W(eZ THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS: A PILGRIMAGE THROUGH" IRELAND. THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS^ A PILGKIMAGE THKOUGH IRELAND JULIUS RODENBERG, AUTHOR OF "AN AUTUMN IN WALES." COPYRIGHT EDITION. BOS rON COLLEGE LIBRARY ChesiHUT HiLL, MASS. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. MDCCCLXI. RG8 TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS ERNEST II., reigning duke op saxe-coburg-gotha, the enlightened patron of german art and literature, this volume is (by permission) dedicated. PREFACE. In accordance with a promise I made the author during his stay in London last summer, I bring before English readers Julius Rodenberg's views about men and manners in that incomprehensible country, Ireland. My principal reason for doing so is, that although so many works have already appeared about the Land of the Saints, the majority have had the defect of being written by Englishmen ; and it is as fair to accept their verdict as it would be to judge of Italy from an Austrian point of view. Hence I considered that the statements of an unprejudiced foreigner would be ac- cepted as, at any rate, telling the truth about the present state of Ireland. Dr. Rodenberg has peculiar qualifications for the task he has voluntarily assumed : he speaks and understands English as well as most men, and he has prepared him- self for this work by a lengthened residence in London, and by a summer spent in Wales. Before proceeding to viii PREFACE. Ireland, lie made careful studies of his terrain from books and old chronicles, and, it will be seen, has con- fined his attention principally to the people, leaving the show places of Ireland to be learned from the Handbook. In arranging this volume for the press, I have care- fully avoided repetition of those legends — save when absolutely necessary — which, though new to Dr. Roden- berg's German readers, were familiar to us, while I have retained everything which spoke for and against the Irish people. The author may be accused of harsh judgment in some cases, but from the intimacy on which I stand with him, I am ready to vouch for his impartiality and truthfulness. But, in going so far, I beg to render him responsible for all his sentiments : I in no way wish to endorse them, but prefer to confine myself to the modest office of translator. Lascelles Wkaxall. The Hut, Guildford, December, 1860. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE LANDING IN DUBLIN — COLLEGE-GREEN — WILLIAM OF ORANGE — THOMAS MOORE — SACKVILLE-STREET — THE BOTANIC GARDENS — TICKELL'S HOUSE — STELLA — THE PHCENIX — THE WELLINGTON TESTIMONIAL — IRISH SIGNBOARDS — HOWTH REGATTA — THE VIL- LAGE INN— NATIONAL DANCES ... c ... 1 CHAPTER II. AN OLD ERIEND— TRINITY COLLEGE— THE LIBRARY— BRIAN BOROO'S HARP — ROSY-FINGERED PEGGY— BERLIN PANCAKES— PETTICOAT- LANE— MONSTER shops— st. Patrick's cathedral— swift's GRAVE— IRISH BEGGARS — A DRIVER'S COSTUME— THE LIBERTIES — DONNYBROOK PAIR— WINNING THE GARTERS— A BRAVE IRISH- MAN—ENGLISH VIEWS OF IRELAND— ONLY ONE HALFPENNY- SINGING AND FIGHTING— RETURN TO TRINITY— PADDY— OLIVER goldsmith's ROOM 16 CHAPTER III. WICKLOW — IRISH SCENERY — THE VILLAGE MAIDEN— THE SUGAR- LOAVES — THE DESERTED VILLAGE— THE CABIN— HEDGE SCHOOLS — THE PENAL CODE— THE DEVIL'S GLEN— THE FAIRIES — THE BEALTAINE — THE SANCTUARY — ANNAMOE— IRISH HOSPITALITY —ARRIVAL AT GLENDALOUGH 41 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE GLENDALOUGH — NEW ACQUAINTANCES — TALKING GERMAN — MILES DOYLE — THE ENGLISH WAITER— THE UPPER LAKE— THE "PIC- TURESQUE TOURIST"— THE HORSE-STEALER— ST. KEVIN'S BED — THE SEVEN CHURCHES— A PAIRY CUP — EINN-MAC-CUL — THE CA- THEDRAL— PRAY FOR DIARMAIT — THE ROUND TOWER— THE IVY CHURCH 59 CHAPTER V. good-by to glendalough — the clara valley — the hill of Finn's wives— rathdrum— potheen— the vale of avoca— the meeting of the waters— the motty-stone— irish pat- terns — wooden-bridge — a song — night scenes — a game with shillelahs —minnie — a protector — an irish row — pleasant days and happy memories 83 CHAPTER VI. THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY— THE PARADISE OF IRELAND— THE TORC- VIEW HOTEL — A PLEASANT WELCOME— THE WEATHER — AN EVEN- ING STROLL— IRISH SONGS— THADY THE DRIVER— KILLARNEY TOWN— THE IRISH CHARACTER — THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH— THE RUINS OF AGHADOE— THE CATHEDRAL— THE UNHONOURED DEAD— THE CHAMBER OF DEATH— ANTIQUE SCULPTURE— THE SICK BOY 100 CHAPTER VII. BEAUFORT-BRIDGE — OLD SALLY— KATE KEARNEY — THE GAP OF DUNLOE— THE BLACK LAKE— THE ARTILLERYMAN— A LOVELY WALK— KATHLEEN O'MORE — AN OLD FRIEND— THE KNIGHT OF DUNLOE— WAKING THE ECHOES — THE UPPER LAKE— LORD BRAN- DON'S COTTAGE— AN OLD BACHELOR—THE BOAT — THE ARBUTUS —THE LAKE ISLANDS— HAPPY JACK— THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER — AN ACCIDENT IIS CHAPTER VIII. back to torc-view— fiddler mick— the cabin— a hearty hater— jack lowney at home— the myrtle of killarney — the Dane's fort — an irish cabin— the good people— a fairy tale— druidic remains— lissyviggin wood— the fairy palace— the wet-nurse— the druidic temple—poor larry— a true-hearted girl 14:2 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER IX. PAGE THADY THE DRIVER — THE GOOD PEOPLE ON THEIR TRAVELS — THE CAVE OP DUNLOE — KILLARNEY TOWN — MR. HERBERT'S PARK — MUCKROSS ABBEY — M'CARTHY MORE — GLENA BAY — THE MU- THERIN ROE — INNISP ALLEN — THE HERMIT— ROSS ISLAND — O'DONOGHUE's CASTLE — SINKING GROUND — THE WAKE — UL- LALUH — FAREWELL TO KILLARNEY — THE PUNERAL . . . 164 CHAPTER X. MALLOW— AN IRISH PRIEST— THE NATIVE LANGUAGE — LIMERICK — ENGLISH TOWN — IRISH TOWN — STREET LIFE — LIMERICK GLOVES— POPULAR BALLADS— CAHILL AND MALONE— THE HAY- MARKET— NEWTOWN PERRY — THE CASTLE— THE CORPORAL — SARSFIELD— THE WHISKY STORE— OUR FRIENDS THE FRENCH— THE ARTICLES OF THE TREATY — IRISH BRAVERY — THE ENGLISH RECRUITING-SERGEANT— GOD SAVE THE QUEEN ! . . . 190 CHAPTER XI. THE ROYAL HOTEL— GEORGE-STREET — THE ROYAL ALBERT SALOON —THE LIMERICK PRIMA DONNA— BONNIE DUNDEE— AN IRISH SUNDAY— LIMERICK LASSES — A BRANCH-LINE— CASTLE CONNELL —THE CASTLE OF THE O'BRIENS— THE GENIUS OF IRELAND- MISS O'KEANE— THE RAPIDS— THE CHAPEL . . . ,216 CHAPTER XII. THE CONVEYANCE— FIRST CLASS— BOUND FOR THE WEST— AN IRISH BUILDER— KILLALOE— HIS EMINENCE— BRIAN BOROO — INISH KALTRA— ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY — PORTUMNA — CLONMAC- NOISE— m'dERMOTT's CHURCH— ST. KIARAN's STONE— ATHLONE — THE COMFORTS OF AN IRISH INN — THE POSTMASTER . . 230 CHAPTER Xin. ARRIVAL IN GALWAY— TRACES OF THE SPANIARDS— MIXTURE OF BLOOD— THE SPANISH PARADE— THE CLADDAGH WOMEN— A PECU- LIAR RACE— SUPERSTITIONS — LEGENDS— CLADDAGH COURTING — FUNERAL CUSTOMS— IRISH PIGS— THE GREAT BALL— THE OLD FAMILIES — MR. CARDEN — MISS O'KEANE — WILD KATHLEEN — GREEN AND ORANGE 242 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE BIANCONl's CARS — THE HOUSE-DEALERS— OUGHTERARD— CONNA- MARA CABINS — RECESS HOTEL — CLIFDEN — THE EAIR— MEN AND ANIMALS— LETTERFRACK — WILD KITTY — PETER CONNELLAN— DIAMOND HILL— DARBY THE PIPER — THE PEASANT WEDDING — QUAINT CUSTOMS— THE MARRIAGE — LOUGHY FADAGHAN— THE FIRST KISS— THE RACE FOR THE BOTTLE — THE RINCAFADA — THROWING THE STOCKING 2G3 CHAPTER XV. Joyce's land— lenane— the inn— across the killery— the boatman's song — delphi— an accident— a night in a cabin — the return— escape from pl rgatory — madame hor- tense — the sieur de framboisie — errie valley — westport — THE PORT 293 CHAPTER XVI. BELFAST— OPULENCE AND CRIME — ANDERSON-ROW — KIDNAPPERS —THE MENAGERIE— AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE— THE SUEZ CANAL — A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD— THE VILLA — THE TORN COAT — THE EMIGRANTS— FAREWELL TO IRELAND 312 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. CHAPTER L LANDING IN DUBLIN— COLLEGE-GREEN— WILLIAM OF ORANGE— THOMAS MOORE — SACKVILLE-STREET — THE BOTANIC GARDENS — TICKELL'S HOUSE— STELLA — THE PHOENIX — THE WELLINGTON TESTIMONIAL — IRISH SIGNBOARDS — HOWTH REGATTA — THE VILLAGE INN— NATIONAL DANCES. The traveller who crosses to Dublin from the rich manufacturing cities of Western England, can hardly overcome the uncomfortable sensation of a certain empti- ness, barrenness, and poverty. The Irish, it is true, are proud of their city ; and exquisitely as it is situated — on one side gently sloping down to the blue bay, which is compared to the Gulf of Naples for the picturesque shape of its shores, and the glorious colour of its waters, on the other side enclosed by the blue ranges of the Wicklow mountains — the view from a distance is truly enchanting. But so soon as the traveller begins walking through the streets, the pleasant feeling produced by the sight of what Nature has effected, disappears through the sight of Irish life and humanity. It has been the destiny of this country for nearly a thousand years, that men have opposed their darkest passions, hatred and re- B 2 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. venge, to a primitively rich and good-tempered nature. Who cannot lament that men have gained the victory \ In the main thoroughfares and squares, Anglicism has decidedly encroached upon what was naturally Irish ; they have the external aspect of English streets and squares. They are even broader and more open ; the extension of trade has not here compressed men and houses together, as is the case across the Channel, where the soil is a capital. Here the ground seems compara- tively worthless. The shop-windows are also elegantly decorated after the English type; but the men who stand to admire the vanities, look neither so kind nor so good-hu- moured as their brethren in Regent-street or Bond-street. College Green is a very handsome square, and the sight of this imposing spot redeems temporally that feeling of discomfort produced by the narrower streets. The back ground of the square is occupied by the pillared facade of the venerable and extensive Trinity College ; the other most striking building is the Bank of Ireland. Not far from the bank is the statue of William the Third 4 A sturdy wight, this Oranger ! With firm han THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. CHAPTER II. AN OLD FRIEND — TRINITY COLLEGE — THE LIBRARY— BRIAN BOROO's HARP — ROSY-FINGERED PEGGY— BERLIN PANCAKES —PETTICOAT-LANE — MONSTER SHOPS — ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL — SWIFT'S GRAVE — IRISH BEGGARS — A DRIVER'S COSTUME— THE LIBERTIES— DONNY- BROOK FAIR— WINNING THE GARTERS— A BRAVE IRISHMAN — ENGLISH VIEWS OF IRELAND— ONLY ONE HALFPENNY— SINGING AND FIGHTING — RETURN TO TRINITY — PADDY— OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S ROOM. I had one very pleasant duty to perform in Dublin. I had not yet seen a friend whom I knew to be at present in the city. Mr. Farquhar — as honest an English lad as ate roast-beef and drank old ale — had been my chum at Heidelberg, and was now in his fourteenth term at Trinity College ; for his father, a rich London merchant, had discovered that the merry under-graduates of Mag- dalene College, Cambridge, proved as great an obstacle to his son's studies, as the romantic scenery and cheap wine of Heidelberg had been. On a fine morning, then, I bent my steps to Trinity, thinking that my friend must be happy here, where the scenery is no less romantic than at Heidelberg, and the students are not a bit less jolly than those at Cambridge. On entering the college, I saw a broad, quiet, cleanly quadrangle, in the centre of which rises a stately turreted building. The long vacation had just begun, and the wide courts looked somewhat empty. To my great satis- TRINITY COLLEGE. 17 faction, however, I learned from the porter, that Mr. Farquhar had not gone " down/' but was reading hard. The whole building produced on me the effect of a fortress ; the gate was closed behind me, and thick walls separated me from the noise and streets of other mortals. Over me were vaulted arches ; before me antique build- ings shut out the view; and Trinity College has ever been a citadel — a citadel for the freedom and honour of science and investigation. In the midst of the flood of revolutions and counter-revolutions, of error, passion, and fanaticism, it has afforded a secure asylum for the silent contemplation of learned men. A rather aged person, with cunning face and a cos- tume which appeared to be his property more through chance than choice, had been hitherto lying on the ground, letting the morning sun shine on him. " Get up, Patrick !" the porter shouted, " you have slept long enough ; get up and find Mr. Farquhar." Patrick got up, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and growled, " Long enough, indeed ! Are three hours long enough ? I didn't lie down till four this morning. Long enough — oh, indeed !" Then he moved away. On his right foot he had a Wellington boot, on to the top of which the remains of a pair of brown trousers were thrust ; on the other, how- ever, he had a slipper, which must once have glistened gloriously with braid and gold thread. His coat was sky blue, but it had received many earthly stains in contests with dishes, and porter bottles, and mud. The right coat-tail had met with the most enviable fate : it had gone, never to return ; it had sundered itself from the sinful coat, and allowed a sight of that terribly ragged portion of his clothing where holes are least permissible, c 18 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. while the left tail oscillated mournfully on the other part. Patrick went off, and the porter employed the time to do honour to the stranger. He led me into the chapel, a venerable and extremely simple building, and thence to the refectory, where the solidity of the tables and chairs spoke well for the prowess of the fellows and scholars wont to assemble here to dine. The porter sought to arouse and gratify my admiration for the pulpit in one corner of the hall. u Look, sir," he said, in a voice in which I could easily read the struggle going on between the noble cicerone nature in his bosom and the less noble motives Mr. Farquhar's approach made him feel, " that is the pulpit from which grace is said ; it is formed like a wine-cup, and surrounded with vine leaves — all carved in wood, most artistically." I had stepped forward to examine the pulpit, which was really worth inspection, and he began rattling his keys, with the evident design of conducting me to the kitchen. With this man I could have made the voyage round the world in eight-and-forty hours. At this mo- ment, however, I heard a voice, and turning round, saw my friend. Our meeting was most cordial. " Come along to my rooms," he said, " and do honour to our meeting ; we will talk about Heidelberg, the Three Crowns, and the Red Boatman. Hallo, Patrick !" Patrick had laid himself down again, and covering his eyes with his hands to guard them from the malicious sport of the morning sun, seemed to have sunk once more into the sleep of the righteous. At any rate, he did not answer. " I have no time now," I implored, for I knew my friend's passion for impromptu breakfasts. " This evening. THE LIBRARY. 19 Let us employ the short morning left us in a walk through the buildings/' This decision seemed anything but pleasant to the parties concerned ; the porter retired with a face of re- signation into the shadow of the lodge, while my friend said, with a deep sigh, u Well, we will begin our march." The sigh was evidently designed for the first room we entered. It was the Examination Hall ; and many a reminiscence worth sighing at probably occurred to my friend on seeing the wooden tables, and the names which so many luckless fellows have carved on them in the agony of their hearts. The walls are adorned with por- traits of Trinity College celebrities ; the post of honour being occupied by the founder, the most gracious Queen Elizabeth. u Does she not look, in her wig and stiff collar, exactly like a disguised M.A.? I don't like women who can make Latin verses." Fortunately for my friend, scanning Latin verses is no longer a portion of our ladies toilet duties, or he would often enough be embar- rassed ! If Mr. Farquhar felt so uncomfortable in the hollow silence of the academic purgatory, he breathed the more freely when we walked out again into the sunshine and fresh air. " Thank the Lord !" he said to himself more than to me. " Where shall we go now — to the kitchen or the library ?" With such a limited choice I decided on the latter. After crossing the quadrangle, we entered a large hall, on whose walls stood marble busts on black brackets. There stood Francis Bacon, the philosopher of the ante-chamber, with curling hair, coquettish Henri Quatre beard, and triple collar ; there was the noble, God- fearing Milton ; Shakspeare, with the divinely bold and loving face ; the serious, thoughtful Burke, with his thin c2 20 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. lips and compressed mouth ; Newton, with the narrow, reverend head ; Locke, the free-thinker, with naked throat and tall brow ; and Goldsmith, with his wide fore- head. I was most attracted by Swift's bust. I stood opposite it like an old acquaintance, like a man whose sufferings we know, and whose confessions have enabled us to read his face. Swift's countenance is powerful and full, it is the adequate expression of his mind. The nose is large, the bushy brows are contracted over the eyes, and an unspoken word of sovereign pride plays round his elegant and pouting lips. There is nothing of love in this face, all in it is strength, enjoyment, arrogance. This is the face of the Doctor Swift, who terrorised the Court, the Tory Ministry, and all London, for three years ; but the face of the Dean of St. Patrick, who killed Vanessa and lost Stella, must have looked very different. From this vestibule we proceeded up-stairs to the small, though snug reading-room, and thence to the MS. department, whose shelves are rich in treasures for Irish history, art, and antiquities. Here is the valuable u book of Kells ;" here, too, are the u Brehon laws 1 or the com- mentated law-books of the old national judges of Ireland. Very curious is the way in which the old Irish preserved valuable documents : they employed quadrangular metal boxes, with covers more or less adorned : such a case was called a eumthach. Very splendid is the cumthach in which is preserved the " green sacred book," an old copy of the gospels, written by St. Dimma, about the year 620, and one of the oldest MSS. in existence. The case in which these yellow parchment leaves, with their faded pictures, have passed an existence of twelve centuries, is made of silver. On the cover is a cross, the centre BRIAN BOROO's HARP. 21 occupied by a white crystal ; the corners are adorned with blue stones in silver setting, while on the back of the case is a representation of the Crucifixion in relievo. Among many old arms, drinking-horns, and elk bones, the most interesting article to me was an ancient harp, justly regarded as extremely sacred. It belonged to the last King of Ireland, Brian Boroo, renowned in fable, who fell by a Danish hand at the battle of Clontarf in 1014. With this king the empire was rent asunder, and when his son Donogh, after killing his brother Tighe, fled to Rome, he took this harp with him among his father's regalia, and presented it to the Pope, in order to obtain absolution and a blessing from him. Harp-playing, fra- tricide, and papal absolution have ever been the sad in- cessantly recurring ingredients of Irish history. Brian Boroo' s harp rotted in the Vatican, until the Pope presented it, as a sign of his favour, to the first Earl of Clanricarde, in whose family it remained till the beginning of the last century. Thence, after changes of owners, it reached its present resting-place, where it is honoured as a national relic. You can see on this harp its eight hun- dred years of existence. The lower end has been broken off, and restored in stone ; the oak frame is decorated with quaint figures and emblems: you find the "bloody hand/* the favourite attribute of the Irish heroes ; the wolf- dog of the old Finian poetry ; trefoil and silver-work, which has grown black with age ; while on the top is the white crystal set in silver, so generally employed as a de- coration by old Irish art. There it stands, nevertheless, without sound, without chord, the oldest and only harp I saw in Ireland, for the SAveet science of sound has died out in the country which was once its sunny home. THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Tbe harp that once through Tara's halls The Lighl of music shed, Now hangs neglect ed on those walls As if that soul were dead. My friend Farquhar, who had hitherto maintained a reverential silence, became all life and eloquence again when we proceeded to the kitchen. After going down a few broad and clean steps, we entered a tall and well- lighted room, full of the most glorious savours. Before the enormous fire the chains already rolled in which the sirloins would be roasted ; while the white-nightcapped cook was softly slumbering on a stool a short distance off. u Hillo, boy F Mr. Farquhar shouted, " don't let the meat burn:' The poor fellow started up alarmed from his dream. u Where, where ?" he said, still half asleep ; but he was soon set at ease by Mr. Farquhar s laugh and the quiescent state of the chains. In the mean while all the kitchen maids gathered round my friend, with whom he, in consideration of their weighty position at the academic hearth, seemed to stand on the most collegiate footing. u Look here," he said, with a pathos, half resulting from his own enthusiasm, half from the reflexion of the quietly burning fire, 4 ' here you are in the divine singers true world ; up there we may read Homer and try to under- stand him half way, but we never get beyond the ab- stract, the idea, and the lexicon. Here below are reality, life, and truth — here you see the entire colony of the Phaeacians round you — here the broad-horned oxen — here the rosy-fingered Peggy, our brown scullery-maid, and there at the fire the spit revolves." Peggy? whose rosy fingers had just massacred a pigeon, escaped from the arms of this great interpreter of Homer, and shouted, fci Eh, Mr. Farquhar, what a good humour ye re in T That he was ; surrounded by kitchen hussars, he stood BERLIN PANCAKES. 23 like a general before action, and his eye rolled, in the consciousness of victory, from the beef to the mutton. " Do your best to-day/' he then said to the assembled Phseacians of Trinity College, 66 here is an esteemed guest from foreign parts, and Erin-go-bragh !" With these words he dragged me from the roast-meat atmosphere back to the golden freshness of a summer morning ; and I had work in defending myself against the symposium he • proposed on the spot : " What," he said, in a tone of annoyance, " you wish to disgrace me by not being my hall guest this afternoon ? Reflect that you are now in the country celebrated for hospitality, and what a disgrace it would be to me if people learned that a German student were here and had not dined with me." When I at length convinced him that the time I could devote to Dublin was too limited for such indulgence, he walked for a while silently behind me, till he all at once seized my arm, and said, " Stop ! I have an idea." We crossed Carlyle Bridge and entered Sackville-street. He led me into a very pleasant confec- tioner's shop, and very pleasant bright-eyed girls wel- comed my friend as he whispered something significant to one of them. Before long she came to us, placing before each a plate, on which lay — a Berlin pancake. " What do you say to that ?" asked my friend, and his face glistened as it had done before the college fire. " I am dumb," was my reply. " And what would Madame Thiele, of the Goldene Kette, in Heidelberg, say if " The rest was lost in the mouthful my friend took. " From you, however, I hope and expect," he continued, when able to draw breath again, " that on your return home you will proclaim it from the house-tops, ' It was Mr. Farquhar 24 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. who introduced Berlin pancakes into the Emerald Isle.' " Which duty of gratitude I here perform in behoof of all my travelling successors in the Green Island. We left the shop in a far more consolatory temper, and walked along through Dublin street life. In those parts of the city which are not primevally old you can see that they were colonised from London during a certain period : there are a Temple-bar, a Fleet-street, a Drury- lane, and King William-street, just as in London, though they are not so grand or so populated. There is, too, a Petticoat-lane here ; but I must confess that the Petti- coat-lane in London looks like a poor counterfeit of its fellow in Dublin. The former must be only a colony, populated and enlivened from Ireland, the home of rags and pedlars. I will not assert that the Dublin rags are much cleaner and more pleasant than those of London ; but there are, so to speak, more idealised rags. The former are prosaic, disgusting, shudder-arousing rags : stockings torn from the feet of a corpse found in the Thames mud — a handkerchief and cap a drunken fellow lost in the dark arches of the Adelphi — faded silk skirts in which a heroine of the Argjfle, who died in the spital, was once arrayed. There are no silk skirts in the Dublin Petticoat-lane. The Irish people does not know the vice which lives in silk till it dies one day, half naked, in the gutter, or, as a penitent sinner, enters the comfortable cells and shaded gardens of the St. James's Refuge. The rags of Dublin are of another quality. This frieze jacket, which, seen by daylight, is rather a hole than a jacket, an old beggar-woman from Finglas wore till her death, and her heirs sold it to the old clo'man for a penny ; but the old beggar-woman from Finglas was a celebrated. B08TON COULEGE LSBB ARY CHESTNUT HILt, MA$&; PETTICOAT-LANE. 25 thaumaturge, who cured goats and children with equal infallibility, and of whom it was whispered that she was on intimate terms with the fairies that live under Howth cromlech. These boots — not worth twopence — were once worn by a peasant from Antrim, a descendant of the princely O'Neills. The legs were torn by the thorns under which the rebels of Dundrum concealed them- selves, and the soles were left behind in the bogs where the last Gallowglasses bled to death. And then the pedlar himself — he does not look as if ashamed of his shop. He stands with the conscio sness of a noble deed under his rags fluttering in the morning breeze. Ire- land's castles and abbeys lie in ruins, Ireland's crown is eaten away by rust and dirt, Ireland's royal cloak, Ire- land's banners are torn in a thousand flitters, and he deals in the rags, the mouldiness, and the rust. He carries Ireland's relics to market — in his sense he is also a martyr. And when the breeze slightly raises the moth-eaten uniforms and reddish-brown boots over his signboard, you read his name, and see that he is an O'Donnell ; and who can forbid you regarding this prince of rags for a moment with sorrow? I do not think I exaggerate when I say that I passed through twenty such streets, which, narrow as they were, were hung from top to bottom with old clothes. I especially remember that boots of every variety, colour, and form were suspended along with shirts and clothes from poles in the garret windows, and thus formed the strangest canopy beneath whose shadow men ever walked. After nearly an hour's stroll through this world of rags, which began to lose its romance from its want of termination, I reached again broader and cleaner streets^ where I was suddenly pulled up by another appearance, 26 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. as peculiar to the capital of Ireland as tlie rag-market. I allude to the monster shops, occupying half a street, and which in their internal arrangements have no parallel even in London. Ten or twelve enormous show-win- dows, often of the height of two stories, look on the street, and present to the passer-by objects which stand in no connexion, and are never found elsewhere in such con- junction. The first window makes you believe you are standing in front of an upholsterer's. In the midst of pretty paper-hangings, a velvet sofa and easy-chair stretch out their well-stuffed arms to the weary wan- derer outside, while a silk-covered four-poster in the background and a softly rocking cradle offer the prospect of a happy family life. The second window, however, leads you into other regions, for the whole art of shoe- making — from the Lilliputian child's shoe and the dancing- slipper to the hard-soled, knee-protecting hunting-boot — is represented, in order to show you what a long and weaiy road you must travel ere the greatly desired prize floats over your head — namely, that dainty lady's slipper. The following seven windows resemble the seven paradises of the old Irish myths, for all the latter promise the heroes, the former are prepared to bestow on the ladies : beauty, the magic of love, eternal youth, purity of mind and body, incessant delight and celestial peace, in golden beakers, ball-dresses, girdles and veils, patchouli and Jockey Club, soap and freckle water, nets and Parisian bonnets, silver-plated teapots, and corner dishes of Bri- tannia metal. The other three windows contain in a motley row all that is otherwise useful and agreeable for life : papier-mache tables, polished fire shovels, and straw brooms. In short, Schiller's " Song of the Bell" cannot more perfectly illustrate the changing wants, joys MONSTER SHOPS. 27 and sorrows of human life, than the twelve show- windows of a Dublin monster shop do, for — not to forget the effec- tive conclusion — the last window was draped in black, and black ribbons, black caps, black clothes, and black gloves announced that care was taken for the last event in which human short-comings can place us. There are some six of these monster shops in Dublin, and the period of their first establishment dates shortly after the great famine of 1847, so that the original plan appears to have been to collect the largest amount of workmen and capital, in order to do away with competition, and secure constant w T ork and good wages. In one of these shops I inspected, in addition to those working out of doors, there were more than four hundred persons em- ployed, among them thirty milliners, exclusively engaged in making alterations, and so on. The public seemed to patronise these shops ; long rows of carriages w^ere at the doors, and the crowd, composed of all classes of society and in all imaginable costumes, passing from one shop to the other amid the most varying objects, was so at- tractive and picturesque, that the character of Dublin street life seemed for a moment cheerful. And in this temper my friend left me for a while that I might visit St. Patrick's Cathedral, while he revelled in the fleshpots of Trinity College. I enjoyed this mo- ment of solitude doubly, because a longing, rather than curiosity, drew me to the cathedral. The church and the deanery were the spots in which Swift, after his last star had set with Stella, spent the remainder of his life in solitude, in that deep night, which at length mer- cifully veiled for ever this tortured mind. In the nave between the broad arches, which rest on massive pillars, hang the arms of the deceased Knights of 28 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. St. Patrick, on the monotonous background of the whitewashed walls; and under the stones on which I stood, rests a man who may also be called a Knight of St. Patrick, Jonathan Swift, and by his side Hesther Johnson, dust to dust. Well, peace be with their ashes ! Banners and weapons do not hang over the resting-place of these poor martyrs of love and life : behind the second pillar you see a white slab, surrounded by reeds and olive branches ; and at the top where they meet, a ghastly, gibbering death's-head. The design was Swift's, and the inscription was composed by him. On leaving the church, I proceeded to the graveyard. I stood on one of the tombstones in the tall grass, and looked over the wall at the square gloomy house, with the wide closed windows, in which Swift lived, suf- fered, and died, with his eye on the cathedral and the graves. When I returned to my car, I found a crowd of idlers, children and old women, assembled, who looked to me like beggars, though my driver had not the air of a man who had much to bestow in charity, for his dress was of the strangest form and colour, and the only thing that produced any affinity in this want of continuity was that it was entirely composed of rags and tatters. To a tail- coat, which had once been green, a right arm, once brown, was attached, but not so firmly as not to let a ray of shirt peer through, while the nudity of the elbow proved that the indispensable garment did not reach so far down. The left sleeve had once belonged to a great coat, and though the garment bore a likeness upwards to a tail-coat, at the lower part it was lost in fragments of most fantastic outline. And so it went on — the right boot was not a match with the left, and they bore a striking resemblance IRISH BEGGARS. 29 to that memorable pair, consisting of a dancing-slipper and a Wellington, which the Boots of the Golden Lamb, at Vienna, brought the impatient traveller, saying : " Look ye, gracious sir, there is something queer to-day, for there is just such another pair down there." When I drew nearer, I found my driver engaged in a violent war of words with the crowd of beggars. He was evidently striving to drive them away, so that I might not be incommoded. But his philanthropic exer- tions were badly requited. At a distance I could see an old crone, who stepped forward with upraised crutch, shrieking : " Nothing will be left of you, but the delight of the poor, when you are swept off the earth." The driver had just raised his brown sleeve and his whip to thank the old woman for her salute, when I walked up, and the state of siege was at once converted into the happiest peace. a Fine weather to-day, sir, God be thanked !" all cried, and collected round me. One of the old women hobbled up and said : " Give me a trifle, yer honour, that the young ladies may love you ?" Then came another, and said : " Your honour will be pleased to give me a penny for a glass of whisky ?" But my honour was pleased to remark that I intended to give no- thing for whisky, whereupon she continued : " Then give me something for the love of God ?" And when the woman with the crutch, my driver's friend, came up and received her penny, she raised her hands as if to bless me, and said, with much pathos : " May those soft, brown, good eyes, never see anything to trouble them." Nothing so pleasant had ever been wished my eyes before ; and I must confess that, in a country where the language of daily life, where every salute, every thanks- giving, eveiy curse, is, in its way, a poem, and even begging 30 THE ISLAND OF TOE SAINTS. is carried on in a poetic form, it is a melancholy pleasure to give so long as the scanty pence last out, for, unfortu- nately, there is no end of begging, in and out of Dublin. My driver, however, whom all this seemed to insult in his heart's core, gave his horse the blow he designed for the cursing beggar, and with a contemptuous glance at her he drove off, while the blessings of the crowd followed me for a while. He took me to a sorrowful portion of the city, what are called the u Liberties," whose former, and still partially visible, splendour, forms a most pitiable contrast with the state in which the denizens now are. Formerly in the enjoyment of numerous privileges and liberties, this high-lying district contained a population of about forty thousand souls, who made a good living by the manufacture of silk and wool, introduced here by the French Protestants, who fled their country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Rich merchants from London soon joined them, and, ere long, all who were rich and respected in Dublin lived in these streets. Three thousand four hundred looms for wool, twelve hundred for silk, were in activity, till the French revolution of 1791 gave this prosperous manufacture the first blow, the Irish revolution of '98 the last. Since then the looms have stood still ; since then the rich have retired to the low land round the sea, and the fine stone houses they inhabited are decaying. The walls have been broken down, the roofs have sunk in, and boards, instead of windows, hang in the stone frames ; piles of dust have collected before the houses, and muddy water stands in the rotting doorways. In these holes the most wretched and pitiable labourers imaginable live ; they often lie by hundreds together on the bare ground ; and often, too, the rag-festooned mob used to descend to THE LIBERTY PEOPLE. 