords in hand, await but the word to give Erinher own! When we glide along the surface of the lakes, on some brightday after a heavy rain; when we look down through the clear water ontiny submerged islets, with their grasses and drowned daisies glancingup at us from the blue; when we moor the boat and climb the hillsides, we are dazzled by the luxuriant beauty of it all. It hardly seemsreal--it is too green, too perfect, to be believed; and one thinks ofsome fairy drop-scene, painted by cunning-fingered elves and sprites, who might have a wee folk's way of mixing roses and rainbows, dew-drenched greens and sun-warmed yellows; showing the picture to youfirst all burnished, glittering and radiant, then 'veiled in mist anddiamonded with showers. ' We climb, climb, up, up, into the heart of theleafy loveliness; peering down into dewy dingles, stopping now and againto watch one of the countless streams as it tinkles and gurgles downan emerald ravine to join the lakes. The way is strewn with lichens andmosses; rich green hollies and arbutus surround us on every side;the ivy hangs in sweet disorder from the rocks; and when we reach theinnermost recess of the glen we can find moist green jungles of fernsand bracken, a very bending, curling forest of fronds:-- 'The fairy's tall palm-tree, the heath bird's fresh nest, And the couch the red deer deems the sweetest and best. ' Carrantual rears its crested head high above the other mountains, and onits summit Shon the Outlaw, footsore, weary, slept; sighing, "For once, thank God, I am above all my enemies. " You must go to sweet Innisfallen, too, and you must not be prosaic orincredulous at the boatman's stories, or turn the 'bodthered ear tothem. ' These are no ordinary hillsides: not only do the wee folk troopthrough the frond forests nightly, but great heroic figures of romancehave stalked majestically along these mountain summits. Every waterfallfoaming and dashing from its rocky bed in the glen has a legend in thetoss and swirl of the water. Can't you see the O'Sullivan, famous for fleetness of foot and prowessin the chase, starting forth in the cool o' the morn to hunt the reddeer? His dogs sniff the heather; a splendid stag bounds across thepath; swift as lightning the dogs follow the scent across moors andglens. Throughout the long day the chieftain chases the stag, until atnightfall, weary and thirsty, he loses the scent, and blows a blast onhis horn to call the dogs homeward. And then he hears a voice: "O'Sullivan, turn back!" He looks over his shoulder to behold the great Finn McCool, centralfigure in centuries of romance. "Why do you dare chase my stag?" he asks. "Because it is the finest man ever saw, " answers the chieftaincomposedly. "You are a valiant man, " says the hero, pleased with the reply; "andas you thirst from the long chase, I will give you to drink. " So hecrunches his giant heel into the rock, and forth burst the waters, seething and roaring as they do to this day; "and may the divil fly awaywid me if I've spoke an unthrue word, ma'am!" Come to Lough Lein as did we, too early for the crowd of sightseers; butwhen the 'long light shakes across the lakes, ' the blackest arts of thetourist (and they are as black as they are many) cannot break the spell. Sitting on one of these hillsides, we heard a bugle-call taken up andrepeated in delicate, ethereal echoes, --sweet enough, indeed, to beworthy of the fairy buglers who are supposed to pass the sound alongtheir lines from crag to crag, until it faints and dies in silence. Andthen came the 'Lament for Owen Roe O'Neil. ' We were thrilled to thevery heart with the sorrowful strains; and when we issued from our leafycovert, and rounded the point of rocks from which the sound came, we found a fat man in uniform playing the bugle. 'Blank's Tours' wasembroidered on his cap, and I have no doubt that he is a good husbandand father, even a good citizen, but he is a blight upon the landscape, and fancy cannot breathe in his presence. The typical tourist should beencouraged within bounds, both because he is of some benefit to Ireland, and because Ireland is of inestimable benefit to him; but he shouldnot be allowed to jeer and laugh at the legends (the gentle smile ofsophisticated unbelief, with its twinkle of amusement, is unknown to andfor ever beyond him); and above all, he should never be allowed to carryor to play on a concertina, for this is the unpardonable sin. We had an adventure yesterday. We were to dine at eight o'clock atBalkilly Castle, where Dr. La Touche is staying the week-end with Lordand Lady Killbally. We had been spending an hour or two after tea inwriting an Irish letter, and were a bit late in dressing. These letters, written in the vernacular, are a favourite diversion of ours whenvisiting in foreign lands; and they are very easily done when once youhave caught the idioms, for you can always supplement your slender storeof words and expressions with choice selections from native authors. What Francesca and I wore to the Castle dinner is, alas! no longer ofany consequence to the community at large. In the mysterious purposesof that third volume which we seem to be living in Ireland, Francesca'sbeauty and mine, her hats and frocks as well as mine, are all reduced tothe background; but Salemina's toilet had cost us some thought. When shefirst issued from the discreet and decorous fastnesses of Salem society, she had never donned any dinner dress that was not as high at the throatand as long in the sleeves as the Puritan mothers ever wore to meeting. In England she lapsed sufficiently from the rigid Salem standard toadopt a timid compromise; in Scotland we coaxed her into still furthermodernities, until now she is completely enfranchised. We achieved thisat considerable trouble, but do not grudge the time spent in persuasionwhen we see her en grande toilette. In day dress she has alwaysbeen inclined ever so little to a primness and severity that suggestold-maidishness. In her low gown of pale grey, with all her silverhair waved softly, she is unexpectedly lovely, --her face softened, transformed, and magically 'brought out' by the whiteness of hershoulders and slender throat. Not an ornament, not a jewel, will shewear; and she is right to keep the nunlike simplicity of style whichsuits her so well, and which holds its own even in the vicinity ofFrancesca's proud and glowing young beauty. On this particular evening, Francesca, who wished her to look her best, had prudently hidden her eyeglasses, for which we are now trying tosubstitute a silver-handled lorgnette. Two years ago we deliberatelysmashed her spectacles, which she had adopted at five-and-twenty. "But they are more convenient than eye-glasses, " she urged obtusely. "That argument is beneath you, dear, " we replied. "If your hair were notprematurely grey, we might permit the spectacles, hideous as they are, but a combination of the two is impossible; the world shall not convictyou of failing sight when you are guilty only of petty astigmatism!" The grey satin had been chosen for this dinner, and Salemina wasdressed, with the exception of the pretty pearl-embroidered waist thathas to be laced at the last moment, and had slipped on a dressing jacketto come down from her room in the second story, to be advised in sometrifling detail. She looked unusually well, I thought: her eyes werebright and her cheeks flushed, as she rustled in, holding her satinskirts daintily away from the dusty carpets. Now, from the morning of our arrival we have had trouble with theMullarkey door-knobs, which come off continually, and lie on the floorsat one side of the door or the other. Benella followed Salemina fromher room, and, being in haste, closed the door with unwonted energy. Sheheard the well-known rattle and clang, but little suspected that, as oneknob dropped outside in the hall, the other fell inside, carrying therod of connection with it. It was not long before we heard a cry ofdespair from above, and we responded to it promptly. "It's fell in on the inside, knob and all, as I always knew it wouldsome day; and now we can't get back into the room!" said Benella. "Oh, nonsense! We can open it with something or other, " I answeredencouragingly, as I drew on my gloves; "only you must hasten, for thecar is at the door. " The curling iron was too large, the shoe hook too short, a lead penciltoo smooth, a crochet needle too slender: we tried them all, and thedoor resisted all our insinuations. "Must you necessarily get in beforewe go?" I asked Salemina thoughtlessly. She gave me a glance that almost froze my blood, as she replied, "Thewaist of my dress is in the room. " Francesca and I spent a moment in irrepressible mirth, and then summonedMrs. Mullarkey. Whether the Irish kings could be relied upon in anemergency I do not know, but their descendants cannot. Mrs. Mullarkeyhad gone to the convent to see the Mother Superior about something; Mr. Mullarkey was at the Dooclone market; Peter was not to be found; butOonah and Molly came, and also the old lady from Mullinavat, with apackage of raffle tickets in her hand. We left this small army under Benella's charge, and went down to my roomfor a hasty consultation. "Could you wear any evening bodice of Francesca's?" I asked. "Of course not. Francesca's waist measure is three inches smaller thanmine. " "Could you manage my black lace dress?" "Penelope, you know it would only reach to my ankles! No, you must gowithout me, and go at once. We are too new acquaintances to keep LadyKillbally's dinner waiting. Why did I come to this place like a pauper, with only one evening gown, when I should have known that if there isa castle anywhere within forty miles you always spend half your time init!" This slur was totally unjustified, but I pardoned it, because Salemina'stemper is ordinarily perfect, and the circumstances were somewhattragic. "If you had brought a dozen costumes, they would all be in yourroom at this moment, " I replied; "but we must think of something. Itis impossible for you to remain behind; we were invited more on youraccount than our own, for you are Dr. La Touche's friend, and the dinneris especially in his honour. Molly, have you a ladder?" "Sorra a wan, ma'am. " "Could we borrow one?" "We could not, Mrs. Beresford, ma'am. " "Then see if you can break down the door; try hard, and if you succeed Iwill buy you a nice new one! Part of Miss Peabody's dress is inside theroom, and we shall be late to the Castle dinner. " The entire corps, with Mrs. Waterford of Mullinavat on top, cast itselfon the door, which withstood the shock to perfection. Then in a momentwe heard: "Weary's on it, it will not come down for us, ma'am. It's theiligant locks we do be havin' in the house; they're mortial shtrong, ma'am!" "Strong, indeed!" exclaimed the incensed Benella, in a burst of NewEngland wrath. "There's nothing strong about the place but the impidenceof the people in it! If you had told Peter to get a carpenter or alocksmith, as I've been asking you these two weeks, it would have beenall right; but you never do anything till a month after it's too late. I've no patience with such a set of doshies, dawdling around and leavingeverything to go to rack and ruin!" "Sure it was yourself that ruinated the thing, " responded Molly, withspirit, for the unaccustomed word 'doshy' had kindled her quick Irishtemper. "It's aisy handlin' the knob is used to, and faith it would 'a'stuck there for you a twelvemonth!" "They will be quarrelling soon, " said Salemina nervously. "Do not waitanother instant; you are late enough now, and I insist on your going. Make any excuse you see fit: say I am ill, say I am dead, if you like, but don't tell the real excuse--it is too shiftless and wretched andembarrassing. Don't cry, Benella. Molly, Oonah, go downstairs to yourwork. Mrs. Waterford, I think perhaps you have forgotten that we havealready purchased raffle tickets, and we'll not take any more for fearthat we may draw the necklace. Good-bye, dears; tell Lady Killbally Ishall see her to-morrow. " Chapter XV. Penelope weaves a web. 'Why the shovel and tongs To each other belongs, And the kettle sings songs Full of family glee, While alone with your cup, Like a hermit you sup, Och hone, Widow Machree. ' Samuel Lover. Francesca and I were gloomy enough, as we drove along facing each otherin Ballyfuchsia's one 'inside-car'--a strange and fearsome vehicle, partaking of the nature of a broken-down omnibus, a hearse, and anovergrown black beetle. It holds four, or at a squeeze six, the seatsbeing placed from stem to stern lengthwise, and the balance being sodelicate that the passengers, when going uphill, are shaken into a heapat the door, which is represented by a ragged leather flap. I have oftenseen it strew the hard highroad with passengers, as it jolts up thesteep incline that leads to Ardnagreena, and the 'fares' who succeed instaying in always sit in one another's laps a good part of the way--amethod pleasing only to relatives or intimate friends. Francesca and Iagreed to tell the real reason of Salemina's absence. "It is Ireland'sfault, and I will not have America blamed for it, " she insisted; "butit is so embarrassing to be going to the dinner ourselves, andleaving behind the most important personage. Think of Dr. La Touche'sdisappointment, think of Salemina's; and they'll never understand whyshe couldn't have come in a dressing jacket. I shall advise her todischarge Benella after this episode, for no one can tell the effect itmay have upon all our future lives, even those of the doctor's two poormotherless children. " It is a four-mile drive to Balkilly Castle, and when we arrived therewe were so shaken that we had to retire to a dressing-room for repairs. Then came the dreaded moment when we entered the great hall and advancedto meet Lady Killbally, who looked over our heads to greet the missingSalemina. Francesca's beauty, my supposed genius, both fell flat; itwas Salemina whose presence was especially desired. The company wasassembled, save for one guest still more tardy than ourselves, and wehad a moment or two to tell our story as sympathetically as possible. Ithad an uncommonly good reception, and, coupled with the Irish letter Iread at dessert, carried the dinner along on a basis of such laughterand good-fellowship that finally there was no place for regret save inthe hearts of those who knew and loved Salemina--poor Salemina, spending her dull, lonely evening in our rooms, and later on in her ownuneventful bed, if indeed she had been lucky enough to gain access tothat bed. I had hoped Lady Killbally would put one of us beside Dr. La Touche, so that we might at least keep Salemina's memory green bytactful conversation; but it was too large a company to rearrange, andhe had to sit by an empty chair, which perhaps was just as salutary, after all. The dinner was very smart, and the company interesting andclever, but my thoughts were elsewhere. As there were fewer squires thandames at the feast, Lady Killbally kindly took me on her left, witha view to better acquaintance, and I was heartily glad of a possiblechance to hear something of Dr. La Touche's earlier life. In ourprevious interviews, Salemina's presence had always precluded thepossibility of leading the conversation in the wished-for direction. When I first saw Gerald La Touche I felt that he required explanation. Usually speaking, a human being ought to be able, in an evening'sconversation, to explain himself, without any adventitious aid. If he isa man, alive, vigorous, well poised, conscious of his own individuality, he shows you, without any effort, as much of his past as you need toform your impression, and as much of his future as you have intuition toread. As opposed to the vigorous personality, there is the colourless, flavourless, insubstantial sort, forgotten as soon as learned, and forever confused with that of the previous or the next comer. When I was abeginner in portrait-painting, I remember that, after I had succeededin making my background stay back where it belonged, my figure sometimeshad a way of clinging to it in a kind of smudgy weakness, as if it wereafraid to come out like a man and stand the inspection of my eye. Howoften have I squandered paint upon the ungrateful object without addinga cubit to its stature! It refused to look like flesh and blood, butresembled rather some half-made creature flung on the passive canvas ina liquid state, with its edges running over into the background. Thereare a good many of these people in literature, too, --heroes who, likehome-made paper dolls, do not stand up well; or if they manage toperform that feat, one unexpectedly discovers, when they are placed ina strong light, that they have no vital organs whatever, and can be seenthrough without the slightest difficulty. Dr. La Touche does not belongto either of these two classes: he is not warm, magnetic, powerful, impressive: neither is he by any means destitute of vital organs;but his personality is blurred in some way. He seems a bit remote, absentminded, and a trifle, just a trifle, over-resigned. Privately, Ithink a man can afford to be resigned only to one thing, and that is thewill of God; against all other odds I prefer to see him fight tillthe last armed foe expires. Dr. La Touche is devotedly attached to hischildren, but quite helpless in their hands; so that he never looks atthem with pleasure or comfort or pride, but always with an anxiety asto what they may do next. I understand him better now that I know thecircumstances of which he has been the product. (Of course one is alwaysa product of circumstances, unless one can manage to be superior tothem. ) His wife, the daughter of an American consul in Ireland, was acharming but somewhat feather-brained person, rather given to whims andcaprices; very pretty, very young, very much spoiled, very attractive, very undisciplined. All went well enough with them until her father wasrecalled to America, because of some change in political administration. The young Mrs. La Touche seemed to have no resources apart from herfamily, and even her baby 'Jackeen' failed to absorb her as might havebeen expected. "We thought her a most trying woman at this time, " said Lady Killbally. "She seemed to have no thought of her husband's interests, and none ofthe responsibilities that she had assumed in marrying him; her only ideaof life appeared to be amusement and variety and gaiety. Gerald wasa student, and always very grave and serious; the kind of man whoinvariably marries a butterfly, if he can find one to make himmiserable. He was exceedingly patient; but after the birth of littleBroona, Adeline became so homesick and depressed and discontented that, although the journey was almost an impossibility at the time, Geraldtook her back to her people, and left her with them, while he returnedto his duties at Trinity College. Their life, I suppose, had been veryunhappy for a year or two before this, and when he came home to Dublinwithout his children, he looked a sad and broken man. He was absolutelyfaithful to his ideals, I am glad to say, and never wavered in hisallegiance to his wife, however disappointed he may have been in her;going over regularly to spend his long vacations in America, althoughshe never seemed to wish to see him. At last she fell into a state ofhopeless melancholia; and it was rather a relief to us all to feel thatwe had judged her too severely, and that her unreasonableness and herextraordinary caprices had been born of mental disorder more than ofmoral obliquity. Gerald gave up everything to nurse her and rouse herfrom her apathy; but she faded away without ever once coming back to amore normal self, and that was the end of it all. Gerald's father haddied meanwhile, and he had fallen heir to the property and the estates. They were very much encumbered, but he is gradually getting affairs intoa less chaotic state; and while his fortune would seem a small one toyou extravagant Americans, he is what we Irish paupers would call wellto do. " Lady Killbally was suspiciously willing to give me all thisinformation, --so much so that I ventured to ask about the children. "They are captivating, neglected little things, " she said. "Madame LaTouche, an aged aunt, has the ostensible charge of them, and she is amost easy-going person. The servants are of the 'old family' sort, the reckless, improvident, untidy, devoted, quarrelsome creatures thatalways stand by the ruined Irish gentry in all their misfortunes, andgenerally make their life a burden to them at the same time. Gerald is asaint, and therefore never complains. " "It never seems to me that saints are altogether adapted to positionslike these, " I sighed; "sinners would do ever so much better. I shouldlike to see Dr. La Touche take off his halo, lay it carefully on thebureau, and wield a battle-axe. The world will never acknowledge hismerit; it will even forget him presently, and his life will have beengiven up to the evolution of the passive virtues. Do you suppose he willrecognise the tender passion if it ever does bud in his breast, or willhe think it a weed, instead of a flower, and let it wither for want ofattention?" "I think his friends will have to enhance his self-respect, or hewill for ever be too modest to declare himself, " said Lady Killbally. "Perhaps you can help us: he is probably going to America this winter tolecture at some of your universities, and he may stay there for a yearor two, so he says. At any rate, if the right woman ever appears onthe scene, I hope she will have the instinct to admire and love andreverence him as we do, " and here she smiled directly into my eyes, andslipping her pretty hand under the tablecloth squeezed mine in a mannerthat spoke volumes. It is not easy to explain one's desire to marry off all the unmarriedpersons in one's vicinity. When I look steadfastly at any group ofpeople, large or small, they usually segregate themselves into twosunder my prophetic eye. It they are nice and attractive, I am pleased tosee them mated; if they are horrid and disagreeable, I like to think ofthem as improving under the discipline of matrimony. It is joy to seebeauty meet a kindling eye, but I am more delighted still to watch a manfall under the glamour of a plain, dull girl, and it is ecstasy for meto see a perfectly unattractive, stupid woman snapped up at last, when Ihave given up hopes of settling her in life. Sometimes there are menso uninspiring that I cannot converse with them a single moment withoutyawning; but though failures in all other relations, one can conceiveof their being tolerably useful as husbands and fathers; not for one'sself, you understand, but for one's neighbours. Dr. La Touche's life now, to any understanding eye, is as incompleteas the unfinished window in Aladdin's tower. He is too wrinkled, toostudious, too quiet, too patient for his years. His children need amother, his old family servants need discipline, his baronial halls needsweeping and cleaning (I haven't seen them, but I know they do!), andhis aged aunt needs advice and guidance. On the other hand, there arethose (I speak guardedly) who have walked in shady, sequestered pathsall their lives, looking at hundreds of happy lovers on the sunnyhighroad, but never joining them; those who adore erudition, who lovechildren, who have a genius for unselfish devotion, who are sweet andrefined and clever, and who look perfectly lovely when they put ongrey satin and leave off eyeglasses. They say they are over forty, andalthough this probably is exaggeration, they may be thirty-nine andthree-quarters; and if so, the time is limited in which to find for thema worthy mate, since half of the masculine population is looking foritself, and always in the wrong quarter, needing no assistance todiscover rose-cheeked idiots of nineteen, whose obvious charms drawthousands to a dull and uneventful fate. These thoughts were running idly through my mind while the HonourableMichael McGillicuddy was discoursing to me of Mr. Gladstone'smisunderstanding of Irish questions, --a misunderstanding, he said, socolossal, so temperamental, and so all-embracing, that it amountedto genius. I was so anxious to return to Salemina that I wished I hadordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize thefirst favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. LaTouche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people'sbrains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous hostthrough the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamberclosed to the casual visitor. If I have known him long enough I putmy hand on the latch and smile inquiringly. He looks confused andconscious, but unlocks the door. Then I peep in, and often I seesomething that pleases and charms and touches me so much that it showsin my eyes when I lift them to his to say "Thank you. " Sometimes, afterthat, my host gives me the key and says gravely "Pray come in wheneveryou like. " When Dr. La Touche offers me this hospitality I shall find out whetherhe knows anything of that lavender-scented guest-room in Salemina'sheart. First, has he ever seen it? Second, has he ever stopped in it forany length of time? Third, was he sufficiently enamoured of it to occupyit on a long lease? Chapter XVI. Salemina has her chance. 'And what use is one's life widout chances? Ye've always a chance wid the tide. ' Jane Barlow. I was walking with Lady Fincoss, and Francesca with Miss Clondalkin, a very learned personage who has deciphered more undecipherableinscriptions than any lady in Ireland, when our eyes fell upon anunexpected tableau. Seated on a divan in the centre of the drawing-room, in a mostdistinguished attitude, in unexceptionable attire, and with therose-coloured lights making all her soft greys opalescent, was MissSalemina Peabody. Our exclamations of astonishment were so audible thatthey must have reached the dining-room, for Lord Killbally did not keepthe gentlemen long at their wine. Salemina cannot tell a story quite as it ought to be told to produce aneffect. She is too reserved, too concise, too rigidly conscientious. Shedoes not like to be the centre of interest, even in a modest contretempslike being locked out of a room which contains part of her dress; butfrom her brief explanation to Lady Killbally, her more complete andconfidential account on the way home, and Benella's graphic story whenwe arrived there, we were able to get all the details. When the inside-car passed out of view with us, it appears that Benellawept tears of rage, at the sight of which Oonah and Molly trembled. Inthat moment of despair and remorse, her mind worked as it must alwayshave done before the Salem priestess befogged it with hazy philosophies, understood neither by teacher nor by pupil. Peter had come back, butcould suggest nothing. Benella forgot her 'science, ' which prohibitsrage and recrimination, and called him a great, hulking, lazy vagabone, and told him she'd like to have him in Salem for five minutes, just toshow him a man with head on his shoulders. "You call this a Christian country, " she said, "and you haven't got ascrewdriver, nor a bradawl, nor a monkey-wrench, nor a rat-tail file, nor no kind of a useful tool to bless yourselves with; and my MissPeabody, that's worth ten dozen of you put together, has got to stayhome from the Castle and eat warmed-up scraps served in courses, with twenty minutes' wait between 'em. Now you do as I say: take thedining-table and set it out under the window, and the carving-table ontop o' that, and see how fur up it'll reach. I guess you can't stump aSalem woman by telling her there ain't no ladder. " The two tables were finally in position; but there still remained ninefeet of distance to that key of the situation, Salemina's window, andMrs. Waterford's dressing-table went on top of this pile. "Now, Peter, "were the next orders, "if you've got sprawl enough, and want to restyourself by doin' something useful for once in your life, you justhold down the dining-table; and you and Oonah, Molly, keep the next twotables stiddy, while I climb up. " The intrepid Benella could barely reach the sill, even from thisingeniously dizzy elevation, and Mrs. Waterford and Salemina were calledon to 'stiddy' the tables, while Molly was bidden to help by giving anheroic 'boost' when the word of command came. The device was completelysuccessful, and in a trice the conqueror disappeared, to reappear at thewindow holding the precious pearl-embroidered bodice wrapped in a towel. "I wouldn't stop to fool with the door-knob till I dropped you this, "she said. "Oonah, you go and wash your hands clean, and help MissPeabody into it, --and mind you start the lacing right at the top; andyou, Peter, run down to Rooney's and get the donkey and the cart, andbring 'em back with you, --and don't you let the grass grow under yourfeet neither!" There was literally no other mode of conveyance within miles, and timewas precious. Salemina wrapped herself in Francesca's long black cloak, and climbed into the cart. Dinnis hauls turf in it, takes a sack ofpotatoes or a pig to market in it, and the stubborn little ass, blind ofone eye, has never in his wholly elective course of existence taken upthe subject of speed. It was eight o'clock when Benella mounted the seat beside Salemina, andgave the donkey a preliminary touch of the stick. "Be aisy wid him, " cautioned Peter. "He's a very arch donkey for a ladyto be dhrivin', and mebbe he'd lay down and not get up for you. " "Arrah! shut yer mouth, Pether. Give him a couple of belts anondher thehind leg, melady, and that'll put the fear o' God in him!" said Dinnis. "I'd rather not go at all, " urged Salemina timidly; "it's too late, andtoo extraordinary. " "I'm not going to have it on my conscience to make you lose thisdinner-party, --not if I have to carry you on my back the whole way, "said Benella doggedly; "and this donkey won't lay down with me more'nonce, --I can tell him that right at the start. " "Sure, melady, he'll go to Galway for you, when oncet he's started widhimself; and it's only a couple o' fingers to the Castle, annyways. " The four-mile drive, especially through the village of Ballyfuchsia, wasan eventful one, but by dint of prodding, poking, and belting, Benellahad accomplished half the distance in three-quarters of an hour, whenthe donkey suddenly lay down 'on her, ' according to Peter's prediction. This was luckily at the town cross, where a group of idlers renderedhearty assistance. Willing as they were to succour a lady in disthress, they did not know of any car which could be secured in time to be ofservice, but one of them offered to walk and run by the side of thedonkey, so as to kape him on his legs. It was in this wise thatMiss Peabody approached Balkilly Castle; and when a gildedgentleman-in-waiting lifted her from Rooney's 'plain cart, ' she was juston the verge of hysterics. Fortunately his Magnificence was English, andbetrayed