31 the city. With the wildness of hunger in their eyes, with their pale faces, and dirty hair, they resembled a foreign horde. But the shopkeeper of Sackville-street knew them, and did not feel comfortable when he saw the mob thronging madly past. u Those are people from the Li- berties," he said, as he put up his shutters ; for when the Liberty men came, there was riot, tumult, and confusion. Fortunately these have become rarer and rarer, and since Victoria has reigned, have entirely disappeared. Thus evening came on, and if the air had before benefited me by its purity and mildness, it now became truly reviving ; for simultaneously with sunset comes the fresh sea breeze, and an immediate coolness fills the streets and houses, even after the hottest summer days. I had scarce returned to my hotel ere Mr. Farquhar arrived with two friends, one of whom, a pleasant lad, with attractive features, was a descendant of the great Addison. " We must not lose any time," Mr. Farquhar said, who had appointed himself master of the revels ; " this is the last day of Donnybrook Fair, and it would be unpar- donable did we not allow our German friend to see the Irish rogue in all his glory." We jumped on a car and drove off in the best spirits. We passed through long streets that seemed deserted, for all were going out into the country. Only the maid- servants, apparently left at home to keep house, looked out of the open windows, and kissed their hands to the passers-by. So soon as we reached the high road, matters grew very amusing. Vehicle rolled after ve- hicle, horses trotted along, all veiled in a tremendous dust-cloud, whose end was not visible, but which the setting sun, with its blood-red hue, invested with the THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. strangest colours and forms. All seemed swimming, rather than walking, in a stream of lava ; all appeared to be raised from the earth and soaring in a fairy-like cloud. But, " deeply rooted in the ground," two con- stables stood opposite each other at every ten paces, who reminded us that our excursion might have its earthly termination. The further we went the more romantic grew the crowd, the wilder the confusion and the more insane our driver ; but, at the same time, the number of armed men on both sides the way in- creased. When we at length stopped, and descending from our cloud and our car, entered Donnybrook, drunkards of both sexes were reeling about and striving to be pleasant to the new arrivals in their fashion. The houses of the village were lit up, and fun was going on galore. On the ground floor there was drinking, sing- ing, kissing, and love-making, cursing, and fighting ; while in the upper floor dancing went on. In and before these places the number of constables and soldiers was remarkable. At the end of the villa o-e is a walled-in and spacious grass-plot ; that is the real spot for the most renowned, or rather most notorious, of all popular jollity in Ireland, Donnybrook Fair, which has been held here since days of yore in the last days of August. Here took place the most sanguinary fights, the most obstinate rows, the most accidental homicides in Ireland — ay, in the United Kingdom. Hence, the government tried long ago to put a stop to it. It was supposed that the privi- lege of holding the fair was connected with the ground behind the wall, so it was bought up, and the gates were locked. But a popular lawyer proved that the privilege was not connected with the soil, and the government was compelled to open the gates again, and the scandal was ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR. 33 renewed, and continues to this day. English red-coats with shouldered and loaded muskets, patrol on the fair- ground ; mounted constabulary are posted in front of the walls, and the entire road, more than three miles long, leading to Dublin, is on both sides more thickly covered with policemen than houses. When we walked through the narrow gateway on to the trampled grass plot, we were speedily surrounded by an indescribable throng of men, women, children, sounds, and smells ; and a thousand twinkling lights greeted us through the gloaming. A donkey was tied up to the wall, in whose shadow three old women lay, smoking in silent happiness their short dirty pipes. Then we forced our way into a long street of tents, in which porcelain and glass wares of the commonest description, glistening splendidly in the glare of the smoky lamps, were eagerly surveyed, and more eagerly purchased by the gaping crowd. Between the stalls were gambling-tables, round which a dense mob was collected to enjoy the glorious sight. The game was played on a table, surrounded by all sorts of pedlar's wares, the best perhaps not worth a penny. In the middle of the painted table was a hand, which the owner of the establishment turned so soon as the stakes were put down. The number to which it pointed when it stopped, gained. Unfortunately it so happened that the hand never pointed to the numbers in which pence were staked, for the boy throned on an up- lifted chest high above the variations of his gambling- table, not only set the hand in motion, but managed to stop it at the right moment. After which he collected the halfpence, and then threw them in a bag he wore round his waist. As we felt inclined to tempt Dame Fortune at Donny- D 34 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. brook, we offered to put down a trifling stake, on condition that the owner promised to keep his hand quiet. The boy evidenced a hard struggle between avarice and self-denial, but he ended it more quickly than usually happens in the events of human life. We staked and twirled the hand ; when it made its last revolutions we saw what restraint our good banker put on himself not to give it a quiet shove, but it was too late, the hand had stopped, and Mr. Farquhar had won a pair of garters of red cloth and blue beads. As he swung them over his head, and shouted, " Who will have them T a band of women and girls flocked round him, striving for the garters with the most endearing expressions. But the rivalry grew momen- tarily greater : for others now came up from adjoining tables, where an army of thirsty apprentices and dirty street-sweepers were drinking from an effervescing ma- chine a beverage which, to heighten its natural charms, was dyed red with a drop of what was called raspberry- vinegar : u My good, handsome, sir ! w — " Young noble, sir!" — "No, I!" — "My darling gentleman!" — "No, I, your honour I n Not one of them, however, was more eager than a deliriously pretty girl, not more than seven- teen. She was a sort of wild beauty, who was probably born and brought up in a ditch, for she was as lovely and fiery as she was dirty and ragged. She worked her way through the crowd, raising her arms, which over the dark hair of the surrounders looked full and dainty in the coming gloom. As she stood thus before us, all glowing with eagerness and exertion, her cheeks dark red, her black eyes full of passion, her long hair hanging over her neck, Farquhar said to her, " But, my dear child, what do you want with garters ? why, }~ou haven't any stockings on ! 99 AN IRISH BEAUTY. 85 u Oh, my dear sir/' the girl stammered, in short sentences, her bosom heaving audibly, u on Sunday — when I — go to church — I wear — shoes and stock- ings." u But the price is a kiss, my darling," said Farquhar, again waving the red garters with the blue beads. The poor child was plainly in the deepest embarrassment — she looked down, then turned, and seemed asking her friends' advice. The latter giggled, whispered, and at length pushed her forward by nudging her in the side. F arquhar took advantage of the moment and printed on the lips of the wild, lovely being, a kiss so loud that it could be heard above the droning of the distant pipes, and all the buzzing around us. Just as he was handing the beauty the garters, a powerful young fellow emerged from another group, which had been shooting arrows for a prize of a pint or half-pint of bitter beer, according to the stake ; he must have been very lucky, for he had drunk many a pint and half -pint, and could scarce stand on his legs, which did not prevent him, however, cursing and yelling. u Death and the devil ! " he shouted, " who kissed my Nelly ? " With that he threw his bow on the ground, seized a shillelah, the national staff of the Irish, from a bystander, and swung it over his head. u I say, who kissed my Nelly?" he yelled again, striking the ground with his stick, so that the dust flew up. I felt alarmed when I saw the madman staggering towards Nelly ; he seized the poor child by the arm so violently that she screamed, and he shouted, "Who kissed you?" He represented my ideal of a backwoods savage. My friends, however, were better acquainted with this sort of Irish wildness than I was. " How do you dare, you drunken scoundrel," Farquhar 30 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. thundered at him, 66 to make such a row here ? What do you~want ? Out with it ! " The Irish hero was silent for a moment, then he said, but so gently that it was hardly audible, u I'll kill you — you and that Englishman." His comrades, to whom this last political allusion appeared to be dangerous, sur- rounded him, caught hold of his legs and amis, and tried to drag him away. When he felt himself thus in safety, and spared any aggressive movement, his courage grew again, and spasmodically brandishing his shillelah, he shouted, " Who kissed my Nelly ? Show me the villain, the Englishman, and I will kill him before you all." In the mean while the police had come up, the mob dispersed, and we could go on. u There you have," Farquhar remarked, " the prototype of this nation : ruffians and boasters, so long as they know they are safe, wretched cowards and runaways, when matters grow serious. And so they all are." " Don't forget," another of our party said, eagerly, u that oiu* worthy Farquhar is an Englishman, and gained his whole knowledge of the Irish from the Times leaders ; and if there is a paper whose Irish politics seem to con- sist in maliciously fostering the ill-will between both nations, it is the Times ; it has had opportunities at im- portant moments to work in a conciliating spirit, but it only employed them to render the hatred greater. I know the Irish people, I am an Irishman by birth, and feel proud of being able to say it. If the Irish are no longer the chivalrous people they were, the fault is with the English, who rendered them what they now are. It is not right to make a nation responsible for that which it has become through the crime or fault of another." " Bravo ! my dear O'Keane ; no new dispute, though, THE TRAGEDY. 37 on our old theme/' Farquhar said, good humouredly, as he threw his arm round his shorter, dark-haired friend- The latter slowly liberated himself, and followed us silently for some distance. The rear of this nocturnal scene was occupied by shows, lit up with gigantic pitch torches ; the massacre of Cawnpore, a monkey and a dog theatre, and a human theatre which was not much better. Among the actors was the piper from Howth, in his Highland garb, and he must have been a great favourite of the populace, for in the midst of his musical employment, some one would every moment come up to kiss and hug him, which did not improve his melody. The admission was one halfpenny ; we felt tempted to witness the per- formance so highly and hoarsely belauded by the gaily bedizened actors, and went into the fog-laden, evil-smel- ling booth. The benches were occupied by ragged men, women, and children, who played us all sorts of tricks ; as we tried to squeeze our way to the front, at one moment we felt ourselves held by the coat, then another took our hat or stick, and we were glad to emerge from these perils by our pleasant demeanour. In the corner close to the stage sat an aged crone selling green apples and gingerbread as hard as stones, and puffiing the smoke from her glimmering pipe on to the stage ; the heroes and heroines were conversing most affably with the audience, and the Ghost, who had hitherto been standing outside, forced his way through the mob with his elbows, disap- peared behind the curtain, and the next moment arose from the grave, his lighted pipe still visible in his waist- coat-pocket. The piece had its regular five acts; for- tunately none lasted more than three minutes, and after the termination of the tragedy the tyrant and his daugh- ter, the nun who became a princess, the crafty evil 38 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. councillor, and the genial lover descended from the stage, and proceeded in solemn procession to the front, where they danced to the bagpipes an eight-handed reel, which was less national and characteristic than the jig. We joined the exodus, and thus managed to reach the open air. On walking out, we were strangely affected by the bril- liancy of the lights and the full lustre of the moon, while the fresh night-breeze seemed to give us new spirits, after emerging from the pestiferous hole in which the Irish people were so delighted. We went to the dancing-booths, where, to the sound of a fiddle or bagpipes, and by the light of an oil-lamp, all seemed very merry. The floor consisted of a square board laid on the grass ; and while the two or three dancers performed on this, the musician walked round it. At a table in the back sat half a dozen drunken topers singing with hoarse throats the u Sprig of Shfllelafe* In the mean while a singer had entered, who accom- panied his ditty on the fiddle. His song was of a more melancholy sort, and seemed greatly to please the as- sembled mob : for the whole party joined in chorus at the affecting passages. The song was of true home-breed, and grew out of the soil on which we were standing at the moment. It celebrated the former glories of Donny- brook Fair, and lamented its present decadence. Scarce had the last mournful u Ullulala, och ! " died away, ere a terrible yelling was heard from an adjoining tent. As was immediately proved, a drunken fellow there had drawn his knife on a comrade who was in no better state, and the hands of those who tried to separate them were already stained with blood, when a patrol of soldiers marched up to arrest the culprit, who had behaved too nobly for Donnybrook Fair of the present day. The RETURN TO TRINITY. 39 old woman and the mob, who had just been so enthu- siastic over the song, muttered a little about bad times and English tyranny, but in a very low voice ; and Mr. Farquhar, who noticed, among the excited people, Nelly with the garters and her gallant with the shillelah, re- commended a start. He said that the hour had arrived when the innocent might suffer for the guilty, and al- though the German public were wont to ask a great deal from their authors, they could hardly expect they would let themselves be thrashed for their greater amusement ; and as we had no objection to offer, we jumped on to the first car, and returned to Dublin through the long dusk-cloud which the moon now lit up. When we stopped at the gateway of Trinity we found it closed. After some hammering, Paddy made his ap- pearance, half asleep. " What, at it again ?" Farquhar called to him. " This man's life is made up of drinking and sleeping." u And yer honour takes care there is a great deal more of one than the other," was the laconic reply. In the mean while we had entered the quadrangle ; the moon illumined Paddy's pleasant face. u Look at this individual," my friend said ; 64 on what he lives, only the gods know, who often have the elevating spectacle of seeing him fighting with our dogs for the bones Peggy throws away. His couch is that covered corner under the gateway, his pillow is a calm conscience, and his blan- ket, according to the hour, sun or moonshine. He settled here as a free genius, and his disposition makes him a servant. If Dickens knew him, he would hail him as own brother of Boots at the Holly-tree Inn ; and if the boot- ee leaners of Heidelberg were aware of his existence, they would elect him an honorary member of their guild." 40 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. "Mr. Farquhar is very extravagant with his praise ; I wish he was so too with his sixpences," Paddy said, most dryly, as he lit the candle awaiting us on a bench. We then proceeded to the rooms of the gentleman I have introduced to my reader as a descendant of the great Addison. The portrait of his ancestor hung in a gilded frame over his work-table ; but the room in which we were was in all respects celebrated. Oliver Goldsmith, the most good tempered, the truest hearted, in a certain sense the noblest of English humorists, had slept in it about a hundred years ago. Not so long ago, a frame was pointed out in this room — the hail or a careless student has broken it — on which Oliver Goldsmith cut his name with a diamond ring. Addison and Goldsmith were the Penates of that eve- ning, and the wanderer, in the protection of such spirits, and in the midst of such friends, felt most comfortable, and looked to the future with a certain sense of delight. Paddy quickly spread the board, and the red flame of the iuti diffused a homely light over the scene. It was late when we parted. My friends accompanied me to the gateway, with a thousand wishes for my welfare. There lay a shapeless rolled-up mass, which threw a heavy shadow into the moonlight. It was Paddy, who had retired to his usual sleeping-place. W1CKL0W 41 CHAPTER HI. WICKLOW— IRISH SCENERY— THE TILLAGE MAIDEN— THE SUGAR-LOAVES — THE DESERTED VILLAGE — THE CABIN — HEDGE SCHOOLS — THE PENAL CODE— THE DEVIL'S GLEN — THE FAERIES — THE BEALTAINE — THE SANCTUARY — ANNAMOE — IRISH HOSPITALITY — ARRIVAL AT GLENDALOUGH. Dublin was quiet as I left it, the atmosphere was most delicious and pure, and the solitary wanderer was soon to feel its regenerating; effect. For the train had scarcely moved out of the wooden station, ere the Wicklow mountains rose to the right ; green mounds en- livened the foreground, while pleasant undulating hills faded away like blue clouds on the horizon. To the left far below us heaved the green sea of Ireland, and sun- shine was woven in the crisped curls of the waves. Towns and villages, peacefully emerging on the land side, were not absent. The pleasant little town of Bray, with its Gothic house, next appeared under umbrageous trees, in an inlet under the hills. Not without reason is it called Bray the Splendid, for splendid, indeed, is the view hence of land and sea. My destination was Wicklow, about two hours' ride from Dublin. It is vers' favourably situated behind a belt of rocks, which form an excellent natural harbour. A 42 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. river fit for inland navigation runs into it ; but despite these various advantages a deadly silence reigns in the port. A few small vessels and rafts certainly lay there ; but they rather heightened the melancholy inactivity than dispelled it. An old bridge with grey arches leads over the river, and the city runs up the side of a sloping hill, the top of which is crowned by the cathedral with its neatly-shaped tower. After a substantial breakfast, I put on my knapsack and started cheerily for the mountains. My road ran through a thick alley of beeches. A sacred shade spread out above me, while on both sides lay fertile land with ploughed fields and meadows. County Wicklow is, in- deed, the garden of Ireland ; and forests still stand here in their old splendour. All over the rest of Ireland, once so gloriously overshadowed by reverend clumps, they have disappeared, and naked, smooth-shorn hill-tops, which at present only soothe the eye by their picturesque forms and grouping, close in the horizon with their near or remote ranges. A few neat villages, which stood isolated, but partly on the verge of the forest, had been actively traversed ; many a single house, standing out sharply from the dark back- ground with the fuchsia bushes that adorned its walls ; many a quiet farm on a stream, had caused me to delay by the way. The road had imperceptibly risen, and I had attained a higher region. A gloomy pine-wood in- dicated the cessation of the forest ; it stood there like a lost advanced post, and frowned upon an arid plain, stretching as far as eye could reach. All now changed : what had become of my lovely fairyland? where was my beautiful forest in the fulness of its glory ? The heath lay there, solitary and monotonous, in the homing sun- A MID-DAY HALT. 43 shine ; the surrounding mountains had assumed a bluish- red tinge. The nearer I drew to them the more naked they appeared. Only at a few spots had a fragment of wood saved its life, either at the foot, the centre, or the brow ; all the rest looked bare and wretched. And the forms of those mountains are so soft, so varying, so me- lodious ! but they grow solitary as you approach them. The road is broad, good, and firm. I walked this day at least fifteen miles, and after leaving the pine-wood be- hind me, I passed through but three small wretched villages, and at the most met four carts and not twenty human beings. I did not see a single soul among them, male or female, big or little, who had on a decent coat, reputable trousers, cloak, dress, or shoes. All was torn, all hung in tatters about them, and no longer resembled an article of clothing : the rags hanging loosely together, are often so transparent, that the naked legs are visible through them. Oh, why were the forests cut down ! I halted in the middle of the heath on an elevation, and seated myself on the heated ground under a blackberry- bush, which offered me its scanty shade. The mountains were not far off ; their form stood out in sharp outline. They were conically shaped, and grouped round a large one in the centre, which, terminating in a point, sank to the plain with broad and large spurs. All was still and calm, the clouds threw their alternating shadows over the blue mountains, and the heath assumed strange colours in the sunshine. Then came thin dry meadows on the slope and poor fields ; but splendid cattle grazed in the valleys ; fat, lustrous cows and oxen, of a splendid brown and black colour. The herd, armed with a gun, sat in the distance on the slope, with his dog standing near him ; under the dark fir-trees of the plateau was a 44 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. school-house ; then, at the bottom, a few poor straw-roofed cabins — nothing else for miles. " A fine warm day this, the Virgin be praised ! " I started from my reverie : an Irish maid was passing by ; she had a large straw hat on, and heavy boots on her feet. She could not be more than sixteen ; she was seated on a heavily loaded donkey, and her feet hung down with her heavy boots. She had greeted me with her dark blue eyes. " Fine weather, the Lord be thanked," I replied, awak- ing from my dream ; " whither away, girl ? 99 " To the heath, where my father's cabin stands." " What's your name, then, little one V 9 u Isabella Macleod, the schoolmaster's daughter." u Then you must live in the school-house over here, under the dark pines?" She looked at me with laughing eyes : " Live in the school, sir ? Oh no. Is that the fashion in England ? Here not ; our cabin is half way between here and the school, over there on the heath." " Can you tell me the nearest way to the Devil's Pass?" " Are you going there, sir ? Oh, it is not far from our cabin. You had better come with me, and father will gladly show you the way." " Before we start, will you try a drop of my whisky ? " " Oh yes, willingly, if you'll give me your bottle," she said, and took a very decent pull for her years. Then we started, she on the donkey, I by her side. And so we went over the sunny heath ; no one met us. When we were not speaking or laughing, we heard the lark singing high above our heads in the sunshine. " How do you call those mountains ? " I presently asked THE SUGAR-LOAVES. 45 the girl, as I pointed to the sharp hill-tops, which con- stantly emerged sharper and more purple from the blue mid-day atmosphere. " The English call them the Sugar-loaves/' was the answer, " but we call them the Gilt Spears, because they always shine and glisten in the sun, long after it has sunk below the heath, and all is in darkness, the valleys, then the meadows, the cabins, and ourselves. Oh, there they flash again, and it is wonderful to look at!" Then all became silent again, and we continued our journey. The road sank, then rose again steeply, and when we reached the plateau at last, we saw a rough mass of masonry in the middle of the heath, lying rather sadly in the sunlit solitude. " There's where we live," the girl said. She pointed with her hand, and, as she let it sink, tapped the head of the old donkey, who cocked his ears and wagged his tail at the pleasant touch. u Yes, yes, Grizzle, we shall soon be there ; then Isabella will get off and take down the heavy baskets, and you can have a roll in the ditch. Go along, Grizzle ! " The long wall, which resembled a deserted and ruined village, was reached. The shape of the cabins was still recognisable, but that made the scene all the more ghastly. A deserted village in the glowing sunshine, high on the mountains, and in the distance the gentle humming of the bees, and the thousand confused voices of mid-day heat, but not a human being to be seen or heard ; the heaps of stone lay there, ruins with the traces of win- dows, of doors, of the very fire-places still black from the last ashes. Tall grass grew on the ground, and all was nearly falling in. At the end of the decayed village were 46 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. two low wretched cabins, built of clay, with the blue smoke lazily rising in the air. " Where are we, my girl ? " I asked. " Before Ned Macleod, the schoolmaster's cabin : we live there." " And these stone walls ?" " Oh, fourteen families lived there, hardly four years ago ; but Mr. Swing, the landlord, turned them out, be- cause they did not pay their rent." " And where are they now ?" a About the country/' the girl answered, quite harm- lessly. By this time we had reached the two inhabited cabins. Isabella got off the donkey and drew him over the dung- midden after her to the entrance. She opened the door, which, only leant to, was rotting away on its hinges. A pernicious gust almost took my breath away. An active woman was standing before the fire which burnt badly in the unwholesome air, and an old man lay full length on a bench, with his head on a truss of hay. " A fine day this, the Virgin be praised ! " Isabella said, as she walked in. The donkey walked in too. u Grand- father, mother, here is a strange gentleman. Where's father ? he must lead the stranger down to the Devil's Glen." " Walk in," the mother said, who had left the fire, and gave the donkey, whose snout had unconsciously ap- proached the hay, a tremendous box of the ear ; " cead mille f eailte ! — come in, sir, pray." I thanked the good woman, but told her I was in a great hurry. "The father's not here, and will not return before IRISH HOSPITALITY. 47 evening," the old man said, as he rose from the truss of hay (by which opportunity the donkey's snout again ap- proached the hay, only to be withdrawn with the same result), u but if you don't mind, I will guide you as well as my old bones will allow." I gladly accepted the offer ; but the old man must first eat his dinner, which was prepared. " Yes," the mother said, u sit down and take a part of our meal. When three are cooked for, there's enough for four ; we have potatoes and mutton fat with thyme, and oaten bread, too, and a little whisky ; so come ! " What a barbarian I must have appeared in the eyes of the kind, hospitable woman, to despise mutton fat and thyme. She looked at me in wonder when I said I would sooner wait outside till the old man had finished, and then start at once. The donkey, the hay, the peat- fire, the smell of mutton fat, and various other odours, by a heat of eighty-six degrees in the shade, were too much for me, and while the three settled down to dinner comfort- ably, and the donkey gave me a quiet look as much as to say he intended still to obtain the object of his desire, I sat down on a hearthstone, and reflected deeply on what I had seen. At length the old man came out of the cabin, and approached the stone on which I was seated. He wore a brown shabby frieze coat, in no way suited to the heat brooding over the heath, and a pair of linen trousers in no way suited to the coat ; there were certainly air holes in both, and a grey felt hat overshaded his scanty white locks and furrowed face. " Here I am, sir," he said, " and I will guide you if 48 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. you have no objection. My son would have been a better and more entertaining guide, but he will not return be- fore night." "Your son is schoolmaster ?" I asked, as I rose and walked by the old manis side past the ruins to reach the road again. "Schoolmaster!" he answered, and stopped to draw breath for his important answer. u Yes, I should think so, and one of the new-fashioned ones, too." "Are there any old-fashioned ones left?" was my query. " Well, yes, very old-fashioned, though the most have died off. The few still living are old, seventy years or more, and all are not so well off as I, St. Patrick be thanked." u You are one of them, then ? " " Yes, sir ; and I lived through a great deal of what our children can form no idea. I lived in the tune of the penal codes, and bad times they were — God guard Ireland ! The poor Catholic was badly off then. You can hardly believe what I tell you. He was excluded from everything in which men take part : parliament and elections, sendee by land and sea, holding land and office. . Yes, he was not even allowed to cany on every trade, and heavy taxes weighed on him from which the Englishman was free. No Catholic was allowed to keep school publicly; he dared not even teach in a house. We were forced to send our children to the charter schools, where English teachers and clergy tried to make them renounce the faith of their fathers. Our poor children were to learn the English language and Protestant religion ; and there were plenty of landlords who wanted to force their tenantry to send their children HEDGE SCHOOLS. 49 to the charter schools. But they would not do it ; and where they were turned out, they found a shelter among milder gentlemen, or died in the bogs, to the honour of the Holy Virgin. But we schoolmasters were obliged to collect our children round us privily in the cabins, in order to impart to them the fundamental ideas of our holy religion and the commandments of our holy Church ; and, as the cabins were too confined, whenever the weather at all permitted it, we taught in the open air, under the hedges. There we sat in retired spots, that no constable might detect us, and when one was visible in the distance we ran off, master and scholars, as fast as we could. The Holy Virgin be thanked! the times of the hedge schoolmasters have passed away, and for the last thirty years everything has assumed a new shape. And how happy am I that in my son I can live to enjoy the blessings of better times. He was taught at Dublin, in the Model School, and I can tell you he is a very learned man, who can not only read, and write, and count, but he can give you the names of the kings of England as if he had known them all, and tell you the most wonderful stories about towns, and rivers, and mountains, thousands of miles away. But he is well paid, too, for his learning ; he has forty pounds a year, the land round our cabin, and some peat ground. So we all live very happily, and when I speak about hedge schools, Isabella looks at me and laughs, though her mother sat in her time under the hedge. The new school is built over there under the dark trees, and it is a fine, handsome building, full of fresh air — a real palace, and a pleasure to be in it." u And in what language does your son teach his scholars — is it in Irish?" 50 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. u Oh no," the old man said, sadly ; u that is quite forbidden. The children must learn to read and write English. But the Holy Father in Rome has said that we can pray to God and the saints in English : and so it must be true. There are only a few very old folks left who can talk Irish. The language of our fathers has died out here ; all our children know of it is a word or a salutation." In such conversation we had reached the black tree- in whose shade the school stood. It was locked, but the windows were half open, so that I could survey the clean benches, the walls with tables of "All the Kings of England," and maps of the " towns, rivers, and moun- tains, thousands of miles off." Not far hence stood another unpretending building, hitherto concealed by the trees, with whitewashed walls, lofty windows, and a wooden cross at the end of the roof, which glowed in the broken sunbeams. " That is the chapel," the old man said, " in which good Father Dominick — the Holy Virgin bless him ! — reads mass every Sunday morning." The few trees stood like an oasis on the sunburnt steppe, and beneath the trees the two empty buildings, with the white walls, in which God lives. Our road ran through large solitary meadows. The man with the gun had risen, and was driving his herd down the hill-side. His dog stopped on seeing us pass, put up his ears, and barked. There was no other sound. At the entrance of the forest-clad ravine, which was soon to receive us, we halted and looked down into the green wilderness beneath us. I lay down in the waving grass. A wild overgrown path led downwards, the trees nodded beneath me, on A SPLENDID VIEW. 51 the hill above me the rugged birches rustled. The pine bowed its gloomy head, the oak shook its powerful branches, and between them the arbutus merrily waved its frondage up and down. All at once, as if by a marvel, I was removed from the sun glare ; there was no longer a colourless steppe ; there were no ruined cabins, no wretchedness left ; beneath, the steady dark-blue depths ; above, the light clouds, the sunshine, the forest rustling ; and over there on the hills yellow fields, and, far beyond them again, mountains glistening in the sun. Oh, Isle of the Saints ! oh, land of marvels ! The old man invited me to push on. He walked in front, for he knew the road ; he had walked on it since his youth — now nearly seventy-eight years. He will not walk it much longer. He separates the entwined bushes, he is not angry when a branch strikes him on the face. He spares the foliage, he is unwilling to break it off. A leaf that remained in his hand he places in his mouth. Fallen trees, round which the luxuriant ivy still wound and held, crossed our path. Good old man of the Irish heath, plants will soon twine round you and hold you too ! So soon as we had cautiously descended from stone to stone, we entered the damp ravine. From every rock pours water — it rustles, drips, and runs all around, and in the centre dances the silver, bright, icy-cold stream over glistening rocks, thickset moss, and waving creepers. Tall green hills bathed in sunshine confine its besha- dowed bed. Where the ravine is compressed by enor- mous blocks of granite I climbed up a rock near the waterfall, and let the spray moisten my parched brow. Below us, little black-eyed maids, with naked feet and blue petticoats, were dancing from stone to stone, like the fairies of the glen. How pleasant these dainty little E 2 52 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. creatures looked, for they seemed to impart new life to nature. The blue garments fluttered, the white legs glistened, and where they touched the water with their feet to try it, it poured up on either side as if checked by so graceful an opposition. My old friend had become very silent ever since we entered the glen ; and it was not till he saw the children that he shouted down to them : 66 What are you doing there ? " u We are bathing, Father Macleod," they answered up. Then they leaped further ; Father Macleod gazed at them in silence, and all was still as before — only the rustling of the water, the moaning of the trees over me, of the shrubs and bushes around me. All I saw, heard, and felt, produced the most refreshing midsummer after- noon's impression upon me. Something glimmered like the autumn sun, like fading leaves, and the evening sun sported round the silver hair of the resting old man. Whither have those garments fluttered? Evening is approaching, and you are resting by the sparkling source, and cannot leave it. Flow on, flow on ! Thou wilt re- fresh many a wanderer when the old man is no longer here, when I am no longer here, when the little angels in the blue clothing have long before learned what loving and sorrowing mean. Flow on, flow on ! " But why do you call this charming glen the Devil's Glen?" I asked. " It is not always as you now see it in the soft sunshine of a late summer afternoon/' the old man, who had now risen, answered. " At times, after heavy rains, espe- cially in dark spring nights, this stream swells and rises above the high rocks, and the storm comes and shakes the branches, and uproots the trees, and lays them across THE BEALTAINE. 53 the road. Then it is wild and terrible here; we hear the noise far off, the fall of the water, the roaring of the storm, and strange groans, mingled with shrill laughter and cries of help ; and if you gave me a bushel of guineas on Bealtaine night, that is the first night of May I would not come down here, for the devil plays his games on that night, and woe betide the Christian that crosses his path ! Nor would I venture down on All Saints' night." Then we climbed up a very steep and lofty wall of rock with a thin layer of earth upon it. At every step a boulder loosened under our feet, and rolled down with a splash into the water below ; and many a bush by which we held on threatened to give way. At length we reached the top ; the glen was again completely covered in by its green trees, it had disappeared like a fairy vision, rock and water and gloom, and we stood once more on the solitary sunburnt heath. As we ap- proached the road, we heard the soft sound of a bell from the chapel : it was Saturday afternoon. " That is my son," the old man said ; " he is ringing the vesper bell." He took off his hat and prayed. Not far off stood the herd on a mound, with his uncovered head resting on his gun. Far in the distance, on the ruins of the deserted village, stood a female form ; near her, with its front legs on the stones, stood a donkey. She had her hands folded, and looked down for a while, then she raised her head, covered her eyes from the blinding sun with her hand, and looked out. It was Isabella. The old man gave me his hand in parting and wished me a pleasant journey. In my heart I wished him the same, for I could not dismiss the thought that he would soon have to say farewell to these firs, this chapel, 54 THi: ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. and this heath. I went off, and the vesper bell escorted me across the sunny plain. I was a long time alone, not I soul met me ; there was not a cart, not a village, either far or near. At length a solitary cabin made its appearance. It looked comfort- able, at least after all the others I had seen that day. I walked in : there was no one there but a young woman, standing with her back towards me, and she was no little confused when I stepped in, but as >he was merry and pretty, we were soon all right together. She gave me milk, and told me, is I drank, that she had only been married a year. It was rather dark in the hut : a fire burned in the background, and over it hung a saucepan with boiling potatoes. u My husband will BOOB come home from work and will be hungry." — Dear, attentive wife ! — u He is a mason, and is industrious, and the beat hu>band in Ire- land. This house does not belong to us, we have only hired it. Mr. Swing is our landlord." k * Mr. Swing ! Does his land extend so far as this I Well, wait awhile and he will evict you/' kk Oh no!" she answered. u Mr. Swing is a good gentleman. I have heard >ay you can live under him for ever, if you are only industrious, till the ground, and pay the rent." The mason and his wife seemed to be comfortable : afl was clean, and though there was but one chair and a bench, the interior of the cabin did not produce a po- verty-stricken effect like all those I had hitherto seen. The bed, seen through one of the half -opened doors, even looked stately. In my zeal to study everything strange that offered itself in a strange land, I was on the point of innocently entering the room. A SANCTUARY. 55 u Not across this threshold !" the young woman said, as she rushed passionately towards me. Her face resembled in hue that of the blazing fire. See how the Irish wife stands before her sanctuary. Yes, the last relic is saved, the English foe has never been able to destroy it. Thrones and altars are overthrown ; the sanctuary where love dwells modestly and purely re- mains. And wherever their destiny may impel the fugi- tive Irish, whether to the gloomy backwoods across the Atlantic, or the filthiest holes of London, wherever he stops, he puts up this sanctuary. I laid a coin on the bench for the milk, and proposed to take leave. " Take your money up, stranger," the woman said ; u whoever seeks bread and milk in our cabin is welcome to it, but we do not sell our friendship." I picked up the coin, as if I had committed a sin in offering it to her. "But cannot I offer you anything, my dear little woman ? " u You have a flask there, is there whisky in it ? " u Yes, and the best, too. Only taste it." The merry, pretty woman, just a year married, took the flask and tasted till there was nothing left to taste. Then she returned me the flask, offered me her hand, and wished me a pleasant journey. On the opposite hill was another cabin, built into the side of the mountain, and I fancied it looked like a shop. At the door stood an Irish beauty, of brilliant form — a girl, in a black, tightly fitting bodice, with long black hair and sparkling eyes. As I approached she disap- peared. As I entered the shop her mother made her appearance. There was not much to buy, blacking, tea, bread, lucifers. Where was the girl in the black 56 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. bodice? Ha, ha, ha! I heard all at once at mv side. She had hidden herself behind two sacks of meal and was peeping coquettishly out. u It is the fashion in our country," I cried, u to kiss every pretty girl you meet on your travels." u And here, too," the beauty giggled ; u but you must first catch the girl." She swung herself gracefully round the meal-bag, and I had trouble enough in catching her. Her mother stood by, with her arms stemmed in her sides, and laughed merrily at our innocent sport. With a box of lucifers, about the size of a moderate walking- stick, I left the shop and went down into the valley, often looking back at the black-eyed maid, who was long visible on the hill-side. The twilight set in, a long and lovely twilight. From this spot the landscape appeared to me more exquisite and rich. The mountains, here bathed in the evening red, there already sucking in the shadow, draw closer together on either side, and in the valley between them runs the Annamoe river, and green meadows clothe its banks. Where the valley widens, stands the Protestant parson- age. What a bright, soft summer evening's peace around ! white pigeons, red-tinged by the departing sunbeams, flutter round the verdure-clad roof ; at times a dog barks, but not roughly and inhospitably — perhaps the pastors bright-haired daughter is standing before it ; it leaps up, and she, afraid lest its clumsy paw may soil her blue dress, keeps it at bay, while it licks her small dainty hand. Where the window glows in the evening gold — the whole window seems converted into gold — there sits the clergyman, perhaps over Luther's Bible : evening red and Luther's Bible — is there any thing more glorious in the world? The opposite hill is already quite dark. A CONTRAST. 57 From the black bare background two white naked buildings stand out. One is the chapel, the other the dwelling of the Catholic priest. Poor man, how lonely you sit up there ! no evening red, no pigeons, no little daughter — the only female creature in your solitary room is the picture of the Mater Dolorosa, which hangs over ypur table, and perchance reproduces the features of a being you formerly loved, when you were a child and dared to love ! Here a broad bridge leads over the Annamoe, and the village cabins stand scattered about. At the further end is the inn ; I heard many voices inside, coarse laughter, and the tinkling of glasses. As I wished to have my flask filled, I walked in ; but I scarce opened the door, ere a stifling vapour met me. The room was small, and full of bearded men, smoking the worst possible tobacco. They had just returned from receiving their Saturday wages ; most of them seemed to be masons. I grant that I only noticed all this gradually, for all floated hazily before me at first in the impenetrable vapour, but no place was left in which I could sit down ; I even noticed that the men put their feet on empty chairs so that the stranger should not sit there. Hence I stood quite con- fused and helpless. " We won't have any Englishman among us. This is an Irish house : no Englishman wants anything here ! 99 Thus the bearded men muttered. "Is that Irish hospitality ?" I asked, on finding myself thus treated. " No hospitality to Englishmen : they don't deserve it," they muttered again. " Well ; give me room to reach the bar. Landlord, fill my flask with whisky." 58 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. The host did not move a hand ; the men did not stir ; and yet among the men possibly was the one whose pretty little wife had emptied my flask scarce an hour pre- viously. I held my tongue, and walked out. The sun had now completely set, and the eastern hills behind me stood there with gloriously illumined crests, while the cool thin twilight began to fill the mountain glens before me ; but all remained silent and solitary : there was no sound of bells saluting the coming Sunday, no singing, no shouts of joy. The river at length grew wider, patches of wood might be seen here and there, and uprooted trees lay on the bank and seemed to be rotting away. Next came Laragh ; black-haired girls, with naked feet, and men in torn coats walked up to the door, gazed at me, and laughed when I had passed. A few pleasant houses glimmer through the twilight over the distant meadows. There lives the gentleman (the land- lord), there the doctor, on that hill is the Protestant church, on the other, the chapel. The mountain opens out, and enclosed in it lies the valley of Glendalough. the valley of myths, fables, and miracles of pious monks and the grey primaeval monastic times. Night covers it, but the windows of the inn that receives the tired way- farer glistened cheerily and bright. " Welcome to Glen- dalough ! " the host says, and shakes my hand. u "Wel- come to Glendalough, to the glen of the two lakes I* GLENDALOUGII. 59 CHAPTER IV. GLENDALOUGH — NEW ACQUAINTANCES — TALKING GERMAN — MILES DOYLE — THE ENGLISH WAITER — THE UPPER LAKE — THE " PICTU- RESQUE TOURIST"— THE HORSE STEALER— ST. KEVIN'S BED — THE SEVEN CHURCHES— A EAIRY CUP— EINN-MAC-CUL— THE CATHEDRAL —PRAY EOR DIARMAIT— THE ROUND TOWER— THE IVY CHURCH. The lamplight, the comfort of the little inn, did me good ; even more, though, the sight of an old gentle- man in a stiff white cravat, and gold glasses, and two young ladies, who bowed politely to me. The old gen- tleman sat with all the solemn dignity of a president at the upper end of the table. He had a large map of Ire- land lying before him, on which he was drawing lines with a red pencil. At the same time he smoked a cigar, which went out every few minutes, and which he lighted again with a spill, which he threw still alight on the floor, to the evident disgust of the waiter. The young ladies sat on either side of him ; they were both pretty, both brown-eyed, brown-haired, and roguish, and dressed in high-necked blue gowns ; both eighteen or so ; in short, the prettiest twins I had ever seen in my life, and I could not think it possible to >fall in love with one without simultaneously loving the other. They were leaning over the table; one was fixing flowers in a sort of album; the other was writing a 60 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. letter ; but every minute they looked up and exchanged a smile. They took the greatest trouble to be serious, but they could not manage it. The old gentleman seemed considerably bothered ; he had been seeking a name on the map for the last quarter of an hour, and when the girls laughed the last time, he told them that every time they giggled, he lost his way. They must keep quiet ; that was much more proper for girls like them. They bit their lips and tried to be serious ; but it was cruel to forbid such pretty girls a laugh. At length, the old gentleman rubbed his hands, and found time to address me. u Glad to meet you, sir," he said, as he drew a broad red line over the map ; " here is the name, so now we can drink. Waiter, four noggins of punch." " Very well, sir," the waiter replied, who, while clear- ing the table, had removed the spills. " But hot, waiter, very hot. And where are the spills, waiter ? " The waiter said he could not find them ; whereon Mr. Macrie (that was the old gentleman's name, I afterwards learned) declared he would tear up Saunders 9 8 News Letter ; so the waiter produced the spills from a dark corner and put them on the table with such a bang that the lamps trembled. " Take care you don't upset the lamp, waiter," said Mr. Macrie. " Thank you, sir, but I will take care." Then came the hot water, and the whisky was poured into the glasses. Mr. Macrie declared that strong punch was not suited for young girls, so he gave each of them a spoonful of whisky, and stuck to the rest, and so he be- came very jolly. TALKING GERMAN. 61 After Mr. Macrie had stirred up the punch and lit his cigar again, he told me he was a linen merchant from Belfast, and Irish antiquarian ; that he made a journey through Ireland every year at this time, in order to study any objects of antiquarian interest, collect outstanding accounts from any customers in the vicinity, and, when possible, open fresh ones. On this journey he had brought his daughters, in order to arouse their feeling for antiquities. At this word the pretty girls tittered, and mirrored their faces in the weak whisky punch. After a pause, Mr. Macrie asked were I a linen mer- chant too. After expressing my regret that I was not, I explained I was a German, to which Mr. Macrie re- sponded, "Only think!" Then he asked his daughters whether they had ever seen a German ? and Jane said, " Yes, she had. In London, a little ugly, dirty man, with old coats and hats on his arm, passed her uncle's house every morning, yelling 6 Illow, illow, illow ! ' " Before I had time to protest against my adopted brother, Mr. Macrie had requested his daughter Ellen to remember that the Germans were a people — here was a pause, as the cigar had gone out — a people living in the vicinity of the German Ocean. " They speak several languages, of which Prussian is the widest spread. They are very learned, and can all sing well." " Oh, let us have a song!" said Ellen, as she threw her pen down. Ellen, namely, was selected by her father to keep the scientific journal. " Yes, a song !" Jane joined in. I had some difficulty in making the girls understand that I could not sing ; Mr. Macrie had too good an opinion of the German voices, and hence did me great injustice. 02 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. " They are very learned and can all sing well/' Mr. Macrie repeated, imperturbably. " Well, then, talk a little Prussian ; I am so fond of hearing foreign languages," said Ellen. Nothing could be said against this ; so I spoke a little Prussian, and the girls almost killed themselves with laughter. " It was the strangest language in the world, and very difficult to un- derstand." In the mean while, we had emptied our glasses, and Mr. Macrie wanted me to join his breakfast party next morning, and inspect the ruins together. The next morning I was up early, and walked up to the seven churches. On one of the graves lay a man stretched out in the morning sun, whom I had not at first noticed, though the blue smoke from his little pipe rose cheerily in the air. He rose as I approached him. u Fine day, this Sunday, the Lord be thanked," he said. " Be thanked," I repeated. * Is your honour from Dublin ?" he asked. " No honour," I said, " and not from Dublin ; a modest tourist from distant lands." u Then you do not know me," he said, rather sadly, and as it seemed, more to himself than to me. u You don't know Miles Doyle ; if you were from Dublin, you would know me. Have you ever heard of Dr. Wilde and Dr. Graves ! Oh, all the Irish scholars know me ; I found the old gravestones about here for them, and scratched away the earth that they might read the oghams. Show me that green book you have in your hand ; oh, I see, it is Black's Picturesque Tour in Ireland. Mr. Black knows me well ; I told him all he wrote about MILES DOYLE. 63 Glendalough. Now, tell me, how far away is your home?" " A thousand miles." " A thousand miles ! By St. Patrick, that is a distance ! You are welcome, sir, to Glendalough. Miles Doyle will be your guide." " Good," I said ; " but just go back with me to the inn ; let me have my breakfast, and then we will start." We went back to the inn. My new friend was a splendid fellow, and I must say so now. His brown face was rendered still darker by his black hair and whiskers, and in his greyish-blue eyes there was with all the cunning a good -share of honesty. He wore a red striped shirt, half open on the chest, a broad, very coarse straw hat, and a frieze coat that had probably seen better days, for it was old, very old ; there were no buttons, but plenty of button-holes and other holes besides, " 'Tis my Sunday coat, sir," he said, as he understood my glance. " We Irish are a poor lot, and must wear the coats the English throw away. God bless us !" Across his upper lip he had a tremendous scar. " Whence the scar, Miles .?" I asked. a A horse kicked me. Plenty of scars, too, all over my body. God be thanked that the whole world need not see them ! Here in my arm a shot wound, another in my back. Shot and knocked about, but his head still high, such is old Miles Doyle." u Were you in action ? " " The Lord forbid ! " said Miles, seemingly quite hor- rified at the thought. " I got them poaching. I am summonsed for next week. And I won't give it up till they have killed me. And Lord knows they do hunt 64 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. me. They will shoot me, too. Then all will be over, but not sooner, I tell you." "But it is madness to rush on ruin in that way, Miles." "It is madness, but it's better tli an starving. Miles Doyle must eat meat now and then, and his wife and child can't live on fasting. I am taken care of so long as I have my life and my gun. God guard them when I am gone." u Do you live here in the valley?" " No ; three miles further, on Anamoe hill." " Annamoe !" I exclaimed. u Are you the mason with the young wife ? " " That is my neighbour, sir. My cabin is opposite." " A shop — the stout woman — the pretty black-eyed girl?" " That is my wife, and my daughter, and my shop," Miles said ; "but how do you know that, young sir " I was there yesterday, and bought matches." " That was yourself, sir ? Welcome, welcome ! My wife and daughter talked about you the whole evening. That O %J o was yourself," he said, as he squeezed my hands, and looked in my face with an expression of the utmost good-will. " Och, och, och ! " he then continued, " why did I not know it? then I could have brought Minnie down with me." " Send a messenger up and tell her to come. Do so, good Miles, at once." He stood in thought. "It is too late," he slowly an- swered, "she has already started for Woodenbridge. There is a pattern there to-day — there'll be dancing, and singing, and rare fun for Irish folk. I couldn't refuse the child. She has gone there with her mother. Och, MINNIE. 65 och, och ! that she is not here. A splendid girl, my Minnie! Did you notice the black velvet jacket she wears ? A week ago, just, she was down here with me. We had a grand party of ladies and gentlemen to guide. My girl Minnie was always ahead, first above and then below ; and the gentry couldn't see enough of her. Poor creature ! the gown she wore was bad enough ; and over her bosom was an old shawl her mother wore long before there was a thought of Minnie. One of the gentry said, 6 How well that child would look if decently dressed:' said and done. When we got back to the hotel one of the ladies called my girl into her room: 6 Here, my child,' she said, 6 is a velvet jacket ; always wear it when you wish to look pretty, and when you wear it think of me.' Then she kissed my darling on the forehead, and I received two bright half-crowns in the bargain. Oh, if Minnie was here !" " How far is it to Wooden-bridge ? " " Three hours' drive, sir." " And how long will your wife and Minnie be there ?" " Till the moon rises." "Good!" I said; "I shall see them once again. I am going this afternoon to Wooden-bridge." " God bless you for it, young sir!" Miles exclaimed, with visible delight ; " God bless you ! How glad Minnie, my child, will be. And I tell you, you mustn't let her go this time unkissed ; and when you do it, think father and mother are kissing you too, for you are so kind." When I walked into the coffee-room with Miles Doyle, Mr. Macrie, white and stiff about the neck, was already seated at the breakfast-table. The girls looked more charming than ever ; they wore grey dresses, and each had a rose in her bosom. They seemed like the F 66 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. genii of Spring, and I could have fancied them floating arm-in-arm in the blue clear heaven, smiling gracefully down on us. Mr. Macrie did not look like the father of two fairies, at least not at this moment. He was an- noyed because I had kept him waiting so long ; he was hungry, too, and the waiter had also plainly conspired against me, and, nobly forgetting the spills of the pre- vious evening, had made common cause with Mr. Macrie. I was greeted on his side with considerable doubt, and the good feeling did not increase when my worthy Miles Doyle appeared behind me and I presented him to the company as the guide for our day's jaunt. " Vagabond," the waiter said, u and a poacher in the bargain !" " Guide?" Mr. Macrie asked — " why a guide ? What these people know may be found in Black's Picturesque Tourist." u Because these people told it," Miles modestly re- marked. " In Mr. and Mrs. Hall's Illustrated Ireland " " Who copied what these people told them," Miles muttered. " Rogue !" the waiter said. " In short, what these people know I know too," Mr. Macrie shouted, evidently jealous of poor Miles, and surveying him from head to foot. "And a poacher in the bargain ! " the waiter added, with his bitterest whisper. But Miles had heard him. " Wait awhile, you English blackguard ! " he muttered to himself. There he stopped, but I afterwards learned that the waiter was an Englishman and special foe of Miles ; he protected another guide who gave him a per- THE HOESE-STEALEE. 67 centage on his earnings, and hated Miles because he would pay him nothing. Had not the two grey dresses with roses in their bosoms bravely supported me, I should certainly have been left in a minority, but in this way our candidate was passed. Mr. Macrie vented his spite on the ham and eggs, and the English foe, the waiter, had the unheard-of humiliation of bringing another cup and plate in for the vagabond poacher, who cosily enjoyed his breakfast in the chimney corner, with many side glances of contempt. We then started. Miles Doyle always kept with the two girls and me ; Mr. Macrie had enough to do with himself. On one side he earned a telescope in a leathern case, on the other a flask; in the right hand Black's Picturesque Tourist, and in the left the large map of Ire- land with the red marks. He paid little attention to us ; for he must jot down something every minute on Ins note-book. We walked under the hill surmounted by the round tower ; its shadow fell on us as we passed, a shadow a thousand years old, on the roses in Jane and Ellen's bosom ! all seemed melancholy enough, though the bright sun shone over us. To our left we had the first or lower lake ; and walked in a thinly-grown field of oats, more stones than haulms, if I could have counted fairly. The first miracle of St. Kevin, the patron saint, to whom nearly everything shown us in this gloomy vale related, was told us here. An old stone cross, whose corners were gnawed and broken by storm and rain, stood in the field, sparsely surrounded by oats. Miles called our attention to four large holes on one side, and four smaller holes on the other side of the cross. Then he said : "Your honours, look you, this cross was raised in memory of Garadh Duff, the horse-thief, whom St. Kevin killed f2 68 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. here, because he told him a falsehood. About thirteen hun- dred years back, this Garadh came riding along the lake on a handsome black mare, leading its colt by the hand. St. Kevin, Heaven bless him ! meets him in the field of oats, and says : " i How did you come by that fine animal, Garadh ? ' " ' Oh,' said Garadh, i I bought it over there.' " 6 You thief of the world,' St. Kevin cried, * that is a lie.' " 1 Oh,' said Garadh, * by the slipper of our holy father in Kome, what I told you is true ! ' " i You are a perjurer and a thief,' said St. Kevin, 6 and I'll make an example of you to the world's end. You must die and go down to purgatory ! ' And, after exchang- ing a few words, he killed him on this very spot, and put up the cross in memory of him, with the hoof marks of the mare on this side, and the colt's on the other. But the saint did not bury the perjurer here, but in his own parish at the round tower. I will show it to you pre- sently." " You tell falsehoods yourself," Mr. Macrie shouted, after looking long and cautiously through his Pic- turesque Tourist ; " Black doesn't say a word of it." "Look you, your honour," the guide replied; "poor Miles knows many things which Mr. Black doesn't tell." " If I could trust to it being true," the critical linen dealer remarked. " As true as I hope for salvation, your honour," Miles said. "Then you can make a note of it, my daughters. Ellen, don't forget to put that in the diary this evening." We walked on and reached the shore of the upper IRISH BEGGARS. 69 ake. We sat down on a boat turned on its side, and Miles Doyle stretched himself flat on the grassy soil. Around us a strange group collected : Irish boys, with ruddy long narrow faces, bright blue eyes, naked feet, in rags, with their shirts hanging out, and their light hair hanging over their foreheads from under their crushed-in hats; Irish girls, with irregular, handsome features, black eyes full of southern passion, in a dress which with its countless rags was more picturesque than correct : there was not a whole pair of shoes or stockings among the party. Under a bush sat an elderly woman in a yellowish gown, with coal-black eyes, and ragged hair round her bronzed face. I fancied myself among gipsies. All was wondrously quiet around and over us. The lake did not move, not a breath of wind stirred the scanty vegetation or the oak-leaves. What most sur- prised me was that the air remained as still as the wood and lake were. Even the lark, which had been my com- panion on the most desolate heath, was missing here. In vain did I look up into the dark-blue sky ; there was only a cloud here and there, but all else lifeless, dead, and silent. " Yes," said Miles Doyle, after filling and lighting his pipe, with our permission and our tobacco — "yes, no lark has sung over this valley or this lake for the last thirteen hundred years. I will tell you why." The party drew closer together, and even the woman in the yellow gown advanced from the bush to hear a story she had heard many thousand times before ; and Miles began : u The people who built the town which once stood here round the Seven Churches, took a vow to begin work every morning so soon as the lark waked them — 70 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. for there were no bells in those days — and not to leave off till the lamb called them to rest. They kept their vofWj and at last grew so weak from their labour thai many of them died. The good saint then had pity with the labourers, and forbade the larks ever again singing over the lakes of Glendalough. The larks flew away sadly, and for thirteen hundred years not one has been heard to sing here, although not a hundred yards beyond the valley as many larks fly about and carol as anywhere in Ireland." " That is true/' said the savant from Belfast ; " it is in Black's Tourist. My daughters, that is true. I have marked it with red." So good friend Black was not even safe from Mr. Macrie's pencil. In the mean while a powerful man had come clown the hill-side in his broad-brimmed hat and Sunday coat. " Gilly, my boy, make haste ! " Miles shouted to him ; " we have been waiting a long time for you." Gilly, the boatman, thrust a skiff into the water, and we got in ; the girls first, then I, then Miles, and ^Ir. Macrie came last of all, after carefully inquiring how deep the lake was, and whether any accident had hap- pened upon it. "Accident, yes, but it is thirteen hundred years since it happened. Gilly, pull ahead, I will tell the stoiy in the mean while." As we glided over the blackish-green, deathly-silent water, we looked at the Irish boys and girls, running, crawling, and leaping along the shore. The whole party had started as our escort. With their gay clothes show- ing through the green branches, the band of sprites flew past over our heads, and Miles began : "When St. Kevin was still a young man, about KATHLEEN AND ST. KEVIN. 71 twenty years or so, a young girl of about seventeen, of the name of Kathleen, fell so passionately in. love with him that she could not live without seeing him. She re- quested nought of him but to be permitted to see his shadow ; she would not even hear his voice, but only its echo; she promised to be always at his feet and do penance for his sins and her own, but the saint repelled her, and, to escape all temptation, fled from her. But however secret and hidden his lurking-place might be, Kathleen fomid it out, and implored the saint not to re- pulse her. At last he came to this valley, where no human being; had ever lived before him. High on Rock Lugduff, which you can see hanging bare and steep over the sea, beyond the oak wood, he found a cave, in which he hid himself. But even here the loving woman' pur- sued him, although the path could only be followed at the risk of life ; and when he awoke in the morning on his hard bed of rocks, the blue eyes of the unhappy Kathleen were fixed sorrowfully on him. Then the saint arose, and with one push hurled the loving maiden from the rock into the lake, and here, your honours, is the spot where Kathleen died." We stopped at the foot of the Lugduff. The bare grey rock rises some thousand feet above the lake ; and a black quadrangular hole was pointed out to us about thirty feet above the water. " St. Kevin's bed," said Miles ; " there the saint hid himself, and pushed Kath- leen from that slab." At this moment, the old brown woman in the yellow gown appeared in the mouth of the cave, and the children grouped round her on the dangerous precipice. " Look at the woman up there, it is Kathleen ! " Miles said. The woman bent over the rock and grinned down at 72 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. us in delight at Doyle's words. So much I saw, that the saint would never have been a sinner with this Kathleen. Gilly tied up the boat, and Miles, as he got out and pointed to the steep path, invited us to follow him. Hitherto Mr. Macrie had been silent ; he had listened to the story half dubiously, half timidly, on account of the water. Now he drew himself up, though, with the look and tone of an insulted lion. " Impudent fellow !" he shouted, "how can you ask a gentleman to clamber up this path?" Then, slowly re- covering from his first excitement, for he evidently trembled at the mere thought, he said, in a minor key : " I fancy the path is slightly dangerous." Mr. Macrie was correct; it runs almost perpendicu- larly from projection to projection ; one false step, and the adventurer would fall back into the lake and be lost. Where the path begins to grow dizzily steep, stood Kathleen, who stretched out her brown thin hand to me. Miles pushed me behind, and with one despe- rate leap I sat in St. Kevin's bed. From the water rose shouts of applause ; I would not look round, but I knew the merry voices of the girls in the boat. I crept into the black cavity and crouched down. It is about four square feet in size ; it is excavated in the hard rock ; whether it is the work of human hands or of nature it is difficult to say. The stone walls are rough, but many a tourist has scratched his name upon them. A large W. S., in good preservation, tells the pilgrim that Walter Scott has been here, and that he did not refuse to im- mortalise the name which many an eternal book bears on the hard rock of Glendalough. Oh, elements of human fame ! Which will endure the longer, the books or the rock ? The water was motionless, and through the opening of st. kevin's bed. 73 the cave I could see the green hill and the rocks op- posite. That was all. At times, the yellow-gowned woman, with the greyish blue eyes, and black hair laid behind her ears, looked in. She stood on the edge of the precipice — one push, and she would be lost for ever. The thought that this push was in my power to give tortured me fearfully. My hand quivered. I begged the woman, in Heaven's name, to withdraw ; she did so, and I followed her. I followed her trembling, very different from when I climbed up, and I must have looked very pale when I reached the boat again. The girls received me with a shout, but became quite still when they saw me so pale. I, too, was silent, but Mr. Macrie said he had never fan- cied that Germans were such famous climbers ; and Ellen must make a note of it that evening, he added. Gilly entered the boat, unshipped his oars, and we were soon out on the lake again. We all sat silent, the plash of the oars sounding monotonously stroke after stroke. Miles was standing up ; after a wdiile, he said St. Kevin could not have been a real Irishman, for such a one would never have thrown a pretty girl out of his bed. Gilly laughed, but Mr. Macrie said that he must not make use of such equivocal remarks in future. It was not at all proper for a guide to make jokes. Then all was still again, save the sound of oars. After a lengthened pause, Miles asked us should he repeat the song Tommy Moore had made about this lake. "My bonny Tom Moore — the Lord be merciful to his soul! — I knew him when he walked slowly round the lakes, or sat about on rocks in the woods." We begged him to repeat the lines, and he began to the time of the oars. We pulled to the oak wood, and walked up the hill by a convenient path under shady trees. The vegetation 74 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. was very luxuriant by the side of the hill. Tall ferns and heavily frondaged oaks rustled around us, the whole magic of a sunlit forest solitude surrounded us. Thus we reached the hermitage of St. Kevin on a wooded promontory over the lake ; a few remains of an old round wall, densely overgrown with mosses and creepers, stand at this spot ; the entrance is still visible through a step in a circular cutting in the grass. Through a clearing in the trees I could look around me : at the upper lake on the left, a patch of meadow and the lower lake, the church- yard, the round tower, the ruins, and the rocks forming the background. All lay down on the grass. I seated myself on the roots of an oak-tree that grew in the wall ; before me stood an aged stone cross, its angles worn and de- cs J o cayed by time and weather, and half-buried in the ground. I sat there thinking, and had lost myself in the dis- tant regions of thought, and it was Jane's merry voice which recalled me to myself, as she asked me, sportingly, what I had been thinking about so long. She did not believe me when I told her stone crosses ; she shook her head, and considered there were pleasanter things a per- son might think of when sitting under a tree in the forest. Mr. Macrie, too, had grown lively, and was en- gaged in an antiquarian dispute with Miles Doyle. He opposed nearly every remark of the guide, and declared there was not a word of truth in it. Then he looked in his Picturesque Tourist, and was silent when he found Doyle's remarks in it. When he did not find them, he made an enormous disturbance ; besides, it was not proper for a guide to talk so much, and smoke so much : that was not only against respect, but disturbed a stranger in his meditations. Poor Miles ! Make no jokes, not smoke, THE KING'S GRAVE. 75 nor talk ! He was in a bad humour, and when I re- turned lie whispered to me his surprise that Mr. Macrie, with his many thoughts and so much respect, should have a couple of such pretty daughters. We then quitted St. Kevin's cell, and reached, a little lower down the hill, Bigh Fearth, the king's grave, in a pine wilderness. Only the western wall, with the door of the church that formerly stood here, still remains. A tree has grown out of the wall over the entrance, which bows a welcome to the visitor ; many stone crosses, in a semi-state of preservation, lie on the ground ; others still stand inside. Within all is ruin ; stones lie atop of one another, between them the semicircular arches of the window, grey, and so covered with moss that the stone can scarce be recognised. Stone rings, with twisted ser- pents, symbols of the Christian faith, symbols of eternity, are buried in dust ; while trees have grown out of the opening in which the cross once stood. Over the ruins of the church, and the graves of the saints, Nature preaches her everlasting gospel. Nature is the first thing ; we pray, we hope, we believe that she is not the last ; but we do not know. Behind the church, in the deepest solitude of the woods, sleep the Mac Tules, the old kings of Wicklow ; creep- ing plants, oak roots, nettles, have grown together so closely over these graves, that hand and foot find difficulty in forcing a way through. Creating Nature has con- stituted herself a guardian of these graves ; neither wan- tonness nor clannish hatred will ever disturb the rest of the dead kings of Ireland. Their " monument" has dis- appeared ; the guides themselves have broken it up and sold it to strangers. Miles Doyle has not done it, he could not have done it. He kills the English landlords' 76 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. game, but he does not sell the gravestones of his old kings. Beyond the graves, in the paradisaic distance full of pleasant soul-inspiring life, the glance wanders over meadows with yellow and red flowers — cups full of ce- lestial dew — with whispering fern, whispering of eternity and resurrection, with golden green shrubs, the green of immortal hope illumined by the sun's gold, and high over- head the clear, silent, deep-souled summer heaven in which Deity resides. At the other end of the meadow we crossed, Miles bent down and plucked a blue cam- panula, whose edge was fading into red. " That is a fairy cup ; they drank out of it last night, that is why the leaves are red on the edge." I gave the flower to Ellen, and she kissed it, and said she would keep the fairy cup in memory of this plea- sant day. Wood and hill again joined the meadow. Imme- diately on entering the wood a rustling could be heard from the depths below. Our path led down to the hill- side, and the waterfall sprinkled a refreshing coolness around. Standing on a moss-covered oak branch, which bends over the foaming water, I hung over it, free in the air as a bird, a lonely man, among the hermits, and saints, and dead kings of Glendalough, with trees rustling around me, and the water plashing beneath me, and by my side sat the fair daughters of the solitude. Myth and her bright-haired daughter, Fable ! The Pagan heroes, the Finians, and the Christian saints, rise up. Canonical miracles and fading pictures from the fairy kingdom are interwoven. For the first time Finn-Mac-Cul, the old Irish national hero, the true " Erigina" — for the Fingal THE GIANT'S GLEN. 77 of the Scottish Highlands is only a copy from him — rises in his native home before us. "Do yon see that four-cornered hole in the moun- tain ? " Miles Doyle asked ; " we call it the Giant's Glen, in memory of Finn-Mac-Cul. About thirteen hundred years back, Finn walked one morning about these hills, and met a friend and comrade returning from battle. * How went the fight ? ' Finn asked. 