no surprise at the arrival in this humble fashion of a dinnerguest, but simply summoned the Irish housekeeper, who revived her withwine, and called on all the saints to witness that she'd never heard ofsuch a shameful thing, and such a disgrace to Ballyfuchsia. The idea ofnot keeping a ladder in a house where the door-knobs were apt to comeoff struck her as being the worst feature of the accident, though thisunexpected and truly Milesian view of the matter had never occurred tous. "Well, I got Miss Peabody to the dinner-party, " said Benellatriumphantly, when she was laboriously unlacing my frock, later on, "orat least I got her there before it broke up. I had to walk every step o'the way home, and the donkey laid down four times, but I was so nervedup I didn't care a mite. I was bound Miss Peabody shouldn't lose herchance, after all she's done for me!" "Her chance?" I asked, somewhat puzzled, for dinners, even Castledinners, are not rare in Salemina's experience. "Yes, her chance, " repeated Benella mysteriously; "you'd know wellenough what I mean, if you'd ben born and brought up in Salem, Massachusetts!" * * * * * Copy of a letter read by Penelope O'Connor, descendant of the King ofConnaught, at the dinner of Lord and Lady Killbally at Balkilly Castle. It needed no apology then, but in sending it to our American friends, wewere obliged to explain that though the Irish peasants interlard theirconversation with saints, angels, and devils, and use the name of theVirgin Mary, and even the Almighty, with, to our ears, undue familiarityand frequency, there is no profane or irreverent intent. They areinstinctively religious, and it is only because they feel on terms ofsuch friendly intimacy with the powers above that they speak of them sooften. At the Widdy Mullarkey's, Knockarney House, Ballyfuchsia, County Kerry. Och! musha bedad, man alive, but it's a fine counthry over here, and itbangs all the jewel of a view we do be havin' from the windys, begorra!Knockarney House is in a wild, remoted place at the back of beyant, andfaix we're as much alone as Robinson Crusoe on a dissolute island; butwhen we do be wishful to go to the town, sure there's ivery convaniency. There's ayther a bit of a jauntin' car wid a skewbald pony for drivin', or we can borry the loan of Dinnis Rooney's blind ass wid the plaincart, or we can just take a fut in a hand and leg it over the bog. Sureit's no great thing to go do, but only a taste of divarsion like, thoughit's three good Irish miles an' powerful hot weather, with niver a dhropof wet these manny days. It's a great old spring we're havin' intirely;it has raison to be proud of itself, begob! Paddy, the gossoon that drives the car (it's a gossoon we call him, but faix he stands five fut nine in his stockin's, when he wearsanny)--Paddy, as I'm afther tellin' you, lives in a cabin down belowthe knockaun, a thrifle back of the road. There's a nate stack of turffornint it, and a pitaty pot sets beside the doore, wid the hins andchuckens rachin' over into it like aigles tryin' to swally the smell. Across the way there does be a bit of sthrame that's fairly shtiff widtroutses in the saison, and a growth of rooshes under the edge lookin'that smooth and greeny it must be a pleasure intirely to the grand youngpig and the goat that spinds their time by the side of it when out ofdoores, which is seldom. Paddy himself is raggetty like, and a sight tobehould wid the daylight shinin' through the ould coat on him; but he'sa dacint spalpeen, and sure we'd be lost widout him. His mother's awiddy woman with nine moidtherin' childer, not countin' the pig an' thegoat, which has aquil advantages. It's nine she has livin', she says, and four slapin' in the beds o' glory; and faix I hope thim that's inglory is quieter than the wans that's here, for the divil is busy widthim the whole of the day. Here's wan o' thim now makin' me as onaisy asan ould hin on a hot griddle, slappin' big sods of turf over thedike, and ruinatin' the timpers of our poulthry. We've a right to belambastin' thim this blessed minute, the crathurs; as sure as eggs ismate, if they was mine they'd sup sorrow wid a spoon of grief, beforethey wint to bed this night! Mistress Colquhoun, that lives at Ardnagreena on the road to the town, is an iligant lady intirely, an' she's uncommon frindly, may the peaceof heaven be her sowl's rist! She's rale charitable-like an' liberalwith the whativer, an' as for Himself, sure he's the darlin' fine man!He taches the dead-and-gone languages in the grand sates of larnin', and has more eddication and comperhinson than the whole of County Kerryrowled together. Then there's Lord and Lady Killbally; faix there's no iliganter familyon this counthryside, and they has the beautiful quality stoppin' widthim, begob! They have a pew o' their own in the church, an' theircoachman wears top-boots wid yaller chimbleys to thim. They do be veryopenhanded wid the eatin' and the drinkin', and it bangs Banagher thefigurandyin' we do have wid thim! So you see Ould Ireland is not toodisthressful a counthry to be divartin' ourselves in, an' we have ourhealths finely, glory be to God! Well, we must be shankin' off wid ourselves now to the Colquhouns', where they're wettin' a dhrop o' tay for us this mortial instant. It's no good for yous to write to us here, for we'll be quittin' out o'this before the letther has a chanst to come; though sure it can follyus as we're jiggin' along to the north. Don't be thinkin' that you've shlipped hould of our ricollections, though the breadth of the ocean say's betune us. More power to yourelbow! May your life be aisy, and may the heavens be your bed! Penelope O'Connor Beresford. Part Third--Ulster. Chapter XVII. The Glens of Antrim. 'Silent, O Moyle, [*] be the roar of thy water; Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose; While murmuring mournfully, Lir's lovely daughter Tells to the night-star her tale of woes. ' Thomas Moore. * The sea between Erin and Alban (Ireland and Scotland) was called in the olden time the Sea of Moyle, from the Moyle, or Mull, of Cantire. Sorley Boy Hotel, Glens of Antrim. We are here for a week, in the neighbourhood of Cushendun, just to seea bit of the north-eastern corner of Erin, where, at the end ofthe nineteenth century, as at the beginning of the seventeenth, thepopulation is almost exclusively Catholic and Celtic. The GaelicSorley Boy is, in Irish state papers, Carolus Flavus--yellow-hairedCharles--the most famous of the Macdonnell fighters; the one who, whenrecognised by Elizabeth as Lord of the Route, and given a patent for hisestates, burned the document before his retainers, swearing thatwhat had been won by the sword should never be held by the sheepskin. Cushendun was one of the places in our literary pilgrimage, because ofits association with that charming Irish poetess and good glenswoman whocalls herself 'Moira O'Neill. ' This country of the Glens, east of the river Bann, escaped 'plantation, 'and that accounts for its Celtic character. When the grand Ulsterchieftains, the O'Donnells and the O'Neills of Donegal, went under, thethird great house of Ulster, the 'Macdonnells of the Isles, ' was morefortunate, and, thanks to its Scots blood, found favour with James I. It was a Macdonnell who was created first Earl of Antrim, and given a'grant of the Glens and the Route, from the Curran of Larne to the Cuttsof Coleraine. ' Ballycastle is our nearest large town, and its great dayswere all under the Macdonnells, where, in the Franciscan abbey acrossthe bay, it is said the ground 'literally heaves with Clandonnell dust. 'Here are buried those of the clan who perished at the hands of ShaneO'Neill--Shane the Proud, who signed himself 'Myself O'Neill, ' and whohas been called 'the shaker of Ulster'; here, too, are those who fell inthe great fight at Slieve-an-Aura up in Glen Shesk, when the Macdonnellsfinally routed the older lords, the M'Quillans. A clansman once went tothe Countess of Antrim to ask the lease of a farm. "Another Macdonnell?" asked the countess. "Why, you must all beMacdonnells in the Low Glens!" "Ay, " said the man. "Too many Macdonnells now, but not one too many onthe day of Aura. " From the cliffs of Antrim we can see on any clear day the Sea of Moyleand the bonnie blue hills of Scotland, divided from Ulster at this pointby only twenty miles of sea path. The Irish or Gaels or Scots of 'Uladh'often crossed in their curraghs to this lovely coast of Alba, theninhabited by the Picts. Here, 'when the tide drains out wid itselfbeyant the rocks, ' we sit for many an hour, perhaps on the very spotfrom which they pushed off their boats. The Mull of Cantire runs outsharply toward you; south of it are Ailsa Craig and the soft Ayrshirecoast; north of the Mull are blue, blue mountains in a semicircle, and just beyond them somewhere, Francesca knows, are the ArgyleshireHighlands. And oh! the pearl and opal tints that the Irish atmosphereflings over the scene, shifting them ever at will, in misty sun orradiant shower; and how lovely are the too rare bits of woodland!The ground is sometimes white with wild garlic, sometimes blue withhyacinths; the primroses still linger in moist, hidden places, and thereare violets and marsh marigolds. Everything wears the colour of Hope. Ifthere are buds that will never bloom and birds that will never fly, thegreat mother-heart does not know it yet. "I wonder, " said Salemina, "ifthat is why we think of autumn as sad--because the story of the year isknown and told?" Long, long before the Clandonnell ruled these hills and glens and cliffsthey were the home of Celtic legend. Over the waters of the wee riverMargy, with its half-mile course, often sailed the four white swans, those enchanted children of Lir, king of the Isle of Man, who had beentransformed into this guise by their cruel stepmother, with a stroke ofher druidical fairy wand. After turning them into four beautiful whiteswans she pronounced their doom, which was to sail three hundred yearson smooth Lough Derryvara, three hundred on the Sea of Erris--sail, andsail, until the union of Largnen, the prince from the north, with Decca, the princess from the south; until the Taillkenn [**] should come to Erinn, bringing the light of a pure faith, and until they should hear the voiceof a Christian bell. They were allowed to keep their own Gaelic speech, and to sing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, which should excel all themusic of the world, and which should lull to sleep all who listened toit. We could hear it, we three, for we loved the story; and love opensthe ear as well as the heart to all sorts of sounds not heard by thedull and incredulous. You may hear it, too, any fine soft day if youwill sit there looking out on Fair Head and Rathlin Island, and read theold fairy tale. When you put down the book you will see Finola, Lir'slovely daughter, in any white-breasted bird; and while she covers herbrothers with her wings, she will chant to you her old song in theGaelic tongue. ** A name given by the Druids to St. Patrick. 'Ah, happy is Lir's bright home today With mirth and music and poet's lay; But gloomy and cold his children's home, For ever tossed on the briny foam. Our wreath-ed feathers are thin and light When the wind blows keen through the wintry night; Yet oft we were robed, long, long ago, In purple mantles and robes of snow. On Moyle's bleak current our food and wine Are sandy seaweed and bitter brine; Yet oft we feasted in days of old, And hazel-mead drank from cups of gold. Our beds are rocks in the dripping caves; Our lullaby song the roar of the waves; But soft, rich couches once we pressed, And harpers lulled us each night to rest. Lonely we swim on the billowy main, Through frost and snow, through storm and rain; Alas for the days when round us moved The chiefs and princes and friends we loved!'+ +Joyce's translation. The Fate of the Children of Lir is the second of Erin's Three Sorrowsof Story, and the third and greatest is the Fate of the Sons of Usnach, which has to do with a sloping rock on the north side of Fair Head, fivemiles from us. Here the three sons of Usnach landed when they returnedfrom Alba to Erin with Deirdre--Deirdre, who was 'beautiful as Helen, and gifted like Cassandra with unavailing prophecy'; and by reason ofher beauty many sorrows fell upon the Ultonians. Naisi, son of Conor, king of Uladh, had fled with Deirdre, daughter ofPhelim, the king's story-teller, to a sea-girt islet on Lough Etive, where they lived happily by the chase. Naisi's two brothers went withthem, and thus the three sons of Usnach were all in Alba. Then the storygoes on to say that Fergus, one of Conor's nobles, goes to seek theexiles, and Naisi and Deirdre, while playing at the chess, hear from theshore 'the cry of a man of Erin. ' It is against Deirdre's will that theyfinally leave Alba with Fergus, who says, "Birthright is first, for illit goes with a man, although he be great and prosperous, if he does notsee daily his native earth. " So they sailed away over the sea, and Deirdre sang this lay as theshores of Alba faded from her sight:-- "My love to thee, O Land in the East, and 'tis ill for me to leave thee, for delightful are thy coves and havens, thy kind, soft, flowery fields, thy pleasant, green-sided hills; and little was our need of departing. " Then in her song she went over the glens of their lordship, namingthem all, and calling to mind how here they hunted the stag, here theyfished, here they slept, with the swaying fern for pillows, and here thecuckoo called to them. And "Never, " she sang, "would I quit Alba were itnot that Naisi sailed thence in his ship. " They landed first under Fair Head, and then later at Rathlin Island, where their fate met them at last, as Deirdre had prophesied. It is asad story, and we can easily weep at the thrilling moment when, therebeing no man among the Ultonians to do the king's bidding, a Norsecaptive takes Naisi's magic sword and strikes off the heads of the threesons of Usnach with one swift blow, and Deirdre, falling prone upon thedead bodies, chants a lament; and when she has finished singing, sheputs her pale cheek against Naisi's, and dies; and a great cairn ispiled over them, and an inscription in Ogam set upon it. We were full of legendary lore, these days, for we were fresh from asight of Glen Ariff. Who that has ever chanced to be there in a peltingrain but will remember its innumerable little waterfalls, and the greatfalls of Ess-na-Crubh and Ess-na-Craoibhe? And who can ever forget theatmosphere of romance that broods over these Irish glens? We have had many advantages here as elsewhere; for kind Dr. La Touche, Lady Killbally, and Mrs. Colquhoun follow us with letters, and whereverthere is an unusual personage in a district we are commended to his orher care. Sometimes it is one of the 'grand quality, ' and often it isan Ossianic sort of person like Shaun O'Grady, who lives in a littlewhitewashed cabin, and who has, like Mr. Yeats's Gleeman, 'the wholeMiddle Ages under his frieze coat. ' The longer and more intimately weknow these peasants, the more we realise how much in imagination, or inthe clouds, if you will, they live. The ragged man of leisure you meeton the road may be a philosopher, and is still more likely to be a poet;but unless you have something of each in yourself, you may mistake himfor a mere beggar. "The practical ones have all emigrated, " a Dublin novelist told us, "and the dreamers are left. The heads of the older ones are filled withpoetry and legends; they see nothing as it is, but always through someiridescent-tinted medium. Their waking moments, when not tormented byhunger, are spent in heaven, and they all live in a dream, whether itbe of the next world or of a revolution. Effort is to them useless, submission to everybody and everything the only safe course; in a word, fatalism expresses their attitude to life. " Much of this submission to the inevitable is a product of past poverty, misfortune, and famine, and the rest is undoubtedly a trace of the samespirit that we find in the lives and writings of the saints, and whichis an integral part of the mystery and the traditions of Romanism. Wewho live in the bright (and sometimes staring) sunlight of common-sensecan hardly hope to penetrate the dim, mysterious world of the Catholicpeasant, with his unworldliness and sense of failure. Dr. Douglas Hyde, an Irish scholar and staunch Protestant, says: "Apious race is the Gaelic race. The Irish Gael is pious by nature. Thereis not an Irishman in a hundred in whom is the making of an unbeliever. The spirit, and the things of the spirit, affect him more powerfullythan the body, and the things of the body... What is invisible for otherpeople is visible for him... He feels invisible powers before him, andby his side, and at his back, throughout the day and throughout thenight... His mind on the subject may be summed up in the two sayings:that of the early Church, 'Let ancient things prevail, ' and that of St. Augustine, 'Credo quia impossibile. ' Nature did not form him to be anunbeliever; unbelief is alien to his mind and contrary to his feelings. " Here, only a few miles away, is the Slemish mountain where St. Patrick, then a captive of the rich cattle-owner Milcho, herded his sheep andswine. Here, when his flocks were sleeping, he poured out his prayers, a Christian voice in Pagan darkness. It was the memory of that darkness, you remember, that brought him back, years after, to convert Milcho. Here, too, they say, lies the great bard Ossian; for they love to thinkthat Finn's son Oisin, [++] the hero poet, survived to the time of St. Patrick, three hundred years after the other 'Fianna' had vanished fromthe earth, --the three centuries being passed in Tir-nan-og, the Land ofYouth, where the great Oisin married the king's daughter, Niam of theGolden Hair. 'Ossian after the Fianna' is a phrase which has become thesynonym of all survivors' sorrow. Blinded by tears, broken by age, thehero bard when he returns to earth has no fellowship but with grief, andthus he sings:-- 'No hero now where heroes hurled, -- Long this night the clouds delay-- No man like me, in all the world, Alone with grief, and grey. Long this night the clouds delay-- I raise their grave carn, stone on stone, For Finn and Fianna passed away-- I, Ossian left alone. ' ++ Pronounced Isheen' in Munster, Osh'in in Ulster. In more senses than one Irish folk-lore is Irish history. At least thetraditions that have been handed down from one generation to anothercontain not only the sometimes authentic record of events, buta revelation of the Milesian temperament, with its mirth and itsmelancholy, its exuberant fancy and its passion. So in these weird talesthere is plenty of history, and plenty of poetry, to one who will listento it; but the high and tragic story of Ireland has been cherishedmainly in the sorrowful traditions of a defeated race, and the legendshave not yet been wrought into undying verse. Erin's songs of battlecould only recount weary successions of Flodden Fields, with nevera Bannockburn and its nimbus of victory; for, as Ossian says of hiscountrymen, "they went forth to the war, but they always fell"; butsomewhere in the green isle is an unborn poet who will put all thismystery, beauty, passion, romance, and sadness, these tragic memories, these beliefs, these visions of unfulfilled desire, into verse that willglow on the page and live for ever. Somewhere is a mother who has keptall these things in her heart, and who will bear a son to writethem. Meantime, who shall say that they have not been imbedded in thelanguage, as flower petals might be in amber?--that language which, as an English scholar says, "has been blossoming there unseen, like ahidden garland of roses; and whenever the wind has blown from the west, English poetry has felt the vague perfume of it. " Chapter XVIII. Limavady love-letters. 'As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine, When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled, And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. ' Anonymous. We wanted to cross to Rathlin Island, which is 'like an Irish stockinge, the toe of which pointeth to the main lande. ' That would bring Francescasix miles nearer to Scotland and her Scottish lover; and we wished tosee the castle of Robert the Bruce, where, according to the legend, helearned his lesson from the 'six times baffled spider. ' We delayed toolong, however, and the Sea of Moyle looked as bleak and stormy as it didto the children of Lir. We had no mind to be swallowed up in Brecain'sCaldron, where the grandson of Niall and the Nine Hostages sank withhis fifty curraghs, so we took a day of golf at the Ballycastle links. Salemina, who is a neophyte, found a forlorn lady driving and puttingabout by herself, and they made a match just to increase the interest ofthe game. There was but one boy in evidence, and the versatile Benellaoffered to caddie for them, leaving the more experienced gossoon toFrancesca and me. The Irish caddie does not, on the whole, perhapsmanifest so keen an interest in the fine points of the game as hisScottish brother. He is somewhat languid in his search for a ball, andwill occasionally, when serving amiable ladies, sit under a tree in thesun and speculate as to its whereabouts. As for staying by you whileyou 'hole out' on your last green, he has no possible interest in thatproceeding, and is off and away, giving his perfunctory and half-heartedpolish to your clubs while you are passing through this thrillingcrisis. Salemina, wishing to know what was considered a good score bylocal players on these links, asked our young friend 'what they gotround in, here, ' and was answered, 'They tries to go round in as few aspossible, ma'am, but they mostly takes more!' We all came together againat luncheon, and Salemina returned flushed with victory. She had madethe nine hole course in one hundred and sixty, and had beaten heradversary five up and four to play. The next morning, bright and early, we left for Coleraine, a greatPresbyterian stronghold in what is called by the Roman Catholics the'black north. ' If we liked it, and saw anything of Kitty's descendants, or any nice pitchers to break, or any reason for breaking them, weintended to stop; if not, then to push on to the walled town of Derry, -- 'Where Foyle his swelling waters Rolls northward to the main. ' We thought it Francesca's duty, as she was to be the wife of a Scottishminister of the Established Church, to look up Presbyterianism inIreland whenever and wherever possible, with a view to discoursinglearnedly about it in her letters, --though, as she confessesingenuously, Ronald, in his, never so much as mentions Presbyterianism. As for ourselves, we determined to observe all theological differencesbetween Protestants and Roman Catholics, but leave Presbyterianism togang its ain gait. We had devoted hours--yes, days--in Edinburgh to theunderstanding of the subtle and technical barriers which separated theFree Kirkers and the United Presbyterians; and the first thing they did, after we had completely mastered the subject, was to unite. It is allvery well for Salemina, who condenses her information and stows itaway neatly; but we who have small storage room and inferior methods ofpacking must be as economical as possible in amassing facts. If we had been touring properly, of course we should have been goingto the Giant's Causeway and the swinging Bridge at Carrick-a-rede; butpropriety is the last thing we aim at in our itineraries. We were withinworshipping distance of two rather important shrines in our literarypilgrimage; for we had met a very knowledgeable traveller at the SorleyBoy, and after a little chat with him had planned a day of surprises forthe academic Miss Peabody. We proposed to halt at Port Stewart, lunch atColeraine, sleep at Limavady; and meantime Salemina was to read all thebooks at her command, and guess, we hoped vainly, the why and whereforeof these stops. On the appointed day, the lady in question drove in state on a car withBenella, but Francesca and I hired a couple of very wheezy bicycles forthe journey. We had a thrilling start; for it chanced to be a fair dayin Ballycastle, and we wheeled through a sea of squealing, boltingpigs, stupid sheep, and unruly cows, all pursued on every side by theirdrivers. To alight from a bicycle in such a whirl of beasts always seemscertain death; to remain seated diminishes, I believe, the number ofone's days of life to an appreciable extent. Francesca chose the firstcourse, and, standing still in the middle of the street, called uponeverybody within hearing to save her, and that right speedily. A crowdof 'jibbing' heifers encircled her on all sides, while a fat porker, 'who (his driver said) might be a prize pig by his impidence, ' and adonkey that was feelin' blue-mouldy for want of a batin', tried topoke their noses into the group. Salemina's only weapon was her scarletparasol, and, standing on the step of her side-car, she brandished thiswith such terrible effect that the only bull in the cavalcade put uphis head and roared. "Have conduct, woman dear!" cried his owner toSalemina. "Sure if you kape on moidherin' him wid that ombrelly, you'llhave him ugly on me immajently, and the divil a bit o' me can stop him. ""Don't be cryin' that way, asthore, " he went on, going to Francesca'sside, and piloting her tenderly to the hedge. "Sure I'll nourish him widthe whip whin I get him to a more remoted place. " We had no more adventures, but Francesca was so unhinged by herunfortunate exit from Ballycastle that, after a few miles, she announcedher intention of putting her machine and herself on the car; whereuponBenella proclaimed herself a competent cyclist, and climbed downblithely to mount the discarded wheel. Her ideas of propriety were bythis time so developed that she rode ten or twelve feet behind me, whereshe looked quaint enough, in her black dress and little black bonnetwith its white lawn strings. "Sure it's a quare footman ye have, me lady, " said a genial and friendlyperson who was sitting by the roadside smoking his old dudeen. AnIrishman, somehow, is always going to his work 'jist, ' or coming fromit, or thinking how it shall presently be done, or meditating on thenext step in the process, or resting a bit before taking it up again, orreflecting whether the weather is on the whole favourable to its properperformance; but however poor and needy he may be, it is somewhatdifficult to catch him at the precise working moment. Mr. Alfred Austinsays of the Irish peasants that idleness and poverty seem natural tothem. "Life to the Scotsman or Englishman is a business to conduct, toextend, to render profitable. To the Irishman it is a dream, a littlebit of passing consciousness on a rather hard pillow; the hard part ofit being the occasional necessity for work, which spoils the tendernessand continuity of the dream. " Presently we passed the Castle, rode along a neat quay with a row ofhouses advertising lodgings to let; and here is Lever Cottage, whereHarry Lorrequer was written; for Lever was dispensary doctor in PortStewart when his first book was appearing in the Dublin UniversityMagazine. We did not fancy Coleraine; it looked like anything but Cuil-rathain, aferny corner. Kitty's sweet buttermilk may have watered, but it hadnot fertilised the plain, though the town itself seemed painfullyprosperous. Neither the Clothworkers' Inn nor the Corporation Armslooked a pleasant stopping-place, and the humble inn we finally selectedfor a brief rest proved to be about as gay as a family vault, witha landlady who had all the characteristics of a poker except itsoccasional warmth, as the Liberator said of another stiff and formalperson. Whether she was Scot or Saxon I know not; she was certainly notCelt, and certainly no Barney McCrea of her day would have kissed herif she had spilled ever so many pitchers of sweet buttermilk over theplain; so we took the railway, and departed with delight for Limavady, where Thackeray, fresh from his visit to Charles Lever, laid hispoetical tribute at the stockingless feet of Miss Margaret of that town. O'Cahan, whose chief seat was at Limavady, was the principal urraght ofO'Neill, and when one of the great clan was 'proclaimed' at Tullaghogueit was the magnificent privilege of the O'Cahan to toss a shoe overhis head. We slept at O'Cahan's Hotel, and--well, one must sleep; andwherever we attend to that necessary function without due preparation, we generally make a mistake in the selection of the particular spot. Protestantism does not necessarily mean cleanliness, although it mayhave natural tendencies in that direction; and we find, to our surprise( a surprise rooted, probably, in bigotry), that Catholicism can beas clean as a penny whistle, now and again. There were no specialprivileges at O'Cahan's for maids, and Benella, therefore, had adelightful evening in the coffee-room with a storm-bound commercialtraveller. As for Francesca and me, there was plenty to occupy us in ourregular letters to Ronald and Himself; and Salemina wrote several sheetsof thin paper to somebody, --no one in America, either, for we saw herput on a penny stamp. Our pleasant duties over, we looked into the cheerful glow of the turfsods while I read aloud Thackeray's Peg of Limavady. He spells the townwith two d's, by the way, to insure its being rhymed properly with Paddyand daddy. 'Riding from Coleraine (Famed for lovely Kitty), Came a Cockney bound Unto Derry city; Weary was his soul, Shivering and sad he Bumped along the road Leads to Limavaddy. . . . . Limavaddy inn's But a humble baithouse, Where you may procure Whisky and potatoes; Landlord at the door Gives a smiling welcome To the shivering wights Who to his hotel come. Landlady within Sits and knits a stocking, With a wary foot Baby's cradle rocking. . . . . Presently a maid Enters with the liquor (Half a pint of ale Frothing in a beaker). Gads! I didn't know What my beating heart meant: Hebe's self I thought Entered the apartment. As she came she smiled, And the smile bewitching, On my word and honour, Lighted all the kitchen! . . . . This I do declare, Happy is the laddy Who the heart can share Of Peg of Limavaddy. Married if she were, Blest would be the daddy Of the children fair Of Peg of Limavaddy. Beauty is not rare In the land of Paddy, Fair beyond compare Is Peg of Limavaddy. ' This cheered us a bit; but the wind sighed in the trees, the raindripped on the window panes, and we felt for the first time aconsciousness of home-longing. Francesca sat on a low stool, lookinginto the fire, Ronald's last letter in her lap, and it was easy indeedto see that her heart was in the Highlands. She has been giving us a fewextracts from the communication, an unusual proceeding, as Ronald, inhis ordinary correspondence, is evidently not a quotable person. Wesmiled over his account of a visit to his old parish of Inchcaldy inFifeshire. There is a certain large orphanage in the vicinity, in whichwe had all taken an interest, chiefly because our friends the Macraes ofPettybaw House were among its guardians. It seems that Lady Rowardennan of the Castle had promised the orphans, en bloc, that those who passed through an entire year without oncefalling into falsehood should have a treat or festival of their ownchoosing. On the eventful day of decision, those orphans, male andfemale, who had not for a twelve-month deviated from the truth by ahair's-breadth, raised their little white hands (emblematic of theirpure hearts and lips), and were solemnly counted. Then came the unhappymoment when a scattering of small grimy paws was timidly put up, andtheir falsifying owners confessed that they had fibbed more than onceduring the year. These tearful fibbers were also counted, and sent fromthe room, while the non-fibbers chose their reward, which was to sailaround the Bass Rock and the Isle of May in a steam tug. On the festival day, the matron of the orphanage chanced on the happythought that it might have a moral effect on the said fibbers to see thenon-fibbers depart in a blaze of glory; so they were taken to the beachto watch the tug start on its voyage. The confessed criminals lookedwretched enough, Ronald wrote, when forsaken by their virtuousplaymates, who stepped jauntily on board, holding their sailor hatson their heads and carrying nice little luncheon baskets; so miserablyunhappy, indeed, did they seem that certain sympathetic and ill-balancedpersons sprang to their relief, providing them with sandwiches, sweeties, and pennies. It was a lovely day, and when the fibbers' tearswere dried they played merrily on the sand, their games directed andshared by the aforesaid misguided persons. Meantime a high wind had sprung up at sea, and the tug was tossed toand fro upon the foamy deep. So many and so varied were the ills ofthe righteous orphans that the matron could not attend to all of themproperly, and they were laid on benches or on the deck, where theylanguidly declined luncheon, and wept for a sight of the land. At fivethe tug steamed up to the home landing. A few of the voyagers were ableto walk ashore, some were assisted, others were carried; and as thepale, haggard, truthful company gathered on the beach, they were met bya boisterous, happy crowd of Ananiases and Sapphiras, sunburned, warm, full of tea and cakes and high spirits, and with the moral law alreadyso uncertain in their minds that at the sight of the suffering non-liarsit tottered to its fall. Ronald hopes that Lady Rowardennan and the matron may perhaps havegained some useful experience by the incident, though the orphans, truthful and untruthful, are hopelessly mixed in their views ofright-doing. He is staying now at the great house of the neighbourhood, while his newmanse is being put in order. Roderick, the piper, he says, has a grandcollection of pipe tunes given him by an officer of the Black Watch. Francesca, when she and Ronald visit the Castle on their weddingjourney, is to have 'Johnnie Cope' to wake her in the morning, 'Broseand Butter' just before dinner is served, a reel, a strathspey, anda march while the meal is going on, and, last of all, the 'HighlandWedding. ' Ronald does not know whether there are any Lowland Scotsor English words to this pipe tune, but it is always played in theHighlands after the actual marriage, and the words in Gaelic are, 'Alasfor me if the wife I have married is not a good one, for she will eatthe food and not do the work!' "You don't think Ronald meant anything personal in quoting that?" Iasked Francesca teasingly; but she shot me such a reproachful look thatI hadn't the heart to persist, her face was so full of self-distrust andlove and longing. What creatures of sense we are, after all; and in certain moods, of whatavail is it if the beloved object is alive, safe, loyal, so long ashe is absent? He may write letters like Horace Walpole orChesterfield--better still, like Alfred de Musset, or George Sand, orthe Brownings; but one clasp of the hand that moved the pen is worth anocean of words! You believe only in the etherealised, the spiritualisedpassion of love; you know that it can exist through years of separation, can live and grow where a coarser feeling would die for lack ofnourishment; still though your spirit should be strong enough to meetits spirit mate somewhere in the realms of imagination, and the bodilypresence ought not really to be necessary, your stubborn heart of fleshcraves sight and sound and touch. That is the only pitiless partof death, it seems to me. We have had the friendship, the love, thesympathy, and these are things that can never die; they have made uswhat we are, and they are by their very nature immortal; yet we wouldcome near to bartering all these spiritual possessions for the 'touch ofa vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still. ' How could I ever think life easy enough to be ventured on alone! Itis so beautiful to feel oneself of infinite value to one other humancreature; to hear beside one's own step the tread of a chosen companionon the same road. And if the way be dusty or the hills difficult toclimb, each can say to the other, 'I love you, dear; lean on me and walkin confidence. I can always be counted on, whatever happens. ' Chapter XIX. 'In ould Donegal. ' 'Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn! Slainte, and slainte, and slainte agin; Pow'rfulest preacher and tenderest teacher, And kindliest creature in ould Donegal. ' Alfred Perceval Graves. Coomnageeha Hotel, In Ould Donegal. It is a far cry from the kingdom of Kerry to 'ould Donegal, ' where wehave been travelling for a week, chiefly in the hope of meeting FatherO'Flynn. We miss our careless, genial, ragged, southern Paddy just abit; for he was a picturesque, likable figure, on the whole, and easierto know than this Ulster Irishman, the product of a mixed descent. We did not stop long in Belfast; for if there is anything we detest, when on our journeys, it is to mix too much with people of industry, thrift, and business sagacity. Sturdy, prosperous, calculating, well-to-do Protestants are well enough in their way, and undoubtedlythey make a very good backbone for Ireland; but we crave something moreromantic than the citizen virtues, or we should have remained in our owncountry, where they are tolerably common, although we have not as yetanything approaching over-production. Belfast, it seems, is, and has always been, a centre of Presbyterianism. The members of the Presbytery protested against the execution of CharlesI. , and received an irate reply from Milton, who said that 'the blockishpresbyters of Clandeboy' were 'egregious liars and impostors, ' who meantto stir up rebellion 'from their unchristian synagogue at Belfast in abarbarous nook of Ireland. ' Dr. La Touche writes to Salemina that we need not try to understand allthe religious and political complications which surround us. They areby no means as violent or as many as in Thackeray's day, when the greatEnglish author found nine shades of politico-religious differences inthe Irish Liverpool. As the impartial observer must, in such a case, necessarily displease eight parties, and probably the whole nine, Thackeray advised a rigid abstinence from all intellectual curiosity. Dr. La Touche says, if we wish to know the north better, it will do usno harm to study the Plantation of Ulster, the United Irishmovement, Orangeism, Irish Jacobitism, the effect of French and SwissRepublicanism in the evolution of public sentiment, and the closerelation and affection that formerly existed between the north ofIreland and New England. (This last topic seems to appeal to Saleminaparticularly. ) He also alludes to Tories and Rapparees, Rousseau andThomas Paine and Owen Roe O'Neill, but I have entirely forgotten theirconnection with the subject. Francesca and I are thoroughly enjoyingourselves, as only those people can who never take notes, and nevertry, when Pandora's box is opened in their neighbourhood, to seize theheterogeneous contents and put them back properly, with nice littlelabels on them. Ireland is no longer a battlefield of English parties, neither is itwholly a laboratory for political experiment; but from having been boththe one and the other, its features are a bit knocked out of shape andproportion, as it were. We have bought two hideous engravings of theBattle of the Boyne and the Secret of England's Greatness; and wheneverwe stay for a night in any inn where perchance these are not, we pinthem on the wall, and are received into the landlady's heart at once. Idon't know which is the finer study: the picture of his Majesty WilliamIII. Crossing the Boyne, or the plump little Queen presenting a hugefamily Bible to an apparently uninterested black youth. In the latterwork of art the eye is confused at first as the three principal featuresapproach each other very nearly in size, and Francesca asked innocently, "Which IS the secret of England's greatness--the Bible, the Queen, orthe black man?" This is a thriving town, and we are at a smart hotel which had for twoyears an English manager. The scent of the roses hangs round it still, but it is gradually growing fainter under the stress of small patronageand other adverse circumstances. The table linen is a trifle ragged, though clean; but the circle of red and green wineglasses by each plate, an array not borne out by the number of vintages on the wine-list, thetiny ferns scattered everywhere in innumerable pots, and the dozens ofminute glass vases, each holding a few blue hyacinths, give an air ofurban elegance to the dining-room. The guests are requested, in printedplacards, to be punctual at meals, especially at the seven-thirty tabled'hote dinner, and the management itself is punctual at this functionabout seven forty-five. This is much better than in the south, wherewe, and sixty other travellers, were once kept waiting fifteen minutesbetween the soup and the fish course. When we were finally served withhalf-cooked turbot, a pleasant-spoken waitress went about to each table, explaining to the irate guests that the cook was 'not at her best. ' Wecaught a glimpse of her as she was being borne aloft, struggling andeloquent, and were able to understand the reason of her unachievedideals. There is nothing sacred about dinner to the average Irishman; he iswilling to take anything that comes, as a rule, and cooking is notregarded as a fine art here. Perhaps occasional flashes of starvationand seasons of famine have rendered the Irish palate easier to please;at all events, wherever the national god may be, its pedestal is notin the stomach. Our breakfast, day after day, week after week, has beenbacon and eggs. One morning we had tomatoes on bacon, and concluded thatthe cook had experienced religion or fallen in love, since both theseoperations send a flush of blood to the brain and stimulate the mentalprocesses. But no; we found simply that the eggs had not been brought intime for breakfast. There is no consciousness of monotony--far fromit; the nobility and gentry can at least eat what they choose, and theychoose bacon and eggs. There is no running of the family gamut, either, from plain boiled to omelet; poached or fried eggs on bacon it is, weekdays and Sundays. The luncheon, too, is rarely inspired: they eatcold joint of beef with pickled beetroot, or mutton and boiled potatoes, with unfailing regularity, finishing off at most hotels with semolinapudding, a concoction intended for, and appealing solely to, the tasteof the toothless infant, who, having just graduated from rubber rings, has not a jaded palate. How the long breakfast bill at an up-to-date Belfast hostelry awed us, after weeks of bacon and eggs! The viands on the menu swam togetherbefore our dazed eyes. Porridge Fillets of Plaice Whiting Fried Sole Savoury Omelet Kidneys and Bacon Cold Meats. I looked at this array like one in a dream, realising that I had lostthe power of selection, and remembering the scientific fact that unusedfaculties perish for want of exercise. The man who was serving usrattled his tray, shifted his weight wearily from one foot to the otherand cleared his throat suggestively; until at last I said hastily, "Bacon and eggs, please, " and Salemina, the most critical person in theparty, murmured, "The same. " It is odd to see how soon, if one has a strong sense of humanity, onefeels at home in a foreign country. I, at least, am never impressed bythe differences, but only by the similarities, between English-speakingpeoples. We take part in the life about us here, living each experienceas fully as we can, whether it be a 'hiring fair' in Donegal or apilgrimage to the Doon 'Well of Healing. ' Not the least part of thepleasure is to watch its effect upon the Derelict. Where, or in whatway, could three persons hope to gain as much return from a monthlyexpenditure of twenty dollars, added to her living and travellingexpenses, as we have had in Miss Benella Dusenberry? We sometimes askourselves what we found to do with our time before she came into thefamily, and yet she is as busy as possible herself. Having twice singed Francesca's beautiful locks, she no longer attemptshair-dressing; while she never accomplishes the lacing of an eveningdress without putting her knee in the centre of your back once, atleast, during the operation. She can button shoes, and she can mendand patch and darn to perfection; she has a frenzy for small laundryoperations, and, after washing the windows of her room, she adorns everypane of glass with a fine cambric handkerchief, and, stretching aline between the bedpost and the bureau knob, she hangs out herwhite neckties and her bonnet strings to dry. She has learned to packreasonably well, too. But if she has another passion beside those ofwashing and mending, it is for making bags. She buys scraps of ginghamand print, and makes cases of every possible size and for everypossible purpose; so that all our personal property, roughlyspeaking--hair-brushes, shoes, writing materials, pincushions, photographs, underclothing, gloves, medicines, --is bagged. The stringsin the bags pull both ways, and nothing is commoner than to see Benellaopen and close seventeen or eighteen of them when she is searching forFrancesca's rubbers or my gold thimble. But what other lady's-maidor travelling companion ever had half the Derelict's unique charmand interest, half her conversational power, her unusual and originaldefects and virtues? Put her in a third-class carriage when wego 'first, ' and she makes friends with all her fellow-travellers, discussing Home Rule or Free Silver with the utmost prejudice andvehemence, and freeing her mind on any point, to the delight of thenatives. Occasionally, when borne along by the joy of argument, sheforgets to change at the point of junction, and has to be found anddragged out of the railway carriage; occasionally, too, she is leftbehind when taking a cheerful cup of tea at a way station, but this iscomparatively seldom. Her stories of life belowstairs in the variousinns and hotels, her altercations with housemaid or boots or landlady inour behalf, all add a zest to the day's doings. Benella's father was an itinerant preacher, her mother the daughter ofa Vermont farmer; and although she was left an orphan at ten years, educating and supporting herself as best she could after that, she is astruly a combination of both parents as her name is a union of their twonames. "I'm so 'fraid I shan't run across any of grandmother's folks overhere, after all, " she said yesterday, "though I ask every nice-appearin'person I meet anywheres if he or she's any kin to Mary Boyce of Trim;and then, again, I'm scared to death for fear I shall find I'm owncousin to one of these here critters that ain't brushed their hair norwashed their apurns for a month o' Sundays! I declare, it keeps me realnerved up... I think it's partly the climate that makes 'em so slack, "she philosophised, pinning a new bag on her knee, and preparing tobackstitch the seam. "There's nothin' like a Massachusetts winter forputtin' the git-up-an'-git into you. Land! you've got to move roundsmart, or you'd freeze in your tracks. These warm, moist places alwaysmakes folks lazy; and when they're hot enough, if you take notice, it makes heathen of 'em. It always seems so queer to me that real hotweather and the Christian religion don't seem to git along together. P'r'aps it's just as well that the idol-worshippers should get used toheat in this world, for they'll have it consid'able hot in the next one, I guess! And see here, Mrs. Beresford, will you get me ten cents'--Imean sixpence--worth o' red gingham to make Miss Monroe a bag for Mr. Macdonald's letters? They go sprawlin' all over her trunk; and there'sso many of 'em I wish to the land she'd send 'em to the bank while she'stravellin'!" Chapter XX. We evict a tenant. 'Soon as you lift the latch, little ones are meeting you, Soon as you're 'neath the thatch, kindly looks are greeting you; Scarcely have you time to be holding out the fist to them-- Down by the fireside you're sitting in the midst of them. ' Francis Fahy. Roothythanthrum Cottage, Knockcool, County Tyrone. Of course, we have always intended sooner or later to forsake this lifeof hotels and lodgings, and become either Irish landlords or tenants, or both, with a view to the better understanding of one burning Irishquestion. We heard of a charming house in County Down, which could besecured by renting it the first of May for the season; but as wecould occupy it only for a month at most we were obliged to forego theopportunity. "We have been told from time immemorial that absenteeism has been one ofthe curses of Ireland, " I remarked to Salemina; "so, whatever the charmsof the cottage in Rostrevor, do not let us take it, and in so doingbecome absentee landlords. " "It was you two who hired the 'wee theekit hoosie' in Pettybaw, " saidFrancesca. "I am going to be in the vanguard of the next house-huntingexpedition; in fact, I have almost made up my mind to take my third ofBenella and be an independent householder for a time. If I am ever tolearn the management of an establishment before beginning to experimenton Ronald's, now is the proper moment. " "Ronald must have looked the future in the face when he asked you tomarry him, " I replied, "although it is possible that he looked only atyou, and therefore it is his duty to endure your maiden incapacities;but why should Salemina and I suffer you to experiment upon us, pray?" It was Benella, after all, who inveigled us into making our firstpolitical misstep; for, after avoiding the sin of absenteeism, we fellinto one almost as black, inasmuch as we evicted a tenant. It is part ofBenella's heterogeneous and unusual duty to take a bicycle and scour thecountry in search of information for us: to find out where shops are, post-office, lodgings, places for good sketches, ruins, pretty roads forwalks and drives, and many other things, too numerous to mention. Shecame home from one of these expeditions flushed with triumph. "I've got you a house!" she exclaimed proudly. "There's a lady in itnow, but she'll move out to-morrow when we move in; and we are to payseventeen dollars fifty--I mean three pound ten--a week for the house, with privilege of renewal, and she throws in the hired girl. " (Benellais hopelessly provincial in the matter of language: butler, chef, boots, footman, scullery-maid, all come under the generic term of 'help. ') "I knew our week at this hotel was out to-morrow, " she continued, "andwe've about used up this place, anyway, and the new village that I'veb'en to is the prettiest place we've seen yet; it's got an up-and-downhill to it, just like home, and the house I've partly rented is oppositea fair green, where there's a market every week, and Wednesday's theday; and we'll save money, for I shan't cost you so much when we canhousekeep. " "Would you mind explaining a little more in detail, " asked Saleminaquietly, "and telling me whether you have hired the house for yourselfor for us?" "For us all, " she replied genially--"you don't suppose I'd leave you?I liked the looks of this cottage the first time I passed it, and I gotacquainted with the hired girl by going in the side yard and asking fora drink. The next time I went I got acquainted with the lady, who's gotthe most outlandish name that ever was wrote down, and here it is on apaper; and to-day I asked her if she didn't want to rent her house for aweek to three quiet ladies without children and only one of themmarried and him away. She said it wa'n't her own, and I asked her if shecouldn't sublet to desirable parties--I knew she was as poor as Job'sturkey by her looks; and she said it would suit her well enough, if shehad any place to go. I asked her if she wouldn't like to travel, andshe said no. Then I says, 'Wouldn't you like to go to visit some of yourfolks?' And she said she s'posed she could stop a week with her son'swife, just to oblige us. So I engaged a car to drive you down thisafternoon just to look at the place; and if you like it we can easy moveover to-morrow. The sun's so hot I asked the stableman if he hadn't gota top buggy, or a surrey, or a carryall; but he never heard tell of anyof 'em; he didn't even know a shay. I forgot to tell you the lady is aProtestant, and the hired girl's name is Bridget Thunder, and she's aRoman Catholic, but she seems extra smart and neat. I was kind of inhopes she wouldn't be, for I thought I should enjoy trainin' her, anddoin' that much for the country. " And so we drove over to this village of Knockcool (Knockcool, by theway, means 'Hill of Sleep'), as much to make amends for Benella'seccentricities as with any idea of falling in with her proposal. Thehouse proved everything she said, and in Mrs. Wogan Odevaine Benella hadfound a person every whit as remarkable as herself. She is evidently anIrish gentlewoman of very small means, very flexible in her views andconvictions, very talkative and amusing, and very much impressed withBenella as a product of New England institutions. We all took a fancyto one another at first sight, and we heard with real pleasure thather son's wife lived only a few miles away. We insisted on paying theevicted lady the three pounds ten in advance for the first week. Sheseemed surprised, and we remembered that Irish tenants, though oftencapable of shedding blood for a good landlord, are generally averseto paying him rent. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine then drove away in high goodhumour, taking some personal belongings with her, and promising to drinktea with us some time during the week. She kissed Francesca good-bye, told her she was the prettiest creature she had ever seen, and asked ifshe might have a peep at all her hats and frocks when she came to visitus. Salemina says that Rhododendron Cottage (pronounced by Bridget Thunder'Roothythanthrum') being the property of one landlord and the residenceof four tenants at the same time makes us in a sense participators inthe old system of rundale tenure, long since abolished. The good-willor tenant-right was infinitely subdivided, and the tiniest holdingssometimes existed in thirty-two pieces. The result of this joint tenurewas an extraordinary tangle, particularly when it went so far as thesubdivision of 'one cow's grass, ' or even of a horse, which, being ownedjointly by three men, ultimately went lame, because none of them wouldpay for shoeing the fourth foot. We have been here five days, and instead of reproving Benella, as weintended, for gross assumption of authority in the matter, we are morethan ever her bond-slaves. The place is altogether charming, and here itis for you. Knockcool Street is Knockcool village itself, as with almost all Irishtowns; but the line of little thatched cabins is brightened at the farend by the neat house of Mrs. Wogan Odevaine, set a trifle back in itsown garden, by the pillared porch of a modest hotel, and by the barracksof the Royal Irish Constabulary. The sign of the Provincial Bank ofIreland almost faces our windows; and although it is used as a meal-shopthe rest of the week, they tell us that two thousand pounds in money isneeded there on fair-days. Next to it is a little house, the upper partof which is used as a Methodist chapel; and old Nancy, the caretaker, isalready a good friend of ours. It is a humble house of prayer, but Nancytakes much pride in it, and showed us the melodeon, 'worked by a younglady from Rossantach, ' the Sunday-school rooms, and even the cupboardwhere she keeps the jugs for the love-feast and the linen and wine forthe sacrament, which is administered once in three years. Next comes theHoeys' cabin, where we have always a cordial welcome, but where we nevergo all together, for fear of embarrassing the family, which is a largeone--three generations under one roof, and plenty of children in thelast. Old Mrs. Hoey does not rightly know her age, she says; but herdaughter Ellen was born the year of the Big Wind, and she herself wastwenty-two when she was married, and you might allow a year between thatand when Ellen was born, and make your own calculation. She tells many stories of the Big Wind, which we learn was in 1839, making Ellen's age about sixty-one and her mother's eighty-four. Thefury of the storm was such that it forced the water of the Lough farashore, stranding the fish among the rocks, where they were found deadby hundreds. When next morning dawned there was confusion and ruin onevery side: the cross had tumbled from the chapel, the tombstones wereoverturned in the graveyard, trees and branches blocked the roadways, cabins were stripped of their thatches, and cattle found dead in thefields; so it is small wonder old Mrs. Hoey remembers the day of Ellen'sbirth, weak as she is on all other dates. Ellen's husband, Miles M'Gillan, is the carpenter on an estate in theneighbourhood. His shop opens out of the cabin, and I love to sit by theHoey fireside, where the fan bellows, turned by a crank, brings in aninstant a fresh flame to the sods of smouldering turf, and watch a weeColleen Bawn playing among her daddy's shavings, tying them about herwaist and fat wrists, hanging them on her ears and in among her browncurls. Mother Hoey says that I do not speak like an American--that Ihave not so many 'caperin's' in my language, whatever they may be; andso we have long delightful chats together when I go in for a taste ofEllen's griddle bread, cooked over the peat coals. Francesca, meantime, is calling on Mrs. O'Rourke, whose son has taken more than fifty bicycleprizes; and no stranger can come to Knockcool without inspecting thebrave show of silver, medals, and china that adorn the bedroom, andmake the O'Rourkes the proudest couple in ould Donegal. Phelim O'Rourkesmokes his dudeen on a bench by the door, and invites the passer-by toenter and examine the trophies. His trousers are held up with bits ofrope arranged as suspenders; indeed, his toilet is so much a matter ofstrings that it must be a work of time to tie on his clothing in themorning, in case he takes it off at night, which is open to doubt;nevertheless it is he that's the satisfied man, and the luck would beon him as well as on e'er a man alive, were he not kilt wid the coughintirely! Mrs. Phelim's skirt shows a triangle of red flannel behind, where the two ends of the waistband fail to meet by about six inches, but are held together by a piece of white ball fringe. Any informalityin this part of her costume is, however, more than atoned for by thepresence of a dingy bonnet of magenta velvet, which she always dons forvisitors. The O'Rourke family is the essence of hospitality, so their kitchenis generally full of children and visitors; and on the occasion whenSalemina issued from the prize bedroom, the guests were so busy withconversation that, to use their own language, divil a wan of thim clapteyes on the O'Rourke puppy, and they did not notice that the baste wasfloundering in a tub of soft, newly made butter standing on the floor. He was indeed desperately involved, being so completely wound up in thewaxy mass that he could not climb over the tub's edge. He looked comicaland miserable enough in his plight: the children and the visitorsthought so, and so did Francesca and I; but Salemina went directly home, and kept her room for an hour. She is so sensitive! Och, thin, it'sherself that's the marthyr intirely! We cannot see that the incidentaffects us so long as we avoid the O'Rourkes' butter; but she says, covering her eyes with her handkerchief and shuddering: "Suppose thereare other tubs and other pup--Oh, I cannot bear the thought of it, dears! Please change the subject, and order me two hard-boiled eggs fordinner. " Leaving Knockcool behind us, we walk along the country road betweenhigh, thick hedges: here a clump of weather-beaten trees, there astretch of bog with silver pools and piles of black turf, then a suddenview of hazy hills, a grove of beeches, a great house with a splendidgateway, and sometimes, riding through it, a figure new to our eyes, aLady Master of the Hounds, handsome in her habit with red facings. Wepass many an 'evicted farm, ' the ruined house with the rushes growingall about it, and a lonely goat browsing near; and on we walk, untilwe can see the roofs of Lisdara's solitary cabin row, huddled underthe shadow of a gloomy hill topped by the ruins of an old fort. All issilent, and the blue haze of the peat smoke curls up from the thatch. Lisdara's young people have mostly gone to the Big Country; and howmany tears have dropped on the path we are treading, as Peggy and Mary, Cormac and Miles, with a wooden box in the donkey cart behind them, orperhaps with only a bundle hanging from a blackthorn stick, have comedown the hill to seek their fortune! Perhaps Peggy is barefooted;perhaps Mary has little luggage beyond a pot of shamrock or a mountainthrush in a wicker cage; but what matter for that? They are used topoverty and hardship and hunger, and although they are going quitepenniless to a new country, sure it can be no worse than the old. Thisis the happy-go-lucky Irish philosophy, and there is mixed with it adeal of simple trust in God. How many exiles and wanderers, both those who have no fortune andthose who have failed to win it, dream of these cabin rows, thesesweet-scented boreens with their 'banks of furze unprofitably gay, 'these leaking thatches with the purple loosestrife growing in theirragged seams, and, looking backward across the distance of time andspace, give the humble spot a tender thought, because after all it wasin their dear native isle! 