6 Badly,' said the other; £ we were beaten.' 6 Oh, murder and Irish !' said Finn ; 6 1 wish I had been with you. I'll show you what I should have done !' So he took his sword and cut a piece out of the hill, and it rolled down into the valley. 6 That's what I should have done !' he said." Then Miles Doyle showed us the lower lakes, the lake of the monster, Lough-na-Peiste, whose mirror could be clearly seen through the trees. In this lake the last snake kept in concealment after St. Patrick had expelled the snakes and toads for ever. It was a fearful monster, and no one could have a tussle with it for more than two hundred years ; at length St. Kevin killed it with his wolf-dog. This story, too, was thirteen hundred years old. Miles would have nothing to do under that date, and it was a matter of perfect indifference to him whether the actors were Pagans or Christians. " Since that time, however," he concluded, " there have been no more serpents in Ireland, and if any are im- ported, they must die on touching Erin's soil ; and the frogs still left dare not croak as they do elsewhere." We walked out of the wood along the side of the stream to the lower lake. How sad everything had sud- denly become ! The cemetery, with its churches and the round tower and the graves and naked stone hills, lay 78 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. around us in the dazzling sunshine. Not a shadow save that which the tall tower cast ; no verdure but that which crawled over the ruins. The round tower stood in the enormous silence of the mid-day heat like Pompey's Pillar in the Alexandrian desert ; we were the nomades who had just quitted the oasis. We stepped over a number of large stones laid in the bed of the stream, and stood under the last archway of the wall of Glendalouffh. It has fallen together con- siderably during late years, and who knows how long it will still stand ? A rough but very old stone wall runs from it on either side, and surrounds the cemetery. We stopped at the entrance of Our Lady's Chapel, which is in an excellent state of preservation ; ivy creeps round the architrave, and the sun weaves its golden beams in the garland of death. The walls consist of immense stones laid on one another. The interior is bare, the roof lias disappeared. Next to it is another church, that of SS. Peter and Paul. The door on the western wall and the windows are semicircular. The roof is perfect, and at its western extremity is a small round tower with a conical covering, probably the oldest instance of this sort. The little round tower looks at a distance not unlike a chimney, and hence the Irish peasant calls this ruin u St. Kevin's kitchen." Thick moss covers the roof, and many a tender tree has grown out of it. So high does Nature climb to wave her green flag of victory ! We next entered the cathedral, the Domnach-mohr — not the most remarkable building, but the one that most affects the visitor with its ivy-covered ruins. It is com- pletely destroyed, and only the fragments of the wall indicate its former extent. The ground is covered with weeds, among which a few tombstones are visible. One PRAY FOR D I ARM AIT ! 79 of these Miles cleansed : the once quadrangular stone had become rounded in the course of centuries ; many cracks had rent it, but the ornaments were still visible, representing a cross with rosetted rings in the centre and the corners. As inscription, it bore the following signs : Pray for Diarmait ! It was addressed to us too. I know not what the others did, but I saw Miles cross himself, and his lips move slightly, as he read the inscrip- tion. Not a soul had hitherto been visible in the ruins ; no one had met us. The sun, the ivy, and ourselves, were the only living things in this kingdom of the dead. When we came out of the cathedral, we saw a young woman on her knees before a cross near St. Kevin's kitchen. She was not disturbed by our appearance, and we walked very softly past her. Miles, however, seemed of a different opinion, and shouted, " Ho ! Betsy, what's the matter ?" Betsy looked up ; her face was tear-swollen. " Oh !" she sobbed, u my husband is so ill, so ill !" Then she bowed once more over the stone cross. 66 Have you been to the doctor yet ? " Miles asked. 66 Yes," the poor woman replied ; " but the doctor of Laragh has gone into the country, and will not return before night, and it may be morning before he comes up to us in the mountains. Ah !" she sobbed through her tears, "if the Virgin would only help !" And I heard a voice within me say, u Pray for Diar- mid!" Miles crossed himself and whispered a prayer; we collected a small sum for the poor woman, and gave it to Miles to hand to her. 80 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Then we walked on ; grave after grave, slab on slab. Whoever is buried in this churchyard, wall be saved on the day of judgment : St. Kevin obtained salvation for his dead from Heaven. The earth of this cemetery protects against sundry illnesses : any one who takes in his teeth the stone lying under the cross, and runs with it thrice round the cemetery without stopping will never suffer from toothache again. At length we stood under the great round tower — the old grey king of this world of ruins — a king without a crown, for the roof has disappeared — a king without sub- jects, a most solitary, deserted old king. Silently and solemnly he looks down on the small round tower of St. Kevin's kitchen. He is the father, as it were, the other the son — a baby round tower, Ellen called it ; but it is a baby with a grey mossy head, and a long depending beard of creepers. And yet, the French poet says, " The dead never grow old." Ah, the dead of Glendalough are fear- fully old ; they look wearied, as if they would be glad to die again. We went into the round tower, and a cold, vault-like blast met us ; the wind, which we had not felt outside, roared in the hollow pillar, and the sound seemed ghostly in the gloom that received us. Mr. Macrie dis- turbed our reflections ; he had been afraid to come in through fear of catching cold, and now he shouted, u Why do you leave me here so long ? It is not proper for my daughters to remain so lono; awav from their parent." The funny old gentleman had apparently grown tired of his antiquarian researches outside, and vented his dis- pleasure on his daughters, for Miles was not at hand. He had gone on, and made signs to us to follow him. He showed us a square hole in the ground overgrown with grass and moss. GARADH DUFF'S GRAVE. 81 "Here Garadh Duff, the horse-thief, lies buried/' Miles said. " When he was about to die, he said, ' Holy- father, grant me one prayer — bury me in your own churchyard, so that I may be saved, and leave a hole in my grave, through which I will thrust my hand when a horse-stealer passes and pinch his leg, that he may think on you, holy father.' " " Only horse-stealers — not poachers?" Mr. Macrie asked. " Not poachers, thank the saints !" Miles replied, as he placed his foot on the hole, to render it easy for Garadh to pinch his leg, if he felt any inclination ; but the ghostly arm did not appear ; and Miles said, once again, " Not poachers, thank the saints !" The last of the churches still left us to visit is situated on the high road leading from Laragh. It was the Ivy Church, perhaps the best preserved specimen of old Christian buildings in Ireland. The quadrangular en- trance, the choir, and the windows, with their semi- circular arches — in short, all the characteristic features of the old style are found here in excellent condition. But, at the same time, the most luxuriant plants have done all in their power to adorn and enliven this glorious relic of a glorious age. Completely hidden in ivy, it resembles a temple in which Nature is performing her religious rites. The thick roots of waving trees have joined above the entrance, and hold the crumbling stones together as with strong arms. What will man in this sanctuary ? Our work was ended, and we could depart ; and we did go, till we reached a bog that lay between the wood and the high road. Across it was our world; we saw the cabins of Laragh, we saw human beings again, but G 82 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. the bog interposed. Mr. Macrie declared that Miles was a treacherous fellow^ purposely leading them into danger. Miles observed there were stones enough in the bog, and it was easy to spring from one to the other. But to this Mr. Macrie would not trust, and Miles had at length to carry him over pickaback. The two girls had sprung over by my assistance ; the water had scarce kissed the dust away from their dainty little feet. If stones could feel, they must have been delighted at the grace with which Ellen and Jane stepped upon them. Many a manly heart would have given something to be so trampled upon by such pretty feet. Mr. Macrie sat on Miles's back like a hero : his right hand was firmly twisted in Miles s hair, with the left he held on to his whisker, and Miles held him in addition with both arms. In this way he trotted through the Log, while Mr. Macrie cried, "Oh, oh, oh !" with closed eyes. When he reached the opposite shore in good pre- servation, he asserted that he had safely gone through a great danger, and gave his daughters a sacred promise never to venture it again. " Oh, my daughters," he said, " now we will go to dinner." FAREWELL TO GLENDALOUGH. 83 CHAPTER V. GOOD-BY TO GLENDALOUGH— THE CLARA VALLEY— THE HILL OE FINN'S WIVES— RATHDRUM— POTHEEN— THE VALE OE AVOCA— THE MEETING OE THE WATERS— THE MOTTY-STONE— IRISH PATTERNS — WOODEN- BRIDGE — A SONG — NIGHT SCENES — A GAME WITH SHILLELAHS— • MINNIE— A PROTECTOR— AN IRISH ROW— PLEASANT DAYS AND HAPPY MEMORIES. We hurried back to the inn. The waiter no longer stood in the doorway : many Sunday guests had arrived, and there was plenty of running from the kitchen to the coffee-room, up and down stairs. He had no time to abuse poor Miles and reproach me, or deprive Mr. Macrie of the spills. He had scarce time even to listen to us when we asked about dinner. He said, " Directly, directly !" and we went for a while to our rooms. From my window I surveyed once again all I had visited this day. It was no longer strange to me — I stood and sur- veyed the green landscape. And, as if it would recog- nise my authority over it, although silence had reigned in the valley the whole day through, at this moment a bugle began sounding in the misty distance, and, lost in the melody, I, a poor poet, stood there a rich and happy king ! When I presently went to the inn door, Miles Doyle G 2 84 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. was sitting on a wooden bench before it. He was smoking his pipe and gazing thoughtfully on the ground. He rose as I approached, and looked at me with remark- able tenderness. " Remember me to Minnie/' he said, " and my old fat wife, too. I do not doubt you will see them at Wooden- bridge. I wish I could go with you; but poor Miles must be at his post. Perhaps there will be strangers here this afternoon, and money to earn." I promised to carry out his wishes. " Ah, you are so kind, young gentleman," he said. I did not know how far I deserved this praise, and there was a pause. " So kind, young gentleman," Miles said. Then he looked at me with his most cunning glance, and at length blurted out a question which, it seemed, must have long lain on his heart. " Young gentleman," he said, " as you noticed so much of what I said in my stupid way, and made so many remarks in your note- book, of course you intend — pray forgive the question — to write a book about our country in your language, as the gentlemen from Dublin and Mr. Black have done?" " Perhaps so," I replied. " What next?" " Well, then, I would beg you, sir, as you are so kind, not to forget poor Miles Doyle, the guide of Glenda- lough." Good Miles, I have not forgotten you! You stand at this moment — while a German April shower is dashing against my windows — before me, in the glorious mid-day sun of Glendalough. With your torn coat, your broad straw hat, the scar over your lip, your pipe, your grey clever eyes, and your melancholy honest face; and if one of my valued readers, male or female, should visit Glendalough, be assured, good Miles, they will ask after you and take you as guide, even were the waiter to say PEASANT GIRLS. 85 that you were a poacher and a vagabond ! Then, he asked if I did not intend to return some day ? " Yes/' I said, " some day, when I have married, and take my wife to show all the places where I was happy in thinking of her ; then I will visit Glendalough too." " One of those two ?" Miles asked, pointing to the inn. " No, my good fellow, my wife must be German ; but just as pretty, pleasant, and good as they are." Whereon Miles Doyle took off his straw hat, and shouted, 66 Long life to your young wife ! I will carry her on my back into St. Kevin's bed, and the saint will bless her." It is the popular belief here that the woman who has sat in St. Kevin's bed bears her husband the loveliest children. We shook hands on parting, and I saw him no more. Another party had claimed his services as guide, and we, too, presently got our dinner, and after it a car. Miss Jane and myself occupied one side, while Mr. Macrie and his second daughter sat on the other. And thus, towards evening, with the sinking sun, we quitted the inn of Glendalough, and went further into the hills. We approached a richly forested and better populated por- tion of the country, and at once felt the vicinity of more active life. The evening breeze, spiced by the aroma of the forests, poured more freely upon us ; and when we passed through a village, motley groups assembled in the road. The children, with their naked graceful feet, their round brown legs in the short ragged skirts, look like Murillo's angels, and have as much humour in their plump faces. The girls, standing in the doorway, or nodding to us from the meadows, are not handsome, but they appear very impassioned, and are remarkably piquant. They have black eyes, and know the use of them. They are 86 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. coquettish, like French women ; but their coquetting is more natural, and much more innocent. They coquette without purpose ; they will not make any one happy or unhappy by it. Strange creatures ! I fancied I discovered something similar in the land- scape. Nature here is very wild, but not very liberal ; she gives the country more ornament than wealth. I have no recollection of waving wheat-fields and stately orchards, but the woods stand all the more exqui>itL'ly before me. It seems as if the forest has lavishly ex- pended all its treasures in the scanty districts still left to it. I have never seen trees of such splendour : the obscurity of their avenues perfectly closed us in. Over the wall gleamed the laurel, the horse-chesnut rustled, the larch waved in the wind, the pine, the fir, the proud beech, the hardy oak, the linden — all grew majestically side by side, and the ivy clung around them. It twines round the walls and round the towers, round quiet farm- houses and lordly residences, round the ruins of cabins and the ruins of churches, round all the trees — it even twines round itself. All Nature, as if each individual growth had not enough in what she has imparted to it, is clothed in ivy. Is not that slightly coquettish on the part of Nature ? And so Ave went through the Clara Valley. On our left, beneath the trees, plashed merry bright water — it was the pleasant Avon-mohr. How our horse trotted ; how the broken foot-boards rattled; how we tore up hill and down ; and how our merry driver poured out the names of mountains, rivers, and villages, right and left ; and how many old stories he found time to tell us : and how Mr. Macrie declared that the day could not end RATHDRUM. 87 without some terrible accident, and that the driver would do better to hold his horse in than tell old stories. And past us flew many a black-eyed country maid ; and the hills flew past, and the sun sank deeper, and the sky poured its purest evening peace over us and all the world. The larks, too, were here again, and sang and twittered in the blue atmosphere over us as they rose and sank. The wood ended, and we entered the wide open range of hills. The sharp-peaked chain of Glendalough filled the west with a purple blue mass ; the sun had collected over it a dense fiery mist, and opposite, in the far east, glistened the u gilt spears." Gradually, as the heavy golden fog changed into a transparent cloud of light, which would cheer us for a long time, a fine blue undu- lating line became visible to the north. "Do you see those hills?" the driver asked, as he turned round on his seat, and pointed his whip-handle to the north ; u it must be clear weather to see them — they are fifty miles from here, and called 'the Hill of Finn's Wives.' I never saw them so well before, and, if you have no objection, I will tell you an old story about them." u A capital story," said Mr. Macrie, when the driver ended his tale, which is so old that I will not repeat it. "And what's the name of that place on the top of the hill?" u Rathdrum, sir," the driver said. u Rathdrum ! Let me see, what is there worthy of notice there ? " He opened the Picturesque Tourist, in which he held his finger incessantly, and read to us : " ' The horse, however, if it has come from Glendalough, should have a draught of meal and water, and the traveller take the 88 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. refreshment that best pleases him.' Good, good, you shall have it. Driver, what refreshment do you like best?" u A glass of potheen always pleases the Irishman best." u What, potheen ! — always potheen, always exciting drinks ! The horse might grow wild, and so on. No potheen, I say ; the Picturesque Tourist, too, mentions nothing about potheen. Take a draught of meal and water, and give the horse beer — I mean, beer for you and water for the horse, but not potheen, driver." The driver said, fc * Very good, sir," and we slowly ap- proached the town. Rathdrum has seen better days : it was celebrated for its flannel factories. There still stands opposite the market-place a stately building, visible a long way off, with a large cupola : it is the flannel hall. It stands empty, and below it, on the market-place of Rath- drum, is a long row of rained and deserted cabins, in the centre of which are the police barracks. A true Irish picture, and yet Rathdrum looks much better than many an Irish town. The neighbouring copper mines make up to many of the inhabitants for the decay of the flannel factories, and the situation of the town is exquisite. In the doorways along the gloomy narrow street, winch runs up the hill, sat the pretty Irish girls, allowing the lads to pay court to them : they saluted the passers kindly, and returned every hand-kiss with great zeal. All looked after us and smiled ; only the high police of Rathdrum stalked stiffly and in a lordly way past us. Not a look or salute was deigned us, for the high police is a cosmo- politan ruffian, and troubles himself about nobody whom it dare not take up or annoy. TVe stopped at the inn, and THE YALE OF AYOCA. 89 then went on in the evening cool, after horse and driver had been refreshed in the prescribed way. The Vale of Avoca commences just behind Rathdrum. Gentle hills and meadows, and farms with white walls, stand in the foreground, and behind them is the dark green forest, and, in the distance, the mountain range. Two streams — I must call them so, as they babbled so noisily — animated the darkening distance on either side. The landscape grew gradually softer, every sharper out- line was lost, and only the waving wood on the hills, the noisy water in the valley, and the blue cool mist of twi- light, remained to us. The car rolled slowly along, and I followed it on foot at a moderate distance. I walked where Thomas Moore had walked fifty years before me ; I stopped where he had once stopped — here, where the waters meet, on the celebrated bridge, where he sung his loveliest song. Above the pine-forest behind me the last purple clouds trembled in the softest azure ; opposite, the dark chesnuts waved ; and across the bright green meadow glistened the white houses of the little village. All had become silent : not a human sound was mingled with the solemn voice of the summer night. At length, when I was compelled to join my party again, I heard Mr. Macrie's loud voice, and the driver was doing his part, too, in the conversation. u Do you know," the first-named gentleman shouted to me, " that this is the spot where Mr. Thomas Moore de- livered his celebrated speech at the meeting of the waters?" "And that over there, on the Connery hills" — the second-named gentleman overpowered his voice — " the 90 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Motty-stone lies? Just look along the handle of my whip — that is the rock there. It comes down every first May morning to bathe in the meeting of the waters and pay a visit to this stone under the linden-tree. At that time there is great virtue in the w r ater, and whoever is so lucky as to see the stone roll down and bathe directly afterwards in the water, is cured of every sickness." Mr. Macrie shrugged his shoulders in pity, and looked at me. " A driver/' he then said, while the latter took the trouble to point out the Motty-stone to the girls — u a driver ! you must let him speak now and then ; but there are really very simple drivers in Ireland." We then climbed on our car again, and the u simple driver" let his horse trot merrily through the glorious twi- light. On our right, the Avoca now flowed broad and still, and closely-grown trees, through whose crowns the moonbeams played tremulously on us, begirt its shores. How pleasant the valley looked in its new magic ! The road, too, grew every moment more lively with laughing girls and singing boys returning home from Wooden- bridge pattern. At the sight of so many merry faces, we thought it our duty to console our driver, who had lost a day's fun. 66 Ah," he said, u no Christian in Ireland has so many shillings as he has opportunity to spend at jolly patterns ; not a Sunday where, in a circuit of twelve miles, there are not thrice as many patterns." " Whence in all the world do you get so many saints as are required for these name-days ? " " Whence, your honour ? I don't know. I only know that they are here, and that we have enough for ourselves and our children, and our children's children, and all eternity. We have on our green island, God bless it WOODEN-BRIDGE INN. 91 three thousand saints, blessed saints, sir, and great per- formers of miracles." " And how do you celebrate these patterns ? " I asked further. " As you see, sir ; with drinking, love-making, and every sort of nonsense." The driver was right. I saw that instances of the three sorts were going on around us in the bright moonlight. Some of the passers-by had got most piously intoxicated, and could not stand in honour of the saint ; others had yielded to the sweet promptings of their heart, and were walking arm-in-arm with their sweethearts ; often enough, indeed, our horse was brought to a stand-still, because a whole squadron of loving beings advanced in battle array, and only on our driver's earnest appeal opened the barrier of their arms and souls for an instant to let us pass. The band of holiday-makers generally — for I cannot say whe- ther the drunkards and lovers did not, each in their special fashion, play tricks as well — surrounded the other two groups, teased some, annoyed others, and had fights, at times, to the accompaniment of yells and curses. There was plenty of row and fighting, and the sweet Vale of Avoca began all at once to smell very powerfully of whisky and shillelahs. I constantly looked round for my Minnie in the black velvet jacket, but could not discover her, as so many other black-eyed girls passed in the moonlight. The beauty of the landscape grew step by step ; hills again begirt us, and immense trees rustled over us, while in the depths the silvery Avoca murmured through the foliage. With a sharp turn we at length drove round the hill and into the yard of the Wooden-bridge Inn. This inn was at the moment the centre of the nonsense, and you can imagine how things went on, though only 92 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. in the lower rooms, as the upper ones were reserved for visitors. The worthy hostess did not seem to set much account by the lower classes and the pattern. " When it's ten o'clock they must be off," she said; "I sent away the music at nine, else they would sit here till to-morrow morning." In a rather large room, not higher than an ordinary man, which was full of the worst smells and most un- supportable steam, sat the honourers of the Wooden-bridge pattern round a sadly burning oil-lamp. The rising smoke of their tobacco lay in impenetrable layers over their heads. Ten or twelve of them were drinking out of one glass : there was no sign of excess. They had no music, as I said, and the landlady had given orders they were not to sing. The waiter told me there was not a far- thing to earn by these people ; they could not stand any drink, but were at once intoxicated. On my intercession, however, permission was granted them to sing one more song ; but that must be the last. I stood in the open doorway. " Joe ! " a couple of old fellows shouted, who were sit- ting over a half-filled whisky-glass at the end of the room — " Joe, you must sing." Joe said he must make haste to catch up his girl, who was waiting for him : he had not a moment to waste. But the others would not listen to this. The girl could wait, they said, and he must sing. Joe got up and banged the table. " Silence !" he shouted ; " I will sing. Look out to join in at the right moment, and not act like drunkards by beginning too soon or too late." "What?" some young fellows seated in the window AN IRISH SONG. 93 shouted. "Whom do you call drunk? You mean us, you vagabond ! you scamp ! you bad lot ! Hallo, hallo!" " Silence ! " the others shouted. Joe struck the table a second time, and declared that they envied him every- thing — they envied his singing, they envied his girl. It would have come infallibly to a fight if the old men had not got up, and said that any man who lifted a finger should be turned out, and Joe was to sing. Matters became quieter, and Joe sang " St. Patrick was a Gentle- man." This song is one of the most popular in Ireland, and the whole company raised a shout of joy as he started it. He sang with a voice which no one, not even a professional envier, needed to wish for. But he sang bravely, that is true, and he leaped and danced and banged the table when the chorus was to strike in. And the latter, composed of men, women, and children, some half drunk, others completely so, also banged the table, and made a tremendous row. When the song was over, everybody shouted loudly and unanimously for fresh drink, for singing produces thirst, and the waiter brought for more than a hundred shouters not quite a dozen glasses. He might be right in his assertion, that there was not much to be gained from such people. Whisky is the favourite subject of their most fiery songs, and yet they cannot stand one- half of what a German drinks before he begins to sing, and not one-third of what the Englishman drinks after he has long ceased to sing. They get intoxicated with uncommon rapidity : their hot blood is in a moment ex- cited, and then there is the deuce to pay. They fight with sticks and throw stones, and their wives — if they 94 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. do not prefer to get drunk too— have a great deal to en- dure from their husbands' intoxication, and that not merely in the lower classes, I heard it whispered. Before the inn door stands a group of four tall, stately ash-trees, from which the sign hangs. The leaves glit- tered and shook in the bright moonshine. Under the trees sat several policemen : the moon, that shone over the hill into the fresh green valley, played most roman- tically on their black, polished helmets. On the opposite bridge, beneath whose arches the Avoca pours into the open valley, six fellows were fighting, apparently under police inspection ; and they struck one another's heads so energetically with their sticks, that it might be assumed they were experimentalising which were the harder, the sticks or the heads. I crossed the bridge, and follow- ing the high road, approached the wood. A car stood there, drawn up by the ditch, and in it sat a elrild, whose white socks glistened in the moonlight, while the feathers in its hat oscillated in the night breeze. The child was witnessing a rare sight : in the ditch some six men were fighting, one of whom was its father, and yelling they would murder each other ; and the wives, one of whom was its mother, were lamenting and crying they were poor lost creatures ; while a man — a species of umpire — walked behind the fighters, and picked up the hats they lost in the heat of the combat. The whole scene was illumined by the bright moon of an August night, the same moon which had risen over the sweet Yale of Avoca, and by whose light I saw that the men wore gold chains,- and the women silk dresses. But, ere long, a new scene attracted my attention. About twenty paces further on, a girl ran across the A FRIEND IX NEED. 95 road, wringing her hands, and shrieking, u Joe ! my Joe ! where are you? Oh, Joe, where are you?" On a heap of stones by the wayside sat an elderly woman, crying amid tears and sobs, " Oh, Heaven, if we were only at home ! Oh, Heaven ! 99 I walked nearer, and who else stood before me but Minnie with the velvet jacket ! u What is the matter, girl V 9 1 asked. She recognised me with glad surprise. " Heaven be thanked !" she said, " it is you ! Oh, help me, help my mother !" She seized my right hand, her mother seized my left ; the two women trembled terribly. " What is the matter ?" I asked ; u what has occurred?" " Oh !" cried Minnie, u they are going to kill us !" "Oh!" the mother cried, "don't you hear them yelling?" In truth, I heard a hoarse sound, that proceeded from somewhere near in the wood. u We were standing here," Minnie said, u waiting for Joe, and there came a drunken boy whom I don't like, and never liked, and said I must go with him. Joe was a drunkard and a rogue, and sitting in the inn, singing, and not thinking about going home with me. And when I ordered him to go his way, he said, 6 No, I must go with him ;' and he seized my arm and tried to drag me away. Then I screamed, and my mother screamed too, and we defended ourselves, till another boy came and said it was a disgrace for an Irishman to attack two women, and the two began fighting, and everybody who came up fought, and ran into the wood. Holy Virgin ! there they are again !" 96 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. At this moment a band armed with sticks of every description burst from the wood, and rushed with shouts towards the spot where the women stood, who hung on my arms and implored me to protect them. Fate was so kind as to support me in this highly critical position, for hardly had I, with very doubtful hopes of success, placed myself before the two defenceless creatures, ere Joe came up with a shout on the other side of the battle-field, leading a dozen fresh combatants. The fight was soon over; Joe and his friends knew no mercy, and a general flight soon cleared the ground. Then Joe came up and received his girl and her mother from me. I gave Miles Doyle's message, but there was no chance of the kiss this time. I did not think about it ; or, if I did, I said nothing. Against this kiss not only the flour-sacks, but the shillelahs of all Ireland seemed to have conspired. When I returned to the inn all was quiet, and in the coffee-room on the first floor sat Mr. Macrie, with white choker and dignity peculiar to him when eating and drinking, at the head of the tea-table ; his daughters od either side, exactly as at Glendalough. The map was there too, and the cigar that went out every moment, and the box of spills. We took leave of each other that evening; for Mr. Macrie was going off with the twins the next morning, while I stationed myself comfortably in the inn, in order to enjoy a several days' siesta in the most delightful scenery which Nature has created in the Wicklow hills. I felt that I wanted some rest before going further, after all I had seen and heard. The days passed away like a pleasant, happy dream. I did nothing but walk about under trees and by the quiet waters ; I climbed up the hills, and laid myself on the soft green grass, reading Moore's poems ; I met PLEASANT MEMORIES. 97 many a stray child in these solitary wood-meadows, and let them tell me stories and sing me songs, which I have faithfully preserved. All was most charmingly blended in a rosy picture, of which I have only a few settled re- collections. Thus, I remember the house in which I passed these exquisite days. It stood pleasantly, with its white walls, small windows and balconies, under the green pines which grew down the hill-side, almost touching it. The three other sides of the view w^ere closed in at a moderate distance by rich, well-covered hill-slopes, and the fore- ground was occupied by meadows through which the Avoca babbles ; I remember the old bridge over it, the picturesque clumps of trees, the farm-houses and buildings scattered over the valley and on the mountains. Along the white walls of the house bloomed white and red roses in glorious profusion. I remember that on the rose-entwined balcony of the corner wing, a lovely young woman often appeared in a white dress and with golden tresses, that fluttered in the breeze among the roses ; at times, though, an elderly, grey-headed man stood behind her, with his right arm round her waist, and his left pointing to the distant hills. I remembered the often-traversed, ever dearer path to the meeting of the waters and to Castle Howard. They w^ere dark walks under sycamores and beeches, the most splendid I ever saw : the most fragrant avenue of trees under which I ever walked. The waters flowed by my side, and the melody they sang became familiar to me, and the dearer every time I heard it. Castle How r ard rose from the forest glen, and in the shadow cast by its walls rested cleanly cabins. Upon the walls, between H 98 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. clumps of laurel, lay children with Murillo faces. In the wood behind the cabins is a large tree, round which the ivy has twined so heavily and luxuriously, that the life has been squeezed out of the trunk and the lower branches, and the majestic tree only serves as a support to the ivy-wreaths. Under this tree I often sat for hours : then I returned to the more lively high road. There are no ruined castles and keeps in this picturesque country : partisan and religious wars inexorably swept away these last fragments. But in this pleasant valley there is no lack of crumbling cabins and deserted vil- lages, while even' third house inhabited seems to be a public. The only literary memorials are the signs u li- censed to sell beer and spirits ;" and what may be the stores for sale in these wretched and lone cabins, which are often so narrow that the inhabitants can scarce lie side by side? A bottle of whisky, another of gin, enough to intoxicate the carter who drives his wretched animals past. Nothing can be more picturesque than these carts and the human beings who animate the highway. I remember an old crone, in a long cloak composed of countless tatters, each of a different colour, and the whole, fluttering in the breeze, looked like the plumage of a huge uncanny bird : and the naked dirty legs and thin yellow arms were visible with every breath of wind. And her eyes were large and dark. I remember an Irish giiL with black hair hanging wildly about her head, with dark-brown eyes and red jacket : she sat cowering in a donkey-cart. Two boys in felt hats sat on the shafts, and the donkey trotted on in the shadow of the chesnut-trees. I remember, further, a very elegant car with a quick trotting pony : two pretty, healthy maidens in silk dresses nature's magic. 99 were seated in it; their faces glowed with such a ruddy hue, and then- dark hair was so smooth ; a delicate hand held the reins, and the pony leaped with pleasure and shook his mane. I shall never forget this road, it was one of the most frequented in Ireland, although ever more quiet than the most solitary German highway. When I crossed it, the wood running down to Wooden-bridge received me. I remember the pleasant wood glade, with its juicy black- berries, the peasant lads that lay under them, and the sheep and goats that pastured on the slope : and what a glorious evening was wont to follow the glorious day ! It was then quiet in the pleasant house : the moon rose over the hill, only the roses at the window whispered, only the ash-trees under the gay sign stirred, only the waters under the old bridge babbled. I remember that at about this hour the windows in the corner room were opened, and through the rose- bushes of the balconv. on which I had seen the fair young lady in the white dress, soft music sounded, and a pleasant, gentle woman's voice sang the accompaniment. I never heard but one sonh town. Here you find a whole street full of old clothes shops, and in the cellars the same stench, the same collection of dirty men and dirty goods. Even on the quays which run along the Salmon and Shannon rivers, the fresh breeze from the water and the neighbouring ocean cannot quite overcome the wretched smell of rags. In the main street there is an impenetrable medley of cobblers, donkey-carts, wretched men, herring-casks, low women, dirty children, and clothes shops. The side streets are gloomy and silent. I saw nothing of the venerable houses with gabled roofs which Macaulay describes in such elegant language ; I did not find that u the aspect of the streets is such, that the traveller who walks through them can imagine that he is in Normandy or Flanders." On the contrary, with the sole exception of George-street, I did not see a house within the banlieue of Limerick in which the roof was not fallen in or the door broken, or at least a few panes of glass smashed. I remember walking through a large LIMERICK CASTLE. 