'Pearly are the skies in the country of my fathers, Purple are thy mountains, home of my heart; Mother of my yearning, love of all my longings, Keep me in remembrance long leagues apart. ' I have been thinking in this strain because of an old dame in the firstcabin in Lisdara row, whose daughter is in America, and who can talk ofnothing else. She shows us the last letter, with its postal order forsixteen shillings, that Mida sent from New York, with little presentsfor blind Timsy, 'dark since he were three years old, ' and for lameDan, or the 'Bocca, ' as he is called in Lisdara. Mida was named for thevirgin saint of Killeedy in Limerick. [*] "And it's she that's good enoughto bear a saint's name, glory be to God!" exclaims the old motherreturning Mida's photograph to a hole in the wall where the pig cannotpossibly molest it. * Saint Mide, the Brigit of Munster. At the far end of the row lives 'Omadhaun Pat. ' He is a 'littlesthrange, ' you understand; not because he was born with too small ashare of wit, but because he fell asleep one evening when he was lyingon the grass up by the old fort, and--'well, he was niver the same thingsince. ' There are places in Ireland, you must know, where if you liedown upon the green earth and sink into untimely slumber, you will 'wakesilly'; or, for that matter, although it is doubtless a risk, you mayescape the fate of waking silly, and wake a poet! Carolan fell asleepupon a faery rath, and it was the faeries who filled his ears withmusic, so that he was haunted by the tunes ever afterward; and perhapsall poets, whether they are conscious of it or not, fall asleep on faeryraths before they write sweet songs. Little Omadhaun Pat is pale, hollow-eyed, and thin; but that, his mothersays, is 'because he is over-studyin' for his confirmation. ' Thegreat day is many weeks away, but to me it seems likely that, when theexamination comes, Pat will be where he will know more than the priests! Next door lives old Biddy Tuke. She is too aged to work, and she sitsin her doorway, always a pleasant figure in her short woollen petticoat, her little shawl, and her neat white cap. She has pitaties for food, with stirabout of Indian meal once a day (oatmeal is too dear), teaoccasionally when there is sixpence left from the rent, and she has morethan once tasted bacon in her eighty years of life; more than once, shetells me proudly, for it's she that's had the good sons to help her abit now and then, --four to carry her and one to walk after, which is theIrish notion of an ideal family. "It's no chuckens I do be havin' now, ma'am, " she says, "but it'sa darlin' flock I had ten year ago, whin Dinnis was harvestin' inScotland! Sure it was two-and-twinty chuckens I had on the floore widmeself that year, ma'am. " "Oh, it's a conthrary world, that's a mortial fact!" as Phelim O'Rourkeis wont to say when his cough is bad; and for my life I can frame nobetter wish for ould Biddy Tuke and Omadhaun Pat, dark Timsy and theBocca, than that they might wake, one of these summer mornings, in theharvest-field of the seventh heaven. That place is reserved for thesaints, and surely these unfortunates, acquainted with grief likeAnother, might without difficulty find entrance there. I am not wise enough to say how much of all this squalor andwretchedness and hunger is the fault of the people themselves, how muchof it belongs to circumstances and environment, how much is the resultof past errors of government, how much is race, how much is religion. Ionly know that children should never be hungry, that there are ignoranthuman creatures to be taught how to live; and if it is a hard task, the sooner it is begun the better, both for teachers and pupils. It iscomparatively easy to form opinions and devise remedies, when one knowsthe absolute truth of things; but it is so difficult to find the truthhere, or at least there are so many and such different truths to weighin the balance, --the Protestant and the Roman Catholic truth, thelandlord's and the tenant's, the Nationalist's and the Unionist's truth!I am sadly befogged, and so, pushing the vexing questions all aside, Itake dark Timsy, Bocca Lynch, and Omadhaun Pat up on the green hillsidenear the ruined fort, to tell them stories, and teach them some of thethousand things that happier, luckier children know. This is an island of anomalies: the Irish peasants will puzzle you, perplex you, disappoint you with their inconsistencies, but keep fromliking them if you can! There are a few cleaner and more comfortablehomes in Lisdara and Knockcool than when we came, and Benella hasbeen invaluable, although her reforms, as might be expected, are ofan unusual character, and with her the wheels of progress never movesilently, as they should, but always squeak. With the two goldensovereigns given her to spend, she has bought scissors, knives, hammers, boards, sewing materials, knitting needles, and yarn, --everything towork with, and nothing to eat, drink, or wear, though Heaven knows thereis little enough of such things in Lisdara. "The quicker you wear 'em out, the better you'll suit me, " she says tothe awestricken Lisdarians. "I'm a workin' woman myself, an' it's myladies' money I've spent this time; but I'll make out to keep you inbrooms and scrubbin' brushes, if only you'll use 'em! You mustn't takeoffence at anything I say to you, for I'm part Irish--my grandmother wasMary Boyce of Trim; and if she hadn't come away and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, mebbe I wouldn't have known a scrubbin' brush by sightmyself!" Chapter XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae. 'What ails you, Sister Erin, that your face Is, like your mountains, still bedewed with tears? . . . . . . . Forgive! forget! lest harsher lips should say, Like your turf fire, your rancour smoulders long, And let Oblivion strew Time's ashes o'er your wrong. ' Alfred Austin. At tea-time, and again after our simple dinner--for Bridget Thunder'srepertory is not large, and Benella's is quite unsuited to the Knockcoolmarkets--we wend our way to a certain house that stands by itself onthe road to Lisdara. It is only a whitewashed cabin with green windowtrimmings, but it is a larger and more comfortable one than we commonlysee, and it is the perfection of neatness within and without. The stonewall that encloses it is whitewashed too, and the iron picket railing atthe top is painted bright green; the stones on the posts are green also, and there is the prettiest possible garden, with nicely cut borders ofbox. In fine, if ever there was a cheery place to look at, SarsfieldCottage is that one; and if ever there was a cheerless gentleman, it isMr. Jordan, who dwells there. Mrs. Wogan Odevaine commended him to usas the man of all others with whom to discuss Irish questions, if wewanted, for once in a way, to hear a thoroughly disaffected, outraged, wrong-headed, and rancorous view of things. "He is an encyclopaedia, and he is perfectly delightful on any topic inthe universe but the wrongs of Ireland, " said she; "not entirely saneand yet a good father, and a good neighbour, and a good talker. Faith, he can abuse the English government with any man alive! He has a smallergrudge against you Americans, perhaps, than against most of the othernations, so possibly he may elect to discuss something more cheerfulthan our national grievances; if he does, and you want a livelier topic, just mention--let me see--you might speak of Wentworth, who destroyedIreland's woollen industry, though it is true he laid the foundationof the linen trade, so he wouldn't do, though Mr. Jordan is likely toremember the former point and forget the latter. Well, just breathe thewords 'Catholic Disqualification' or 'Ulster Confiscation, ' and you willhave as pretty a burst of oratory as you'd care to hear. You rememberthat exasperated Englishman who asked in the House why Irishmen werealways laying bare their grievances. And Major O'Gorman bawled acrossthe floor, 'Because they want them redressed!'" Salemina and I went to call on Mr. Jordan the very next day after ourarrival at Knockcool. Over the sitting-room or library door at SarsfieldCottage is a coat of arms with the motto of the Jordans, 'Percussussurgam'; and as our friend is descended from Richard Jordan of Knock, who died on the scaffold at Claremorris in the memorable year 1798, Ifind that he is related to me, for one of the De Exeter Jordans marriedPenelope O'Connor, daughter of the king of Connaught. He took herto wife, too, when the espousal of anything Irish, names, language, apparel, customs, or daughters, was high treason, and meant instantconfiscation of estates. I never thought of mentioning the relationship, for obviously a family cannot hold grievances for hundreds of years andbequeath a sense of humour at the same time. The name Jordan is derived, it appears, from a noble ancestor who wasbanner-bearer in the Crusades and who distinguished himself in manybattles, but particularly in one fought against the infidels on thebanks of the River Jordan in the Holy Land. In this conflict he wasfelled to the ground three times during the day, but owing to hisgigantic strength, his great valour, and the number of the Saracensprostrated by his sword, he succeeded in escaping death and keepingthe banner of the Cross hoisted; hence by way of eminence he was calledJordan; and the motto of this illustrious family ever since has been, 'Though I fall I rise. ' Mr. Jordan's wife has been long dead, but he has four sons, only one ofthem, Napper Tandy, living at home. Theobald Wolfe Tone is practisinglaw in Dublin; Hamilton Rowan is a physician in Cork; and DanielO'Connell, commonly called 'Lib' (a delicate reference to theLiberator), is still a lad at Trinity. It is a great pity that Mr. Jordan could not have had a larger family, that he might have kept freshin the national heart the names of a few more patriots; for his librarywalls, 'where Memory sits by the altar she has raised to Woe, ' are hungwith engravings and prints of celebrated insurgents, rebels, agitators, demagogues, denunciators, conspirators, --pictures of anybody, in a word, who ever struck a blow, right or wrong, well or ill judged, for thegreen isle. That gallant Jacobite, Patrick Sarsfield, Burke, Grattan, Flood, and Robert Emmet stand shoulder to shoulder with three Feniangentlemen, names Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien, known in ultra-Nationalistcircles as the 'Manchester martyrs. ' For some years after this trio washanged in Salford jail, it appears that the infant mind was sadly mixedin its attempt to separate knowledge in the concrete from the more orless abstract information contained in the Catechism; and many a bishopwas shocked, when asking in the confirmation service, "Who are themartyrs?" to be told, "Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien, me lord!" Francesca says she longs to smuggle into Mr. Jordan's library a pictureof Tom Steele, one of Daniel O'Connell's henchmen, to whom he gave thetitle of Head Pacificator of Ireland. Many amusing stories are toldof this official, of his gaudy uniform, his strut and swagger, and hispompous language. At a political meeting on one occasion, he attacked, it seems, one Peter Purcell, a Dublin tradesman who had fallen out withthe Liberator on some minor question. "Say no more on the subject, Tom, "cried O'Connell, who was in the chair, "I forgive Peter from the bottomof my heart. " "You may forgive him, liberator and saviour of my country, " rejoinedSteele, in a characteristic burst of his amazingly fervent rhetoric. "Yes, you, in the discharge of your ethereal functions as the moralregenerator of Ireland, may forgive him; but, revered leader, I alsohave functions of my own to perform; and I tell you that, as HeadPacificator of Ireland, I can never forgive the diabolical villain thatdared to dispute your august will. " The doughty Steele, who appears to have been but poorly fitted by naturefor his office, was considered at the time to be half a madman, but asSir James O'Connell, Daniel's candid brother, said, "And who the divilelse would take such a job?" At any rate, when we gaze at Mr. Jordan'sgallery, imagining the scene that would ensue were the breath of lifebreathed into the patriots' quivering nostrils, we feel sure that theHead Pacificator would be kept busy. Dear old white-haired Mr. Jordan, known in select circles as 'GrievanceJordan, ' sitting in his library surrounded by his denunciators, conspirators, and martyrs, with incendiary documents piled mountainshigh on his desk--what a pathetic anachronism he is after all! The shillelagh is hung on the wall now, for the most part, and factionfighting is at an end; but in the very last moments of it there werestill 'ructions' between the Fitzgeralds and the Moriartys, and theage-old reason of the quarrel was, according to the Fitzgeralds, thebetrayal of the 'Cause of Ireland. ' The particular instance occurred inthe sixteenth century, but no Fitzgerald could ever afterward meet anyMoriarty at a fair without crying, "Who dare tread on the tail of mecoat?" and inviting him to join in the dishcussion with shticks. Thispractically is Mr. Jordan's position; and if an Irishman desires tolive entirely in the past, he can be as unhappy as any man alive. He iswriting a book, which Mrs. Wogan Odevaine insists is to be called TheGroans of Ireland; but after a glance at a page of memoranda pencilledin a collection of Swift's Irish Tracts that he lent to me (thevolume containing that ghastly piece of irony, The Modest Proposal forPreventing the Poor of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parentsand Country), I have concluded that he is editing a Catalogue of IrishWrongs, Alphabetically Arranged. This idea pleased Mrs. Wogan Odevaineextremely; and when she drove over to tea, bringing several cheerfulyoung people to call upon us, she proposed, in the most light-heartedway in the world, to play what she termed the Grievance Game, anintellectual diversion which she had invented on the instant. Sheproposed it, apparently, with a view of showing us how small a knowledgeof Ireland's ancient wrongs is the property of the modern Irish girl, and how slight a hold on her memory and imagination have the unspeakablybitter days of the long ago. We were each given pencil and paper, and two or three letters of thealphabet, and bidden to arrange the wrongs of Ireland neatly underthem, as we supposed Mr. Jordan to be doing for the instruction and thedepression of posterity. The result proved that Mrs. Odevaine was a trueprophet, for the youngest members of the coterie came off badly enough, and read their brief list of grievances with much chagrin at their lackof knowledge; the only piece of information they possessed in commonbeing the inherited idea that England never had understood Ireland, never would, never could, never should, never might understand her. Rosetta Odevaine succeeded in remembering, for A, F, and H, Absenteeism, Flight of the Earls, Famine, and Hunger; her elder sister, Eileen, freshfrom college, was rather triumphant with O and P, giving us Oppressionof the Irish Tenantry, Penal Laws, Protestant Supremacy, Poynings' Law, Potato Rot, and Plantations. Their friend, Rhona Burke, had V, W, X, Y, Z, and succeeded only in finding Wentworth and Woollen Trade Destroyed, until Miss Odevaine helped her with Wood's Halfpence, about whicheverybody else had to be enlightened; and there was plenty of laughterwhen Francesca suggested for V, Vipers Expelled by St. Patrick. Saleminacarried off the first prize; but we insisted C and D were the easiestletters; at any rate, her list showed great erudition, and wouldcertainly have pleased Mr. Jordan. C, Church Cess, CatholicDisqualification, Crimes Act of 1887, Confiscations, Cromwell, CarryingAway of Lia Fail (Stone of Destiny) from Tara. D, Destruction of Treeson Confiscated Lands, Discoverers (of flaws in Irish titles), Debasingof the Coinage by James I. Mrs. Odevaine came next with R and S. R, Recall of Lord Fitzwilliamsby Pitt, Rundale Land Tenure, Rack-Rents, Ribbonism. S, Schism Act, Supremacy Act, Sixth Act of George I. I followed with T and U, having unearthed Tithes and the Test Act forthe first, and Undertakers, the Acts of Union and Uniformity, for thesecond; while Francesca, who had been given I, J, K, L, and M, disgracedherself by failing on all the letters but the last, under which shefinally catalogued one particularly obnoxious wrong in Middlemen. This ignorance of the past may have its bright side, after all, thoughto speak truthfully, it did show a too scanty knowledge of nationalhistory. But if one must forget, it is as well to begin with the wrongsof far-off years, those 'done to your ancient name or wreaked upon yourrace. ' Part Fourth--Connaught. Chapter XXII. The Weeping West. 'Veiled in your mist, and diamonded with showers. ' Alfred Austin. Shan Van Vocht Hotel, Heart of Connemara. Shan Van Vocht means in English the 'Poor Little Old Woman, ' one of themany endearing names given to Ireland in the Gaelic. There is, too, a well-known rebel song called by this title--one which was not onlywritten in Irish and English, but which was translated into French forthe soldiers at Brest who were to invade Ireland under Hoche. We had come from Knockcool, Donegal, to Westport, in County Mayo, andthe day was enlivened by two purely Irish touches, one at the beginningand one at the end. We alighted at a certain railway junction toawait our train, and were interested in a large detachment ofsoldiers--leaving for a long journey, we judged, by the number ofrailway carriages and the amount of luggage and stores. In every crowdedcompartment there were two or three men leaning out over the lockeddoors; for the guard was making ready to start. All were chatting gailywith their sweethearts, wives, and daughters, save one gloomy fellowsitting alone in a corner, searching the crowd with sad eyes for awished-for face or a last greeting. The bell rang, the engine stirred;suddenly a pretty, rosy girl flew breathlessly down the platform, pushing her way through the groups of onlookers. The man's eyes lighted;he rose to his feet, but the other fellows blocked the way; the door waslocked, and he had but one precious moment. Still he was equal tothe emergency, for he raised his fist and with one blow shattered thewindow, got his kiss, and the train rumbled away, with his victorioussmile set in a frame of broken glass! I liked that man better than anyone I've seen since Himself deserted me for his Duty! How I hope thepretty girl will be faithful, and how I hope that an ideal lover willnot be shot in South Africa! And if he was truly Irish, so was the porter at a little way stationwhere we stopped in the dark, after being delayed interminably atClaremorris by some trifling accident. We were eight persons packed intoa second-class carriage, and totally ignorant of our whereabouts; butthe porter, opening the door hastily, shouted, "Is there anny one therefor here?"--a question so vague and illogical that none of us saidanything in reply, but simply gazed at one another, and then laughed asthe train went on. We are on a here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow journey, determined to avoidthe railways, and travel by private conveyance and the public 'longcars, ' just for a glimpse of the Weeping West before we settle downquietly in County Meath for our last few weeks of Irish life. Thus far it has been a pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas;in fact, we're desthroyed wid the dint of the damp! 'Moist andagreeable--that's the Irish notion both for climate and company. ' Ifthe barometer bore any relation to the weather, we could plan our driveswith more discretion; but it sometimes remains as steady as a rockduring two days of sea mist, and Francesca, finding it wholly regardlessof gentle tapping, lost her temper on one occasion and rapped itso severely as to crack the glass. That this peculiarity of Irishbarometers has been noted before we are sure, because of this versewritten by a native bard:-- 'When the glass is up to thirty, Be sure the weather will be dirty. When the glass is high, O very! There'll be rain in Cork and Kerry. When the glass is low, O Lork! There'll be rain in Kerry and Cork!' I might add:-- And when the glass has climbed its best, The sky is weeping in the West. The national rainbow is as deceitful as the barometer, and it is nouncommon thing for us to have half a dozen of them in a day, betweenheavy showers, like the smiles and tears of Irish character; though, tobe sure, one does not need to be an Irish patriot to declare that a fineday in this country is worth three fine days anywhere else. The presentweather is accounted for partially by the fact that, as Horace Walpolesaid, summer has set in with its usual severity, and the tourist isabroad in the land. I am not sure but that we belong to the hated class for the moment, though at least we try to emulate tourist virtues, if there are any, andavoid tourist vices, which is next to impossible, as they are the fruitof the tour itself. It is the circular tour which, in its effect uponthe great middle class, is the most virulent and contagious, and whichbreeds the most offensive habits of thought and speech. The circulartour is a magnificent idea, a praiseworthy business scheme; it haseducated the minds of millions and why it should have ruined theirmanners is a mystery, unless indeed they had none when they were athome. Some of our fellow-travellers with whom we originally starteddisappear every day or two, to join us again. We lose them temporarilywhen we take a private conveyance or when they stop at a cheap hotel, but we come altogether again on coach or long car; and although theyhave torn off many coupons in the interval, their remaining stock seemsto assure us of their society for days to come. We have a Protestant clergyman who is travelling for his health, but beguiling his time by observations for a volume to be called TheRelation between Priests and Pauperism. It seems, at first thought, as if the circular coupon system were ill fitted to furnish him withcorroborative detail; but inasmuch as every traveller finds in a countryonly, so to speak, what he brings to it, he will gather statisticsenough. Those persons who start with a certain bias of mind in onedirection seldom notice any facts that would throw out of joint thosepreviously amassed; they instinctively collect the ones that 'match, 'all others having a tendency to disturb the harmony of the originalscheme. The clergyman's travelling companion is a person who possessesnot a single opinion, conviction, or trait in common with him; so weconclude that they joined forces for economy's sake. This comrade wecall 'the man with the evergreen heart, ' for we can hardly tell by hisappearance whether he is an old young man or a young old one. With hishat on he is juvenile; when he removes it, he is so distinctlyelderly that we do not know whether to regard him as damaged youth orwell-preserved old age; but he transfers his solicitous attentions tolady after lady, rebuffs not having the slightest effect upon his warm, susceptible, ardent nature. We suppose that he is single, but we knowthat he can be married at a moment's notice by anybody who is willing toaccept the risks of the situation. Then we have a nice schoolmaster, soagreeable that Salemina, Francesca, and I draw lots every evening asto who shall sit beside him next day. He has just had seventy boys downwith measles at the same time, giving prizes to those who could show thebest rash! Salemina is no friend to the competitive system in education, but this appealed to her as being as wise as it was whimsical. We have also in our company an indiscreet and inflammable Irishman fromWexford and a cutler from Birmingham, who lose no opportunity to havea conversational scrimmage. When the car stops to change or water thehorses (and as for this last operation, our steeds might always manageit without loss of time by keeping their mouths open), we generallyhear something like this; for although the two gentlemen have never metbefore, they fight as if they had known each other all their lives. Mr. Shamrock. "Faith, then, if you don't like the hotels and therailroads, go to Paris or London; we've done widout you up to now, and we can kape on doing widout you! We'd have more money to spind inentertainin' you if the government hadn't taken three million of poundsout of us to build fortifications in China. " Mr. Rose. "That's all bosh and nonsense; you wouldn't know how to managean hotel if you had the money. " Mr. Shamrock. "If we can't make hotel-kapers, it's soldiers we can make;and be the same token you can't manage India or Canada widout our help!Faith, England owes Ireland more than she can pay, and it's not herbusiness to be thravelin' round criticisin' the throubles she's helpedto projuce. " Mr. Rose. "William Ewart Gladstone did enough for your island to make upfor all the harm that the other statesmen may or may not have done. " Mr. Shamrock, touched in his most vulnerable point, shrieks above therattle of the wheels: "The wurrst statesman that iver put his name topaper was William Ewart Gladstone!" Mr. Rose. "The best, I say!" Mr. Shamrock. "I say the wurrst!" Mr. Rose. "The best!!" Mr. Shamrock. "The wurrst!!" Mr. Rose (after a pause). "It's your absentee landlords that have donethe mischief. I'd hang every one of them, if I had my way. " Mr. Shamrock. "Faith, they'd be absent thin, sure enough!" And at this everybody laughs, and the trouble is over for a brief space, much to the relief of Mrs. Shamrock, until her husband finds himself, after a little, sufficiently calm to repeat a Cockney anecdote, which isreceived by Mr. Rose in resentful silence, it being merely a descriptionof the common bat, an unfortunate animal that, according to Mr. Shamrock, "'as no 'ole to 'ide in, no 'ands to 'old by, no 'orns to 'urtwith, though Nature 'as given 'im 'ooks be'ind to 'itch 'imself up by. " The last two noteworthy personages in our party are a dapper Frenchman, who is in business at Manchester, and a portly Londoner, both of whomare seeing Ireland for the first time. The Frenchman does not grumble atthe weather, for he says that in Manchester it rains twice a day all theyear round, save during the winter, when it commonly rains all day. Sir James Paget, in an address on recreation, defined its chief elementto be surprise. If that is true, the portly Londoner must be exhilaratedbeyond words. But with him the sensation does not stop with surprise:it speedily becomes amazement, and then horror; for he is of thecomparative type, and therefore sees things done and hears things said, on every hand, that are not said and done at all in the same way inLondon. He sees people--ay, and policemen--bicycling on footpaths andriding without lamps, and is horrified to learn that they are seldom, if ever, prosecuted. He is shocked at the cabins, and the rocks, and thebeggar children, and the lack of trees; at the lack of logic, also, andthe lack of shoes; at the prevalence of the brogue; above all, at thepresence of the pig in the parlour. He is outraged at the weather, andhe minds getting wet the more because he hates Irish whisky. He keeps alittle notebook, and he can hardly wait for dinner to be over, he isso anxious to send a communication (probably signed 'Veritas') to theLondon Times. The multiplicity of rocks and the absence of trees are indeed the twomost striking features of the landscape; and yet Boate says, 'Inancient times as long as the land was in full possession of the Irishthemselves, all Ireland was very full of woods on every side, asevidently appeareth by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis. ' But thiswas long ago, -- 'Ere the emerald gem of the western world Was set in the brow of a stranger. ' In the long wars with the English these forests were the favouriterefuge of the natives, and it was a common saying that the Irish couldnever be tamed while the leaves were upon the trees. Then passages werecut through the woods, and the policy of felling them, as a militarymeasure, was begun and carried forward on a gigantic scale inElizabeth's reign. At one of the cabins along the road they were making great preparations, which we understood from having seen the same thing in Lisdara. Thereare wee villages and solitary cabins so far from chapel that the priestsestablish 'stations' for confession. A certain house is selected, andall the old, infirm, and feeble ones come there to confess and hearMass. The priest afterwards eats breakfast with the family; and thereis great pride in this function, and great rivalry in the humblearrangements. Mrs. Odevaine often lends a linen cloth and flowers toone of her neighbours, she tells us; to another a knife and fork, or asilver teapot; and so on. This cabin was at the foot of a long hill, andthe driver gave me permission to walk; so Francesca and I slipped down, I with a parcel which chanced to have in it some small purchases madeat the last hotel. We asked if we might help a bit, and give a littleteapot of Belleek ware and a linen doily trimmed with Irish lace. Boththe articles were trumpery bits of souvenirs, but the old dame wasinclined to think that the angels and saints had taken her in charge, and nothing could exceed her gratitude. She offered us a potato fromthe pot, a cup of tea or goat's milk, and a bunch of wildflowers froma cracked cup; and this last we accepted as we departed in a shower ofblessings, the most interesting of them being, "May the Blessed Virgintwine your brow with roses when ye sit in the sates of glory!" and "TheLord be good to ye, and sind ye a duke for a husband!" We felt more thanrepaid for our impulsive interest, and as we disappeared from sight alast 'Bannact dea leat!' ('God's blessing be on your way!') was waftedto our ears. I seem to have known all these people before, and indeed I have met thembetween the covers of a book; for Connemara has one prophet, and hername is Jane Barlow. In how many of these wild bog-lands of Connaughthave we seen a huddle of desolate cabins on a rocky hillside, turfstacks looking darkly at the doors, and empty black pots sitting on thethresholds, and fancied we have found Lisconnel! I should recogniseOdy Rafferty, the widow M'Gurk, Mad Bell, old Mrs. Kilfoyle, or StaceyDoyne, if I met them face to face, just as I should know other realhuman creatures of a higher type, --Beatrix Esmond, Becky Sharp, MegMerrilies, or Di Vernon. Chapter XXIII. Beams and motes. 'Mud cabins swarm in This place so charming, With sailor garments Hung out to dry; And each abode is Snug and commodious, With pigs melodious In their straw-built sty. ' Father Prout. '"Did the Irish elves ever explain themselves to you, Red Rose?" '"I can't say that they did, " said the English Elf. "You can't call itan explanation to say that a thing has always been that way, just: orthat a thing would be a heap more bother any other way. "' The west of Ireland is depressing, but it is very beautiful; at leastif your taste includes an appreciation of what is wild, magnificent, and sombre. Oppressed you must be, even if you are an artist, by itsbleakness and its dreariness, its lonely lakes reflecting a dull, greysky, its desolate boglands, its solitary chapels, its wretched cabinsperched on hillsides that are very wildernesses of rocks. But for cloudeffects, for wonderful shadows, for fantastic and unbelievable sunsets, when the mountains are violet, the lakes silver with red flashes, theislets gold and crimson and purple, and the whole cloudy west in aflame, it is unsurpassed; only your standard of beauty must not be avelvet lawn studded with copper beeches, or a primary-hued landscapebathed in American sunshine. Connemara is austere and gloomy under adull sky, but it has the poetic charm that belongs to all mystery, and its bare cliffs and ridges are delicately pencilled on a violetbackground, in a way peculiar to itself and enchantingly lovely. The waste of all God's gifts; the incredible poverty; the miserablehuts, often without window or chimney; the sad-eyed women, sometimesnothing but 'skins, bones, and grief'; the wild, beautiful children, springing up like startled deer from behind piles of rocks or growths ofunderbrush; the stony little bits of earth which the peasants cling towith such passion, while good grasslands lie unused, yet seem for everout of reach, --all this makes one dream, and wonder, and speculate, andhope against hope that the worst is over and a better day dawning. Wepassed within sight of a hill village without a single road toconnect it with the outer world. The only supply of turf was on themountain-top, and from thence it had to be brought, basket by basket, even in the snow. The only manure for such land is seaweed, and thatmust be carried from the shore to the tiny plats of sterile earth on thehillside. I remember it all, for I refused to buy a pair of stockings ofa woman along the road. We had taken so many that my courage failed; butI saw her climbing the slopes patiently, wearily, a shawl over her whitehair, --knitting, knitting, knitting, as she walked in the rain to hercabin somewhere behind the high hills. We never give to beggars in anycase, but we buy whatever we can as we are able; and why did I draw theline at that particular pair of stockings, only to be haunted by thatpathetic figure for the rest of my life? Beggars there are by the score, chiefly in the tourist districts; but it is only fair to add that thereare hundreds of huts where it would be a dire insult to offer a pennyfor a glass of water, a sup of milk, or the shelter of a turf fire. As we drive along the road, we see, if the umbrellas can be closed for ahalf-hour, flocks of sheep grazing on the tops of the hills, where it issunnier, where food is better and flies less numerous. Crystal streamsand waterfalls are pouring down the hillsides to lose themselves in oneof Connemara's many bays, and we have a glimpse of osmunda fern, goldengreen and beautiful. It was under a branch of this Osmunda regalisthat the Irish princess lay hidden, they say, till she had evaded herpursuers. The blue turf smoke rises here and there, --now from a cabinwith house-leek growing on the crumbling thatch, now from one whose roofis held on by ropes and stones, --and there is always a turf bog, stacksand stacks of the cut blocks, a woman in a gown of dark-red flannelresting for a moment, with the empty creel beside her, and a man cuttingin the distance. After climbing the long hill beyond the 'station' weare rewarded by a glimpse of more fertile fields; the clumps of ragwortand purple loosestrife are reinforced with kingcups and lilies growingnear the wayside, and the rare sight, first of a pot of geraniums in thewindow, and then of a garden all aglow with red fuchsias, torch plants, and huge dahlias, so cheers Veritas that he takes heart again. "Thisis something like home!" he exclaims breezily; whereupon Mr. Shamrockmurmurs that if people find nothing to admire in a foreign country savewhat resembles their own, he wonders that they take the trouble to betravelling. "It is a darlin' year for the pitaties, " the drivers says; and thereare plenty of them planted hereabouts, even in stony spots not wortha keenogue for anything else, for "pitaties doesn't require annyinTHRICKet farmin', you see, ma'am. " The clergyman remarks that only three things are required to makeIreland the most attractive country in the world: "Protestantism, cleanliness, and gardens"; and Mr. Shamrock, who is of course a RomanCatholic, answers this tactful speech in a way that surprises thespeaker and keeps him silent for hours. The Birmingham cutler, who has a copy of Ismay's Children in his pocket, triumphantly reads aloud, at this moment, a remark put into the mouth ofan Irish character: "The low Irish are quite destitute of all notion ofbeauty, --have not the remotest particle of artistic sentiment or taste;their cabins are exactly as they were six hundred years ago, for theynever want to improve themselves. " Then Mr. Shamrock asserts that any show of prosperity on a tenant'spart would only mean an advance of rent on the landlord's; and Mr. Roseretorts that while that might have been true in former times, it isutterly false to-day. Mrs. Shamrock, who is a natural apologist, pleads that the Irish gentryhave the most beautiful gardens in the world and the greatest naturaltaste in gardening, and there must be some reason why the lower classesare so different in this respect. May it not be due partly to lack ofground, lack of money to spend on seeds and fertilisers, lack of allrefining, civilising and educating influences? Mr. Shamrock adds thatthe dwellers in cabins cannot successfully train creepers against thewalls or flowers in the dooryard, because of the goat, pig, donkey, ducks, hens, and chickens; and Veritas asks triumphantly, "Why don't youkeep the pig in a sty, then?" The man with the evergreen heart (who has already been told this morningthat I am happily married, Francesca engaged, Salemina a determinedcelibate, but Benella quite at liberty) peeps under Salemina's umbrellaat this juncture, and says tenderly, "And what do you think about thesevexed questions, dear madam?" Which gives her a chance to reply withsome distinctness, "I shall not know what I think for several months tocome; and at any rate there are various things more needed on this coachthan opinions. " At this the Frenchman murmurs, "Ah, she has right!" and the Birminghamcutler says, "'Ear! 'ear!" On another day the parson began to tell the man with the evergreen heartsome interesting things about America. He had never been there himself, but he had a cousin who had travelled extensively in that country, and had brought back much unusual information. "The Americans are anextraordinary people on the practical side, " he remarked; "but havingsaid that, you have said all, for they are sordid, and absolutely devoidof ideality. Take an American at his roller-top desk, a telephone at oneside and a typewriter at the other, talk to him of pork and dollars, and you have him at his very best. He always keeps on his Panama hat atbusiness, and sits in a rocking-chair smoking a long cigar. The Americanwoman wears a blue dress with a red lining, or a black dress with orangetrimmings, showing a survival of African taste; while another exhibitsthe American-Indian type, --sallow, with high cheekbones. The manners ofthe servant classes are extraordinary. I believe they are called 'thehelp, ' and they commonly sit in the drawing-room after the work isfinished. " "You surprise me!" said Mrs. Shamrock. "It is indeed amazing, " he continued; "and there are other extraordinarycustoms, among them the habit of mixing ices with all beverages. Theyplunge ices into mugs of ale, beer, porter, lemonade, or Apollinaris, and sip the mixture with a long ladle at the chemist's counter, where itis usually served. " "You surprise me!" exclaimed the cutler. "You surprise me too!" I echoed in my inmost heart. Francesca would nothave confined herself to that blameless mode of expression, you may besure, and I was glad that she was on the back seat of the car. I didnot know it at the time, but Veritas, who is a man of intelligence, had identified her as an American, and wishing to inform himself on allpossible points, had asked her frankly why it was that the people ofher nation gave him the impression of never being restful or quiet, but always so excessively and abnormally quick in motion and speech andthought. "Casual impressions are not worth anything, " she replied nonchalantly. "As a nation, you might sometimes give us the impression of beingphlegmatic and slow-witted. Both ideas may have some basis of fact, yetnot be absolutely true. We are not all abnormally quick in America. Lookat our messenger boys, for example. " "We! Phlegmatic and slow-witted!" exclaimed Veritas. "You surprise me!And why do you not reward these government messengers for speed, andstimulate them in that way?" "We do, " Francesca answered; "that is the only way in which we ever getthem to arrive anywhere--by rewarding and stimulating them at both endsof the journey, and sometimes, in extreme cases, at a halfway station. " "This is most interesting, " said Veritas, as he took out his dampnotebook; "and perhaps you can tell me why your newspapers are so poorlyedited, so cheap, so sensational?" "I confess I can't explain it, " she sighed, as if sorely puzzled. "Canit be that we have expended our strength on magazines, where you are solamentably weak?" At this moment the rain began as if there had been a long droughtand the sky had just determined to make up the deficiency. It fell insheets, and the wind blew I know not how many Irish miles an hour. The Frenchman put on a silk macintosh with a cape, and was berated byeverybody in the same seat because he stood up a moment and let thewater in under the lap covers. His umbrella was a dainty en-tout-caswith a mother-of-pearl handle, that had answered well enough in heavymist or soft drizzle. His hat of fine straw was tied with a neat cordto his buttonhole; but although that precaution insured its ultimatesafety, it did not prevent its soaring from his head and descending onMrs. Shamrock's bonnet. He conscientiously tried holding it on with onehand, but was then reproved by both neighbours because his macintoshdripped over them. "How are your spirits, Frenchy?" asked the cutler jocosely. "I am not too greatly sad, " said the poor gentleman, "but I will beglad it should be finished; far more joyfully would I be at Manchester, triste as it may be. " Just then a gust of wind blew his cape over his head and snapped hisparasol. "It is evidently it has been made in Ireland, " he sighed, with adesperate attempt at gaiety. "It should have had a grosser stem, and helas! it must not be easy to have it mended in these barbarousveelages. " We stopped at four o'clock at a wayside hostelry, and I had quietlymade up my mind to descend from the car, and take rooms for the night, whatever the place might be. Unfortunately, the same idea occurred tothree or four of the soaked travellers; and as men could leap down, while ladies must wait for the steps, the chivalrous sex, their mannersobscured by the circular tour system, secured the rooms, and I wasobliged to ascend again, wetter than ever, to my perch beside thedriver. "Can I get the box seat, do you think, if I pay extra for it?" I hadasked one of the stablemen before breakfast. "You don't need to be payin', miss! Just confront the driver, and you'llget it aisy!" If, by the way, I had confronted him at the end instead ofat the beginning of the journey, my charms certainly would not havebeen all-powerful, for my coat had been leaked upon by red and greenumbrellas, my hat was a shapeless jelly, and my face imprinted with thespots from a drenched blue veil. After two hours more of this we reached the Shan Van Vocht Hotel, wherewe had engaged apartments; but we found to our consternation that it wasfull, and that we had been put in lodgings a half-mile away. Salemina, whose patience was quite exhausted by the discomforts of theday, groaned aloud when we were deposited at the door of a village shop, and ushered upstairs to our tiny quarters; but she ceased abruptly whenshe really took note of our surroundings. Everything was humble, butclean and shining--glass, crockery, bedding, floor, on the which we weredripping pools of water, while our landlady's daughter tried to make usmore comfortable. "It's a soft night we're havin', " she said, in a dove's voice, "butwe'll do right enough if the win' doesn't rise up on us. " Left to ourselves, we walked about the wee rooms on ever new and morejoyful voyages of discovery. The curtains rolled up and down easily; thewindows were propped upon nice clean sticks instead of tennis racketsand hearth brushes; there was a well-washed stone to keep the curtaindown on the sill; and just outside were tiny window gardens, in each ofwhich grew three marigolds and three asters, in a box fenced about withlittle green pickets. There were well-dusted books on the tables, andFrancesca wanted to sit down immediately to The Charming Cora, reprintedfrom The Girl's Own Paper. Salemina meantime had tempted fate by lookingunder the bed, where she found the floor so exquisitely neat that shepatted it affectionately with her hand. We had scarcely donned our dry clothing when the hotel proprietor sent ajaunting-car for our drive to the seven-o'clock table d'hote dinner. Wecarefully avoided our travelling companions that night, but learned thenext morning that the Frenchman had slept on four chairs, and rejectedthe hotel coffee with the remark that it was not 'veritable'--acriticism in which he was quite justified. Our comparative Englishmanhad occupied a cot in a room where the tin bathtubs were kept. He waswriting to The Times at the moment of telling me his woes, and, withoutseeing the letter, I could divine his impassioned advice never to travelin the west of Ireland in rainy weather. He remarked (as if quoting fromhis own communication) that the scenery was magnificent, but that therewas an entirely insufficient supply of hot water; that the waiters hadthe appearance of being low comedians, and their service was of thecharacter one might expect from that description; that he had beentalking before breakfast with a German gentleman, who had sat on awall opposite the village of Dugort, in the island of Achill, from sixo'clock in the morning until nine, and in that time he had seen comingout of an Irish hut three geese, eight goslings, six hens, fifteenchickens, two pigs, two cows, two barefooted girls, the master of thehouse leading a horse, three small children carrying cloth bags filledwith school-books, and finally a strapping mother leading a donkeyloaded with peat-baskets; that all this poverty and ignorance andindolence and filth was spoiling his holiday; and finally, that if heshould be as greatly disappointed in the fishing as he had been in thehotel accommodations--here we almost fainted from suspense--he should beobliged to go home! And not only that, but he should feel it his duty towarn others of what they might expect. "Perhaps you are justified, " said Francesca sympathetically. "People whoare used to the dry, sunny climate and the clear atmosphere of Londonought not to expose themselves to Irish rain without due consideration. " He agreed with her, glancing over his spectacles to see if she by anypossibility could be amusing herself at his expense--good, old, fussy, fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so soft andlovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less he could doher the injustice of suspecting her sincerity. But mind you, although I would never confess it to Veritas, because hesees nothing but flaws on every side, the Irish pig is, to my taste, atrifle too much in the foreground. He pays the rent, no doubt; butthis magnificent achievement could be managed from a sty in the rear, ungrateful as it might seem to immure so useful a personage behind adoor or conceal his virtues from the public at large. Chapter XXIV. Humours of the road. 'Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes. ' Oliver Goldsmith. If you drive from Clifden to Oughterard by way of Maam Cross, and thenon to Galway, you will pass through the O'Flahertys' country, one ofwhom, Murrough O'Flaherty, was governor of this country of Iar (western)Connaught. You will like to see the last of the O'Flaherty yews, a thousand years old at least, and the ruins of the castle andbanqueting-hall. The family glories are enumerated in ancient Irishmanuscript, and instead of the butler, footman, chef, coachman, andgardener of to-day we read of the O'Flaherty physician, standard-bearer, brehon or judge, master of the revels, and keeper of the bees; and themoment Himself is rich enough, I intend to add some of these picturesquepersonages to our staff. We afterwards learned that there was formerly an inscription over thewest gate of Galway:-- 'From the fury of the O'Flaherties, Good Lord, deliver us. ' After Richard de Burgo took the town, in 1226, it became a flourishingEnglish colony, and the citizens must have guarded themselves fromany intercourse with the native Irish; at least, an old by-law of 1518enacts that 'neither O' nor Mac shalle strutte ne swaggere thro' thestreetes of Galway. ' We did not go to Galway straight, because we never do anything straight. We seldom get any reliable information, and never any inspiringsuggestions, from the natives themselves. They are all patrioticallysure that Ireland is the finest counthry in the world, God bless her!but in the matter of seeing that finest counthry in the easiest or bestfashion they are all very vague. Indirectly, our own lack of geography, coupled with the ignorance of the people themselves, has been of thegreatest service in enlivening our journeys. Francesca says that, inlooking back, she finds that our errors of judgment have always resultedin our most charming and unforgettable experiences; but let no one whois travelling with a well-balanced and logical-minded man attempt tofollow in our footsteps. Being as free as air on this occasion (if I except the dread ofBenella's scorn, which descends upon us now and then, and moves us torepentance, sometimes even to better behaviour), we passed Porridgetownand Cloomore, and ferried across to the opposite side of Lough Corrib. Salemina, of course, had fixed upon Cong as our objective point, becauseof its caverns and archaeological remains, which Dr. La Touche tells hernot on any account to miss. Francesca and I said nothing, but we hada very definite idea of avoiding Cong, and going nearer Tuam, to climbKnockma, the hill of the fairies, and explore their ancient haunts andarchaeological remains, which are more in our line than the caverns ofCong. Speaking of Dr. La Touche reminds me that we have not the smallestnotion as to how our middle-aged romance is progressing. Absence may, at this juncture, be just as helpful a force in its development as dailyintercourse would be; for when one is past thirty, I fancy there is adeal of 'thinking-it-over' to do. Precious little there is when we areyounger; heart does it all then, and never asks head's advice! But intoo much delay there lies no plenty, and there's the danger. Actually, Francesca and I could be no more anxious to settle Salemina in life ifshe were lame, halt, blind, and homeless, instead of being attractive, charming, absurdly young for her age, and not without means. Thedifficulty is that she is one of those 'continent, persisting, immovablepersons' whom Emerson describes as marked out for the blessing of theworld. That quality always makes a man anxious. He fears that he mayonly get his rightful share of blessing, and he craves the whole output, so to speak. We naturally mention Dr. La Touche very often, since he is alwayswriting to Salemina or to me, offering counsel and suggestion. Madame LaTouche, the venerable aunt, has written also, asking us to visit themin Meath; but this invitation we have declined, principally because theColquhouns will be with them, and they would surely be burdened by theaddition of three ladies and a maid to their family; partly because weshall be freer in our own house, which will be as near the La Touchemansion as possible, you may be sure, if Francesca and I have anythingto do with choosing it. The La Touche name, then, is often on our lips, but Salemina offers nointimation that it is indelibly imprinted on her heart of hearts. Itis a good name to be written anywhere, and we fancied there was theslightest possible hint of pride and possession in Salemina's voice whenshe read to us to-night, from her third volume of Lecky's History ofIreland in the Eighteenth Century, a paragraph concerning one David LaTouche, from whom Dr. Gerald is descended:-- 'In the last of the Irish Parliaments no less than five members of thename sat together in the House of Commons, and his family may claim whatis in truth the highest honour of which an Irish family can boast, --thatduring many successive governments, and in a period of most lavishcorruption, it possessed great parliamentary influence, and yet passedthrough political life untitled and unstained. ' There is just the faintest gleam of hope, by the way, that Himself mayjoin us at the very end of June, and he is sure to be helpful on thissentimental journey; he aided Ronald and Francesca more than oncein their tempestuous love-affair, and if his wits are not dulled bymarriage, as so often happens, he will be invaluable. It will not belong then, probably, before I assume my natural, my secondary positionin the landscape of events. The junior partners are now, so to speak, ontheir legs, although it is idle to suppose that such brittle appendageswill support them for any length of time. As soon as we return in theautumn I should like to advertise (if Himself will permit me) for aperfectly sound and kind junior partner, --one who has been well brokento harness, and who will neither shy nor balk, no matter what theprovocation; the next step being to urge Himself to relinquishaltogether the bondage of business care. There is no need of hiscontinuing in it, since other people's business will always give himample scope for his energies. He has, since his return to America, dispensed justice and mercy, chiefly mercy, to one embezzler, one honestfellow tempted beyond his strength, one widow, one unfortunate friendof his youth, and two orphans, and it was in no sense an extraordinaryseason. To return to notes of travel, our method of progression, since wedeserted the high-road and the public car, has been strangely varied. Ithink there is no manner of steed or vehicle which has not been used byus, at one time or another, even to the arch donkey and the low-backedcar with its truss of hay, like that of the immortal Peggy. I thought atfirst that 'arch' was an unusual adjective to apply to a donkey, butI find after all that it is abundantly expressive. Benella, whodisapproves entirely of this casual sort of travelling, far from'answerable roads' and in 'backwards places' (Irish for 'behind thetimes'), is yet wonderfully successful in discovering equipages of somesort in unlikely spots. In towns of any size or pretensions, we find by the town cross or nearthe inn a motley collection of things on wheels, with drivers sometimesas sober as Father Mathew, sometimes not. Yesterday we had a mare whichthe driver confessed he bought without 'overcircumspectin' it, ' andalthough you couldn't, as he said, 'extinguish her at first sight from agrand throtter, she hadn't rightly the speed you could wish. ' "It's not so powerful young she is, melady!" he confessed. "You'd beafther lookin' at a chicken a long time and niver be reminded of her;but sure ye might thry her, for belike ye wouldn't fancy a horse thatwould be leppin' stone walls wid ye, like Dan Ryan's there! My littlebaste'll get ye to Rossan before night, and she won't hurt man normortial in doin' it. " "Begorra, you're right, nor herself nayther, " said Dan Ryan; "and ifit's leppin' ye mane, sure she couldn't lep a sod o' turf, thatmare couldn't! God pardon ye, melady, for thrustin' yerself to thatpaiceable, brindly-coloured ould hin, whin ye might be gettin' a dacint, high-steppin' horse for a shillin' or two more; an' belike I mightcontint meself to take less, for I wouldn't be extortin' ye like BarneyO'Mara there!" Our chosen driver replied to this by saying that he wouldn't be caughtdead at a pig fair with Dan Ryan's horse, but in the midst of all thedistracting discussions and arguments that followed we held toour original bargain; for we did not like the look of Dan Ryan'shigh-stepper, who was a 'thrifle mounTAIny, ' as they say in these parts, and had a wild eye to boot. We started, and in a half-hour we couldstill see the chapel spire of the little village we had just left. Itwas for once a beautiful day, but we felt that we must reach a railwaystation some time or other, in order to find a place to sleep. "Can't you make her go a bit faster? Do you want to keep us on the roadall night?" inquired Francesca. "I do not, your ladyship's honour, ma'am. " "Is she tired, or doesn't she ever go any better?" urged Salemina. "She does; it's God's truth I'm tellin' ye, melady, she's that flippantsometimes that I scarcely can hould her, and the car jumps undher herlike a spring bed. " "Then what on earth IS the matter with her?" I inquired, with some firein my eye. "Sure I believe she's takin' time to think of the iligant load she'scarryin', melady, and small blame to her!" said Mr. Barney O'Mara; andafter that we let him drive as best he could, although it did take usfour hours to do nine Irish miles. He came, did Mr. Barney, from CountyArmagh, and he beguiled the way with interesting tales from thatsection of Ireland, one of which, 'the Old Crow and the Young Crow, 'particularly took our fancies. "An old crow was teaching a young crow one day, and says to him, 'Now, my son, ' says he, 'listen to the advice I'm going to give you, ' says he. 'If you see a person coming near you and stooping, mind yourself, and beon your keeping; he's stooping for a stone to throw at you, ' says he. "'But tell me, ' says the young crow, 'what should I do if he had a stonealready down in his pocket?' says he. "'Musha, go 'long out of that, ' says the old crow, 'you've learnedenough; the divil another learning I'm able to give you. '" He was a perfect honey-pot of useless and unreliable information, wasBarney O'Mara, and most learned in fairy lore; but for that matter, allthe people walking along the road, the drivers, the boatman and guides, the men and women in the cottages where we stop in a shower or toinquire the way, relate stories of phookas, leprehauns, and sprites, banshees and all the various classes of elves and fays, as simply andseriously as they would speak of any other occurrences. Barney toldus gravely of the old woman who was in the habit of laying pishogues(charms) to break the legs of his neighbour's cattle, because of anancient grudge she bore him; and also how necessary it is to put a bitof burning turf under the churn to prevent the phookas, or mischievousfairies, from abstracting the butter or spoiling the churning in anyway. Irish fays seem to be much interested in dairy matters, for, besides the sprites who delight in distracting the cream and keepingback the butter (I wonder if a lazy up-and-down movement of the dasherinvites them at all, at all?), it is well known that many a milkmaidon a May morning has seen fairy cows browsing along the banks oflakes, --cows that vanish into thin mist at the sound of human footfall. When we were quite cross at missing the noon train from Rossan, quitetired of the car's jolting, somewhat vexed even at the mare's continuedenjoyment of her 'iligant load, ' Barney appeased us all by singing, ina delightful, mellow voice, a fairy song called the 'Leprehaun, ' [*] Thispersonage, you must know, if you haven't a large acquaintance amongIrish fairies, is a tricksy fellow in a green coat and scarlet cap, withbrave shoe buckles on his wee brogues. You will catch him sometimes, ifthe 'glamour' is on you, under a burdock leaf or a thorn bush, and heis always making or mending a shoe. He commonly has a little purse abouthim, which, if you are quick enough, you can snatch; and a wonderfulpurse it is, for whatever you spend, there is always money to be foundin it. Truth to tell, nobody has yet succeeded in being quicker thanMaster Leprehaun, though many have offered to fill his cruiskeen with'mountain dew, ' of which Irish fairies are passionately fond. * By Patrick W. Joyce. 'In a shady nook, one moonlight night, A leprehaun I spied; With scarlet cap and coat of green, A cruiskeen by his side. 'Twas tick, tack, tick, his hammer went, Upon a weeny shoe; And I laughed to think of his purse of gold; But the fairy was laughing too! With tip-toe step and beating heart, Quite softly I drew nigh: There was mischief in his merry face, A twinkle in his eye. He hammered, and sang with tiny voice, And drank his mountain dew; And I laughed to think he was caught at last; But the fairy was laughing too! As quick as thought I seized the elf. "Your fairy purse!" I cried. "The purse!" he said--"'tis in her hand-- That lady at your side. " I turned to look: the elf was off. Then what was I to do? O, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been; And the fairy was laughing too!' I cannot communicate any idea of the rollicking gaiety and quaint charmBarney gave to the tune, nor the light-hearted, irresistible chucklewith which he rendered the last two lines, giving a snap of his whip asaccent to the long 'O':-- 'O, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been; And the fairy was laughing too!' After he had sung it twice through, Benella took my guitar from its casefor me, and we sang it after him, again and again; so it was in happyfashion that we at least approached Ballyrossan, where we bade BarneyO'Mara a cordial farewell, paying him four shillings over his fare, which was cheap indeed for the song. As we saw him vanish slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car andharness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in thelast week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy toenliven his life a bit, --that fancy which seems a providential reactionagainst the cruel despotisms of fact. Chapter XXV. The wee folk. 