207 house in which only the walls were standing, the window holes could still be distinguised, and a few rags of paper still hung from the walls ; and not only here, but also in Newton Perry, the pride of Limerick, I saw entire rows of ruins ; even in the centre of the broadest part of the Shannon, where there was no road or bridge, two large crumbling houses stood, without roof or window. Whence this frightful mass of old clothes shops in all the streets, these roofless ruins in the stream of busy life ? I do not know. It is as if the people in Ireland built " ruins" as we do houses ; and carry rags and filth to market instead of the clothing of our workshops. According to the plan I had by me, I was in the vicinity of the celebrated Limerick Castle, but could not find it in consequence of the confusion around me. I asked for it: few knew it; they looked at me with amazement, and let me go my way. Only when I asked for the barracks, could they direct me, so fully does this people seem to forget its past history ! Their dissatisfac- tion no longer knows the historic grounds ; they have grown sufficiently accustomed to the changes of modern living, and their fury is that of obstinate, unreasoning children. They do not know what they want, and have only a dark feeling that there are two parties, of whom the English are the oppressors, the Irish the oppressed. Against the walls of the castle barracks have been built and occupied by militia and pensioners. An old corporal, in a red coat, and with a nose of the same hue, was sitting on a post in the doorway, and smoking his pipe. He must have been occupied with important thoughts, for he did not move till I stood close by his side. 66 Eh, comrade !" I said, u will you be my guide ?" 208 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. He looked up slowly, and arose still more slowly ; it seemed difficult for him to leave his seat on the post. He was Irish by birth, and spoke wretched bad English with difficulty. He had gone through the war of liberation on the Continent, and had fought under Wellington in the Peninsula and the Netherlands. " Wellington was a brave man,*' he said ; " God bless his memory ! He was bom on Irish soil ; he knew the Irish and loved them." After this exclamation, in which he had poured out his whole heart before me, we began our march, and it was memorable ground on which we walked, step by step. In this castle Sarsfield's army held out faithful to the last man, after the king had long been faithless and fled to St. Germain. The old corporal knew more of these buried stories than I had at first supposed. tt Come," he said, after noticing the interest I took in them, u I will show you the towers." The castle dates from the time of King John ; six hun- dred years full of wild struggles and useless treaties have passed over it. Patriots of every age are buried in its walls, and the blood of many noble hearts on either side has dyed the ground on which it stands. At first a castle of the English tyrants, it became at a later date a fortress of the Irish rebels; then its ruined walls and blown-up towers were restored and turned against their former occupiers ; and now, when the cross flag of St. George flutters calmly over it, it looks down gloomily on the u king of rivers" — alas, another king without a crown, like the other kings of Ireland who dwell in the mud- hovels of the west — and awaits the time when a new dawn will play round its grey stone brow. At present nearly the whole of the castle lies in ruins, SARSFIELD. 209 and a pile of stones slopes down to the water. The affection and openness of the old red-coat seemed to grow with every tower I clambered up ; and at last, when I ex- pressed a desire to climb up the ruins by the water, he offered me his shoulder joyfully as a ladder, and pressed my hand affectionately when I returned to the fragment of wall where he awaited me. From this spot we sur- veyed the water, the bridge, and the other bank. There stood the tents of the Irish cavalry ; there their little wild horses were tethered ; there their camp-fires burned ; a few suburban houses and gardens now cover the ground. Ginkell, the Dutch commander of William's besieging army, resolved to break the communication be- tween Sarsfield's beleaguered army in the castle, and the horsemen on the Clare bank. The attack was made and the cavalry fled in wild disorder; the bridge fort was attacked and speedily stormed ; the garrison fled towards the city. But through fear of the pursuing English the gates had been blocked up. Many of the Irish leaped head foremost into the river and perished in it. Others cried for mercy, and waved their handkerchiefs as a sign of surrender. But the victors were mad with fury ; their cruelty could not be immediately checked, and prisoners were not made until the pile of corpses rose above the parapets. u That is the bridge," the old corporal said, pointing to a stately arch over the water ; u the old wooden bridge was pulled down and a stone one built in its place. But I can remember the old one well enough, and shall not forget the barbarity of the English which is connected with its memory." Through the red English coat the Irish heart of the old soldier burst for the first time, and he no longer p 210 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. attempted to hide it, though he was still cautious. We walked across Thomond Bridge. On the other side, not far from the last arch, on the right, is a large black stone deep sunk in the ground. Time has gnawed at its edges, and it has been rent by the rain of ages. But the upper surface can still be distinctly traced, which covers the whole like the top of a table. " That is the treaty stone," the corporal said. I stopped to draw its outline in my note-book. A few steps further on is McDonald's whisky store, a small thoroughly Irish house, in which there is usually a wry decent row going on. M'Donald is a zealous patriot, and the patriots collect at his house and drink his whisky and curse the Englishmen within his four walls, whore no one overhears them. M'Donald was standing on the threshold while I stopped by the stone. The corporal went up to him, and I was invited to step in. The room was small, and man v men with heated faces were seated on casks and benches, and the host's neat little wife stood behind the bar. She came forward to salute me. "Take the strange gentleman up-stairs," M'Donald said, as he gave the corporal a glass of strong whisky. The woman went first and I followed her up a small narrow flight of stairs : then we walked into a lighter room, which looked like a palace compared with the lower one. "Here, dear sir," she said, "you can read it;" and she pointed to a large glass frame on a table. It contained the articles of the treaty of Limerick. I was bending over it when M'Donald came in and said, " We will go down and read it," and he took the articles down stairs, where we followed him. His customers, the men with the PATRIOTIC IRISHMEN. 211 heated faces, with the corporal at the head, who had already drunk more than one glass of whisky to my health, and at my expense, collected round the landlord and listened as he read the articles, one after the other, with considerable pathos. When I asked him presently what connexion there was between the articles and the stone, he replied : " These articles were subscribed on that stone, and the Englishman broke this article, and this one," and he pointed to the first, third, and seventh. "He broke them all, he did not keep one!" a man with a large brown beard shouted, a perfect Hercules, rather decently dressed, and possessed of some slight de- gree of education. " You want to know," he said, as he leaned against the wall, " what that stone means. It is an eternal monument of English faithlessness and Irish bravery." An old man with grey hair, but cunning look, and who was held in great respect by his comrades, said that he hated the English and loved the French, and that the French and the Irish were brothers in faith and in blood, and that the French would come to free them from their misery. 66 And when they come," he concluded, " they shall have the best salmon in the Shannon, and the best whisky from McDonald's cellar ; and, as you are a French- man, O'Leary of Limerick bids you welcome, and hands you his glass to drink with him to the welfare of Ire- land." I did not dare refuse, but I certainly felt uncomfort- able, for the atmosphere was stiflingly oppressive, and the spirit-inflamed tempers of the whisky drinkers were beginning to grow dangerous. " Bravo ! and when the French come, I will stand by their side against the English," shouted the little corporal p 2 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. in her Majesty's coat, with a sudden outburst. u Hurrah ! I am no worse Irishman than the rest of you, and I drink with you all to the health of our country and our people !" u There will be bloody work yet in Ireland," a very aged man said, who was cowering in a corner on a low stool. His eye had the cold lustre of age, and his voice, as he raised it, had something prophetically deep in it, which moved me. u Bloody work," he repeated, u and battles upon battles. A woman will stand on the highest mound in the land for three days and not see a single man ; the cows will stand there, and no one will milk them ; the harvest will be lost, for there will be no one to save it ; and the spirits of the murdered will walk through the land in bright day. At the end, the last battle will be fought on the banks of the Loughail, which is called the 1 lake of sorrow/ A mill will be turned for three days with the blood of the killed, until the army of Ireland shall have driven the foreigners into the lake, where the last of them will be drowned." At this moment, when M'Donald, interrupting the deadly silence which followed these words, had walked to one of the casks to fill the corporal's glass again, the door opened and an old acquaintance walked in — the re- cruiting sergeant of the morning. His English face was red with cold, and the gay ribbons in his cap, damp with fog and rain, hung down in a bundle. But he was not alone ; he was followed by four or five young fellows in torn coats, who had taken the Queen's shilling. Some coloured ribbons were fastened on their shoulders too. All was silent when the new party entered : the Hercu- lean man, and the cunning-looking man, and the corporal, crept into the corner round the prophet, and looked as if THE RECRUITING SERGEANT. 213 tliev had not spoken for a week. But the recruiting officer was all the more loud : " Hallo ! whisky here for my lads," he shouted, almost before he entered; " whisky here for her Majesty's light brigade ! And he is a villain who doesn't join in when I say 6 God save the Queen!"' The lads did not reflect long : they looked as if thev had not eaten anything for some time or drunk for much longer. They swallowed the glass of whisky, and de- voured the rolls handed them, and shouted, with their mouths full, between the bites, " God save the Queen !*' The others, however were silent. u Why do you sit there so mumchance ? " the sergeant said, turning round impudently. "And you, corporal there, why don't you shout when we drink the health of our most gracious Queen ! n "My good sir," the corporal said, whose pipe had gone out in his fright. " my glass is empty, and n " And you wish her Majesty's servant to fill it"? Very well : in the Queen's name, fill his glass." McDonald, whose face, during the whole scene, had been gloomy, walked to a cask and filled; but he did not say a word. The sergeant, with his fellows and the corporal, collected and hob-and-nobbed, till the cry of " God save the Queen V* echoed through the same room which had a few moments before been the witness of the enthusiasm for Ireland's freedom and Ireland's faith. A new row, exactly opposite to that which had greeted me, commenced. The new guests sat down noisily in the seats of the former guests, who disappeared silently one after the other, and the Limerick articles were quietly carried up-stairs again. I went too, and the corporal 214 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. with me. But he walked behind me silently and with drooping head; he evidently felt as he would after a defeat, and for a long time did not dare look at me or address me. And thus, undisturbed by this man, who walked after me like the pitiable destiny of Ireland her- self, I proceeded along the banks of the rushing Shannon. I had taken another glance at the fermenting heart of the people, and it had not been satisfactory. English faithlessness and Irish u braverv n had fought a new battle in my pretence, and its result had not edified me. I had been taken once again for a Frenchman, and as the representative of the " great nation/' fresh proofs of the most passionate sympathy had been given to it. They cling to the illusion of help from France with the whole strength of despair. Not only here, but everywhere in Ireland, the same impotent hatred for England, the same childish preference for France, which is to them ever pre-eminently the land in which their rightful rulers the Stuarts, and the little band of faithful men who fol- lowed them, lived as martyrs and died as saints. They have a species of enthusiastic veneration for this land, which, as I heard in various quarters, is fostered by the priesthood. With the tenacity of temper, which always produces fresh illusions when the old ones are destroyed ? they hold on firmly to the hope of French help, and do not let it go ; help from that France, which was of no use to the oppressed the first time she came to their assistance, and even injured them the second time, as the French squa- dron, under General Hoche, came too soon in 1796 ; the other, under General Humbert, in 1798, came too late; and when France was appealed to for the third time, she declined all intervention or further interference. Per- THE FRENCH FOR IRELAND. 215 haps it is not generally known, or since then forgotten, that in 1848 Ireland also began to stir once again, and sent a deputation to the provisional government of France in order to congratulate it on the overthrow of monarchy, and summon the republic to help u the oppressed nation- ality of Ireland," but Lamartine, who received this deputation, refused all assistance emphatically. 216 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. CHAPTER XL THE ROYAL HOTEL — GEORGE-STREET— THE ROYAL ALBERT SALOON — THE LIMERICK PRIMA DONNA — BONNIE DUNDEE — AN IRISH SUNDAY- LIMERICK LASSES — A BRANCH-LINE— CASTLE CONNELL— THE CASTLE OF THE O'BRIENS— THE GENIUS OF IRELAND — MISS O'KEANE — THE RAPIDS —THE CHAPEL. Behind Wellesley-bridge I parted from my old cor- poral. He walked with drooping head, and in a state of general seediness, towards the barracks, while I proceeded to the "Royal Hotel," where I intended to rest. Afl I sat down to my dinner I felt as if I had been walking through centuries, I seemed to myself so old, so grey, so superannuated, like a man returning from the other shore. I should not have felt surprised had a French chevalier, with a feathered hat and high riding-boots, or an Irish rebel — such a one as went aboard with Sars- field — sat down opposite me. Such was not to be thought of in Cruise's coffee-room, which was arranged on the English model. The waiters were stiff and grand, although the green island peeped out at times at their elbows, or through some treacherous holes. Gas-lights were burning and striving to display their brilliancy through dusty globes as well as they could. Wearied travellers were seated at tables, like myself, and shouting THE ROYAL HOTEL. 217 for newspapers, very few of which were to be had. My dinner was in the mean while brought in under covers, as in England ; but the peculiar tricks the cook plays in this way, both with the hunger and imagination of the diner, were not so pleasantly terminated as is the case there. The fish was half raw, and red ; the joint — mut- ton, of course — was uneatable from the opposite fault. The mutton patriotism becomes, from this point westward, always more and more opposed to the demand a well- regulated stomach must make for a reasonable variety. At last, you rise with mutton, and go to bed with mutton, and the whole world seems to exhale a smell of mutton. Wherever I looked and felt, the same discom- fort ; the porter bottles were badly corked, the cheese was utterly decayed, and the butter was ornamented with bread-crumbs ; the plates and dishes were strongly plated, on the other hand, and the waiters' cravats of the most aristocratic stiffness. Fortunately, my appetite was not alarming, and I was soon out again, with a cigar between my hps. It was Saturday evening, and George-street was ex- tremely animated. This street is the promenade of Limerick, and by the light of the gas-lamps — which burnt here at very considerable intervals — the promenad- ing crowd walked up and down. A few ladies in crino- lines, a few gentlemen in hats — but the majority of the women walked about with naked feet, and the men wore tail-coats and torn trousers, the national costume of Ire- land. In the cellars things went on jollily enough. In one of them — a store and a barber's at once — one sat at the door being shaved by gas-light, while another was chinking whisky. In other cellars roasting and baking for the Sunday were going on, and producing a far from 218 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. agreeable smell. Limerick looked far more cheerful and lively by night than by day. It seems as if the Irish, after the fashion of nervous men, only awake to a con- sciousness and use of their strength with the first evening lights. Women sat at the street corners selling fruit and potatoes, and little girls with black hair and southern faces lay on the pavement asleep, fantastically illumined by the flickering flame of the torches. Here and again, a member of the Irish constabulary was posted, in his shako and black tail-coat, and gradually the watchmen also made their appearance with their long sticks. But between the first evening light and the long sticks of the watchmen lay a peculiar pleasure which I was to enjoy. I had naively looked about and inquired for something that would fill up the idle portion of the even- ing. There was certainly a theatre in Limerick, but there were no actors. Places of amusement, in our sense? must not be looked for in Ireland ; but at last I heard of the " Royal Albert Saloons," in which concerts took place every night. I had, I grant, lost confidence in all " Royal" things in Ireland, still I decided on not leaving this sole place of public amusement in Limerick — for such it proved — un visited. I certainly had trouble enough in finding it: some declared that they knew nothing about it, while others knew its name and posi- tion in the most general way. At length I was directed to Arthur Quay. Here, by the water-side, matters were tolerably lively. Several vessels lay close to the wharf, and only a few lights from the shore lit up their tackling. There was a sea smell when turning towards it, and a herring smell on looking landwards. All, therefore, kept to its element. The sailors seemed to be roaming about ; they lounged THE ROYAL ALBERT SALOON. 219 in their tarry jackets against the posts, or lay on the steps of the subterraneous whisky shops. They smoked and laughed and talked, while barefooted boys were playing among the piled-up casks and ships' ropes. A gas-lamp, with broken panes — the only one visible — flickered restlessly in the breeze, and before one of the houses on the quay a tar fire burned in a dish, I was directed to this house when I asked for the "Royal Albert." In front of the house was the ordinary public, with its doors opening on the street. The saloons were in the yard. In royal matters it is allowable to talk in the plural ; in everyday life the " Saloons," however, were nothing more than a wretched dirty hole, filled with smoke and stench ; in the background a species of stage, below it a place for the common folk, above, a far from secure gallery for the gentry. Of such there were three or four present besides myself. They appeared travellers, like myself, but more probably for commercial reasons. Of travellers for amusement there was at this time only one in Limerick, possibly in all Ireland, and that was I. In the room sat about ten men at nailed-down tables. They represented the people, smoked long clay-pipes, and filled the intervals with curses, because they broke so often in their mouths. Matters were managed in a free- and-easy style here, I must confess. A lady came to meet me, when I entered the gentlemen's gallery, and what a lady ! She was the prima donna of the " Royal Albert," and wore a large flowered cotton dress, and a tin diadem on her brow. She was past those years in which prime donne are wont to be dangerous, and seemed to have experienced the joys and sorrows of life in every shape. She offered me her hand, and led me to a wooden chair; she then mixed hot whisky and 220 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. water with brown sugar, and had no objection, when I asked her to drink the mixture. In the mean while, the singing had begun, most of the songs in a primitive condition, without accompaniment, some with the orchestra. This consisted of a violin soloist, at whose performance the gentlemen's hair of the gallery audience stood on end ; and, on specially solemn occasions, a boy came forward, who treated us to the piano. Most of the notes of this unhappy instrument no longer struck, and the boy, whom I had seen not long before chasing others at the water-side, had no idea of the sweet science. The fonner did no harm, and the latter was not needed; for the violinist pointed out to the boy, before the beginning of each piece, two keys, which, at an agreed-on nod, he had to strike incessantly till the end. According to his master s hints, he struck them slower, quicker, softer, or louder, sometimes with both thumbs, and then, when these had grown tired, for a variation, with the two middle fingers. The time arrived when the prima donna was com- pelled to leave us. She went down stairs into the lower room, and her garments rustled between the tables. The rustling certainly sounded like calico, but the more aristocratic was her carnage, the more proudly did the tin diadem flash. She did not deign a glance to the mob of ten ; and her eye, her smile, her heart, were di- rected to the five u gentlemen." The violinist had pointed out the two keys to the boy, and the latter sat, afraid of losing them, with outstretched fingers and half-turned face, that he, too, might notice her first appearance on the boards. At length she stepped forth, and stepped so heavily that the thin framework of boards grumbled, and the boy in his fright lost the two keys he had BONNIE DUNDEE. 221 hitherto pressed. The maestro first gave the boy a box on the ears, and showed him the lost keys once more ; then he passed the bow over the strings, while she em- ployed her handkerchief. Then she began singing : it was the song of " Bonnie Dundee/' the dauntless High- land chief, and his tartan bonnets. It is a Scottish song, and the mountain daring of the Highland clan is re- corded in the peculiar, abrupt melody. But what did the Limerick prima donna make of this song! Oh, Lord ! With her shrill soprano voice she marched into the field against harmony and bravery, and they, with Bonnie Dundee, and fiddle, and piano, fled from it in dismay. It is true that the boy tried to make a fight of it for a while with his thumbs, but the two notes grew gradually weaker and more undecided, and at length died out in a helpless whine. The violinist, too, attempted in vain what a powerful bow could do against a prima donna, It was of no use, she kept her position, and arm, bow, and violin sank, wearied to death. It was a life and death struggle for the hegemony in the kingdom of false notes, and flight was the only chance of sal- vation. But her tartan bonnets and the thunder of applause from the ten of the people and the four gentry, under which the Valkyre of song seemed to quit the battle-field, pursued me through two streets. The Sunday bells awoke me next morning. It was a rainy day, cold and uncomfortable. I shivered all over in the dark, gloomy bedroom allotted to me. I had put on my over-coat, and yet shivered. I felt as if a world and an eternity lay between me and the golden season of the lakes. All had changed, all had another colour, another tone. Poor, bare, naked, all seemed to have been sub- merged in dirt and irregularity. My window offered a 222 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. prospect of the Arthur Quay and the Shannon. In spite of the piercing cold of the autumn morning the river was crowded with men and horses bathing to- gether : and that took place in front of the most f ashionable and lively streets in Limerick ; and on the quay stones the men performed their toilet, while the horses coolly shook off the water drops. No one who has not witnessed it can form an idea of such a state of nature. It is almost as if the wild inhabitants of Ire- land, who, according to Giraldus, had goats' beards and bulls' feet, and, according to Bernard of Cirencester, smeared their bodies with blood, had risen from their peat graves to bathe in the Shannon in the foggy October morning, in ridicule of the Sunday propriety and George-street. At the same time, all these men looked ugly rather than otherwise : their faces were flattened, their features coarse, their build disagreeable. A fable about the prettiness of the u Limerick lasses" certainly runs through all guide-books, and a French tourist, in no way distinguished for his politeness to Ireland, not even for his compliment to the Limerick ladies, says "that they are more remarkable for great beauty than their husbands are for good sense." But my Picturesque Tourist was the only place where I saw anvthing of this belauded beauty. The streets were wretched enough ; the Sunday and the Sunday clothes even produced no material change in them. In all its classes the people was shabby and poverty-stricken, as usual. There was not a trace of the comfort, pious monotony, and religious retirement of an English Sunday. Trade went on in the streets as on any week-day, and though the large shops of the English in George-street were closed, the women stood MISS O'KEANE. 223 at the corners with apples aud plums, and cabbage and fish, and the retail trade, which always produces the greatest and most disagreeable noise, filled the low dis- tricts and the cellars. Wherever I turned I fancied myself still in Petticoat-lane or Seven-dials, which, as it is known, possess the odious privilege of trading on Sunday, and, in addition, buying and selling stolen wares. In the midst of the wretchedness and discomfort my surroundings produced in me, a letter came across me. It dated from happier days ; it had been given me by Mr. Farquhar, on the evening I took leave of him, with strict orders to deliver it as speedily as possible. I took it up and gazed at the address : " Miss Norah O'Keane, Castle Connell, Limerick." This name twinkled before me like a star in a gloomy night. We poor earth- pilgrims believe in stars ; oft in foreign lands, in pathless deserts, they have guided us. I had formed the ac- quaintance and learned to like Norah's brother, the student with the sweet sad eye and the soft sad heart, full of the sufferings of his country. I longed to see her and must do so this very day. " Where is Castle Connell ? " I asked the waiter w T ho answered my bell. u About six miles from here, sir, on the Killaloe-road. If you wish to visit the village, there will be an oppor- tunity this afternoon. A railway has been made there, which will be opened to-day." I at once started, and the Limerick station was soon reached. It is a building which has stood for some years, and the new railway was only a branch, which was to be continued through the midland counties, and its opening must be the occasion for some festivity ; so I expected, THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. but was in every way deceived. A complete state of nature prevailed at the Limerick station ; not a bench, not a waiting-room, nor any of the superfluous civilisa- tion of the rest of Europe ; only here and there a truck, on which you can sit, or a ladder against which you can lean. I had found a place on a quantity of boards ; in the centre between the rails stood a wooden booth, on which was written in chalk, " Booking-office," and in it sat a bov of about fourteen as clerk. There was not a simi of flags and garlands and merriment, as on the occasion of opening our railways. This people has no delight in what is new ; it is not sensible of the progress of the age, and opposes to all events the gloomy feeling of distrust ; the mob stood round with coarse, stupid faces, and the women I saw among them were also atrociously ugly. I felt happier, though, when seated in the cushioned carriage and flying along to the well-known sound and inftaling the breeze, which blew damp but fresh across the wide, fog-hidden plain. The village was reached, and its Sunday quiet received the wayfarer. Hitherto it has had no dealings with strangers ; and here for the first time the contradiction was explained, which I had borne in my breast so painfully since entering Limerick. Give me wretchedness, the whole sufferings of humanity, and I will endure them ; but give them to me unveiled, and do not try to mask the painful necessity of their apparition in shabby garments. Do not call them by another name. Oh ! misery has a powerful and world- eon vulsing voice, and it thunders its veto into your face if you dare to deny it. Here this voice was toned down to a soft, melancholy whisper ; the trees rustled gently, the water murmured gently, and gently sang the wind through the laurel hedges of the wayside. The village CASTLE CONNELL. 225 is exquisitely situated at the foot of its hills, and the summit of the first of them is crowned by the ruins of an old castle. Come with me ! we will weep for the fate of this country beneath ruins : when we are under ruins we are in Ireland. The broken genius of this land lives in ruins, and awaits the time when it will wave its drooping wings anew. It waits, and the time is already dimly visible. On a conical rock in the centre of a blooming, pleasant plain, surrounded in the distance by bluish, moderately high mountain ranges, stand the ruins of the castle, lovingly preserved. A fine broad gravel-path leads up to it from the village, and at the top all is clean and fresh. One half of the corner tower still stands, some walls also remain with windows and doors, broken it is true, but overgrown with pleasant ivy. This is all that is left of the castle in which the sons and grandsons of the great Brian Boroo once lived ; nothing remains of the halls in which the red Earl of Ulster once held his court ; nothing of the keep in which the Irish rebels defied to the last man the arms of the mighty Oranger. But scat- tered around lie huge fragments of stone, defying decay, which the Prince of Hesse blew up after capturing the mountain castle. In many other Irish ruins I found graves ; but here all was filled up with pleasant flower- beds, breathing reconciliation. They had been twined round the relics of the castle like garlands of recollection and hope. The whole ruin seemed blooming and fra- grant ; and in the dim glow of the pale afternoon sun, Ireland seemed to me a woman — young, lovely, of rare beauty, a widow, who with moist eyes, but smiling and with modest hand, strews flowers over the ruins of a na- tional fortalice, destroyed in the struggle for her liberty Q THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS* and her honour, and over the resting-place of the beloved who fell for her sake. The new event which connected the village with the world — ah. it was surely a sorrowful world — had bronchi some life to the quiet spot. The stranger was regarded as a wondrous apparition, and they endeavoured with nnxlest readiness to show him the way to the place he sought. A tall avenue of trees at the end of the village received me, and at the other extremity I saw the pleasant house, with its white walls and shining windows, on which the late sun was glistening. The O'Kcanes, as I now heard, are an old race of the Irish nobility. Their forefathers were princes in this land, but as they ever remained faithful to the cause of their people, they had their full share in every new misfortune by which it was constantly pursued; they suffered by every persecution, every defeat of the Irish, every victory of the English, and of the extensive estates they once possessed, they were restricted to this last outwork on the border of Castle Connell village. A large court-yard joined the old venerable trees, under which I had been walking. Shrubs, still damp with rain, grew over the front of the house ; the last of the hedge-roses was dying away on its stalk, and the green of the leaves was assuming the russet of late autumn. An old man-servant asked for my card and he had not been L r one loner, ere an acred, venerable cren- tleman with snow-white hair and dark eyes, appeared in the passage. u You are heartily welcome,** the old gentleman said ; mv son in Dublin has written about you several time--, and we are glad to welcome a friend of his beneath our roof." The door of ■ pleasant room on the ground floor was A PLEASANT SCENE. 227 opened, and, introduced by the hospitable host, the mother, and then Norah, the sister of my friend, came towards me with outstretched hand. A heavenly peace seemed to preside in this room ; while the parting splen- dour of nature, sunning itself in the soft light of sinking day, greeted me through the windows outside, the warm reflexion of the chimney fire played on the bright gay carpet. A blue paper covered the walls, and the sportive gleam of the afternoon threw a golden hue over it. A comfortable, fragrant atmosphere pervaded the room, and I did not feel myself a stranger long. I seated myself at once by the side of the ladies. I was pleased with the dear, suffering face of the mother, doubly ennobled by aristo- cratic regularity of feature and matronly dignity ; and my soul inhaled fresh strengthening in looking at the daugh- ter. The oval of her face was soft ; but decision was marked in the firm lines round her mouth, and her dark eye was full of fire. I could have imagined this young lady a princess of her people, with golden threads woven in her dark luxuriant hair. Visitors arrived — several neighbouring squires with their wives — and were kindly welcomed like old acquaint- ances. They collected round the oak-table in the centre of the room, and drew nearer the fire. The daughter led me to a window, and we talked. The view on thir, side commanded the high road, the hilly land with a few patches of forest, broad meadows, groups of cabins, and the glistening windings of the Shannon. When all was quiet, a hoarse murmur could be heard, growing louder and then softer, but never entirely ceasing. u Come," Miss O'Keane said, " I will show you the rapids." Just behind the house we entered a path which led to Q2 22M tribes." Doctor Molyneux, who undertook a "journey in Connaught" one hundred and fifty years prior to my- self, says of Galway that, " excepting Dublin, it is, take it altogether, the best city in Ireland. The houses are all built of stone, a species of marble, one like the other ; they look like palaces owing to their doorways and strong walls and windows, and seem all to have been built at the same time, after the pattern, as I hear, of some city in Flanders." Molyneux is not wrong ; there is something in these narrow streets, whose pavement seems worn down by the footsteps of centuries, of these gables, which stand SPANISH RELICS. 