'There sings a bonnie linnet Up the heather glen; The voice has magic in it Too sweet for mortal men! Sing O, the blooming heather, O, the heather glen! Where fairest fairies gather To lure in mortal men. ' Carrig-a-fooka Inn, near Knockma, On the shores of Lough Corrib. A modern Irish poet [*] says something that Francesca has quoted to Ronaldin her letter to-day, and we await from Scotland his confirmation ordenial. He accuses the Scots of having discovered the fairies to bepagan and wicked, and of denouncing them from the pulpits, whereas Irishpriests discuss with them the state of their souls; or at least theydid, until it was decided that they had none, but would dry up like somuch bright vapour at the last day. It was more in sadness than in angerthat the priests announced this fiat; for Irish sprites and goblins dogay, graceful, and humorous things, for the most part, tricksy sins, not deserving annihilation, whereas Scottish fays are sometimesmalevolent, --or so says the Irish poet. * W. B. Yeats. This is very sad, no doubt, but it does not begin to be as sad ashaving no fairies at all. There must have been a few in England inShakespeare's time, or he could never have written The Tempest or theMidsummer Night's Dream; but where have they vanished? As for us in America, I fear that we never have had any 'wee folk. ' TheIndians had their woodland spirits, spirits of rocks, trees, mountains, star and moon maidens; the negroes had their enchanted animals andconjure men; but as for real wee folk, either they were not indigenousto the soil or else we unconsciously drove them away. Yet we hadfacilities to offer! The columbines, harebells, and fringed gentianswould have been just as cosy and secluded places to live in as the Irishfoxgloves, which are simply running over with fairies. Perhaps theywouldn't have liked our cold winters; still it must have been somethingmore than climate, and I am afraid I know the reason well--we are toosensible; and if there is anything a fairy detests, it is common-sense. We are too rich, also; and a second thing that a fairy abhors is thechink of dollars. Perhaps, when I am again enjoying the advantagesbrought about by sound money, commercial prosperity, and a magnificentsystem of public education, I shall feel differently about it; but forthe moment I am just a bit embarrassed and crestfallen to belong to anation absolutely shunned by the fairies. If they had only settled amongus like other colonists, shaped us to their ends as far as they could, and, when they couldn't, conformed themselves to ours, there might havebeen, by this time, fairy trusts stretching out benign arms all over thecontinent. Of course it is an age of incredulity, but Salemina, Francesca, and Ihave not come to Ireland to scoff, and whatever we do we shall not goto the length of doubting the fairies; for, as Barney O'Mara says, 'theystand to raison. ' Glen Ailna is a 'gentle' place near Carrig-a-fooka Inn--that is, one beloved by the sheehogues; and though you may be never so muchinterested, I may not tell you its exact whereabouts, since no one canever find it unless he is himself under the glamour. Perhaps you mightbe a doubter, with no eyes for the 'dim kingdom'; perhaps you might gazefor ever, and never be able to see a red-capped fiddler, fiddlingunder a blossoming sloe bush. You might even see him, and then indulgeyourself in a fit of common-sense or doubt of your own eyes, in whichcase the wee dancers would never flock to the sound of the fiddle orgather on the fairy ring. This is the reason that I shall never take youto Knockma, to Glen Ailna, or especially to the hyacinth wood, which isa little plantation near the ruin of a fort. Just why the fairies are sofond of an old rath or lis I cannot imagine, for you would never supposethat antiquaries, archaeologists, and wee folk would care for the sameplaces. I have no intention of interviewing the grander personages among theIrish fairies, for they are known to be haughty, unapproachable, andsevere, as befits the descendants of the great Nature Gods and theunder-deities of flood and fell and angry sea. It is the lesser folk, the gay, gracious, little men that I wish to meet; those who pipe anddance on the fairy ring. The 'ring' is made, you know, by the tiny feetthat have tripped for ages and ages, flying, dancing, circling, over thetender young grass. Rain cannot wash it away; you may walk over it; youmay even plough up the soil, and replant it ever so many times; thenext season the fairy ring shines in the grass just the same. It seemsstrange that I am blind to it, when an ignorant, dirty spalpeen wholives near the foot of Knockma has seen it and heard the fairy musicagain and again. He took me to the very place where, last Lammas Eve, he saw plainly--for there was a beautiful, white moon overhead--thearch king and queen of the fairies, who appear only on state occasions, together with a crowd of dancers, and more than a dozen pipers pipingmelodious music. Not only that, but (lucky little beggar!) he hearddistinctly the fulparnee and the folpornee, the rap-lay-hoota and theroolya-boolya--noises indicative of the very jolliest and wildest andmost uncommon form of fairy conviviality. Failing a glimpse of thesemidsummer revels, my next choice would be to see the Elf Horsemangalloping round the shores of the Fairy Lough in the cool of the morn. 'Loughareema, Loughareema, Stars come out and stars are hidin'; The wather whispers on the stones, The flittherin' moths are free. Onest before the mornin' light The Horseman will come ridin' Roun' an' roun' the Fairy Lough, An' no one there to see. ' But there will be some one there, and that is the aforesaid JamesyFlanigan! Sometimes I think he is fibbing, but a glance at his soft, dark, far-seeing eyes under their fringe of thick lashes convinces me tothe contrary. His field of vision is different from mine, that is all, and he fears that if I accompany him to the shores of the Fairy Loughthe Horseman will not ride for him; so I am even taunted with unduecommon-sense by a little Irish gossoon. I tried to coax Benella to go with me to the hyacinth wood by moonlight. Fairies detest a crowd, and I ought to have gone alone; but, to tellthe truth, I hardly dared, for they have a way of kidnapping attractiveladies and keeping them for years in the dim kingdom. I would not trustHimself at Glen Ailna for worlds, for gentlemen are not exempt fromdanger. Connla of the Golden Hair was lured away by a fairy maiden, andtaken, in a 'gleaming, straight-gliding, strong, crystal canoe, ' to herdomain in the hills; and Oisin, you remember, was transported to theLand of the Ever Youthful by the beautiful Niam. If one could only besure of coming back! but Oisin, for instance, was detained three hundredyears, so one might not be allowed to return, and still worse, onemight not wish to; three hundred years of youth would tempt--a woman!My opinion, after reading the Elf Errant, is that one of us has beenthere--Moira O'Neill. I should suspect her of being able to wear a fairycap herself, were it not for the human heart-throb in her verses; but Iam sure she has the glamour whenever she desires it, and hears the fairypipes at will. Benella is of different stuff; she not only distrusts fairies, but, likethe Scotch Presbyterians, she fears that they are wicked. "Still, yousay they haven't got immortal souls to save, and I don't suppose they'reresponsible for their actions, " she allows; "but as for traipsing up tothose heathenish, haunted woods when all Christian folks are in bed, Idon't believe in it, and neither would Mr. Beresford; but if you're seton it, I shall go with you!" "You wouldn't be of the slightest use, " I answered severely; "indeed, you'd be worse than nobody. The fairies cannot endure doubters; itmakes them fold their wings over their heads and shrink away into theirflowercups. I should be mortified beyond words if a fairy should meet mein your company. " Benella seemed hurt and a trifle resentful as she replied: "That aboutdoubters is just what Mrs. Kimberly used to say. " (Mrs. Kimberly is theSalem priestess, the originator of the 'science. ') "She couldn't talk amite if there was doubters in the hall; and it's so with spiritualistsand clairvoyants, too--they're all of 'em scare-cats. I guess likelythat those that's so afraid of being doubted has some good reason forit!" Well, I never went to the hyacinth wood by moonlight, since so manyobjections were raised, but I did go once at noonday, the very mostunlikely hour of all the twenty-four, and yet--As I sat there beneath agnarled thorn, weary and warm with my climb, I looked into the heart ofa bluebell forest growing under a circle of gleaming silver birches, and suddenly I heard fairy music--at least it was not mortal--and manysounds were mingled in it: the sighing of birches, the carol of a lark, the leap and laugh of a silvery runnel tumbling down the hillside, thesoft whir of butterflies' wings, and a sweet little over or under tone, from the over or under world, that I took to be the opening of a millionhyacinth buds in the sunshine. Then I heard the delicious sound ofa fairy laugh, and, looking under a swaying branch of meadowsweet, Isaw--yes, I really saw--You must know that first a wee green door swungopen in the stem of the meadowsweet, and out of that land where you canbuy joy for a penny came a fairy in the usual red and green. I had theElf Errant in my lap, and I think that in itself made him feel more athome with me, as well as the fact, perhaps, that for the moment I wasn'ta bit sensible and had no money about me. I was all ready with anIrish salutation, for the purposes of further disarming his aversion. Iintended to say, as prettily as possible, though, alas! I cannot managethe brogue, "And what way do I see you now?" or "Good-mornin' to yerhonour's honour!" But I was struck dumb by my good fortune at seeing himat all. He looked at me once, and then, flinging up his arms, he gave aweeny, weeny yawn! This was disconcerting, for people almost never yawnin my company; and to make it worse, he kept on yawning, until, for verysympathy, and not at all in the way of revenge, I yawned too. Then thegreen door swung open again, and a gay rabble of wide-awake fairies cametrooping out: and some of them kissed the hyacinth bells to open them, and some of them flew to the thorn-tree, until every little brancheenwas white with flowers, where but a moment ago had been tightly-closedbuds. The yawning fairy slept meanwhile under the swaying meadowsweet, and the butterflies fanned him with their soft wings; but, alas! itcould not have been the hour for dancing on the fairy ring, nor theproper time for the fairy pipers, and long, long as I looked I saw andheard nothing more than what I have told you. Indeed, I presently losteven that, for a bee buzzed, a white petal dropped from the thorn-treeon my face, there was a scraping of tiny claws and the sound of twosquirrels barking love to each other in the high branches, and in thatmoment the glamour that was upon me vanished in a twinkling. "But I really did see the fairies!" I exclaimed triumphantly to Benellathe doubter, when I returned Carrig-a-fooka Inn, much too late forluncheon. "I want to know!" she exclaimed, in her New England vernacular. "Iguess by the looks o' your eyes they didn't turn out to be very livelycomp'ny!" Part Fifth--Royal Meath. Chapter XXVI. Ireland's gold. 'I sat upon the rustic seat-- The seat an aged bay-tree crowns-- And saw outspreading from our feet The golden glory of the Downs. The furze-crowned heights, the glorious glen, The white-walled chapel glistening near, The house of God, the homes of men, The fragrant hay, the ripening ear. ' Denis Florence M'Carthy. The Old Hall, Devorgilla, Vale of the Boyne. We have now lived in each of Ireland's four provinces, Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, but the confines of these provinces, andtheir number, have changed several times since the beginning of history. In A. D. 130 the Milesian monarchy was restored in the person of Tuathal(Too'hal) the Legitimate. Over each of the Irish provinces was a ri orking, and there was also over all Ireland an Ard-ri or supreme monarchwho lived at Tara up to the time of its abandonment in the sixthcentury. Before Tuathal's day, the Ard-ri had for his land allowanceonly a small tract around Tara, but Tuathal cut off a portion from eachof the four older provinces, at the Great Stone of Divisions in thecentre of Ireland, making the fifth province of Royal Meath, whichhas since disappeared, but which was much larger than the present twocounties of Meath and Westmeath. In this once famous, and now mostlovely and fertile spot, with the good republican's love of royalty androyal institutions, we have settled ourselves; in the midst of verdantplains watered by the Boyne and the Blackwater, here rippling overshallows, there meandering in slow deep reaches between reedy banks. The Old Hall, from which I write, is somewhere in the vale of the Boyne, somewhere near Yellow Steeple, not so far from Treadagh, only a fewmiles from Ballybilly (I hope to be forgiven this irreverence to theglorious memory of his Majesty, William, Prince of Orange!), and withindriving distance of Killkienan, Croagh-Patrick, Domteagh, and Tara Hillitself. If you know your Royal Meath, these geographical suggestionswill give you some idea of our location; if not, take your map ofIreland, please (a thing nobody has near him), and find the town ofTuam, where you left us a little time ago. You will see a railwayline from Tuam to Athenry, Athlone, and Mullingar. Anybody canvisit Mullingar--it is for the million; but only the elect may go toDevorgilla. It is the captive of our bow and spear; or, to change thefigure, it is a violet by a mossy stone, which we refuse to have pluckedfrom its poetic solitude and worn in the bosom or in the buttonhole ofthe tourist. At Mullingar, then, we slip on enchanted garments which conceal us fromthe casual eye, and disappear into what is, in midsummer, a bower ofbeauty. There you will find, when you find us, Devorgilla, lovely enoughto be Tir-nan-og, that Land of the Ever Youthful well know to the Celtsof long ago. Here we have rested our weary bodies and purified ourtravel-stained minds. Fresh from the poverty-ridden hillsides ofConnaught, these rich grazing-lands, comfortable houses, magnificentdemesnes and castles, are unspeakably grateful to the eye and healingto the spirit. We have not forgotten, shall never forget, our Connemarafolk, nor yet Omadhaun Pat and dark Timsy of Lisdara in the north; butit is good, for a change, to breathe in this sense of general comfort, good cheer, and abundance. Benella is radiant, for she is near enough to Trim to go thereoccasionally to seek for traces of her ancestress, Mary Boyce; andas for Salemina, this bit of country is a Mecca for antiquaries andscholars, and we are fairly surrounded by towers, tumuli, and cairns. "It's mostly ruins they do be wantin', these days, " said a waysideacquaintance. "I built a stone house for my donkey on the knockaunbeyant my cabin just, and bedad, there's a crowd round it every Saturdaycallin' it the risidence of wan of the Danish kings! An' they arediggin' at Tara now, ma'am, looking for the Ark of the Covenant! They dobe sayin' the prophet Jeremiah come over from England and brought it widhim. Begorra, it's a lucky man he was to get away wid it!" Added to these advantages of position, we are within a few miles ofRosnaree, Dr. La Touche's demesne, to which he comes home from Dublinto-morrow, bringing with him our dear Mr. And Mrs. Colquhoun ofArdnagreena. We have been here ourselves for ten days, and are flatteredto think that we have used the time as unconventionally as we couldwell have done. We made a literary pilgrimage first, but that is anotherstory, and I will only say that we had a day in Edgeworthstown and adrive through Goldsmith's country, where we saw the Deserted Village, with its mill and brook, the 'church that tops the neighbouring hill';and even rested under 'The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade For talking age and whispering lovers made. ' There are many parts of Ireland where one could not find a habitablehouse to rent, but in this locality they are numerous enough to make itpossible to choose. We had driven over perhaps twenty square miles ofcountry, with the view of selecting the most delectable spot that couldbe found, without going too far from Rosnaree. The chief trouble wasthat we always desired every dwelling that we saw. I tell you this witha view of lessening the shock when I confess that, before we came to theOld Hall where we are now settled for a month, and which was Salemina'schoice, Francesca and I took two different houses, and lived in them forseven days, each in solitary splendour, like the Prince of Coolavin. Itwas not difficult to agree upon the district, we were of one mind there:the moment that we passed the town and drove along the flowery way thatleads to Devorgilla, we knew that it was the road of destiny. The whitethorn is very late this year, and we found ourselves in thefull glory of it. It is beautiful in all its stages, from the time whenit first opens its buds, to the season when 'every spray is white withmay, and blooms the eglantine. ' There is no hint of green leaf visiblethen, and every tree is 'as white as snow of one night. ' This isthe Gaelic comparison, and the first snow seems especially white anddazzling, I suppose, when one sees it in the morning where were greenfields the night before. The sloe, which is the blackthorn, comesstill earlier and has fewer leaves. That is the tree of the old Englishsong:-- 'From the white-blossomed sloe My dear Chloe requested A sprig her fair breast to adorn. "No, by Heav'ns!" I exclaimed, "may I perish, If ever I plant in that bosom a thorn!"' And it is not only trees, but hedges and bushes and groves of hawthorn, for a white thorn bush is seldom if ever cut down here, lest a grievedand displeased fairy look up from the cloven trunk, and no Irishmancould bear to meet the reproach of her eyes. Do not imagine, however, that we are all in white, like a bride: there is the pink hawthorn, and there are pink and white horse-chestnuts laden with flowers, yellowlaburnums hanging over whitewashed farm-buildings, lilacs, and, mostwonderful of all, the blaze of the yellow gorse. There will be a thornhedge struggling with and conquering a grey stone wall; then a goldengorse bush struggling with and conquering the thorn; seeking the sun, it knows no restraints, and creeping through the barriers of green andwhite and grey, it fairly hurls its yellow splendours in great blazingpatches along the wayside. In dazzling glory, in richness of colour, there is nothing in nature that we can compare with this loveliest andcommonest of all wayside weeds. The gleaming wealth of the Klondikewould make a poor showing beside a single Irish hedgerow; one wouldthink that Mother Earth had stored in her bosom all the sunniest gleamsof bygone summers, and was now giving them back to the sun king fromwhom she borrowed them. It was at twilight when we first swam this fragrant, goldensea--twilight, and the birds were singing in every bush; the thrushesand blackbirds in the blossoming cherry and chestnut-trees were so manyand so tuneful that the chorus was sweet and strong beyond anythingI ever heard. There had been a shower or two, of course; showers thatlooked like shimmering curtains of silver gauze, and whether they liftedor fell the birds went on singing. "I did not believe such a thing possible but it is lovelier thanPettybaw, " said Francesca; and just here we came in sight of a pinkcottage cuddling on the breast of a hill. Pink the cottage was, as ifit had been hewed out of a coral branch or the heart of a salmon;pink-washed were the stone walls and posts; pink even were the chimneys;a green lattice over the front was the only leaf in the bouquet. Wallflowers grew against the pink stone walls, and there is no beautifulword in any beautiful language that can describe the effect ofthat modest, rose-hued dwelling blushing against a background ofheather-brown hills covered solidly with golden gorse bushes in fullbloom. Himself and I have always agreed to spend our anniversaries withMrs. Bobby at Comfort Cottage, in England, or at Bide-a-Wee, the 'wee, theekit hoosie' in the loaning at Pettybaw, for our little love-storywas begun in the one and carried on in the other; but this, this, Ithought instantly, must somehow be crowded into the scheme of red-letterdays. And now we suddenly discovered something at once interesting anddisconcerting--an American flag floating from a tree in the background. "The place is rented, then, " said Francesca, "to some enterprisingAmerican or some star-spangled Irishman who has succeeded in discoveringDevorgilla before us. I well understand how the shade of Columbus mustfeel whenever Amerigo Vespucci's name is mentioned!" We sent the driver off to await our pleasure, and held a consultation bythe wayside. "I shall call at any rate, " I announced; "any excuse will serve whichbrings me nearer to that adorable dwelling. I intend to be standing inthat pink doorway, with that green lattice over my head, when Himselfarrives in Devorgilla. I intend to end my days within those rosy walls, and to begin the process at the earliest possible moment. " Salemina disapproved, of course. Her method is always to stand wellin the rear, trembling beforehand lest I should do somethingunconventional; then, later on, when things romantic begin to transpire, she says delightedly, "Wasn't that clever of us?" "An American flag, " I urged, "is a proclamation; indeed, it is, in asense, an invitation; besides it is my duty to salute it in a foreignland!" "Patriotism, how many sins are practised in thy name!" said Saleminasatirically. "Can't you salute your flag from the high-road?" "Not properly, Sally dear, nor satisfactorily. So you and Francesca sitdown, timidly and respectably, under the safe shadow of the hedge, whileI call upon the blooming family in the darling, blooming house. I am anAmerican artist, lured to their door alike by devotion to my country'sflag and love of the picturesque. " And so saying I ascended the pathwith some dignity and a false show of assurance. The circumstances did not chance to be precisely what I had expected. There was a nice girl tidying the kitchen, and I found no difficultyin making friends with her. Her mother owned the cottage, and rentedit every season to a Belfast lady, who was coming in a week to takepossession, as usual. The American flag had been floating in honour ofher mother's brother, who had come over from Milwaukee to make them alittle visit, and had just left that afternoon to sail from Liverpool. The rest of the family lived, during the three summer months, in asmaller house down the road; but she herself always stayed at thecottage, to 'mind' the Belfast lady's children. When I looked at the pink floor of the kitchen and the view from thewindows, I would have given anything in the world to outbid, yes, evento obliterate the Belfast lady; but this, unfortunately, was not onlyillegal and immoral, but it was impossible. So, calling the mother infrom the stables, I succeeded, after fifteen minutes' persuasion, ingetting permission to occupy the house for one week, beginning withthe next morning, and returned in triumph to my weary constituents, whothought it an insane idea. "Of course it is, " I responded cheerfully; "that is why it is going tobe so altogether charming. Don't be envious; I will find something madfor you to do, too. One of us is always submitting to the will of themajority; now let us be as individually silly as we like for a week, and then take a long farewell of freakishness and freedom. Let the thirdvolume die in lurid splendour, since there is never to be a fourth. " "There is still Wales, " suggested Francesca. "Too small, Fanny dear, and we could never pronounce the names. Besides, what sort of adventures would be possible to three--I mean, of course, two--persons tied down by marital responsibilities and family cares?Is it the sunset or the reflection of the pink house that is shining onyour pink face, Salemina?" "I am extremely warm, " she replied haughtily. "I don't wonder; sitting on the damp grass under a hedge is sostimulating to the circulation!" observed 'young Miss Fan. ' Chapter XXVII. The three chatelaines of Devorgilla. 'Have you been at Devorgilla, Have you seen, at Devorgilla, Beauty's train trip o'er the plain, -- The lovely maids of Devorgilla?' Adapted from Edward Lysaght. The next morning the Old Hall dropped like a ripe rowan berry into ourvery laps. The landlord of the Shamrock Inn directed us thither, andwithin the hour it belonged to us for the rest of the summer. MissPeabody, inclined to be severe with me for my desertion, took upher residence at once. It had never been rented before; but MissLlewellyn-Joyce, the owner, had suddenly determined to visit her sisterin London, and was glad to find appreciative and careful tenants. Shewas taking her own maid with her, and thus only one servant remained, tobe rented with the premises, as is frequently the Irish fashion. The OldHall has not always been managed thus economically, it is easy to see, and Miss Llewellyn-Joyce speaks with the utmost candour of her poverty, as indeed the ruined Irish gentry always do. I well remember taking teawith a family in West Clare where in default of a spoon the old squirestirred his cup with the poker, a proceeding apparently so usual that henever thought of apologising for it as an oddity. The Hall has a lodge, which is a sort of miniature Round Tower, at theentrance gate, and we see nothing for it but to import a brass-buttonedboy from the nearest metropolis, where we must also send for a secondmaid. "That'll do when you get him, " objected Benella, "though boys need a lotof overseeing; but as nobody can get in or come out o' that gate withouthelp, I shall have to go to the lodge every day now, and set downthere with my sewin' from four to six in the afternoon, or whenever thecallin' hours is. When I engaged with you, it wasn't for any particularkind of work; it was to make myself useful. I've been errand-boy andcourier, golf-caddie and footman, beau, cook, land agent, and mother toyou all, and I guess I can be a lodge-keeper as well as not. " Francesca had her choice of residing either with Salemina or with me, during our week of separation, and drove in my company to RosaleenCottage, to make up her mind. While she was standing at my gate, engagedin reflection, she espied a small cabin not far away, and walked towardit on a tour of investigation. It proved to have three tiny rooms--abedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen. The rent was only two pounds amonth, it is true, but it was in all respects the most unattractive, poverty-stricken, undesirable dwelling I ever saw. It was the smallstove in the kitchen that kindled Francesca's imagination, and she madeup her mind instantly to become a householder on her own account. Itried to dissuade her; but she is as firm as the Rock of Cashel whenonce she has set her heart upon anything. "I shall be almost your next-door neighbour, Penelope, " she coaxed, "andof course you will give me Benella. She will sleep in the sitting-room, and I will do the cooking. The landlady says there is no troubleabout food. 'What to ate?' she inquired, leaning out sociably over thehalf-door. 'Sure it'll drive up to your very doore just. ' And here isthe 'wee grass, ' as she calls it, where 'yous can take your tay' underthe Japanese umbrella left by the last tenant. Think how unusual it willbe for us to live in three different houses for a week; and 'there'sluck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More. ' We shall have the advantages ofgood society, too, when we are living apart, for I foresee entertainmentafter entertainment. We will give breakfasts, luncheons, teas, anddinners to one another; and meanwhile I shall have learned all thehousewifely arts. Think, too, how much better you can paint with me outof your way!" "Does no thought of your eccentricity blight your young spirit, dear?" "Why should it when I have simply shaped my course by yours?" "But I am married, my child. " "And I'm 'going to be married, aha, Mamma!' as the song says; and whatabout Salemina, you haven't scolded her?" "She is living her very last days of single blessedness, " I rejoined;"she does not know it, but she is; and I want to give her all thefreedom possible. Very well, dear innocent, live in your wee hut, then, if you can persuade Benella to stay with you; but I think there wouldbest be no public visiting between you and those who live in RosaleenCottage and the Old Hall, as it might ruin their social position. " Benella confessed that she had not the heart to refuse Francescaanything. "She's too handsome, " she said, "and too winnin'. I s'poseshe'll cook up some dreadful messes, but I'm willin' to eat 'em, tooblige her, and perhaps it'll save her husband a few spells of dyspepsyat the start; though, as far as my experience goes, ministers'll alwayseat anything that's set before 'em, and look over their shoulders formore. " We had a heavenly week of silliness, and by dint of concealing our realrelations from the general public, I fancy we escaped harsh criticism. There is a very large percentage of lunacy anyway in Ireland, as wellas great leniency of public opinion, and I fancy there is scarcely acountry on the map in which one could be more foolish without beingfound out. Visit each other we did constantly, and candour obliges me tostate that, though each of us secretly prided herself on the perfectionof her cuisine, Miss Monroe gave the most successful afternoon tea ofall, on the 'wee grass, ' under the Japanese umbrella. How unexpectedlygood were her scones, her tea-cakes, and her cress sandwiches, and howpretty and graceful and womanly she was, all flushed with pride at ourenvy and approbation! I did a water-colour sketch of her and sent it toRonald, receiving in return a letter bubbling over with fond admirationand gratitude. She seems always in tone with the season and thelandscape, does Francesca, and she arrives at it unconsciously, too. She glances out of her window at the yellow laburnum-tree when sheis putting on her white frock, and it suggests to her all her ambertrinkets and her drooping hat with the wreath of buttercups. When shecame to my hawthorn luncheon at Rosaleen Cottage she did not make themistake of heaping pink on pink, but wore a cotton gown of palest green, with a bunch of rosy blossoms at her belt. I painted her just as shestood under the hawthorn, with its fluttering petals and singing birds, calling the picture Grainne Mael [*]: A Vision of Erinn, writing underit the verse:-- 'The thrushes seen in bushes green are singing loud-- Bid sadness go and gladness glow, --give welcome proud! The Rover comes, the Lover, whom you long bewail, O'er sunny seas, with honey breeze, to Grainne Mael. ' * Pronounced Graunia Wael, the M being modified. It is one of the endearing names given to Ireland in the Penal Times. Benella, I fancy, never had so varied a week in her life, and she wasin her element. We were obliged to hire a side-car by the day, as twoof our residences were over a mile apart; and the driver of that vehiclewas the only person, I think, who had any suspicion of our sanity. Inthe intervals of teaching Francesca cooking, and eating the resultswhile the cook herself prudently lunched or dined with her friends, Benella 'spring-cleaned' the lodge at the Old Hall, scrubbed thegateposts, mended stone walls, weeded garden beds, made bags for thebrooms and dusters and mattresses, burned coffee and camphor and otherill-smelling things in all the rooms, and devoted considerable time tosuperintending my little maid, that I might not feel neglected. We werenaturally obliged, meanwhile, to wait upon ourselves and keep our frocksin order; but as long as the Derelict was so busy and happy, andso devoted to the universal good, it would have been churlish andungrateful to complain. On leaving the Wee Hut, as Francesca had, with ostentatious modesty, named her residence, she paid her landlady two pounds, and wasdiscomfited when the exuberant and impetuous woman embraced her in aparoxysm of weeping gratitude. "I cannot understand, Penelope, why she was so disproportionatelygrateful, for I only gave her five shillings over the two pounds rent. " "Yes, dear, " I responded drily; "but you remember that the rent was forthe month, and you paid her two pounds five shillings for the week. " All the rest of that day Francesca was angelic. She brought footstoolsfor Salemina, wound wool for her, insisted upon washing my paintbrushes, read aloud to us while we were working, and offered to be theone to discharge Benella if the awful moment for that surgical operationshould ever come. Finally, just as we were about to separate for thenight, she said, with insinuating sweetness, "You won't tell Ronaldabout my mistake with the rent-money, will you, dearest and darlingestgirls?" We are now quite ready to join in all the gaieties that may ensue whenRosnaree welcomes its master and his guests. Our page in buttons at thelodge gives Benella full scope for her administrative ability, whichseems to have sprung into being since she entered our service; at least, if I except that evidence of it which she displayed in managing us whenfirst we met. She calls our page 'the Button Boy, ' and makes his lifea burden to him by taking him away from his easy duties at the gate, covering his livery with baggy overalls, and setting him to weed thegarden. It can never, in the nature of things, be made free from weedsduring our brief term of tenancy, but Benella cleverly keeps her slaveat work on the beds and the walks that are the most conspicuous tovisitors. The Old Hall used simply to be called 'Aunt David's house' bythe Welsh Joyces, and it was Aunt David herself who made the garden;she who traced the lines of the flower-beds with the ivory tip of herparasol; she who planned the quaint stone gateways and arbours andhedge seats; she who devised the interminable stretches of paths, thelabyrinthine walks, the mazes, and the hidden flower-plots. You walk onand on between high hedges, until, if you have not missed your way, youpresently find a little pansy or rose or lily garden. It is quite themost unexpected and piquant method of laying out a place I have everseen; and the only difficulty about it is that any gardener, unlesshe were possessed of unusual sense of direction, would be continuallyastray in it. The Button Boy, obeying the laws of human nature, is lostin two minutes, but requires two hours in which to find himself. Benella suspects that he prefers this wandering to and fro to the moremonotonous task of weeding, and it is no uncommon thing for her topursue the recalcitrant page through the mazes and labyrinths for anhour at a time, and perhaps lose herself in the end. Salemina and I weresitting this morning in the Peacock Walk, where two trees clipped intothe shape of long-tailed birds mount guard over the box hedge, and puttheir beaks together to form an arch. In the dim distance we could seeBenella 'bagging' the Button Boy, and, after putting the trowel and rakein his reluctant hands, tying the free end of a ball of string to hisleg, and sending him to find and weed the pansy garden. We laughed untilthe echoes rang, to see him depart, dragging his lengthening chain, or his Ariadne thread, behind him, while Benella grimly held the ball, determined that no excuses or apologies should interfere with his workon this occasion. Chapter XXVIII. Round towers and reflections. 'On Lough Neagh's banks, as the fisherman strays, When the cool, calm eve's declining. He sees the round towers of other days Beneath the waters shining. ' Thomas Moore. A Dublin car-driver told me one day that he had just taken apicnic-party to the borders of a lake, where they had had tea in atramcar which had been placed there for such purposes. Francesca and Iwere amused at the idea, but did not think of it again until we drovethrough the La Touche estate, on one of the first days after our arrivalat Devorgilla. We left Salemina at Rosnaree House with Aunt La Toucheand the children, and proceeded to explore the grounds, with the view ofdeciding on certain improvements to be made when the property passes, soto speak, into our hands. Truth to say, nature has done more for it than we could have done; andif it is a trifle overgrown and rough and rank, it could hardly bemore beautiful. At the very furthest confines of the demesne there is abrook, --large enough, indeed, to be called a river here, where they haveno Mississippi to dwarf all other streams and serve as an impossiblestandard of comparison. Tall trees droop over the calm water, and onits margins grow spearwort, opening its big yellow cups to the sunshine, meadow rue, purple and yellow loosestrife, bog bean, and sweet flag. Here and there float upon the surface the round leaves and delicatewhite blossoms of the frogbit, together with lilies, pondweeds, andwater starworts. "What an idyllic place to sit and read, or sew, or have tea!" exclaimedFrancesca. "What a place for a tram tea-house!" I added. "Do you suppose wecould manage it as a surprise to Dr. La Touche, in return for all hiskindness?" "It would cost a pretty penny, I fear, " said Francesca prudently, "though it isn't as if it were going out of the family. Now that thereis no longer any need for you to sell pictures, I suppose you coulddash off one in an hour or two that would buy a tram; and papa cabled meyesterday, you know, to draw on him freely. I used to think, wheneverhe said that, that he would marry again within the week; but I did himinjustice. A tram tea-house by the river, --wouldn't it be unique? Dolet us see what we can do about it through some of our Dublinacquaintances. " The plan proved unexpectedly easy to carry out, and not ruinouslyextravagant, either; for our friend the American consul knew theprincipal director in a tram company, and a dilapidated and discardedcar was sent to us in a few days. There were certain moments--once whenwe saw that it had not been painted for twenty years, once when thefreight bill was handed us, and again when we contracted for the removalof our gift from the station to the river-bank--when we regretted thefertility of imagination that had led us to these lengths; but whenwe finally saw the car by the water-side, there was no room left forregret. Benella said that, with the assistance of the Button Boy, shecould paint it easily herself; but we engaged an expert, who put on acoat of dark green very speedily, and we consoled the Derelict with thesuggestion that she could cover the cushions, and make the interior cosyand pretty. All this happened some little time ago. Dr. La Touche has been at homefor a fortnight, and we have had to use the greatest ingenuity to keeppeople away from that particular spot, which, fortunately for us, isa secluded one. All is ready now, however, and the following cards ofinvitation have been issued:-- The honour of your presence is requested at the Opening of the New Tea Tram On the River Bank, Rosnaree Demesne, Wednesday, June 27th, at 4 p. M. The ceremony will be performed by H. R. H. Salemina Peabody. The Bishop of Ossory in the Chair. I have just learned that a certain William Beresford was Bishop ofOssory once on a time, and I intend to personate this dignitary, cladin Dr. La Touche's cap and gown. We spend this sunny morning by theriver-bank; Francesca hemming the last of the yellow window curtains, and I making souvenir programmes for the great occasion. Salemina hadgone for the day with the Colquhouns and Dr. La Touche to lunch withsome people near Kavan and see Donaghmore Round Tower and the moat. "Is she in love with Dr. Gerald?" asked Francesca suddenly, lookingup from her work. "Was she ever in love with him? She must have been, mustn't she? I cannot and will not entertain any other conviction. " "I don't know, my dear, " I answered thoughtfully, pausing over aninitial letter I was illuminating; "but I can't imagine what we shall doif we have to tear down our sweet little romance, bit by bit, and leavethe stupid couple sitting in the ruins. They enjoy ruins far too wellalready, and it would be just like their obstinacy to go on sitting inthem. " "And they are so incredibly slow about it all, " Francesca commented. "It took me about two minutes, at Lady Baird's dinner, where I firstmet Ronald, to decide that I would marry him as soon as possible. Whena month had gone by, and he hadn't asked me, I thought, like Rosalind, that I'd as lief be wooed of a snail. " "I was not quite so expeditious as you, " I confessed, "though I believeHimself says that his feeling was instantaneous. I never cared foranything but painting before I met him, so I never chanced to suffer anyof those pangs that lovelorn maidens are said to feel when the beloveddelays his avowals: perhaps that is the reason I suffer so much now, vicariously. " "The lack of positive information makes one so impatient, " Francescawent on. "I am sure he is as fond of her as ever; but if she refusedhim when he was young and handsome, with every prospect of a brilliantcareer before him, perhaps he thinks he has even less chance now. Hewas the first to forget their romance, and the one to marry; his estateshave been wasted by his father's legal warfares, and he has been anunhappy and a disappointed man. Now he has to beg her to heal hiswounds, as it were, and to accept the care and responsibility of hischildren. " "It is very easy to see that we are not the only ones who suspect hissentiments, " I said, smiling at my thoughts. "Mrs. Colquhoun told methat she and Salemina stopped at one of the tenants' cabins, the otherday, to leave some small comforts that Dr. La Touche had sent to a sickchild. The woman thanked Salemina, and Mrs. Colquhoun heard her say, 'When a man will stop, coming in the doore, an' stoop down to give asthroke and a scratch to the pig's back, depend on it, ma'am, him that'sso friendly with a poor fellow-crathur will make ye a good husband. ' "I have given him every opportunity to confide in me, " I continued, after a pause, "but he accepts none of them; and yet I like him athousand times better now that I have seen him as the master of hisown house. He is so courtly, and, in these latter days, so genial andsunny... Salemina's life would not at first be any too easy, I fear; theaunt is very feeble, and the establishment is so neglected. I went intoDr. Gerald's study the other day to see an old print, and there was abuzz-buzz-zzzz when the butler pulled up the blinds. 'Do you mind bees, ma'am?' he asked blandly. 'There's been a swarm of them in one cornerof the ceiling for manny years, an' we don't like to disturb them. '... Benella said yesterday: 'Of course, when you three separate, I shallstay with the one that needs me most; but if Miss Peabody SHOULD settleover here anywhere, I'd like to take a scrubbing brush an' go throughthe castle, or whatever she's going to live in, with soap and sand andammonia, and make it water-sweet before she sets foot in it. '... As forthe children, however, no one could regard them as a drawback, for theyare altogether charming; not well disciplined, of course, but lovableto the last degree. Broona was planning her future life when we werewalking together yesterday. Jackeen is to be 'an engineer, by thesea, ' so it seems, and Broona is to be a farmer's wife with a tiny redbill-book like Mrs. Colquhoun's. Her little boys and girls will sell themilk, and when Jackeen has his engineering holidays he will come andeat fresh butter and scones and cream and jam at the farm, and when herchildren have their holidays they will go and play on 'Jackeen's beach. 'It is the little people I rely upon chiefly, after all. I wish you couldhave seen them cataract down the staircase to greet her this morning. Inotice that she tries to make me divert their attention when Dr. Geraldis present; for it is a bit suggestive to a widower to see his childrenpursue, hang about, and caress a lovely, unmarried lady. Broona, especially, can hardly keep away from Salemina; and she is such afascinating midget, I should think anybody would be glad to have herincluded in a marriage contract. 'You have a weeny, weeny line betweenyour eyebrows, just like my daddy's, ' she said to Salemina the otherday. 'It's such a little one, perhaps I can kiss it away; but daddy hastoo many, and they are cutted too deep. Sometimes he whispers, 'Daddy issad, Broona, ' and then I say, 'Play up, play up, and play the game!' andthat makes him smile. '" "She is a darling, " said Francesca, with the suspicion of a tear in hereye. "'Were you ever in love, Miss Fancy?' she asked me once. 'I was; itwas long, long ago before I belonged to daddy'; and another time whenI had been reading to her, she said 'I often think that when I getinto the kingdom of heaven the person I'll be gladdest to see will beMarjorie Fleming. ' Yes, the children are sure to help; they always do inwhatever circumstances they chance to be placed. Did you notice Saleminawith them at tea-time, yesterday? It was such a charming scene. Theheavy rain had kept them in, and things had gone wrong in thenursery. Salemina had glued the hair on Broona's dolly, and knit up aheart-breaking wound in her side. Then she mended the legs of all theanimals in the Noah's ark, so that they stood firm, erect, and proud;and when, to draw the children's eyes from the wet window-panes, sheproposed a story, it was pretty to see the grateful youngsters snugglein her lap and by her side. " "When does an artist ever fail to see pictures? I have loved Saleminaalways, even when she used to part her hair in the middle and wearspectacles; but that is the first time I ever wanted to paint her, withthe firelight shining on the soft, restful greys and violets of herdress, and Broona in her arms. Of course, if a woman is ever to belovely at all, it will be when she is holding a child. It is the oldestof all old pictures, and the most beautiful, I believe, in a man's eyes. "And do you notice that she and the doctor are beginning to speak morefreely of their past acquaintance?" I went on, looking up at Francesca, who had dropped her work in her interest. "It is too amusing! Every houror two it is: 'Do you remember the day we went to Bunker Hill?' or, 'Do you recall that charming Mrs. Andrews, with whom we used to dineoccasionally?' or, 'What has become of your cousin Samuel?' and, 'Isyour uncle Thomas yet living?'... The other day, at tea, she asked, 'Doyou still take three lumps, Dr. La Touche? You had always a sweet tooth, I remember. '... Then they ring the changes in this way: 'You were alwaysfond of grey, Miss Peabody. ' 'You had a great fancy for Moore, in theold days, Miss Peabody: have you outgrown him, or does the 'Anacreonticlittle chap, ' as Father Prout called him, still appeal to you?'... 'Youused to admire Boyle O'Reilly, Dr. La Touche. Would you like to seesome of his letters?'... 'Aren't these magnificent rhododendrons, Dr. La Touche, --even though they are magenta, the colour you speciallydislike?' And so on. Did you chance to look at either of them lastevening, Francesca, when I sang 'Let Erin remember the days of old'?" "No; I was thinking of something else. I don't know what there is aboutyour singing, Penny love, that always makes me think of the past anddream of the future. Which verse do you mean?" And, still painting, I hummed:-- "'On Lough Neagh's banks, as the fisherman strays, When the cool, calm eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days Beneath the waters shining. . . . . . . Thus shall memory oft, in dreams sublime, Catch a glimpse of the days that are over, And, sighing, look thro' the waves of Time, For the long-faded glories they cover. ' "That is what our two dear middle-aged lovers are constantly doingnow, --looking at the round towers of other days, as they bend overmemory's crystal pool and see them reflected there. It is because hefears that the glories are over and gone that Dr. Gerald is troubled. Some day he will realise that he need not live on reflections, and hewill seek realities. " "I hope so, " said Francesca philosophically, as she folded her work;"but sometimes these people who go mooning about, and looking throughthe waves of Time, tumble in and are drowned. " Chapter XXIX. Aunt David's garden. 'O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind, Blow through me, blow! Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind From long ago. ' John Todhunter. No one ever had a better opportunity than we, of breathing in, so faras a stranger and a foreigner may, the old Celtic atmosphere, and ofreliving the misty years of legend before the dawn of history; when 'Long, long ago, beyond the space Of twice two hundred years, In Erin old there lived a race Taller than Roman spears. ' Mr. Colquhoun is one of the best Gaelic scholars in Ireland, and Dr. Gerald, though not his equal in knowledge of the language, has 'the fullof a sack of stories' in his head. According to the Book of Leinster, aprofessional story-teller was required to know seven times fifty tales, and I believe the doctor could easily pass this test. It is not easy tomake a good translation from Irish to English, for they tell us thereare no two Aryan languages more opposed to each other in spirit andidiom. We have heard little of the marvellous old tongue until now, but we are reading it a bit under the tutelage of these two inspiringmasters, and I fancy it has helped me as much in my understanding ofIreland as my tedious and perplexing worriments over political problems. After all, how can we know anything of a nation's present or futurewithout some attempt to revivify its past? Just as, without some slenderknowledge of its former culture, we must be for ever ignorant of itsinherited powers and aptitudes. The harp that once through Tara's hallsthe soul of music shed, now indeed hangs mute on Tara's walls, but forall that its echoes still reverberate in the listening ear. When we sit together by the river brink on sunny days, or on thegreensward under the yews in our old garden, we are always tellingancient Celtic romances, and planning, even acting, new ones. Francesca's mind and mine are poorly furnished with facts of any sort;but when the kind scholars in our immediate neighbourhood furnishnecessary information and inspiration, we promptly turn it into dramaticform, and serve it up before their wondering and admiring gaze. Itis ever our habit to 'make believe' with the children; and just aswe played ballads in Scotland and plotted revels in the Glen atRowardennan, so we instinctively fall into the habit of thought andspeech that surrounds us here. This delights our grave and reverend signiors, and they give themselvesup to our whimsicalities with the most whole-hearted zeal. It is dayssince we have spoken of one another by those names which were given tous in baptism. Francesca is Finola the Festive. Eveleen Colquhoun isEthnea. I am the harper, Pearla the Melodious. Miss Peabody is Sheelathe Skilful Scribe, who keeps for posterity a record of all our antics, in the Speckled Book of Salemina. Dr. Gerald is Borba the Proud, theArd-ri or overking. Mr. Colquhoun is really called Dermod, but he wouldhave been far too modest to choose Dermot O'Dyna for his Celticname, had we not insisted; for this historic personage was not onlynoble-minded, generous, of untarnished honour, and the bravest of thebrave, but he was as handsome as he was gallant, and so much the idol ofthe ladies that he was sometimes called Dermat-na-man, or Dermot of thewomen. Of course we have a corps of shanachies, or story-tellers, gleemen, gossipreds, leeches, druids, gallowglasses, bards, ollaves, urraghts, and brehons; but the children can always be shifted from one role toanother, and Benella and the Button Boy, although they are quite unawareof the honours conferred upon them, are often alluded to in our romancesand theatrical productions. Aunt David's garden is not a half bad substitute for the old Moy-Mell, the plain of pleasure of the ancient Irish, when once you have the keyto its treasures. We have made a new and authoritative survey of itsgeographical features and compiled a list of its legendary landmarks, which, strangely enough, seem to have been absolutely unknown to MissLlewellyn-Joyce. In the very centre is the Forradh, or Place of Meeting, and on it is ourown Lia Fail, Stone of Destiny. The one in Westminster Abbey, carriedaway from Scotland by Edward I. , is thought by many scholars to beunauthentic, and we hope that ours may prove to have some historicalvalue. The only test of a Stone of Destiny, as I understand it, is thatit shall 'roar' when an Irish monarch is inaugurated; and that our LiaFail was silent when we celebrated this impressive ceremony reflectsless upon its own powers, perhaps, than upon the pedigree of our chosenArd-ri. The arbour under the mountain ash is the Fairy Palace of the QuickenTree, and on its walls is suspended the Horn of Foreknowledge, which ifany one looks on it in the morning, fasting, he will know in a momentall things that are to happen during that day. The clump of willows is the Wood of the Many Sallows (a willow-tree isfamiliarly known as a 'sally' in Ireland). Do you know Yeats's song, putto a quaint old Irish air? 'Down by the sally gardens my love and I did meet, She passed the sally gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree, But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. ' The summer-house is the Greenan; that is, grianan, a bright, sunnyplace. On the arm of a tree in the Greenan hangs something you might (ifyou are dull) mistake for a plaited garland of rushes hung with piercedpennies; but it really is our Chain of Silence, a useful articleof bygone ages, which the lord of a mansion shook when he wishedan attentive hearing, and which deserved a better fate and a longersurvival than it has met. Jackeen's Irish terrier is Bran, --thoughhe does not closely resemble the great Finn's sweet-voiced, gracefully-shaped, long-snouted hound; the coracle lying on the shore ofthe little lough--the coracle made of skin, like the old Irish boats--isthe Wave-Sweeper; and the faithful mare that we hire by the day is, byyour leave, Enbarr of the Flowing Mane. No warrior was ever killed onthe back of this famous steed, for she was as swift as the clear, coldwind of spring, travelling with equal ease and speed on land and sea, an' may the divil fly away wid me if that same's not true. We no longer find any difficulty in remembering all this nomenclature, for we are 'under gesa' to use no other. When you are put under gesa toreveal or to conceal, to defend or to avenge, it is a sort of charm orspell; also an obligation of honour. Finola is under gesa not to writeto Alba more than six times a week and twice on Sundays; Sheela is boundby the same charm to give us muffins for afternoon tea; I am vowed toforget my husband when I am relating romances, and allude to myself, fordramatic purposes, as a maiden princess, or a maiden of enchanting andall-conquering beauty. And if we fail to abide by all these laws of themodern Dedannans of Devorgilla, which are written in the Speckled Bookof Salemina, we are to pay eric-fine. These fines are collected with allpossible solemnity, and the children delight in them to such an extentthat occasionally they break the law for the joy of the penalty. If youhave ever read the Fate of the Children of Turenn, you remember thatthey were to pay to Luga the following eric-fine for the slaying oftheir father, Kian: two steeds and a chariot, seven pigs, a hound whelp, a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill. This does not at first seemexcessive, if Kian were a good father, and sincerely mourned; but whenLuga began to explain the hidden snares that lay in the pathway, it issmall wonder that the sons of Turenn felt doubt of ever being able topay it, and that when, after surmounting all the previous obstacles, they at last raised three feeble shouts on Midkena's Hill, theyimmediately gave up the ghost. The story told yesterday by Sheela the Scribe was the Magic Thread-Clue, or the Pursuit of the Gilla Dacker, Benella and the Button Boy being thechief characters; Finola's was the Voyage of the Children of Corr theSwift-Footed (the Ard-ri's pseudonym for American travellers); whilemine, to be told to-morrow, is called the Quest of the Fair Strangers, or the Fairy Quicken Tree of Devorgilla. Chapter XXX. The Quest of the Fair Strangers, or The Fairy Quicken-Tree of Devorgilla. [*] 'Before the King The bards will sing. And there recall the stories all That give renown to Ireland. ' Eighteenth Century Song. Englished by George Sigerson. * It seems probable that this tale records a real incident which took place in Aunt David's garden. Penelope has apparently listened with such attention to the old Celtic romances as told by the Ard-ri and Dermot O'Dyna that she has, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced something of their atmosphere and phraseology. The delightful surprise at the end must have been contrived by Salemina, when she, in her character of Sheela the Scribe, gazed into the Horn of Foreknowledge and learned the events that were to happen that day. --K. D. W. PEARLA'S STORY. Three maidens once dwelt in a castle in that part of the Isle of Weepingknown as the cantred of Devorgilla, Devorgilla of the Green Hill Slopes;and they were baptized according to druidical rites as Sheela theScribe, Finola the Festive, and Pearla the Melodious, though by thedwellers in that land they were called the Fair Strangers, or theChildren of Corr the Swift-Footed. This cantred of Devorgilla they acquired by paying rent and tribute tothe Wise Woman of Wales, who granted them to fish in its crystal streamsand to hunt over the green-sided hills, to roam through the woods ofyew-trees and to pluck the flowers of every hue that were laughing allover the plains. Thus were they circumstanced: Their palace of abode was never withoutthree shouts in it, --the shout of the maidens brewing tea, the shout ofthe guests drinking it, and the shout of the assembled multitude playingat their games. The same house was never without three measures, --ameasure of magic malt for raising the spirits, a measure of Attic saltfor the seasoning of tales, and a measure of poppy leaves to inducesleep when the tales were dull. And the manner of their lives was this: In the cool of the morning theygathered nuts and arbutus apples and scarlet quicken berries to takeback with them to Tir-thar-toinn, the Country beyond the Wave; for thiswas the land of their birth. When the sun was high in the east they wentforth to the chase; sometimes it was to hunt the Ard-ri, and at othersit was in pursuit of Dermot of the Bright Face. Then, after restingawhile on their couches of soft rushes, they would perform championfeats, or play on their harps, or fish in their clear-flowing streamsthat were swimming with salmon. The manner of their fishing was this: to cut a long, straightsallow-tree rod, and having fastened a hook and one of Finola's hairsupon it, to put a quicken-tree berry upon the hook, and stand onthe brink of the swift-flowing river, whence they drew out theshining-skinned, silver-sided salmon. These they would straightway broilover a little fire of birch boughs; and they needed with them no otherfood but the magical loaf made by Toma, one of their house-servants. Thewitch hag that dwelt on that hillside of Rosnaree called Fan-na-carpat, or the Slope of the Chariots, had cast a druidical spell over Toma, by which she was able to knead a loaf that would last twenty days andtwenty nights, and one mouthful of which would satisfy hunger for thatlength of time. [**] ** Fact. Not far from the mayden castle was a certain royal palace, with aglittering roof, and the name of the palace was Rosnaree. And upon thelevel green in front of the regal abode, or in the banqueting-halls, might always be seen noble companies of knights and ladies bright, --somefeasting, some playing at the chess, some giving ear to the music oftheir own harps, some continually shaking the Chain of Silence, and somelistening to the poems and tales of heroes of the olden time that weretold by the king's bards and shanachies. Now all went happily with the Fair Strangers until the crimson berrieswere ripening on the quicken-tree near the Fairy Palace. For the berriespossessed secret virtues known only to a man of the Dedannans, andlearned from him by Sheela the Scribe, who put him under gesa not toreveal the charm to any one else. Whosoever ate of the honey-sweet, scarlet-glowing fruit felt a cheerful flow of spirits, as if he hadtasted wine or mead, and whosoever ate a sufficient number of themwas almost certain to grow younger. These things were written in theSpeckled Book of Salemina, but in druidical ink, undecipherable to alleyes but those of the Scribe herself. So, wishing that none should possess the secret but themselves, the FairStrangers set the Gilla Dacker+ to watch the fruit (putting him firstunder gesa to eat none of the berries himself, since he was alreadytoo cheerful and too young to be of much service); and thus, in theirabsence, the magical tree was never left alone. +Could be freely translated as the Slothful Button Boy. Nevertheless, when Finola the Festive went forth to the chase one day, she found a quicken berry glowing like a ruby in the highroad, andSheela plucked a second from under a gnarled thorn on the Slope of theChariots, and Pearla discovered a third in the curiously-compounded, swiftly-satisfying loaf of Toma. Then the Fair Strangers became veryangry, and sent out their trusty fleet-footed couriers to scour the landfor the invaders; for they knew that none of the Dedannans would takethe berries, being under gesa not to do so. But the couriers returned, and though they were men able to trace the trail of a fox through nineglens and nine rivers, they could discover no proof of the presence of aforeign foe in the mayden cantred of Devorgilla. Then the hearts of the Fair Strangers were filled with