245 heavily opposite each other, that reminds me of similar mansions in Bruges or Ghent ; but I fancy it is the Spa- nish grandezza which produces this effect, even though it has fallen asleep, there as here, under the stony splendour, which is not suited for our days. It is the breath from cold, damp doorways ; it is the gloomy sad- dening glance that rests upon us, as from a glassy eye, from these moss-grown windows. We pass through the streets of a city that has left its age behind it; whose charm lies in days which have long passed away. We are strangers in it, and the people who inhabit it have as- sumed a sleepy appearance, and while we — the visitors from another world which still lives — fancy we are dreaming, they wander about — like forms of our imagi- nation, and not like real men, like beings many hundred years old — through the gloomy shops and the mouldering air of the halls. Spain herself, her people and entire kingdom, leads an existence like that of our fancy when we lie asleep, and her relics in other countries are spread about like poppy-seeds. They stupify, they lull to sleep, they produce oblivion and dreaminess; and Galway is rich in these relics of the Spanish reign ; much richer than any city on the Continent. Flanders defended itself against Spain and fell away from her ; but Ireland longed for Spain, and set hopes on Spain, as it did on France, a hundred years after the last relics of this hope were dashed on to the north coast with the Armada, and Don Juan de Aguila had quitted Kinsale harbour with the remnants of his expedition. " Spanish wine" and " Papal blessing " were in those days the words which carried their minds and their steps to the southward. What says the old popular ballad ? — THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. The Pope of Rome haa sent thee home A pardon free : A priestly train o'er the briny main Shall greet my love, And wine of Spain to thy health we'll drain, My Ros geal Dubh I But the Spanish wine that intoxicated them proved fallacious, and a long wretched sobriety followed it. No second expedition was attempted, and the courts of the Escurial were filled with the flying princes of Ireland, as were, a hundred years later, the courts of Versailles. Most of them lived at both, wretchedly, and died as beggars ; only two names have survived, and the old splendour illumines them. There is the celebrated Tyrconnel race of the O'Donnels, which is distinguished by high dignities at the Spanish court ; and in France the race of the Mac Mahons, specially celebrated through the patriotic Bishop of Clogher (who in the rebellion of 1641, exchanging the cross for the sword, led the army of Ulster), and whose youngest son received from Ire- land a sword of honour after the battle of Magenta. There is no doubt that the trade between Galway and Spain was once very extensive and important. The Spanish style of many of the fine houses that now lie in ruins, the traditions and authentic documents prove that Galway in old times was a very rich, active, jolly, splen- dour-loving city. There is no doubt either that many Spanish merchants lived in Galway and intermarried with the natives, and that the descendants of these southern connexions are to be found among the dark-eyed foreign faces in the fish-market, among the herring-casks and coarse nets. Not only in the main street, but in all side lanes and alleys, there are the grandest remains of old haughty CONTRASTS. 247 architectural buildings, which form the most striking contrast to the life they surround. A splendid arch? with marble figures, leads into a damp court, full of sherds and piles of filth. Pigs revel in a hall which dis- plays a broad flight of steps of fine workmanship. Buildings whose walls bear the arms of haughty tribes are inhabited by cobblers; others stand desolate, with nailed-up doors, and are rotting away in the continual dampness. High store-houses on the water-side, once, perhaps, full of gallons of fiery southern wines, stand gloomily, with decaying doors and rain-eaten shutters. On the stone steps, slippery with mud, under the large portals of houses sinking above them, lay half-naked children. And the murmur of the ocean which ac- companies this sight, assumed for a moment the me- lody from Beethoven's u Ruins of Athens," where the pasha fastens his horses to a pillar and lets them eat out of a marble sarcophagus. I was in Ireland, the land of wretchedness and ruins, but here, for the first time, the poetry of ruins met me in the midst of the wretchedness ; and in these streets, so strange, so sad, so fairy-like in themselves, the women, with their gay-coloured dresses, their naked legs, and black eyes — a fantastic medley of Hispano-Moorish reminiscences — English shops and Irish cabins, sailing-boats along the quays, American traders and steamers out at sea, and among them the Irish-speaking people ; and not a day's journey away in the mouth of the bay, Arranmore, "loud Arranmore," and the enchanted island ! Present and past, romantic poetry and ugly reality, pride and humiliation, majesty and ruin, are here mingled in the streets, as they are in the veins of the people that walk and dwell in them — southern Romanic blood with northern Celtic and Anglo-Norman 248 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. blood. Black eyes and golden hair are by no means a rarity in the fish-market of Galway. If you wish for contradictions, come to Galway ; if you want riddles, and legends, and primeval stories, and songs, and cus- toms, to be found nowhere else, come to the Bay ! Most of the faces have something decidedly southern — oval shape, long noses, dark eyes, and black hair ; southern garments, gay and striking, but torn and ragged. The women and girls wear red petticoats which descend to their ankles, the rest is naked. The hair is shorn close round the head, and hangs down the back ; over this they throw a cloak — the remnant of the Spanish mantilla — blue cloaks, black cloaks, often crimson cloaks, pic- turesquely folded over the head and fastened under the chin. The dark, expressive faces gain by this covering a peculiarity, and, even if not handsome, they are all enthralling and full of fiery life. At the end of the city, on the quays, w T ith the Clad- dagh opposite, is the fish-market of Galway. The place is called Spanish Parade, and an island lying out in the harbour is known as Madeira. A remnant of the city wall, with a haughty Gothic arch, borders Spanish Parade on the city side. In one of these splendid arched portals a blacksmith has taken up his abode, and through the darkness ever prevailing in this dungeon glistens the flame, and the sparks crackle round the head of the Galway Cyclops. The market in front was full of blue cloaks, lying behind the casks and selling shell-fish, and of red petticoats, walking among them. The younger women, w 7 ith the cloaks draped round their heads, looked often piquant enough ; their faces had not unfrequently the sweetest expression of passion, and their lips pouted charmingly. The old fisher-wives, on THE FISH-WIVES. 249 the other hand, who sat near the casks and smoked damp tobacco in short clay pipes, had something witch- like and menacing about them. I did not hear a single English word here : the customers were country-folk, the dwellers in the surrounding bogs, and the sellers were the women of the Claddagh — nothing but Irish blood. The men of the Claddagh go out to sea and fish, and lounge about, the lazzaroni of the West, on the other side of the bay, when they have returned from fishing. These cabin aristocrats do not trouble themselves with trade. The Claddagh and the coast sea are their world : they know nothing beyond them. The rotting boat, the crumbling cabin are their abode — everything else they despise. They call every man who does not belong to their community a stranger ; even a man from the next parish is a stranger; and it is their rule not to inter- marry with strangers. They do no go beyond their limitations, but they adhere to them. No political wretchedness, no penal code, no starvation has expelled them; but they have spurned every connexion with Danes, Saxons, and Normans ; they have not even mar- ried over in Galway, or suffered any admixture with the foreign Spanish element. Hence there is nothing in the features of the Claddagh men which evokes recollections of the Spaniards as there is among the others. The women never wear red cloaks ; and while the peasantry round Galway wear scarlet petti- coats, blue is the Claddagh colour. They have for a long time kept up a species of fisher monarchy, and even to this day select, on the eve of St. John, their " Claddagh King," who settles the disputes among his subjects, and whose boat bears a white flag as a distinguishing mark. A large procession, composed of rude masks, followed by 250 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. a dance round the bonfire, announces the commence- ment of his reign. Still, during the last ten years many of their old customs have been altered, and they are not so particular about marrying as they used to be ; so itr. Morris told me. Their names, however, are still tho- thoroughly Irish; and though you fancy you notice every now and then one that sounds English or Welsh, a Spanish one, as is so frequently the case in Galway, is never noticed. As there are so many of the same name in the Claddagh, they are distinguished by the title of some sort of fish. Thus there is, " Paddy the Salmon," "Paddy the Whale," and "Paddy the Sprat." They can nearly all speak English, or at least understand it ; but among themselves they will not on any consideration employ a Sassenach word. I heard nothing about peculiar songs, whose existence might be presupposed among so isolated a race, which stands in such intimate connexion with the sea; their whole poetic store — and it is of extraordinary depth and fulness — consists in a series of fabulous traditions, which populate the whole sea-coast with fantastic creatures. Their songs, however, are the same as we find spread over the whole of the west. They are said to sing them very charmingly, and their dances are celebrated throughout Ireland. Like all Celts, they love showy clothes and bright colours. In addition to the short blue cloak, by which the Claddagh woman may be re- cognised, she wears a red petticoat, in sunshine a gay handkerchief round her head, in rainy weather a sheet over the blue cloak. There are no braver men on the sea than the Claddagh fishers, when they set sail with the priestly blessing and consecrated salt and ashes aboard ; but on land they are very retiring and timid ; SUPERSTITIONS. 251 they cannot endure the sight of fire-arms, and are no hands at boxing. It is said that half a dozen eon- stables can put to flight ten thousand Claddagh fisher- men. This is remarkable enough with a class of men who expose their lives day after day on the dangerous element, and must wrestle for existence with every wave. I saw the same thing, however, at Heligoland. A stout fellow, who assuredly never trembled at the thundering sea, ran away from a pig, which. I allow, he had never seen before, as there are none on the island. The Oladdagh fishermen are marvellously supersti- tious, and there are a hundred things which predict good or ill fortune. They have their lucky and unlucky days, and woe to them who put to sea on an unfavourable morning ! Formerly they would not have begun fishing had not the priest sailed with them, and uttered his bles- sing over the bay; the boat with the padre sailing in front of all the rest. Even now, no boat goes to sea without oaten cake, salt, and ashes. They believe that there is a peculiar blessing in these three things : for all that has gone through, fire, they say is holy. Most super- stitious are they with respect to the prophetic qualities of certain animals. If a crow flies over their boat and croaks, that is a good sign, for the crow says, " Fish I bring you — fish I bring you ! " But so great is their fear of a fox, hare, or rabbit, that they never utter the names of those animals, or like to hear them spoken by others. If a Claddagh fisher has seen one of them, or heard its name mentioned, he does not dare go to sea that day ; and yet they do not know the reason of this strange superstition. The fear of a hare is found throughout Ireland, however, and dates from the oldest times. " If on the first of May," Camden says, u they find a hare 252 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. among their cattle, they do not rest till they have killed it, because they believe that it is an old witch who has designs on the butter." It is a widely spread supersti- tion that witches had the power to convert themselves into hares, and that if they sucked a cow, it lost its milk, which they, the witches, had in their own churn for twelve months. On the sea-coast the omen refers to a bad haul or some accident at sea, and the following amusing story is told on the subject in Galway : Near the Claddagh lived an honest butcher, who pro- fited by the superstition of his neighbours. They, namely, never go fishing on a Saturday, because they are afraid that some accident might keep them out till Sunday, and that day they keep most holy. Hence, Friday is their great fishing day, and a good haul on that day has the natural result of reducing the price of meat consider- ably at the Saturday market. The butcher, whose trade was often injured in this way, formed a plan, which worked famously till he was detected. He procured a fox, or, as some say, a stuffed skin, and paraded it every Friday on the road by which the Claddagh fishermen went down to the sea. The sight produced general con- sternation and excitement among the fishermen, and never failed in its effect. They did not go to sea on Friday, and the butcher sold his meat at good prices on the fol- lowing Saturday. They employ many means, almost of a Pagan character, to bewitch the weather and alter the direction of the wind. In their notions the elements are ruled by power- ful spirits, and they build altars, and offer sacrifices to the dark clouds and the menacing wave, as their forefathers probably did, ere St. Patrick converted them into Chris- tians. I was told that, in order to obtain a favourable CLADDAGH COURTSHIP. 253 wind, they bury a live eat up to the neck in the sand, with its head towards the quarter from which the un- favourable breeze blows, and the poor animal is left to die. At times, too, they build up a pile of stones on the shore, which has a rough likeness with a house or castle and offer it as residence to a spirit, and hope by this to obtain a good wind. But this is a serious action, and the fisher can only do it once in his life ; if he repeats it, it proves his certain ruin When a Claddagh boy loves a girl and wishes to make her an offer, he goes, when the coast is clear, into her cabin and sits down by the hearth opposite his beloved. He does not speak a word, for it is the immutable custom to sit silently. He begins the procee diners by taking sparks from the fire and throwing them at her. In this way she is engaged for some time in shaking off the sparks. If she does not like the lover, she lets him go on quietly, or gets up and walks away from the fire. That is the sign of refusal. If she listens to him, she throws sparks back at the loving enemy. Then the oral proceedings commence, and at last the lover goes to the father of her he has selected, and asks : u Will you give me your daughter ? " The father answers — and question and answer are said in Irish words which have been employed in the same way for generations. — "May I be choked and drowned, before I marry my daughter, till she marries herself." With that the affair is settled and the lovers are betrothed. If a man be lost at sea and his body is not washed up on the coast, his relations hold the death-watch over the clothes in his house. They then lay them on a bed 254 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. and spread a sheet over them, as if the corpse were beneath ; they light candles, the crooning woman begins the a caoine," and the men join in with hoarse yells of lamentation. For it is the belief that the ghosts of those whose u caoine" has not been sung are damned and un- able to find rest. A bridge over the harbour leads from Spanish Parade to the Oladdagh — a town in itself, such as I never saw before — street after street, side lanes, and alleys full of cabins. The sharp sea-breeze blows through them, and everything smells of salt ; stone walls without any plaster covering, in the windows no panes of glass, but wood instead of these — the rough man and rough nature stand here hand in hand on the sea-shore, looking out to sea and deriding the life behind them. There is something excessively daring in this appearance of poverty. Here is no wretchedness, but pride, contempt, and self-con- fidence. At the same time the geese and pigs walk about the streets. And what pigs ! with such long snouts, with ears as stiff and sharp as shirt- collars, with cunning faces and piercing eyes, and they thrust their snouts in everything, and nothing escapes their ears, and when a strange step is heard, they raise their crafty faces, and their piercing eyes are fixed on the intruder — time police eyes, as if they were asking for the passport. Most uncanny beasts are these pigs, whose acquaintance first formed on the Claddagh was fated to grow into an in- timacy later, on that great, never-to-be-forgotten day, when my unhappy propensity for u making studies" led me to the Clifden cattle-market, and I — while busily en- gaged in talking with a western pig-breeder — suddenly remarked that all the noses of his herd were buried in my pocket and journal, and had just begun making gas- CLADDAGH PIGS. 255 tronomic studies of the leaves of the latter; for the Connaught swine swallow everything that is not placed out of their reach — rags, bones, wood, and leather — and had I not seen them eat earth and stones, it would have been certainly a compliment to me that they even regarded the work of a German traveller as worthy attention. The Claddagh cabin has a thatched roof ; the entrance is simple and gloomy. Near the fire sit mother and children, and the pigs — when they are not outside ; on the table near the fire lies the cat. Nor is there any lack of entire rows of ruins ; in this respect the Claddagh is thoroughly Irish. Here a door in a ruined cabin fastened with a rope ; here door and window filled up with stones. The Irish are very ready to hand with stones ; and as their fathers piled up heaps on the graves of then' de- ceased, they now throw fresh ruins, superfluously enough, on every ruin. Then all at once, in the midst of this strange medley, came dark trees and silent walls — the cemetery and the priest's house. These last abodes of peace, which both lie on the frontier between life and death, are every- where alike; and in the most distant land the solitary wayfarer has a feeling of rest when his eye dwells for a while on the last home of all. Oh, how often I have sat on strange graves, and though unacquainted with those who sleep in them, I have found a consolation which I had long sought vainly. Like a being of a higher order a priest walked along ; the women bowed the knee before him, the boys bared their heads, the men lifted their tarry hats. In the street of the Claddagh I saw no men ; they were all on the quay or near the sea. Here they lay about on stones ; here they leant against doors ; here they sat on casks and smoked, idle, muscular forms — true THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Neapolitan groups. I walked past them and reached the end. A few more huts, a couple of fishermen, a few geese and pigs, and then a view over the strand meadow and the potato-field of the bay and the flat hill range, which close it in in the distance. Then, nothing further save ships, the grey cloudy sky, and the wind that blew over the broad Atlantic wave. Two days had passed, and the tumult in our excellent inn had reached its culminating point. All the rooms were occupied by Irish country gentry and their ladies ; the stairs were never free from little feet hopping over them, and lovely eyes glistened in the gloom of the cor- ridors. At length the great evening arrived, and the windows of the ball-room were a-blaze. Mr. Morris, too, appeared, in tail-coat and white tie, to fetch me for the festival. He had, beforehand, procured me a tail-coat, or even within sight of the enchanted island it is not allowable to dance without this masterpiece of the clothing art. I could not think of dancing in my coat, however, for it must have been made for the chief of a clan, it was so long and broad. The tails grazed the earth ma- jestically like a train, and the sleeves buried my hands in utter darkness. Nevertheless. Mr. Morris expressed his opinion that it was all right now, and we went, he in first, I behind, with trailing tails and sleeves hanging far over my hands. Noisy music filled the whole house ; even when heard at a distance it was full of doubtful passages, and I cannot say that it gained in harmony as we drew nearer to it. There was especially a bugle which behaved with great freedom ; it a made music on its own account, and went its way, which was not alwavs the right way, careless of the other instruments. This bugle and my coat-tails caused me a great delight on THE GALWAY BALL. 257 that evening, and are faithfully connected in my memory with the Galway ball. The ball-room was tall » and spacious ; the walls were draped from window to window with green-and-orange cloths and banners, and all the foliage and flowers the late season of the year offered had been collected. Green is the colour of Ireland ; and yellow, since the time of William of Orange, has been the colour of the Pro- testants, the enemies of Ireland. Green and orange were the watchwords of the two camps, and for a hundred years they were opposed to each other. It required many battles and losses on both sides ere green and orange, friendly entwined, could serve as the decoration of the Galway ball-room. Gradually the room and the niches filled, and green and orange were again displayed in the most varying combinations. In the black locks of the beauties from the wild west, green leaves and yellow flowers were wreathed; green leaves with yellow stripes begirt the elegant waist of many a pretty girl. Yellow dresses with green trimmings appeared among them more and more, till I myself turned green and yellow at the thought of my luckless tails. But Mr. Morris did not leave me at peace long ; it was his praiseworthy purpose to introduce me to the prettiest ladies and most notable persons present. u Here you have," I heard him say, for instance, " one of the O'Kellys, a brave soldier's family, formerly resident in the Wicklow mountains. They were expelled from their estates — by whom I need not tell you — and driven farther and farther, till they found a shelter in the wilds of Connaught. Come, shake worthy O'Kelly's hand.' I obeyed Mr. Morris ; I shook worthy O'Kelly's hand, and Mr. Morris continued : " This man here is my neigh- 258 TITE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. hour, a rich man with fat pastures and excellent cattle on them, and a man of pure Milesian blood — come and shake worthy O'Connor's hand !" I followed my guide, and shook the offered hand, which in later years had evidently held the ploughshare more frequently than the sword. "And whom have we here?" Mr. Morris then said ; u that is one of our old ones — our high sheriff, our Lynch — you must know him ;" and off to the " old one," who might be about three-and-thirty, and a handsome, pleasant gentleman. The u old one" was the representative of the celebrated Lynch family, and occupied a position in the city as he did here in the room. He returned my salu- tation most politely, and said I was heartily welcome, as if he had to do the honours in behalf of his ancestors. Near him stood several of the other u old ones ;" among them, Blakes and Athenrys and Skerrets, and after I had shaken all their hands at Mix Morris's request, the latter said, a And now we will go to the ladies : you would tike to do so ?" If I liked ! At this moment, however, when my heart and my coat-tails were waging a sturdy contest, the trumpet fortunately helped me out of my embarrass- ment. It invited to dance so energetically, that a healthy confusion soon rendered the ball-room impassable. " Good! we will remain where we are till the dance is over!" Mr. Morris said; and we did so. As I sat and looked at the beauties flashing past me, there was nothing wriggling on the ground behind me which could disturb my beatitude. These Irish are pretty girls, when they fly through decorated ball-rooms, by light and music, in their gay dresses ! Little, graceful, fairy-Eke, and yet so plump, with delicious feet and charming hands — and all in a splendid natural condition in spite of their modern dresses ; there is a wild fire and something rebellious in GALWAY LASSES. 259 their glances. Their lips are slightly pouted, their noses retroussh ; their dark heavy locks wave in the air, and their feet stamp the ground in the national reels. The round full arm is placed on the exquisitely-formed hip, and they trip along and bend their bodies and nod their heads and smile with such consciousness of triumph ! Glorious girls these of Galway and the west coast ! In addition to reels, they danced quadrilles ; but they danced them all with a peculiar fire and passion. I have only seen Hungarian girls dance in a similar way. Mr. Morris, in the mean while, took all imaginable pains to tell me the names of the dancers, and repeat them till they were imprinted on my memory, as the couples flew past. And there were many proud names, that is cer- tain, and there was no end of the Os and the Macs ; and the sons and daughters of all the Irish princes who reigned in this land at the time when Solomon's Temple was building, danced round me. In the mean while a door opened, and a gentleman walked in on whom all eyes were at once fixed : even the trumpet gave one of those flourishes with which it greeted persons of distinction. A smile commenced everywhere, a giggling and putting together of heads, as the gentleman walked across the room with sovereign serenity, and surveyed the blooming row of assembled beauties, and then retired into a nook as if disappointed. For a moment he was the object of interest to all, and I must say that he looked rather strange. He was no longer young, but must still have many youthful impulses. The ends of ■ his neckcloth fluttered over his shoulders, and, at times, touched the points of his moustaches, which also stuck out enormously. His coat stood in an opposite elective affinity to the one I wore on this evening, for it floated about and seemed endowed with elastic wings. 8 2 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. At the same time his boots crackled and his chain orna- ments tinkled. In short, all about him was music, move- ment, and flutter, and his ball costume was possessed of angelic qualities. This was the man who, for a while, put the ball company of the Irish west in good humour, and Mr. Morris especially, on seeing him, gave way to such an outburst of laughter as I did not consider him capable of. But Falstaff had the enviable faculty of not only being witty himself, but making those witty with whom he had dealings. And u Come with me," un- friend said, and laughed as I had rarely seen him laugh — "come with me, and I will tell you a story about that person." English reader, I will not repeat my friend's story here. When I tell you that the mysterious stranger was the celebrated Mr. Carden, you will know all about him. Mr. Morris finished his story, and I emptied the bottle at the same time. We returned to the door of the ball- room and looked in ; my eyes sought Mr. Carden, but found something very different. They rested on a graceful, noble-looking young lady, with a delicate pale face and dark eyes, and by her side another, who was all fire and beauty, darker than all, more piquant, more brilliant, attired in a white dress, with green garlands and orange- coloured head ornament. " One of them is Miss O'Keane, of Castle Connell," I said, delighted at the rencontre ; " but who is the other, the blooming one, who flashes beauty around her ! n Mr. Morris had drunk quickly, but my dithyrambic had attracted his attention. He looked at me in surprise, w T as about to answer, was about to question, but, ere he could do either, I had hurried away to the other end of the ball-room. Behind me, my coat-tails waggled in melan- WILD KATE. 261 choly mood, and my sleeves were turned up. Many eyes were fixed on me. u A foreigner ! " was whispered from group to group, and they fancied that a coat with trailing tails and turned-up sleeves was the usual ball costume in Germany. But I, caring nought for looks or opinion, had already walked up to Miss O'Keane and shook her hand. The trumpet, too, mixed itself up in our scene of recognition at the right moment, and made some not quite successful attempts to compensate us for the absence of the music of the spheres. Fortunately, Miss O'Keane was so pleased at the unexpected meeting, that my coat was not discovered, and the other young lady, whose glance was already taking a direction highly undesired by me, was led to other thoughts by her companion's cry : " This is the foreign gentleman who brought us a message from my brother. This is Miss Kathleen O'Fla- herty," the Castle Connell lady said ; " Wild Kate, my best friend." Wild Kate looked up, and were there a black sun, I would compare her eye to it. But there is none, and so there is nothing in the world with which I can compare Miss O'Flaherty's eye. Wild Kate, however, said : " If you come higher up in the mountains and lose your way to Letterf rack, you will be welcome, sir," Miss O'Keane laughed and said : u My Wild Kate is a dangerous being, and springs from a dangerous race. Do you not know the O'Flahertys ? Are you not aware that the good citizens of Galway put up over the gate that led to the west, 6 God protect us from the wild O'Flahertys/ and that they shut the gate when it was said that the O'Flahertys were approaching ? " " But you must know too," Kathleen added, with a THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. bright glance, u that in later years we have become more peaceful, and industrious, and learned, and carry on no war, and have no feuds, but till the ground and look after the sheep, and in the leisure hours read the Ogygia of my most learned great-great-great-grandfather. Only come to Letterfrack and you shall see for yourself." When I joined Mr. Morris again, I found him in the most select company, round a table in a side-room, which was covered with port wine and champagne bottles, and half-filled glasses which were never empty, and round them were the u worthies," and the " braves," and the w old ones," who had all taken an oath against dancing, and surrendered to the sweet enjoyment of wine. And the glasses clinked, and the heads grew heated, and the throats were rather hoarse, but, for all that, they sang till not even the trumpet coidd be heard, and I, after coat-tails and sleeves had received a hearty greeting, joined merrily in an Irish glee, of which I remember just one verse : Orange and green will carry the day ! Orange, orange, Green and orange ! Wear them together o'er mountain and bay 1 Orange and green ' Our king and our queen ! i taiDge and green will carry the day ! COXXAUGHT; CHAPTER XIV. BLLNCOXI'S CARS — THE HORSE-DEALERS — OC GHTERARD — CON'XAMARA CARESS — RECESS HOTEL — CLLFDEN — THE FAIR — MEN AST) ANIMALS — LETTERERACK — WILD KITTY — PETER COS N ELLAS — DIAMOND HILL — DARBY THE PETER — THE PEASANT WEDDING— QUAINT CUSTOMS — THE MARRIAGE — LOUGHY EADAGHAN— THE FIRST KISS — THE RACE FOR THE BOTTLE — THE RINCAFADA — THROWING THE STOCKING. " To hell or Connaught ! " was once the cry in every rebellion, every outbreak, every massacre, when the Eng- lish were tired of murdering, or earth and water had no inore room for the corpses. Cromwell's soldiers gave the plundered faniilies their choice, and in the wars which William III. waged against the expelled Stuart and Ca- tholicism, it was the battle-cry. Here the sword and there the desert ! and with the cry of agony, fc% To Con- naught ! ,? the survivors fled to the desert. Since that time the wild west, with its heath and swamp, has become the last asylum of Irish Celtism ; and here are found, recognisable by their haughty names, the descendants of old Irish kings and nobles, as peasants and beggars. The wild west, with its endless marshes, its stony hill chains, its pale lakes and solitary deserted villages, is one of the most melancholy districts in the world : the sea rafts savagely and sadly along the flat rocky shore : the wind wanders monotonously and gloomily over the heath, and 264 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. accompanies the wayfarer as far as lie goes. Clay holes are visible close to the way, or away in the bog : miserable half-naked men crawl out of them when they hear the rolling of a carriage; no green field, no tree so far as the eye reaches, nothing but solitude, stones, misery, and rags. Such is the wild west of Ireland whither we are proceeding. The only conveyance here is Bianconi's royal cars. Carlo Bianconi is an Italian ; when he came to Ireland some forty years ago, he was a poor lad hawking engrav- ings. At that time there was no mode of progression at all in the west, and no one thought it were possible to establish postal communication here. Bianconi made the attempt, gave up his engraving trade, and began with one car and two horses. The experiment was so suc- cessful, that Bianconi is now the richest man in Tipperary, and his cars enliven the west in the literal sense of the term. But they play a melancholy part in my recollec- tions : the remembrance of wet from mom till night, of cold and discomfort, of bad company, frostbitten noses, and miserable tobacco, is ever connected with them. The Athlone coffin was a state carriage when compared with Bianconi's cars ; they are long, low vehicles, with seats on both sides, at times with boards for the feet, at times without, and in the latter case the feet are in a most muddy vicinity with the wheels; no roof shelters the nodding heads of the passengers, the rain pours down on them and collects in the centre in the vacancies between their boxes and bags, like miniature lakes. A shabby leather, which is too narrow to cover the feet, and too short to spread along the whole bench, is a constant source of dispute to the travellers, and this generally affords the only source of amusement offered them. The car is drawn by BIANCOXl's CARS. 265 two horses, which often sink in the boggy ground, and driven by a coachman, who sits up atop, motionless in his frieze cloak, and from whom nothing is heard, save now and then a cheering word for his horses, or a curse when beggars crawl up. The desert he traverses every day anew, without ever coming to an end, has rendered him harsh and misanthropic. Such are Bianconi's cars : no vehicle in the world will ever render me desperate again, since I have sat in them. Even the conveyance in which we shall all some day be carried to our rest, and, as we trust, to salvation, appeal's to me less terrible when I think of Bianeoni's cars. It was about one o'clock when I seated myself, at Galway. on one of these u royal cars." It is the accursed irony of fate, that, after the Majesty of Ireland has long been buried, and her princely race beg by the wayside, these wretched inns and abominable cars are the last things with the royal name ! The clouds were heavy and low, a gloomy, hopeless autumn feeling brooded over everything. It was one of those days when a man prefers to sit by the fireside, waiting for the vellow twilight to bring light and warmth. I was proceeding, however, towards the wild heathery highlands, wrapped in my plaid : I sat in the corner under the driver, who was high enthroned in his white cloak with a horn by his side. In the centre, near and among the piled-up luggage, sat a man in a long cloak with brass fastenings, on an overturned chest. Opposite him, an old rogue was seated on a carpet-bag. By me sat three men, one old and two young, horse-dealers by trade, and going to Clif den market They were good- tempered horse-dealers, that I must say in their favour. They truly pitied me, as I sat there so wretched and sad, and thought that I must have pressing business to 266 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. go west at sucli a bad season. One first said that I wanted to buy horses at Clifden, but the other whispered him — though I heard it — that he could see I was a gen- tleman and no horse-dealer. I must be a stranger too, for I seemed to be very cold, and certainly not accus- tomed to such weather. Thus they spoke, and left me the greater part of the leather to cover me. On the other seats, with their backs towards us, sat four more people, wrapped up in oilskin caps and cloaks, and at the first station where we stopped, a man in a plaid cap clambered up to the driver's side. Apple-peel, and things which are much unpleasanter to the person they strike, flew out from the centre of the car, or over the heads of the side passengers. At every- hill we came to — and there are hills enough in the west of Ireland — a part of the company had to get down and walk. The good- tempered horse-dealers insisted that I should remain seated. At one moment a plank was lost which must be looked for again, while the car stopped in the rain on the desolate acclivity ; then a hat flew off in the wind, and the passengers must hunt it over the heath till they caught it. It was, in truth, a splendid journey, and a ridicule to everything that is called European civilisa- tion. It rained as we lost sight of Galway's towers, and it was long ere it left off again. For a while we proceeded under dripping trees ; then we had the heath before us, and naked stone walls bordered the road. It is a pecu- liarity of the Irishman to build walls round everything ; he piles up stones without purpose or mortal*, as if he had an irresistible impulse to work, and lacked the opportunity for anything better. Walls round forests and meadows ; walls round bogs and ruins ; walls round LOUGH CORPJB. 267 rocks — just as the inhabitant of the Schleswig-Holstein marshes raises pleasant leafy hedges round every field of his flourishing farm. The wretched Irishman builds walls round places where neither man nor animal can ever feel an inclination to enter ; he builds walls round deserts where nothing is to be found save a red morass, in which you would sink knee-deep, and black stagnating water, which exhales a pestiferous odour. Between the heaps of stone and the red marsh covered with but scanty sheep fodder, were here and there de- serted cabins : several times we passed entire villages that lay in ruins, and were inhabited by no living soul. Oh, it was a melancholy journey in the heavy rain upon an open car — the sky so grey, the land so black, so deadly silent, and nothing to break the silence but the wind which moaned from the hills, the creaking of our wheels, and the croaking of a few rooks, that slowly disappeared in the heaving mist. On our right we had Lough Corrib, a large lake, which stretches nearly through Connaught, and whose upper end almost joins Lough Mask. At one moment it was hidden by rising ground, then appeared again, a long pale stripe, which glistened sadly in the mournful land- scape and the sickly daylight. The sky grew slightly clearer when we came under the tall dark trees of the estates which once belonged to Martin of Ballynahinch They extended for forty miles along the shores of the lake, and were bought by a London society. Then came a wide prospect over the lake, with its numerous islets, which, overgrown with dark foliage, rose from the dull surface of the water. The lake looked like a magic garden. When I asked the driver how many of these islands there might be, he answered very simply that he 208 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. had never counted them, but it was believed there were as many as there were daj^s in the year. Opposite, a dark ruin, the tower of Aghnanure Castle, stood out from the background of the cloudy sky. The short livid sunshine had disappeared, when we reached the village of Oughterard. We stopped for a moment, and a strange crowd collected round us. Women appeared, selling withered fruit, and boys wishful to dis- pose of specimens of the marble found in the neighbour- hood, and beggars and constables, who had come across the moor, and for a while sought shelter from the rain behind our car, and a man who had a jockey boot on one leg while the other was bare. After a short rest we rolled through the row of cabins. At the end stands a little cheerful house, with green shutters, and a carefully tended garden in front. " The doctor of Oughterard," White-cloak said, " and those are his daughters." Two girls, one of whom was about eighteen and the other a child, stood, with handkerchiefs over their heads, in the rain under the trees. To watch this car go by daily was the sole amusement of their lives. They saw me sitting sadly in my corner as the car passed their garden gate. They probably conjectured that this parting glance at quiet happy comfort in the midst of a miserable autumn and heath landscape must do my soul good, for they waved their white handkerchiefs to me. I felt as if I were bidding good-by to society, and heard a farewell greeting in the breeze. For a long time I could not forget this salutation ; and when I looked back from the top of the hill, the two girls still stood there under the trees in the rain. The country grew wilder, the sky ever darker. The A CONN AUGHT LANDSCAPE. 269 rain fell constantly ; then an unbounded solitude — the heath so immense — the rain so grey, so wretched, as if it would never leave off — the storm so gloomy, so complain- ing. Only rarely red-gowned women on donkeys passed, or lay in low carts, like dream forms, that have no feel- in e for the severitv of the weather. The monotonv at length grew horrifying. The cabins became rarer, and when they appeared in a swamp, they were holes without windows, or even chimneys. Light, air, men, and pigs had their entrance through the door; and the smoke, which tried to escape through its cracks, was driven back by wind and rain. Never before had I seen human beings living in such dens. I believe that the Red Skins live better. More healthily, I am certain ; for what a mouldering smell must reign in these clav walls, ever gnawn through by damp, under this constantly dripping straw roof, in this atmosphere without light or warmth, but full of smoke and injurious exhalations from the col- lected persons and animals. It is impossible to give the reader even an approxima- tive idea of the varieties of wretchedness which presented themselves to the passer-by in these cabins. The best of them consisted of carelessly built stone walls, filled up with clay ; a low hole as a window ; a wooden door, cor- roded by rain and covered with soot ; and a roof of thatch or sods, with stones on them to protect them against the attacks of the wind. In the worst description, there was a hole in the roof for a window. The stones were loosely thrown together, as among us the pebbles on the highway-side : they lay as if chance, and not the arranging hand of man, had piled them up ; no clay stopped up the holes open to wind and rain; and the worst tene- ments no longer even resemble cabins, not even stalls for 270 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. cattle, but caves, which wild animals had hollowed in the ground. I remember one such unnatural abode, con- sisting of a hole dug out of a mound, and the entrance covered by a leant-to board, behind bush-work. An- other den was formed between enormous boulders, which nature had arranged so as to produce a cavity ; so that it may be literally asserted that a portion of the Irish western population live in and under the earth. All solitary stood here and there by the wayside a rather better house, offering " entertainment for man and horse," and I fear it would have been bad entertainment for both, had they ever seen anything better than an Irish bog. At last, even these entertainments disappeared ; the ruins ever grew rarer; only lakes glistened on either side of the road. High and mighty, with their summits in the clouds, and with fog gloomily collected in their valleys, rose the Maam Turk and the Bene-Beola Moun- tains, with their u twelve pins," and soon threw their mysterious shadow over us. Our road ran along close to the lake. We could not see it for the fog, but we heard it breaking on the rocky shore. Presently we halted at the half-way house. The other passengers entered the inn, a low cabin, which stood wretchedly on a hill by the wayside, and they steamed with damp grog when they took their seats again. Presently, we entered Connamara, the most mountainous portion of the Irish west coast. The moun- tains drew closer and closer; enormous masses, with misty outlines, as if Ossa were piled on Olympus. At the centre of the heath we came to a cabin, which, in the twilight, looked like a smoking dung-heap. All was a damp piled-up mass of clay and straw, from whose top smoke and sparks poured forth. I should not have be- CONNAMARA. 271 lieved that human beings could live in it, had not curious people crawled out on the approach of our car, and stood gaping after us. In the mean while night fell, and the scene became with each moment more gloomy and un- comfortable. Tethered goats, with their long beards, got up as our car came up. Oxen, with broad foreheads and strangely curved horns, wandered over the heath. Black before us lay the marshy ground, and fancy made long wanderings through its turf palaces. Waterfalls poured from the mountains ; mighty cataracts fell perpendicu- larly, and dashed over the boulders; here everything formed a medley mass — the trembling bog, the stone blocks on it, the lakes, the islands, the waterfalls — all were inextricably confounded. The world seemed here to be lost in chaos — in that pre-historic fog ere time had com- menced, and the separation was not yet completed — and the grey, gloomy, broad mist brooded over the slothful elements. After six miles of such a journey — miles of shudder- ing uninterrupted solitude — we had a short glance of light and fire, and a decent meal at Recess Hotel, a little off the road under the mountains, and then we drove six more miles through ravines which twice rose perpendi- cularly and sank again as suddenly, so that the travellers had to leave the car and wade after it. For miles we saw no human being, and no cabin. Only one cart with goods, which seemed afraid to go alone, had joined us, and the monotonous sound of its wheels followed us. When the first lights again gleamed, and though they came from wretched cabins, my heart welcomed them as stars of hope, and Clifden, which we reached a little before midnight, appeared to it a haven. Even here, in spite of the advanced hour and the incessant 272 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. rain, the rolling of our car attracted some curious heads to doors and windows, and in Carr's Hotel an enormous fire in the coffee-room most hospitably welcomed us. White- cloak and his mates, the good-tempered horse-dealers, sought another shelter, and I was left alone in front of the huge fire. How I enjoyed my tea that night I cannot describe, nor how polite, almost affectionate I was to the sleepy boots. Clifden is quite a new town, only dating from 1809 ; but, for all that, it has not escaped the general fate that hangs over Ireland. This town looks so worn, so faded ! and it has its ruins too, as well as all other Irish towns which have been built hundreds of years. At the same time its position is exceptionally lovely. In the east stand mountains with their numerous picturesquely pointed summits in the ether. On the other side you survey the bay, whose quiet blue is only broken by a fine strip of foam, indicating the rocks beneath, and by boats which lie fastened to the qua}'. The town runs along between the hills and the bay in two parallel streets. In many of the houses trade is carried on, principally in woollen wares, but naturally, too, in all sorts of provisions, with which this town sup- plies the scanty neighbourhood. On most of the shop- boards I noticed names of un mingled Irish origin : the most frequent were Joyce and O'Flaherty. High above the town, on the hill range, stand several handsome build- ings ; one of them is " the church," that is, the Protestant building for worship. The whole country is Catholic, and only a few Protestant families inhabit the town ; I heard say five, but these are the richest and most powerful, and have built their God's house on the highest pinnacle of the hill, whence it commands town and sea. A few years CLIFDEX. 273 later there appeared on the opposite mountain another solitary edifice with many small windows, which looked towards the Connamara wilderness and the mountains which protect it. This wilderness, with its mountains, is the seat of fanatic Catholicism — the district of which Cardinal Wiseman said that its inhabitants were often ridiculed because they lived in mud-hovels on a swamp ; but that frequently, when the last spark had expired in the peat-fire on the hearth, when the storm howled round them, the rain forced through crack and crevice — that frequently there was a brighter light in these wretched cabins to console the deserted inmates than the dazzling lustre of a palace could offer. That is the neigh- bourhood ; and the edifice at Clifden, looking out on it, is a nunnery which, during my visit, sheltered eighteen sisters. It is the crying disproportion in this country that the native mass of the population belongs to the Catholic faith, while Anglican Protestantism is established as the state religion. The pressure of this contradiction is felt by the majority of the people, and the home of Catholicism is the home of wretchedness in Ireland. I saw Clifden in the purest sunlight, for the rain had rained itself out the previous day. I also saw it in no slight excitement, for, as I said, there was a horse-fair, and the horse-fairs of Clifden are celebrated in the west, and holidays for the town. From an early hour the squares and streets began to fill, on the roads winding down the hills glistened the red petticoats of the Conna- mara peasants, and oxen, pigs, and donkeys marched before them in affectionate flocks. The fish-market had already begun on the bay. Heavy baskets piled up with soles, hung on the backs of donkeys lost in patient con- templation, or were packed in small carts ; other baskets T 274 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. full of lobsters stood on the ground, and between them women with red petticoats and gay head-cloths. The fishwives all over the world are alike in one respect, that they are not very good-looking ; I rarely sow a young one among them. The men had naturally their Sunday clothes on : the most remarkable fact to me was that they nearly all wore round caps with a button atop and plaid brims. But this time the cattle interested me most, which appeared in the company of the men. Here were the pigs once more, my good acquaintances from the Claddagh. They walked up and down past me, or between my legs, as if they had known me for years, and had the right to bully me. They all had the old-looking sharp head, and were impudently familiar. You can see from their conduct that they live in the cabins with their masters: indeed, in Connaught, humans and animals have become von* much alike. The men in their nigs and tatters, and dung-heap abodes, have assmned some- thing of the animal, and the animals, for their pan, have advanced somewhat beyond their natural frontier through their constant association with men. This is specially the case with the pigs, which form the most important element of the Connaught household. You can distinctly notice their faulty education, and they have all the vices such is wont to produce. They are pressing and curious, and sniffed round my knees, as I sat on a stone in front of the inn. One even thrust its snout into my note-book as if curious to read what I wrote about it, and it offered to bite me when I tried to drive it away. The donkeys also attracted my attention. They were much more cunning than their general reputation in the rest of Europe allowed them to be. They were much livelier than their civilised brethren, and a sort of IRISH DONKEYS. 275 fire and ambition flashed in their eyes. Two of them stood before me, freed from their fish panniers, and en- joying the fresh morning sun. In the first place, they hailed the golden light with those natural sounds which are universally regarded as not the sweetest the kingdom of tones offers. But here it was truly fearful ; even ih& fishwives were disturbed by it in their gossip, and beat the musicians with a stick. The latter, however, must have regarded this in the light of applause, for they con- tinued their duet with increased intensity. Then the noble pair looked at each other, and began most affec- tionately sniffing at one another. For some time I was in the erroneous idea that this was an interchange of feeling, but the donkeys of Connamara are selfish crea- tures, and ere long one of them raised its head and laid it on the torn saddle of the other, where it began tearing out and eating the old straw with which it was lined. This time, however, the fishwife made a use of her stick, about the nature of which Master Neddy could no longer be mistaken. It felt that this was in no way meant for an evidence of applause, and resigned himself with a look whose expression was beyond all description world-contemning. In the midst of these donkeys, pigs, carts, and fishwives, stood a vehicle which remained mys- teriously covered till mid-day ; but from the strange faces that at times looked out from behind the canvas, and the respect the passing sons and daughters of the heath paid to the mysterious vehicle, I came to the conclusion that it was nothing less than a panorama or puppet-show. I did not wait till the cart was uncovered, for I had hired a pony-chaise and Gilligan to drive it. The western highlands lay before me, and I longed to employ the last sinking days of autumn in an excursion through t 2 270 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. them. It is true that Gilligan, the cautious one, ob- served that it rained at least once every day in the high- lands, and I am sorry to say I presently learned he was right ; but my heart protested, and my eye roved with delight over the sweet soft hues of the mountains, which the damp, still glistening on them, only rendered softer. Never again have I enjoyed such a sight as I had at times in that late damp autumn among the western high- lands of Connaught. Just behind Clifden the landscape became very fine ; the road rises and the mountains open. Under us, to the left, were the bays, which the sea has torn here so fre- quently out of the mountain ; the water glistened with a won drously dark blue hue, and small white waves lazily rolled against the coast and then retired. To the right and in front of us rose the twelve peaks of the Ijena- Beola Mountain, which the English, with their usual neglect of everything Irish, have converted into the twelve pins (pin, corruption of Ben), and their purple drew gloriously grand lines athwart the light azure of the sky. Through the open ravines fell the broad gold of the sunshine, and was reflected on the tranquil sea far away on the horizon. On this day the country was more animated than usual. Flocks of country people, proceeding to Clifden fair, came down the mountains. In all the gaps the red petticoats shone and the gay head-cloths fluttered. I saw in this short day more lovely faces, more powerful forms, and more picturesque groups, than I believe I saw during the whole of my Irish tour. So great is the beauty and strength of the Connamara peasants, that even the un- heard-of misery they have endured since time imme- morial, and still suffer in their wretched cabins, has not IN THE MOUNTAINS. 27? been able to destroy these qualities. In rain and storm,. I grant, the unpleasant side is turned outwards, and you only see their nakedness and want. But let the morning sun shine over them, and let the pleasant blue of their mountains surround them, then their graceful, voluptuous limbs are extended, the black hair is loosed, and the brown eyes speak the language which the heart understands in all regions, and does not forget even in the utmost woe and the utter disfavour of existence. How many pictures of rich scenery and of peasants pre- sented themselves to me this morning ! It was a pano- rama in which you walk from glass to glass, to something ever fresh and ever more beautiful. The brown girls came down the hill-sides in flocks, carrying their shoes 1 and stockings in their hands. Then they sat down by the waterfall by the wayside. They placed their pretty- feet in the water and washed them. Then they left it to the sun to dry and warm them. After which, the innocent children of the highlands put on their shoes and stock- ings, smoothed their hair, looked at their faces in the water mirror, and walked contentedly towards the de- lights of the fair. And far on our journey, wherever there was water with a sunny patch of meadow near it, we saw similar groups in their gay dress, not unlike the fairy beings with whom fancy populates every mountain stream. All at once I came to a scene which reminded me of dream- land. I had passed round the last spur of the hill, and expected new mountains, new heaths, new wildernesses. Instead of that, I stood suddenly, as if by magic, in the most delightful garden, in the pleasantest idyl, such as poets only dream, and legends describe. Almost a thou- sand feet above the sea, between lofty mountains, and 278 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. after a tour through brown foggy mist-land, full of gloomy mud-hovels, in which misery and hunger dwell, the wayfarer, little suspecting it, suddenly finds himself sur- rounded by delicious small houses, like English cottages in flowery gardens. Balconies of green Connamara marble stand over the doors, and everything smells of mignionette. Gentle green hills limit the view on the land side ; on the other, ocean stretches out for an im- measurable distance, and between both in the happy centre are the houses of this pretty village, and all pro- duces the deepest effect of piety and morality. No beg- gars follow the new arrival ; all the people who are visible seem happy and well to do, and neatly-dressed children play in the sunshine of the broad street. I still stood all amazement, and scarcely dared to believe my eyes ; at this moment a delicate lad, whose blooming face and curly hair were overshadowed by a broad-brimmed felt hat, came riding down the hill-side on a pony, " Can you tell me, my lad," I asked the boy, who was apparently sixteen years of age, u where I am l n u Oh, sir," his melodious voice answered, " you are at Letterfrack." " Letterf rack ! n I exclaimed in delight, for I remem- bered Miss OTlaherty and the Galway ball. Suddenly the lad doffed his hat with a loud laugh, and I recognised the eyes, and the rosy lips, and the curls, and the exquisite feet, and it was Wild Kate herself, dressed in boy's clothes, who offered me her hand, and squeezed mine heartily, saying u Welcome to Letter- frack!" and by her side I walked to one of the neat houses by the roadside, and Kathleen s father and mother LETTERFRACK. 279 came to meet me, and also told me I was heartily welcome, and laughed all over their good-tempered faces when Kathleen told them I had not recognised her. "Yes/' said Mr. O'Flaherty, a worthy gentleman of about forty, u my Kathleen will never alter. When she wanders about the mountains, she will wear boy's clothes, and I was obliged to have them made for her, whether I would or no." u A naughty girl !" the mother said, as she pressed her daughter's curly head to her bosom, and kissed her pure forehead gently. On which my astonished driver learned that he could go back to Clifden, and I was shown to a sunny front room with a full view of the bright blue sea. For hours I could have sat there listening to what the wild waves were saying, but Wild Kitty left me no time for dream- ing, no rest ; she had a thousand new things to show me, and I must wander about the mountains of her home with her. She knew every lovely spot around, and was never wearied of leading me from one to the other. She visited with me the cabins of the peasants, and I soon found what a lovely angel I had as a guide in the faces beaming with love and gratitude with which the poor mountaineers welcomed her. And when I thought of the desolate heaths I had passed over, I could not help repeating after Thackeray, but very softly, lest she might hear it, " I believe that the angels are not all in heaven." I spent many happy days with the good people of Letterfrack. One morning, a peasant came down from the mountains, with a deeply furrowed face and scanty hair growing over it, and with brown eyes, which, in spite 280 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. of age, still possessed brilliancy and good humour. This man carried a mighty shillelah in his hand, his clothes were clean and tidy, and modest was his rap at the front door. "Oh," Wild Kate said, "that is my old Peter Con- nellan." She ran out and brought the old man in, who had thrust his cap into his trousers-pocket, and made several awkward bows behind his bio; stick. Father and mother seemed well acquainted with him, and he must sit down and take a glass of whisky, and Wild Kate took his stick, which she brought to me, saying, " Look, with this shillelah old Peter broke many a head when he was young Peter still, and he must then have been as fine a boy as any in Ireland." Old Peter nodded his head, and tears of joy filled his eyes, and he wiped them with his cuff, for his left hand was now filled with a hunch of cake. " And how are you up in the mountains ? " Mr. O'Fla- herty asked, presently. " All well, sir," the old man answered, " the Virgin be praised ! Old Peter brings pleasant news to day." " Then he is doubly welcome," my worthy host said. " What's doing with you there ? " " A marriage," Peter said, as he put the whisky-glass on the table, and got up. " A marriage !" Wild Kate cried. " Hallo ! I like to hear that — I am very fond of weddings. And who's going to be married, old Peter ?" "My daughter Judy, by yovu* leave. And as you have so often visited my house, dear miss, when there was sickness and sorrow in it, I would ask you to visit me this time, when we are going to be jolly — and your parents too." DIAMOND HILL. 281 " And this man also ? " Kitty asked, pointing at me, as if we were in a menagerie, and I were the untamed visitor from some fearfully remote region. "Also/' old Peter said, and looked at me, as if he really took me for a wild beast, or something of that sort — " also." He then overcame his hesitation and offered me his hand, appearing no little amazed that I shook it just as other men had hitherto done. In short, the invitation was accepted, and two days later we started for the mountains. Wild Kitty had donned her boy's dress again ; " it's easier for dancing and climbing," she said ; the parents remained at home as the road was too fatiguing for them, and so we started, on a lovely morning, on ponies. The road first ran through a desolate pass, in which no human being met us ; only at a few spots where the sun broke through, our shadows marched before us, or leaped fantastically on the creviced wall of rock. " That is Diamond Hill," my Wild Kate said ; " but that is merely a pretty name, for there are no diamonds about here." How mistaken Kate was ! her eyes sparkled at this mo- ment better than the most precious stones — by Heavens,, they were two diamonds of the purest water, and happy will my friend O'Keane be, I thought. But I soon came to my senses again, for my pony seemed to notice when- ever I fell a thinking, and indulged in its own freaks, which consisted in climbing over the masses of rock in- stead of passing them, and taking every bog instead of avoiding it, and wading in it as deep as it could with all four feet. At length the great Lough Kyllmore gleamed before us, and at its edge the inn where we were to rest. As 282 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. we approached it we heard music. Darby the Piper, better known as the Leathern Uncle, sat at the door, and was working away with both arms at the bags, and blowing in the mouthpiece, so that it was a pleasure to hear him. He speedily joined us, and we went deeper into the mountains. A mile of desolate rocky heath was left behind us, and then we saw a green patch in the midst of a mountain glen, and discovered several cabins in the passes as we approached. We also heard cheer- ful sounds, and before the nearest cabin stood a crowd of Irish peasantry. " That is Peter Connellan's cabin," the Leathern Uncle said, u and those are the bride's guests." u But those are not all!" I asked the piper, who had joined me while Kate galloped on. " Not the half," he replied ; " the others are the bride- groom's guests, and they are collecting before Rory O' Gaff's cabin, somewhat farther down that pass you see there." The bride's guests had scarce heard the sound of the ponies, ere a shout of joy was raised, " The O'Flahertys are coming!" We had just reached the front of the cabin, when Peter met us with a tremendous piece of wedding-cake. a There's no whisky here," he said, a but it will soon arrive with the bridegroom's guests. But you know all about it." I pretended to do so, if I did not, and Darby whis- pered me, " The bridegroom finds the whisky, and the bride the food ; that is the way with us in the mountains." I evidenced a great wish to ride down the glen to the bridegroom's cabin, but Darby raised an extraordinary number of difficulties. DARBY THE PIPER. 283 u I don't care, o£ course, but it would be an insult to old Peter." " Well, then, come with me/' I said ; " it won't be so bad. I will take it on myself." And the light-minded piper prepared to follow me, while I turned my pony round. But a great shout was heard on all sides. "No, that won't do!" they cried, Peter at the head of them. a Look you," Darby said, u so it is on the mountains. The bride gives her invitations, and the bridegroom his, and the one who rides up with the greatest following wins the honour of the day. But, wait a minute, I will just speak with old Peter ;" and he told him I merely wanted to see how matters were managed at the bride- groom's, and besides, there would be no question but that we had the most guests. Old Peter hereon gave his consent, and we proceeded to the bridegroom's cabin, which was about ten minutes' ride from that of the bride. On the road, Darby told me how they manage it up on the mountains when they go a courting. The boy goes to the house of the girl he should like to marry, and sits down by her side and tries to draw her knitting- needles out. If she lets him do so, it is a sign that the girl is willing. If she forbids it, however, and the boy does not leave off, he can prepare for something else, and many a courting has ended with bloody nose and swollen lips. That is the case with Loughy Fadaghan, who can't get a wife, and has always a swollen nose, and so is called Loughy Thick-nose. We reached Eory O' Gaff's cabin. Here I was to be witness of a very affecting scene. The wedding guests had collected close to the door, the men holding hats and caps in their hands, and tears standing in the women's 284 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. eyes. I found my way to the only window, a qua- drangular hole, shutting with a board, and could then see what was going on inside. In the centre knelt a young man, looking up to an old man and woman, who stood weeping before him. " Father and mother," he said, " I am now leaving your cabin, to enter my own with the wife I have chosen with your consent. Pardon all I have done to you, and give me your blessing." " You have been a good son," the father replied. "You have done nothing you have reason to repent, and our blessing accompanies you." The mother said nothing. She had covered her face with the skirt of her cloak, and sobbed loudly. Nothing in company is more infectious than tears. All the women and girls in and round the cabin soon sobbed with her. The kneeler then turned to another group, standing apart from the parents. " Dear brothers and sisters," he spoke, " you, too, I will ask, before I go, for forgiveness of all I have done to you, and beg your blessing." The sisters had long been weeping loudly ; the bro- thers tried to express the ordinary phrases, but the sen- tences stuck in their throats. One held his cap before his face, the other hurried away, and at last they all sobbed like the sisters. This was the signal for a grand and general weeping. No one knew exactly why the other, or even himself, wept ; and it was, in all proba- bility, merely the custom to shed tears on such an occa- sion. But the scene was so affecting through the uni- versal sympathy, that no eye — not even mine — remained dry. Presently Rory rose, and amid the general yelling and crying, father, mother, sisters, and brothers, and LOUGHY FADAGHAN. 285 guests began embracing, first the bridegroom, and then each other. It took a long time ere this was all over, for many a young fellow, many a dark-eyed girl in her red petticoat, delayed longer over the ceremony than was absolutely necessary. One lad was specially noticeable, for apparently he could not master his feelings. He was distinguished by a nose which was redder and more swollen than any I had yet seen in Ireland, and by a pair of lips which invited to anything rather than kissing. But for all that he took an exhaustless advan- tage of the opportunity, and kissed without distinction of years and charms, although not without brave opposi- tion from the other side, till the bridegroom's mother appeared with a vessel of holy water, with which she sprinkled the whole party. Then she fetched a conse- crated candle from a cupboard, which she cut in pieces, and gave a piece to the bridegroom first, and then to all the other children, 66 to preserve them from death and other accidents," as the Leathern Uncle told me. In the mean while the whole party had mounted. Father and mother got on one pony, on others husband, wife, and children sat together, and every boy had a pretty girl before him on the straw saddle. Darby, with the bagpipes, mounted in front of Rory O'Gaff. Only Loughy Thick-nose wandered about, looking in vain for a seat. " Must I walk down, then % " he said, in a la- mentable voice. I was the only one who sat widowed on horseback : I was obliged to take mercy on him, and let him get up behind. For this the rogue of a thick nose was not even grateful, but continually looked after the pretty girls, behind whom he was not sitting. Darby, however, began to play the bagpipes, while the bride- groom held him firmly with both arms, lest he should 286 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. fall from his steed ; and merrily the little animals trotted, and cheerily the echo was returned from all the ravines, and hearty was the yell with which the bride- groom's caravan was greeted, as it came over the hill, and took the path to the bride's cabin. "Huzzah ! v and "Hallo!" the guests assembled there shouted, and old Peter led a gaily-dressed daughter of the heather up to the bridegroom, avIio kissed her, and Loughy Fadaghan sprang craftily from the saddle, and, in the confusion of kissing, which now began again among men and women, girls and boys, his red nose was to the fore, as a brilliant example. Wild Kate, too, did her best, although she held up her fist at Thick-nose when lie came too near her. But my inventive pony played me a new trick. A bunch of thistles that waved its ruddy top on a neigh- bouring mount inflamed its power of imagination, and off it went, just in the opposite direction from that in which Wild Kitty was lavishing her precious treasures. But fate was against me : and while I longed in vain, I was forced to look on, as my impertinent animal re- velled on the coarse weed. After a hearty breakfast, at which the bridegroom produced abundance of whisky, the procession started again. This time it went to the house of good Father M'Nessy, who lived a mile farther on, near the chapel, on the other side of the hill. He is the soul-carer for the inhabitants scattered about this district. This time the order was slightly altered : in front went Darby with the pipes, and the nature of his lungs did honour to his leathern nickname. No elevation, however steep, took his breath away, and the droning of his instrument filled the mountains. Then came the bridegroom, and behind him the bridesmaids; next the bridesmen, and after THE PROCESSION. 287 them rode the bride. The other guests grouped them- selves as they thought proper; on which occasion my pony joined the one on which old Peter and his old wife rode, while it would not by any argument be brought to keep pace with Wild Kate's steed. The procession had just started, when it was brought to a halt again by the cry, "Here's Grey Polly!" Out of the bridal cabin stalked an old, thin, ragged woman, with a long witch- like face, and long grey hair fluttering wildly round it. She slowly hobbled up to the bridegroom, unfastened the buttons of his breeches-knee with her skeleton fingers, and loosened his garter a little. Then she said, in a hoarse voice : " Rory, have you any money ? " " Yes, Polly, I have," Rory replied. " Then give it me." Rory gave her a handful of coppers, which he took from his breeches-pocket. Polly put it out of sight, and gave him in exchange two other coins. 66 Keep that money, Rory," she said, in a prophetic voice, "and do not let it go from you for nine days, either waking or sleeping, if you have any love for the life and happiness of your wife and the children she will, with God's help, bear you, for you know that evil spirits are busy on the wedding-night." Rory thanked her, and said he would do as she ordered. Polly then drew back, pulled the torn boot, that had grown brown with age, from her right foot, and threw it far away. " Thus I cast misfortune from the young pair. And now go, in God's name." Darby began his merry tune, the ponies whinnied, and their hoofs echoed in the mountains. 288 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Father M'Nessy stood at the door in his black robe as we arrived. An Irish priest's home in the mountains looks sufficiently quaint. It is not much better than the peasants' cabins, but far more spacious. Father M'Xessy's house was composed of several rooms with small square windows, and a large hall, which seemed the keeping- room, containing the reverend gentleman's small librarv, a portion of his wardrobe, the hencoop, and the stock of hay and stow. In addition to the padre, his old un- married sister, who acted as housekeeper, dwelt in this building, whose straw roof looked black enough from wind, rain, and soot. The house stood retired on a hill- side ; at a short distance from it were a few other huts, and on a distant peak the wooden cross of the chapel gleamed in the sun. " 1 think, my dear children," the father said, in Irish, — and it was the only language I heard at all this day, for the inhabitants of these mountains scarce know a word of English, and in spite of my good will and my stock of Irish, I should have understood very- little, had not Wild Kitty and the Leathern Uncle stood by my side in turn as interpreters — u I think we will perform the ceremony here, for the weather is fine, and the grass- plot green and large enough." No one raised any objection, and to the melodious murmur of the silver}- rills, which trickled down the mountain-side, and the solemn rustling of the breeze, which at times drowned the priest's words of blessing, Rory and Judy became man and wife. At the moment when he bent over to her, by the priest's command, to give her the first kiss, the boys rushed forward from all sides to prevent it, and gain the first sweet kiss them- selves. Red-nose was naturally hi front, but while the THE RACE FOR THE BOTTLE. 