grief and gall, for they distrusted the couriers, and having consulted the Ard-ri, theyset forth themselves to find and conquer the invader; for the king toldthem that there was one other quicken-tree, more beautiful and moremagical than that growing by the Fairy Palace, and that it was set inanother part of the bright-blooming, sweet-scented old garden, --namely, in the heart of the labyrinthine maze of the Wise Woman of Wales; but asno one of them, neither the Gilla Dacker nor those who pursued him, hadever, even with the aid of the Magic Thread-Clue, reached the heart ofthe maze, there was no knowledge among them of the second quicken-tree. The king also told Sheela the Scribe, secretly, that one of his knightshad found a money-piece and a breviary in the forest of Rosnaree; andthe silver was unlike any ever used in the country of the Dedannans, andthe breviary could belong only to a pious Gael known as Loskenn of theBare Knees. Now Sheela the Scribe, having fasted from midnight until dawn, gazedupon the Horn of Foreknowledge, and read there that it was wiser for herto remain on guard at the Fairy Palace, while her sisters explored thesecret fastnesses of the labyrinth. When Finola was apparelled to set forth upon her quest, Pearla thoughther the loveliest maiden upon the ridge of the world, and wonderedwhether she meant to conquer the invader by force of arms or by thepower of beauty. The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face, and one couldnot tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and hands were like thelime, her mouth was as red as a ripe strawberry, her foot as small andas light as another one's hand, her form smooth and slender, and herhair falling down from her head under combs of gold. ++ One could notlook at her without being 'all over in love with her, ' as Oisin said athis first meeting with Niam of the Golden Hair. And as for Pearla, therose on her cheeks was heightened by her rage against the invader, the delicate blossom of the sloe was not whiter than her neck, and herglossy chestnut ringlets fell to her waist. ++ Description of the Princess in Guleesh na Guss Dhu. Then the Gilla Dacker unleashed Bran, the keen-scented terrier hound, and put a pearl-embroidered pillion on Enbarr of the Flowing Mane, andthe two dauntless maidens leaped upon her back, each bearing a broadshield and a long polished, death-dealing spear. When Enbarr had beengiven a free rein she set out for the labyrinth, trailing the MagicThread-Clue behind her, cleaving the air with long, active strides;and if you know what the speed of a swallow is, flying across amountain-side, or the dry wind of a March day sweeping over the plains, then you can understand nothing of the swiftness of this steed of theflowing mane, acquired by the day by the maydens of Devorgilla. Many were the dangers that beset the path of these two noble championson their quest for the Fairy Quicken Tree. Here they met an enormouswhite stoat, but this was slain by the intrepid Bran, and they buriedits bleeding corse and raised a cairn over it, with the name 'Stoat'graven on it in Ogam; there a druidical fairy mist sprang up intheir path to hide the way, but they pierced it with a note of theirfar-reaching, clarion-toned voices, --an art learned in their native landbeyond the wave. Now the dog Bran, being unhungered, and refusing to eat of Toma's loaf, as all did who were ignorant of its druidical purpose, fell upon theMagic Thread-Clue and tore it in twain. This so greatly affrighted thechampions that they sounded the Dord-Fian slowly and plaintively, hopingthat the war-cry might bring Sheela to their rescue. This availingnothing, Finola was forced to slay Bran with her straight-sided, silver-shining spear; but this she felt he would not mind if he couldknow that he would share the splendid fate of the stoat, and speedilyhave a cairn raised over him, with the word 'Bran' graven upon it inOgam, --since this is the consolation offered by the victorious living toall dead Celtic heroes; and if it be a poor substitute for life, it isat least better than nothing. It was now many hours after noon, and though to the Fair Strangers itseemed they had travelled more than forty or a hundred miles, they wereapparently no nearer than ever to the heart of the labyrinth: and thisfrom the first had been the pestiferous peculiarity of that malignantlymeandering maze. So they dismounted, and tied Enbarr to the branch ofa tree, while they refreshed themselves with a mouthful of Toma's loaf;and Finola now put her thumb under her 'tooth of knowledge, ' for shewished new guidance and inspiration, and, being more than common modest, she said: "Inasmuch as we are fairer than all the other maydens in thislabyrinth, why, since we cannot find the heart of the maze, do we notentice the invaders from their hiding-place by the quicken-tree; andwhen we see from what direction they advance, fall upon and slay them;and after raising the usual cairn to their memory, and carving theirnames over it in the customary Ogam, run to the enchanted tree andgather all the berries that are left? For this is the hour when Sheelabrews the tea, and the knights and the ladies quaff it from our goldencups; and truly I am weary of this quest, and far rather would I bethere than here. " So Pearla the Melodious took her timpan, and chanted a Gaelic songthat she had learned in the country of the Dedannans; and presently around-polished, red-gleaming quicken berry dropped into her lap, andanother into Finola's, and, looking up, they saw nought save only acloud of quicken berries falling through the air one after the other. And this caused them to wonder, for it seemed like unto a snare set forthem; but Pearla said, "There is nought remaining for us but to meet thedanger. " "It is well, " replied Finola, shaking down the mantle of her ebon locks, and setting the golden combs more firmly in them; "only, if I perish, I prithee let there be no cairns or Ogams. Let me fall, as a beautyshould, face upward; and if it be but a swoon, and the invader be ahandsome prince, see that he wakens me in his own good way. " "To arms, then!" cried Pearla, and, taking up their spears and shields, the Fair Strangers dashed blindly in the direction whence the berriesfell. "To arms indeed, but to yours or ours?" called two voices from the heartof the labyrinth; and there, in an instant, the two brave champions, Finola and Pearla, found the Fairy Tree hanging thick with scarletberries, and under its branches, fit fruit indeed to raise the spiritsor bring eternal youth, were, in the language of the Dedannans, Loskennof the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory, --known to the Children ofCorr the Swift-Footed as Ronald Macdonald and Himself! And the hours ran on; and Sheela the Scribe brewed and brewed and brewedand brewed the tea at her table in the Peacock Walk, and the knights andladies quaffed it from the golden cups belonging to the Wise Woman ofWales; but Finola the Festive and Pearla the Melodious lingered in thelabyrinth with Loskenn of the Bare Knees and the Bishop of Ossory. Andthey said to one another, "Surely, if it were so great a task to findthe heart of this maze, we should be mad to stir from the spot, lest welose it again. " And Pearla murmured, "That plan were wise indeed, save that the placeseemeth all too small for so many. " Then Finola drew herself up proudly, and replied, "It is no smaller forone than for another; but come, Loskenn, let us see if haply we can loseourselves in some path of our own finding. " And this they did; and the content of them that departed was no greaterthan the content of them that were left behind, and the sun hid himselffor very shame because the brightness of their joy was so much moredazzling than the glory of his own face. And nothing more is told ofwhat befell them till they reached the threshold of the Old Hall; and itwas not the sun, but the moon, that shone upon their meeting with Sheelathe Scribe. Chapter XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen. 'When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western main, And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. ' Oliver Goldsmith. It is almost over, our Irish holiday, so full of delicious, fruitfulexperiences; of pleasures we have made and shared, and of other people'smiseries and hardships we could not relieve. Almost over! Soon we shallbe in Dublin, and then on to London to meet Francesca's father; soon bedeciding whether she will be married at the house of their friend theAmerican ambassador, or in her own country, where she has really had nohome since the death of her mother. The ceremony over, Mr. Monroe will start again for Cairo orConstantinople, Stockholm or St. Petersburg; for he is of late yearsa determined wanderer, whose fatherly affection is chiefly shownin liberal allowances, in pride of his daughter's beauty and manyconquests, in conscientious letter-writing, and in frequent callsupon her between his long journeys. It is because of these paternalpredilections that we are so glad Francesca's heart has resisted allthe shot and shell directed against it from the batteries of a dozengay worldlings and yielded so quietly and so completely to RonaldMacdonald's loyal and tender affection. At tea-time day before yesterday, Salemina suggested that Francesca andI find the heart of Aunt David's labyrinth, the which she had discoveredin a less than ten minutes' search that morning, leaving her Gaelicprimer behind her that we might bring it back as a proof of our success. You have heard in Pearla's Celtic fairy tale the outcome of this littleexpedition, and now know that Ronald Macdonald and Himself planned thejoyful surprise for us, and by means of Salemina's aid carried it outtriumphantly. Ronald crossing to Ireland from Glasgow, and Himself from Liverpool, had met in Dublin, and travelled post-haste to the Shamrock Inn inDevorgilla, where they communicated with Salemina and begged herassistance in their plot. I was looking forward to my husband's arrival within a week, but Ronaldhad said not a word of his intended visit; so that Salemina was properlynervous lest some one of us should collapse out of sheer joy at theunexpected meeting. I have been both quietly and wildly happy many times in my life, but Ithink yesterday was the most perfect day in all my chain of years. Notthat in this long separation I have been dull, or sad, or lonely. Howcould I be? Dull, with two dear, bright, sunny letters every week, letters throbbing with manly tenderness, letters breathing the sure, steadfast, protecting care that a strong man gives to the woman he haschosen. Sad, with my heart brimming over with sweet memories andsweeter prophecies, and all its tiny crevices so filled with love thatdiscontent can find no entrance there! Lonely, when the vision of thebeloved is so poignantly real in absence that his bodily presence addsonly a final touch to joy! Dull, or sad, when in these soft days ofspring and early summer I have harboured a new feeling of companionshipand oneness with Nature, a fresh joy in all her bounteous resourceand plenitude of life, a renewed sense of kinship with her mysteriousawakenings! The heavenly greenness and promise of the outer world seembut a reflection of the hopes and dreams that irradiate my own innerconsciousness. My art, dearly as I loved it, dearly as I love it still, never gaveme these strange, unspeakable joys with their delicate margin of pain. Where are my ambitions, my visions of lonely triumphs, my imperativeneed of self-expression, my ennobling glimpses of the unattainable, mycompanionship with the shadows in which an artist's life is so rich? Arethey vanished altogether? I think not; only changed in the twinklingof an eye, merged in something higher still, carried over, linked on, transformed, transmuted, by Love the alchemist, who, not content withjoys already bestowed, whispers secret promises of raptures yet to come. The green isle looked its fairest for our wanderers. Just as a womanadorns herself with all her jewels when she wishes to startle orenthrall, wishes to make a lover of a friend, so Devorgilla arrayedherself to conquer these two pairs of fresh eyes, and command theirinstant allegiance. It was a tender, silvery day, fair, mild, pensive, with light shadowsand a capricious sun. There had been a storm of rain the night before, and it was as if Nature had repented of her wildness, and soughtforgiveness by all sorts of winsome arts, insinuating invitations, softcaresses, and melting coquetries of demeanour. Broona and Jackeen had lunched with us at the Old Hall, and, inebriatedby broiled chicken, green peas, and a half holiday, flitted likefireflies through Aunt David's garden, showing all its treasures to thetwo new friends, already in high favour. Benella, it is unnecessary to say, had confided her entire past lifeto Himself after a few hours' acquaintance, while both he and Ronald, concealing in the most craven manner their original objections to thepart she proposed to play in our triangular alliance, thanked her, withtears in their eyes, for her devotion to their sovereign ladies. We had tea in the Italian garden at Rosnaree, and Dr. Gerald, arm in armwith Himself, walked between its formal flower borders, along its pathsof golden gravel, and among its spirelike cypresses and fountains, wherebalustrades and statues, yellowed and stained with age (stains whichBenella longs to scrub away), make the brilliant turf even greener bycontrast. Tea was to have been followed in due course by dinner, but we all agreedthat nothing should induce us to go indoors on such a beautiful evening;so baskets were packed, and we went in rowboats to a picnic supper onIllanroe, a wee island in Lough Beg. I can close my eyes to-day and see the picture--the lonely little lake, as blue in the sunshine as the sky above it, but in the twilight firstbrown and cool, then flushed with the sunset. The distant hills, therocks, the heather, wore tints I never saw them wear before. The singingwavelets 'spilled their crowns of white upon the beach' across the lake, and the wild-flowers in the clear shallows near us grew so close to thebrink that they threw their delicate reflections in the water, lookingup at us again framed in red-brown grasses. By and by the moon rose out of the pearl-greys and ambers in the east, bevies of black rooks flew homeward, and stillness settled over the faceof the brown lake. Darkness shut us out from Devorgilla; and though wecould still see the glimmer of the village lights, it seemed as if wewere in a little world of our own. It was useless for Salemina to deny herself to the children, for wasshe not going to leave them on the morrow? She sat under the shadow ofa thorn bush, and the two mites, tired with play, cuddled themselves byher side, unreproved. She looked tenderly, delectably feminine. The moonshone full upon her face; but there are no ugly lines to hide, for thereare no parched and arid places in her nature. Dews of sympathy, sweetspring floods of love and compassion, have kept all fresh, serene, andyoung. We had been gay, but silence fell upon us as it had fallen upon thelake. There would be only a day or two in Dublin, whither Dr. Gerald wasgoing with us, that he might have the last word and hand-clasp before wesailed away from Irish shores; and so near was the parting that we wereall, in our hearts, bidding farewell to the Emerald Isle. Good-bye, Silk of the Kine! I was saying to myself, calling the friendlyspot by one of the endearing names given her by her lovers in the sadold days. Good-bye, Little Black Rose, growing on the stern Atlanticshore! Good-bye, Rose of the World, with your jewels of emerald andamethyst, the green of your fields and the misty purple of your hills!Good-bye, Shan Van Vocht, Poor Little Old Woman! We are goingback, Himself and I, to the Oilean Ur, as you used to call our newisland--going back to the hurly-burly of affairs, to prosperity andopportunity; but we shall not forget the lovely Lady of Sorrows lookingout to the west with the pain of a thousand years in her ever youthfuleyes. Good-bye, my Dark Rosaleen, good-bye! Chapter XXXII. 'As the sunflower turns. ' 'No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look which she turned when he rose. ' Thomas Moore. Here we all are at O'Carolan's Hotel in Dublin--all but the Colquhouns, who bade us adieu at the station, and the dear children, whose tears areprobably dried by now, although they flowed freely enough at parting. Broona flung her arms tempestuously around Salemina's neck, exclaimingbetween her sobs, "Good-bye, my thousand, thousand blessings!"--anexpression so Irish that we laughed and cried in one breath at the soundof it. Here we are in the midst of life once more, though to be sure it isIrish life, which moves less dizzily than our own. We ourselves feelthoroughly at home, nor are we wholly forgotten by the public; for onbeckoning to a driver on the cab-stand to approach with his side-car, heresponded with alacrity, calling to his neighbour, "Here's me sixpennydarlin' again!" and I recognised him immediately as a man who had onceremonstrated with me eloquently on the subject of a fee, making such afire of Hibernian jokes over my sixpence that I heartily wished it hadbeen a half-sovereign. Cables and telegrams are arriving every hour, and a rich American ladywrites to Salemina, asking her if she can purchase the Book of Kellsfor her, as she wishes to give it to a favourite nephew who is abibliomaniac. I am begging the shocked Miss Peabody to explain that thevolume in question is not for sale, and to ask at the same time if hercorrespondent wishes to purchase the Lakes of Killarney or the Giant'sCauseway in its stead. Francesca, in a whirl of excitement, is buyingcobweb linens, harp brooches, creamy poplins with golden shamrocks woveninto their lustrous surfaces; and as for laces, we spend hours in theshops, when our respective squires wish us to show them the sights ofDublin. Benella is in her element, nursing Salemina, who sprained her ankle justas we were leaving Devorgilla. At the last moment our side-cars wereso crowded with passengers and packages that she accepted a seat in Dr. Gerald's carriage, and drove to the station with him. She had a few lastfarewells to say in the village, and a few modest remembrances to leavewith some of the poor old women; and I afterward learned that the drivewas not without its embarrassments. The butcher's wife said fervently, "May you long be spared to each other!" The old weaver exclaimed, "'Twould be an ojus pity to spoil two houses wid ye!" While the womanwho sells apples at the station capped all by wishing the couple "a longlife and a happy death together. " No wonder poor Salemina slipped andtwisted her ankle as she alighted from the carriage! Though walkingwithout help is still an impossibility, twenty-four hours of rubbing andbathing and bandaging have made it possible for her to limp discreetly, and we all went to St. Patrick's Cathedral together this morning. We had been in the quiet churchyard, where a soft, misty rain wasfalling on the yellow acacias and the pink hawthorns. We had stood underthe willow-tree in the deanery garden--the tree that marks the site ofthe house from which Dean Swift watched the movements of the torches inthe cathedral at the midnight burial of Stella. They are lying side byside at the foot of a column in the south side of the nave, and a brassplate in the pavement announces:-- 'Here lies Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the nameof Stella, under which she is celebrated in the writings of Dr. JonathanSwift, Dean of this Cathedral. ' Poor Stella, at rest for a century and a half beside the man who causedher such pangs of love and grief--who does not mourn her? The nave of the cathedral was dim, and empty of all sightseers save ourown group. There was a caretaker who went about in sloppy rubber shoes, scrubbing marbles and polishing brasses, and behind a high screen ortemporary partition some one was playing softly on an organ. We stood in a quiet circle by Stella's resting-place, and Dr. Gerald, who never forgets anything, apparently, was reminding us of Thackeray'sgracious and pathetic tribute:-- 'Fair and tender creature, pure and affectionate heart! Boots it to younow that the whole world loves you and deplores you? Scarce any manever thought of your grave that did not cast a flower of pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady! so lovely, so loving, so unhappy. You have had countless champions, millions of manly heartsmourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fondtradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your story, your brightmorning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweetmartyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints ofEnglish story. ' As Dr. Gerald's voice died away, the strains of 'Love's Young Dream'floated out from the distant end of the building. "The organist must be practising for a wedding, " said Francesca, verymuch alive to anything of that sort. "'Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life, '" she hummed. "Isn't it charming?" "You ought to know, " Dr. Gerald answered, looking at her affectionately, though somewhat too sadly for my taste; "but an old fellow like me musttake refuge in the days of 'milder, calmer beam, ' of which the poetspeaks. " Ronald and Himself, guide-books in hand, walked away to talk about the'Burial of Sir John Moore, ' and look for Wolfe's tablet, and I stolebehind the great screen which had been thrown up while repairs of somesort were being made or a new organ built. A young man was evidentlytaking a lesson, for the old organist was sitting on the bench besidehim, pulling out the stops, and indicating the time with his hand. Therewas to be a wedding--that was certain; for 'Love's Young Dream' wastaken off the music rack at that moment, while 'Believe me, if allthose endearing young charms' was put in its place, and the melody camesinging out to us on the vox humana stop. 'Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still. ' Francesca joined me just then, and a tear was in her eye. "Penny dear, when all is said, 'Believe me' is the dearer song of the two. Anybodycan sing, feel, live, the first, which is but a youthful dream, afterall; but the other has in it the proved fidelity of the years. The firstsong belongs to me, I know, and it is all I am fit for now; but I wantto grow toward and deserve the second. " "You are right; but while Love's Young Dream is yours and Ronald's, dear, take all the joy that it holds for you. The other song is forSalemina and Dr. Gerald, and I only hope they are realising it at thismoment--secretive, provoking creatures that they are!" The old organist left his pupil just then, and disappeared through alittle door in the rear. "Have you the Wedding March there?" I asked the pupil who had beenpractising the love-songs. "Oh yes, madam, though I am afraid I cannot do it justice, " he repliedmodestly. "Are you interested in organ music?" "I am very much interested in yours, and I am still more interested in aromance that has been dragging its weary length along for twenty years, and is trying to bring itself to a crisis just on the other side of thatscreen. You can help me precipitate it, if you only will!" Well, he was young and he was an Irishman, which is equivalent to beinga born lover, and he had been brought up on Tommy Moore and music--all ofwhich I had known from the moment I saw him, else I should not have madethe proposition. I peeped from behind the screen. Ronald and Himselfwere walking toward us; Salemina and Dr. Gerald were sitting together inone of the front pews. I beckoned to my husband. "Will you and Ronald go quietly out one of the side doors, " I asked, "take your own car, and go back to the hotel, allowing us to follow youa little later?" It takes more than one year of marriage for even the cleverest Benedictto uproot those weeds of stupidity, denseness, and non-comprehensionthat seem to grow so riotously in the mental garden of the bachelor;so, said Himself, "We came all together; why shouldn't we go home alltogether?" (So like a man! Always reasoning from analogy; always, so tospeak, 'lugging in' logic!) "Desperate situations demand desperate remedies, " I repliedmysteriously, though I hope patiently. "If you go home at once withoutany questions, you will be virtuous, and it is more than likely that youwill also be happy; and if you are not, somebody else will be. " Having seen the backs of our two cavaliers disappearing meekly into therain, I stationed Francesca at a point of vantage, and went out to myvictims in the front pew. "The others went on ahead, " I explained, with elaboratecarelessness--"they wanted to drive by Dublin Castle; and we are goingto follow as we like. For my part, I am tired, and you are looking pale, Salemina; I am sure your ankle is painful. Help her, Dr. Gerald, please;she is so proud and self-reliant that she won't even lean on any one'sarm, if she can avoid it. Take her down the middle aisle, for I've sentyour car to that door" (this was the last of a series of happy thoughtson my part). "I'll go and tell Francesca, who is flirting with theorganist. She has an appointment at the tailor's; so I will drop herthere, and join you at the hotel in a few minutes. " The refractory pair of innocent, middle-aged lovers started, arm inarm, on what I ardently hoped would be an eventful walk together. Itwas from, instead of toward the altar, to be sure, but I was certainit would finally lead them to it, notwithstanding the unusual method ofapproach. I gave Francesca the signal, and then, disappearing behind thescreen, I held her hand in a palpitation of nervous apprehension that Ihad scarcely felt when Himself first asked me to be his. The young organist, blushing to the roots of his hair, trembling withresponsibility, smiling at the humour of the thing, pulled out all thestops, and the Wedding March pealed through the cathedral, the splendidjoy and swing and triumph of it echoing through the vaulted aisles in away that positively incited one to bigamy. "We may regard the matter as settled now, " whispered Francescacomfortably. "Anybody would ask anybody else to marry him, whether hewas in love with her or not. If it weren't so beautiful and so touching, wouldn't it be amusing? Isn't the organist a darling, and doesn't heenter into the spirit of it? See him shaking with sympatheticlaughter, and yet he never lets a smile creep into the music; it is allearnestness and majesty. May I peep now and see how they are gettingon?" "Certainly not! What are you thinking of, Francesca? Our onlyjustification in this whole matter is that we are absolutely seriousabout it. We shall say good-bye to the organist, wring his handgratefully, and steal with him through the little door. Then in ahalf-hour we shall know the worst or the best; and we must rememberto send him cards and a marked copy of the newspaper containing themarriage notice. " Salemina told me all about it that night, but she never suspected theinterference of any deus ex machina save that of the traditional God ofLove, who, it seems to me, has not kept up with the requirements of theage in all respects, and leaves a good deal for us women to do nowadays. "Would that you had come up this aisle to meet me, Salemina, and thatyou were walking down again as my wife!" This was what Dr. Gerald hadsurprised her by saying, when the wedding music had finally enteredinto his soul, driving away for the moment his doubt and fear andself-distrust; and I can well believe that the hopelessness of his tonestirred her tender heart to its very depths. "What did you answer?" I asked breathlessly, on the impulse of themoment. We were talking by the light of a single candle. Salemina turned herhead a little aside, but there was a look on her face that repaid me forall my labour and anxiety, a look in which her forty years melted awayand became as twenty, a look that was the outward and visible expressionof the inward and spiritual youth that has always been hers; then shereplied simply--"I told him what is true: that my life had been one longcoming to meet him, and that I was quite ready to walk with him to theend of the world. " . . . . . . I left her to her thoughts, which I well knew were more precious than mywords, and went across the hall, where Benella was packing Francesca'slast purchases. Ordinarily one of us manages to superintend suchoperations, as the Derelict's principal aim is to make two garments gowhere only one went before. Nature in her wildest moments never abhorreda vacuum in her dominion as Miss Dusenberry resents it in a trunk. "Benella, " I said, in that mysterious whisper which one uses for suchcommunications, "Dr. La Touche has asked Miss Peabody to marry him, andshe has consented. " "It was full time!" the Derelict responded, with a deep sigh of relief, "but better late than never! Men folks are so queer, I don't hardly knowhow a merciful Providence ever came to invent 'em! Either they're sobold they'd propose to the Queen o' Sheba without mindin' it a mite, or else they're such scare-cats you 'bout have to ask 'em yourself, andthen lug 'em to the minister's afterwards--there don't seem to be nohalfway with 'em. Well, I'm glad you're all settled; it must be nice tohave folks!" It was a pathetic little phrase, and I fancied I detected a tear inher usually cheerful and decided voice. Acting on the suspicion, I saidhurriedly, "You have already had a share of Miss Monroe's 'folks' andmine offered you, and now Miss Peabody will be sure to add hers to thenumber. Your only difficulty will be to attend to them all impartially, and keep them from quarrelling as to which shall have you next. " She brightened visibly. "Yes, " she assented, without any superfluousmodesty, --squeezing as she spoke a pair of bronze slippers into thecrown of Francesca's favourite hat--"yes, that part'll be hard on allof us; but I want you to know that I belong to you this winter, any way;Miss Peabody can get along without me better'n you can. " Her glance was freighted with a kind of evasive, half-embarrassedaffection; shy, unobtrusive, respectful it was, but altogether friendlyand helpful. That the relations between us have ever quite been those of mistressand maid, I cannot affirm. We have tried to persuade ourselves that theywere at least an imitation of the proper thing, just to maintain ourself-respect while travelling in a country of monarchical institutions, but we have always tacitly understood the real situation and acceptedits piquant incongruities. So when I met Benella Dusenberry's wistful, sympathetic eye, myrepublican head, reckless of British conventions, found the maternalhollow in her spinster shoulder as I said, "Dear old Derelict! it was agood day for us when you drifted into our harbour!"