289 young husband was wrestling with the other rivals, Loughy Thick-nose received such a buffet from the young wife on the prominent feature of his countenance, that it would certainly have slightly bothered him had he not long been used to this peculiar demonstration of woman's favour. In the mean while, however, two other peasants were more lucky. While Rory struggled with an overpowering force, and Judy seemed exhausted by the love-token she had just given Loughy, they took advantage of the opportunity, and one kiss followed the other quickly and audibly. Proud as victors, the two happy men retired, and, in fact, then' reward was no slight one, for on the same day they must prepare the bridal room for the reception of the newly married couple. They must spread the sheets on the bed, place a table by its side, and on this two books, two candles, two glasses, a jug of water, and a bottle of whisky. Such are the mysteries of the marriage-night in the Irish highlands ! Good Father M'Nessy and his sister now mounted a horse, and back we all went to Peter Connellan's cabin. But not in a measured trot, as before ; on the contrary, the ponies went at such a pace with their heavy loads, that I felt frightened when I saw the ravines past which they galloped. This is the " race for the bottle." The man who first reaches the bride's cabin receives a bottle of whisky. For such a prize an Irish boy will at any time run some risk ! The women ere long shrieked, and one after the other fell from the ponies, generally drag- ging the men after them, so that at last the entire road was covered with shrieking women, crying children, cursing men, and ponies galloping masterless, with their saddles half turned round. But now all the suffering Loughy's nose had so long and undeservedly endured, u 290 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. was to be requited. A horse had been procured for him, but it had been impossible to find him a girl to share the joys of the saddle with him. But this was his luck : he did not fall from his horse, he was the first to reach the cabin, he won the bottle, and was allowed to revel in its contents without peril to his nose. For, though it was presum- able that the spirits might possibly heighten its red quali- ties, still no attack might be apprehended from the bottle. Yet, strange to say, as if fate would not protect him from danger, under any circumstances, at the moment he was about to put the prize on one side, an impudent fellow came up to him and declared he had reached the cabin at the same time as, if not sooner than, Loughy ; the bottle was his, and he would have it. Loughy would not give it up, and the dispute was followed by a fight, and the one claimant was joined by tluee or four others, who also declared they had arrived first, and thrashed the poor boy till it was sad to look upon. It is true that on arbitration Loughy kept the bottle, but his nose was in an awful state. The fight was followed by the dinner, partly in the cabin, partly on the grass, and tliis again by a dance, in which Wild Kitty was at one moment a lady, at another a gentleman. When she was the latter, she kept her hat on ; when the former, she took it off. Good Father M'Nessy danced heartily, first with the bride, and then with many others, and his sister's excuses were of no avail. It was on this occasion that I made my first attempt at an Irish jig. The reader will place it to the credit of my modesty that I omit to give any description of it. Only this much : among the dances I have sworn once for all not to attempt again, the Lrsh jig ranks first. No mortal eyes will ever see me jigging again, not if THE RIXCAFADA. 291 there were ten Wild Kates present to challenge me out on the floor. The jig was followed by the Rincafada, a peculiar and very pretty dance, which gave opportunity for the most graceful movements. It is very old, and seems to have fallen out of fashion in the rest of Ireland, for I never saw it elsewhere. Two boys, with Kate in the middle as lady, led the round. They were not hand-in- hand, but connected by white handkerchiefs, the ends of which they held delicately in their fingers. The rest followed in couples, attached in a similar fashion. I was here that the Leathern Uncle showed himself in al his glory. His bagpipes droned violently, and impelled the dancers to action. They danced under the arch made by the handkerchiefs of the first three, while the latter amused the spectators with all soils of diverting attitudes. The others were not behindhand with their jests, and then formed a circle round the three, who, like living threads, wove through the dance-garland. It was a dance very rich in figures, which went through all the stages of Bacchantish violence, and at length came back to the simplicity and rest of the original position. After the dance was over, the pine-wood splints — and these are the holiday candles hi the Irish highlands ! — were lighted ; and they had scarce thrown a flickering light over the company, ere the door opened, and the cake was brought in and broken over the head of the bride, every young person, including Loughy Thick-nose, receiving a piece. Then the lights were blown out again, and it was really a pity that nothing could be seen, for Judy now took off her stocking, and But, silence, I saw nothing, and could not see anything, for the stocking flew in the air, and all the young people rushed upon it and scrambled u2 292 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. on the ground, and employed, during the search for the stocking, the darkness and the situation to feel many stockings which were not the stocking, and then women shrieked and the boys shouted, and there was such a con- fusion of arms, and legs, and hands, and feet, that no one could rightly distinguish between his own and another's, until at length the shout, " I've got it ! " and the light that followed upon it, disentangled the strange medley, and the highland youth rose with red faces and tangled hair. But who had the stocking ? Loughy Fadaghan, the sorely tried, had it. He waved it high in air, and the girls cried, mocking him, u Much luck, Loughy ! So you'll be the first of us all to marry ? Here's luck to your young wife, and plenty of it." It was evident from these expressions that not one of them longed for this " luck.'' " Ah !" he said, his nose having at this moment attained the acme of its colour and size — 66 ah, now I shall get a wife ; I don't feel a bit afraid about it !" Then, Judy retired to the darkest corner of the cabin to put on again the eventful stocking ; the two boys who robbed her of the first kiss after the ceremony, left the cabin ; and beneath the starlit sky Wild Kate and my- self set out on our return to Letterfrack. THE DEPARTURE. 293 CHAPTEE XV. , Joyce's land — lenane— the inn— across the killery— the boatman's song — delphi — an accident— a night in a cabin — the return— escape from purgatory— madame hortense— the sieur de framboisie — errie valley— westport— the port. On the second morning after, I saw Kate for the last time ; she accompanied me to the image of the Virgin, which stands on the rocky plateau, looking towards Kilmore. There I saw her for a long time after my car had gone into the ravine and the morning sun sparkled round the rocky prominence. My road ran through the Diamond Hill — but there were no diamonds there to- day — to Kilmore Lake and the inn where Darby had played. But he was absent now, and the lake rolled sadly along, and the wind moaned from all the mountain passes. The glories of Letterfrack had passed away, and eye and heart must again grow accustomed to wilder scenes. The sky grew dark, and my solitary car rolled on. Letterfrack is a pure mountain crystal in a dark setting. The gloom began afresh ; a hollow roar from below drowned the noise of the wheels. Then came a cascade, glistening on the steel-grey background of the sky. The roaring grew louder, the cascade fuller. Suddenly the road was confined, and ran close beneath 294 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. the rocks of the opposite mountain , and, accompanied by the thundering roar of the Killery waves, we reached the rocky region of Lenane. Here everything becomes all at once rough, massive, and enormous. Naked moun- tains enclose the view, and the waters of the Atlantic chase madly up to a bay ten miles in length and scarcely half a mile broad, till they reach Lenane. All in this region is of great proportions, even the inhabitants, and especially the men. They are poor, like all the rest, and their cabins are no better ; but the neighbourhood of the wild sea makes them daring, and fishing guards them from extreme poverty. No one dreams of agriculture here ; they plough the sea and sail out into the storm. The constant sight of the boundless sea seems to enlarge the range of ideas, and the dangers the mariner must brave strengthen the consciousness and feed the pride. At the same time, the remoteness of the region is peculiarly adapted to preserve old memories from oblivion, and the inhabitants are aristocrats, as is usually the case. The dwellers in this region, called Joyce's Land, claim a Welsh descent, and traces of relationship, it is said, can still be followed in Brittany, where, at the present day, there are places called a Villers Saint- J osse" and " J osse- sur-Mer." The tradition says further, that while the first immigrant of the name of Joyce was coming here by sea, his wife bore him a son, whom he christened M'Mara, or Son of the Ocean. He extended his father's possessions, and from him sprang the family of the J oyces, a race of men remarkable for their extraordinary height. I took up my quarters at a small one-storied house in the bay. It belongs to a Dr. Foreman, who also keeps an inn at Westport. The Killery ran so high that an ex- LENANE. 295 cursion could not be thought of ; it rained, too, violently. The place was solitary and sad; for hours, Mike, the grey-headed waiter, and Wycombe, a huge Newfound- land clog, were my sole company, while, without, a poorly-clad woman would flash past the windows in the gloomy rain. I looked out on the wild waters and the steep precipices behind, round which was a never- ceasing fog. Towards evening it grew a little calmer, and I walked out on the side of the Killery in an inlet of the hill, and protected by it were a dozen cabins of the most wretched description. The smoke that poured out under the thatched roof, slowly disappeared in the black heavy atmosphere. The cabins themselves looked rain-beaten and damp, and the cold glow of the setting sun rendered their ap- pearance still more uncanny. On the other side of the bay lived a gentleman, of whom the grey-headed waiter spoke in terms of the highest admiration, although his house looked as wretched as the rest, even if built of stone. Farther away on the west of a hill the chapel ; and then cabins scattered along the rocky shore and the mountains. Then came the police barracks, in whose doorway an old man with a sabre appeared at times ; and lastly, Dr. Foreman's one-storied house. That was all. A few women came out of the cabins as I passed, to offer me stockings for sale ; with their cloaks over their heads and naked feet, they watched me for a long time. The huts were in a miserable state. From one of them I approached, a violent puff of peat smoke met me full in the face, and so far as I could notice, the old grand- mother, with a cloth bound round her head, with the whole family, crouched on the bare clay ground round the hearth, on which the sunken peat fire burned. They 296 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. appeared to be eating their supper. In the darkness of the evening and the smoke, I saw in the background something that looked like a spinning-wheel and wool, but I saw no chairs or a bed. A man was dragging his horse to be shoed into the only room of another cabin in which a smith lived. After the job had been com- pleted with endless difficulty, the man dragged his horse out again and drove off. On my return, too, so soon as they saw me, half-naked women, wretched and nipped with frost, rushed from all the cabins with stockings, and pursued me to the inn. In the mean while the down- pour had begun again, and the Killeiy was roaring. Under the doorway sat two boatmen, one old, the other young. "Has the gentleman already crossed the Killeiy?'* Pat, the old boatman, asked me. " No," I said. a To-morrow we will do so," Mick, the younger, said. " To-morrow," I repeated, as I looked with a shudder at the roaring waters which hurled their foam high in the air. In the coffee-room burned a huge fire, and yet it was sensibly cold. Neither window nor door closed tightly, and the wind blew the flame of the candles. There was not a trace of amusement. The only reading for tra- vellers consisted of old papers dating from the Crimean war, Kane's Chemistry, and Liston's Elements of Sur- gery. The food was bad, and Wycombe, the great dog, in the bargain, made dangerous attacks on me with each mouthful I dared to take. Mick, it is true, said it was of no consequence ; but Wycombe was not satisfied till I had given him a whole mutton-chop, after which he came back to thank me, and wiped his greasy nose on THE KILLERY. 297 my coat. At last Dr. Foreman returned from his rounds, bringing in with him the smell of the rainy night and the wet dark mountain roads. But he was a healthy, agreeable comrade, and a pleasant relief in this rain- beaten, storm-lashed solitude. I went to bed early ; my room looked out on the water ; there was no space be- tween it and me ; and the waves broke scarce ten paces from the wall. That was music through the night, sounding like thunder, and at first I really fancied there was a storm. At the same time the windows rattled and trembled. The day broke gloomily as it had departed. The waves ran high, the wind blew sharply up from the sea, and was entangled in the gloomy fissures. The doctor had gone out again, but the grey-headed waiter and the huge dog and the raowd women with stockings were there still. Then I took my walk and looked at the cabins and the barracks and the old man with the sabre, and the stone houses and the chapeL After that I went home again and sat at the window, and the day threatened never to have an end. I felt choked in the little house, and I was afraid of the grey-headed waiter and the big clog. In the mean while, the rain held up a little, and the two boatmen were there again. u Will you venture it ?" I asked, as I walked to the door. The Killeiy ran high, and great waves dashed on the beach one after the other. "Why shouldn't we'?" they replied; " our boat is safe." " So be it, then." I longed to be away from the insupportable monotony of the little inn ; no matter where. We went down to the beach where their boat was tied up. It was full of water up to the knees, and this had to be baled out. But 298 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. the boat was never quite empty, for it was leaky, and after we had started I discovered a hole stopped up with seaweed. But I did not see it on getting in, and so soon as the boat was unmoored, a huge wave hurled it in the midst of the seething waters. The sea ran higher and higher, and when it broke over the gunwale and through the hole at once, so that we sat up to our ankles in water, I said timidly, " If that goes on so, the water will soon be over our heads ;" but Miek, the young villain, cried in high glee, u Oh no, your honour ! no accident can happen to this boat; it is called 'M'Dara,' after our patron saint, and he has never suffered anything to come to hurt that bears his name.* Still, in spite of this spiritual insurance, our boat be- came fuller of water, and Pat and Mick seemed to allow that the help of a shovel was not to be despised. Hence, we pulled to a projecting point of land, and while the old man held on by some sea-wrack to prevent the boat moving, the boy emptied the water out, and sang as he did so. These people do not know fear, for danger is their daily surrounding. Three pallid children came up out of the rock-holes like sea spirits, and sat shivering, looking out at the stormy sea. Our boat was again ready, and wabbled farther. The oars lay idle, and both boatmen were at the rudder, for it had to bear the full fury of the tide. At the same time, the water poured in again, and the wind drove up clouds and rain. Mick still sang, but now louder than before, for the storm seemed to offer a challenge to his lungs, and old Pat joined in at times, and the accompaniment of the raging storm and mad waters formed a weird chorus. Old songs they were which they sang as they pressed against the rud- der ; melancholy strophes about foreign lands and great THE BOAT SOXG. 299 treasures, about a man wlio was obliged to sail " far from the county of Mayo;" another who died a good Catholic in France; a robber of the name of Larry, who was hanged; and so on. Most frequently, though, they sang the " Duan an Bhadora," the Irish sailor's song, so well known along the coast. THE BOAT SONG. Mick. Bark, that bear me through foam and squall, You iu the storm are my castle wall ; Though the sea should reddeu from bottom to top, Erom tiller to mast she takes uo drop. Mick and Pat. On the tide top, the tide top, Wherry aroon, my land and store ! On the tide top, the tide top, She is the boat can sail go leor. Mick. She dresses herself, and goes gliding on, Like a dame in her robes of the Indian lawn ; Eor God has blessed her, gunnel and whale — And oh ! if you saw her stretch out to the gale, On the tide top, the tide top, &c. Dielion, ahoy ! old heart of stone, Stooping so black o'er the beach alone, Answer me well — on the bursting brine, Saw you ever a bark like mine ? On the tide top, the tide top, &c. Says Dielion : Since first I was made of stone, I have looked abroad o'er the beach alone, But till to-day, on the bursting brine, Saw I never a bark like thine, On the tide top, the tide top, &c. God of the air ! the seamen shout, When they see us tossing the brine about : Give us the shelter of strand or rock, Or through and through us goes the boat with a shock ! On the tide top, the tide top, &c. 300 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Here the song broke off for a while, for the sea was growing more furious than ever. Wind and tide were against us, and the men were obliged to work. All at once a tremendous wave broke over us and completely filled the boat. Fortunately, the same wave drove us towards the shore. Mick was able to reach it with a leap, and, by means of a pole which Pat held, he drew the heavy boat to the seaweed collected on the rocky shore. The two men had their work cut out for a time in baling, and I determined to walk across the hill to the shore of the open sea, drying my wet clothes as I went. I told the men to wait for me, and started. It was four in the afternoon. The wind did not blow so fiercely on land, and at times the sun peeped out. I had no other com- panion, and my walk was very solitary. A long damp stretch of heath ; a stone bridge, under whose arches shot a wild mountain torrent ; on a gentle rise to the left an empty school-house ; above the dark rocky range of Ben Gorm, ever and anon a green ray of light that rose, rose, till it was lost in the clouds ; a mud-cabin, almost level with the ground ; steam rose from the clamp mass ; I did not see a human being there. Then I climbed past running waters into the gloom of the mountains. Every- where water rushes down the long furrows of the hills, and submerges the damp soil of the plateau. There, a waterfall pours out sheer from the bosom of the broad Muilrea, and sparkles in the sun ; there, in the shadow, another descends the hill-side zig-zag. Monstrously shaped rocks are scattered over the heath ; heaps of peat, and a so- litary workman by them — the first man I had seen since I left the boat. At length I reached a holy twilight, a mountain gorge full of fantastic shadows, a dreamy lake, and gently waving trees — the abode of concealed beings. DELPHI. 301 This valley of retirement is called Delphi : the silence of a sanctuary prevailed ; the oracular utterances of nature could be heard. The smoke rose from the ravine, and strange forms marched along the jagged mountain pyra- mids. A clergyman lives in the white silent stone house ; nut-bushes formed a wide arch over me. The pines moved mysteriously in the evening breeze ; over the wall glis- tened the rhododendron and the laurel, and gay ferns bloomed. The forest hid the gloomy rocks from my sight, and beneath this forest was the lake, illumined by the setting sun, and turning from indigo to the softest pink. A narrow mountain path, running by the side of rushing water, led to Lough Dhu, the Black Lake. Far across the gloomy lake are two houses, with blue slates on their roofs, and windows from which no one looks down. During the summer they are occupied by English fami- lies who come to fish in the lake, but now the houses were empty, and no soul save myself was visible around. From the Black Lake the water flows into Delphi Lake, which supplies the waterfalls that noisily carry it down to the Killery. With the sunset I hurried back : it began raining, and the road grew dark. I wandered about in the damp moss : at times I sank in up to my knees, at others I was stuck in a hole ; I had to climb over stone walls and leap over ditches. Only once I detected a human residence, but it was far away in the hills, over the Killery, in a potato-field. The straw roof of this cabin came down on both sides to the earth : the door- way was so low that the dwellers were forced to crawl in. It was inhabited, for smoke poured out of a hole in the wall. I shouted the names of my companions, but for a long time it was hi vain, for my lengthened absence 302 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. had alarmed them, and they had gone to seek me. At length we met and went down to the boat ; it was heaving violently up and down on the still restless sea. A dense gloom lay for miles over the breaking waves, and their hoarse murmur increased the terrors of the night ; and the wind blew fiercely, and its echo moaned in the rocky gorges. " Shall we start ? " Pat asked. Mick said he would venture it, if I permitted. I was so tired that I almost fell. I said I had no objection, and tried to get into the boat, but it was dark, and my eyes deceived me ; 1 stepped short, sank, came up again, and the roaring Atlantic water broke over me. I lost my senses for a moment, and when I recovered I was lying upon the seaweed on the beach, and the two sailors, kneeling by my side, were removing the water from my face. They did not speak much ; they only said that was not a good welcome, and the water wished to give us a warning. There was no help for it but to remain on this side and seek a cabin to spend the night in. I was stiff in all my limbs, and said they should do what they thought best, I would consent to anything. Upon this they dragged their boat on land, and pulled it up so that the tide should not cany it away, and we started. We wandered along the rocky peak above the Killery, and, for a long time, saw nothing. The darkness and the weather, half rain, half storm, and sometimes both to- gether, confused my guides, and I really believe we walked two hours ere we found a shelter. I will not speak of myself, but the two boatmen began to despair. At first they had tried to console me, then they cursed, and then they became quiet and said nothing. All at once, far away on the plain before us, there was a gleam of light. THE CABIX. 303 u Hallo !" the two boatmen shouted, and we went on more rapidly. When we drew nearer, we distinguished the outline of a cabin, and something oscillating over it like a pole. " Hallo ! 99 the boatmen repeated ; and old Pat exclaimed, "Now we are safe; a willow wand with a piece of turf fastened to it over a straw roof, is a sign of good whisky inside — ay, now we are safe ! 99 We rapped at the door, and an old man opened. He bade us welcome, without asking whence we came, and we did not tell him our adventures till we had been for some time in the cabin. On a three-legged stool by the fire sat an old woman, and a man about thirty was lying on straw asleep. u Our boy," the old man said, " has been standing about in the wet all day ; he is tired, and has gone to bed early." It was almost dark in the cabin ; the fire was half ashes, and as a light burnt a piece of oiled peat, called fassog, in an iron fork. The woman stirred up the fire and blew it, got hot water ready for punch, boiled potatoes, and dried my clothes. The steam- ing mud-hovel seemed to me less horrible after the despe- rate solitude of the night, the ocean, and the heath. We had dried fish to our potatoes, then straw was laid near the fire for the three strangers, and I laid myself down to sleep with the same confidence as if I had been at home. The old folk had a bed in a side room. But ere we were asleep, came another rap at the door. The old man opened once more, and in walked a man with bagpipes, who shook the rain off, and declared that he had not been out on the moor for many a long night in such disgrace- ful weather. So soon as another fassog was kindled, I recognised Darby, the Leathern Uncle. Great was the joy at meeting ; he told me he was returning from a christening, and had stayed beyond his time, so there was 304 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. no chance of his reaching home. After he had eaten and drunk, he began playing the pipes. All were aroused, even the boy who had been standing in water all day, and old Pat asked if the landlady would not dance with him ? " No," the old woman replied, laughing ; u there wasn't room enough that night, with all the guests Heaven had sent her." After which we retired to rest, and slept in spite of the storm, the rain, and the distant echo of the raging Killery. The next morning, when I went away, the old host re- fused to take any money from me. u Had you come by day and sunshine to us, I would not have refused your money ; but as you came in the night, and as helpless people, I offered you my hospitality, and that cannot be paid for, you know." The only thing he accepted from me was my tobacco ; even the pouch he returned me. " To me it is of no value," he said, u and you cannot do without it. Keep it, and God bless you!" When we reached the water-side, it was nearly as rough as on the previous day, but, being helped by the wind and tide, we flew out into the bay, and reached the other shore in safety. Here all looked as it did when I left it ; if possible, even worse. Michael the waiter stood in the doorway, and Wycombe the dog by his side, and both went with me into the room, and sat down by me, and offered me company. I sat for several hours by the fireside, for, without, all was buried in damp and fog and cold — the Killery, the rocks, the Muilrea, and the tall conical mountain in the distance called "The Devil's Grand- mother." My road lay in that direction, but I could not make up my mind to start, and yet I was longing so greatly for human society and a human dinner. For THE RELEASE. 305 three days dried fish and mutton had been my sole sup- port. I felt more and more like a prisoner in the little inn on the Killery, and the dark storm and rain-clouds were my gaoler. I felt a perfect thirst for human beings ' among these semi-savages ; but there was no release. The bay was covered with waves ; against the wall two girls stood in the pouring rain, with their cloaks round their heads, and their feet in the bottomless morass, knit- ting, and waiting for the u stranger" in order to sell him stockings. I walked out and talked with them, but their answers were short. Though these women look so wretched and ragged, it is almost impossible to obtain from them those favours which are so easily accorded by lovelier women. It is the last thing they possess — what tyrant would like to rob them of it ? Besides, they are not at all inviting ; I found the women here all ugly and devoid of piquancy. Late in the afternoon came the long- expected " Eoyal Post-car," but it was full in front with a few old, ill-tempered ladies, behind with their charm- ing young waiting-maids. My hope of a respectable de- parture was again foiled ; but help was nearer than I thought. The post-car had not long disappeared in the foggy region of the Devil's Grandmother, ere the sound of a horse's hoofs could be heard again, and a charming little woman, wrapped up to the eyebrows, danced into the room, followed by a man, who was also young and kindly looking. " Nous v'la ! nous v'la ! " the little woman exclaimed. u Ah, comme j'ai froid, mon ami ! Donnez-moi quel- que chose de chaud!" I felt like Wieland's Oberon. Home sounds from the " banks of the Garonne," a Frenchwoman — judging by her accent, a Parisian — here on the Irish heath wilder- x 306 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. ness ! little feet from the Boulevards in this bottomless morass! little hands in "gants de Piver" at the Killery ! dark eyes with long lashes, and that black piquant line over the lips, and even the " accroche coeurs" on the fine blue-veined temples which I had not seen since I said good-by to pale Blanche — all that, too, in the company of Mike the grey-headed waiter, and Wycombe the great dog! Any one who had seen us, ten minutes later, over a frugal meal, washed down with whisky-and-water, would have believed that we had arranged this meeting for fun at the Cafe de Paris — place, Dr. Foreman's house on the Killery — time, the evening gloom of a stormy October day. Mike the waiter seemed ready to believe it too ; he brought down my traps as if it were a settled affair that I was to go off with the two French folks, and Wycombe made his final leaps after my mutton-chop. It was a settled affair that I should travel with the two strangers. We did not speak about it, but no one doubted, I least of all, that Madame Horfame — that was the little Frenchwoman's name — had come to re- lease me from the gloomy dungeon of Lenane, and lead me with her jests and flashing eyes mevrily through the dark rainy weather and the fog strata of the Devil's Grandmother. Madame Hortense was marchande de modes in Dublin. She lived in Sackville-street, and declared that I had not only passed her shop a hundred times, but she had seen me as many times, and each time said : " J'ai vu ce monsieur-la — il a Fair connu pour moi." She was now travelling through Ireland on business, and Monsieur Charles, her "bon ami," was her marshal of travel. She supplied the entire west with Paris flowers ; she knew every " lady" in the four MADAME HORTENSE. 307 provinces, and when I asked her after Miss O'Flaherty, said : 66 Oh, c'est une demoiselle gentille, mais — mais " In short, Madame Hortense would not out with it. At length I heard that she used but few flowers — she preferred the " savage weeds" that grew on the moun- tains to the loveliest flowers of Paris. There was some- thing of the barbarian about her ! At last we started. Monsieur Charles wrapped up his "bonne amie" in india-rubber, and carried her like a doll to her seat on the car, took his own by her side, and with perfect grace indicated the other side bench for my sole use. Away we rolled, and the rain still poured down. But our lady, our Hortense, was a true sun of mirth, and lighted us, and warmed us, and to the sound of laughing and singing we passed through the mountain fogs and torrents. My hat resembled a reservoir ; fountains could have been supplied from it ; the rain poured down from both brims, as the water does over the sides of the great fountains in the Place de la Concorde. * A jeune femme il faut un jeune mari, A jeune femme il faut un jeune mari !" sang Hortense ; and when I closed my eyes, I fancied that I was sitting once more at Asnieres, by the blooming banks of the Seine, under the lilacs, while the organist stood below the verandah, playing the u Sieur de Fram- boisie," and Blanche was seated by my side, singing "A jeune femme il faut un jeune mari." But then I opened my eyes, and the whole grand majesty of the Irish mist world sported fantastically around me, and the song I sang had other words, and I sang it to the melody of the storm that howled past me to the sea, and bore it away on its bosom. x2 308 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. Hortense, however, not heeding the storm song, went on in her way : "Ah! qu'il fait done bon, qu'il fait done bon De cueillir la f raise " Strawberries and Bois de Boulogne ! and our road ! No brain is clever enough to imagine such ironv ! We drove through Errie Valley, between lakes and boldly-grouped rocky mountains. We saw the mist moving along the mountain walls in broad strata ; we had the genesis and history of the rain before us. The clouds spread it like fine dust over the heath, over the abysses, over us. In the first quarter of an hour we were wet to the skin — our coats, rugs, plaids, dripping. And my hat ! Since that day it has never felt cheerful again. Sad and limp, and with down-hanging brims, it vagabonds in my vicinity. I spare its life like an in- valid, and I cannot separate from it — the witness of my shipwreck on the Killery and the martyr of Errie Valley — but its appearance renders me sad, and compassion per- vades me when I look at it. In vain is the remembrance of Hortense and her songs — in vain the memory of merry John, our driver! When I regard it, the summits of the rocks disappear again in dense clouds, the Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain of the west, rises before me in the fading evening light, and is soon submerged in the clouds. Waterfalls poured sheer down the rocks and rushed across the road into the stream. They seemed to be bora of the clouds. Only rarely a cabin stood by the way- side or on the mountains. The scene^changed slightly, how- ever, when we came near Westport, the end of our journey. First, came a wood — dripping, I grant, but still a wood — a sign of more lovingly nurtured nature. And travel in a bare and like Ireland is, land miss the wood for WESTPORT. 309 days together, and then see how you will hail its scat- tered remains with a species of home delight ! Then came human beings again — peasants returning to their cabins from the town — ponies mounted by girls, with baskets hanging on both sides, or fathers with wives and chil- dren. To me, these people seemed handsomer, and kinder, and better off. With the late twilight we drove into the town, and how my heart beat on seeing again houses and streets ! In this grey twilight and rain even the k town produced the most agreeable effect. Surrounded by gentle hills, and edged by green woods, how habit- able it looked ! Dr. Foreman keeps in this town an offshoot of his Killery establishment. He had sent word of our coming, and most cordial was our reception, with plenty of lighted rooms, and bright peat- fires and tea-urns, in which the water was already singing. I dare to describe all, but not the first few moments by the fire ! I thawed into new life and fresh joy, and even Hortense's 66 a jeune femme" from the adjoining room, did not seduce me from my easy-chair. It was only merry John who by his entrance reminded me of the present. He requested something to drink, and after I had given him this co- piously, in the overflowing fulness of my heart, he asked me for my — hat ! I cannot yet understand how he hit on this desire. But men, like animals, often form in- explicable likings, and sad was his parting glance at this ruin of a hat, when I declined his request. Then Hortense, in neglige, peeped through the door, and de- clared that it was more cheerful in my room than in hers, and came in ; and ere long, Monsieur Charles followed her, and we drank tea together, and sang and chatted till close on midnight. I woke late enough the next morning. A pleasant voice^ 310 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. a well-known song, aroused me — u A jeune f emme" — but I found it was going away, and died in the distance. I sprang to the window and pulled back the curtains ; and I saw, far away up the hill, under trees, a car, and recognised Hortense's form, till it disappeared behind an advancing wall. Ah, what a pleasant, cheery, fresh autumn morning it was ! The storm had blown itself out on the highlands, and the bright sunshine poured down its golden beams upon me. It drew me out of doors, and in this pleasant light I found the town as pretty and pleasant as I had expected it to be from yesterday's look through the rain. A little stream, the river Mai, runs through it, with houses on either side built up the hill, from the top of which a glorious panorama is enjoyed. This town produced the most pleasant impres- sion on me of any I had visited in the west ; yet, I am not sure whether the pleasant morning freshness, after so many gloomy rain days, and the change from the deso- late wilderness to the soft swelling hills, did not have their share. The country round Westport is of unparal- leled beauty. Like a flashing girdle, Lord Sligo's park surrounds the land side of the town ; and oh, who can describe this fresh green lawn with the glistening rain- drops ; the woods, in their gay autumn attire of gold and purple ; the chapel behind the dark trees ; the turtle-doves in the distance ; the twittering birds in the air ; and over all the mild bright sun, and the blue sky around, as far as eye could reach ! From the park a path leads to the port, one of the finest and most magnificent havens, such as only the hand of nature can create. Half the British fleet could lie here ; but all I found in it were three brigs and a few fishing-boats. There were, however, enormous warehouses THE PORT. 311 all along the beach and up the next street, just as in the docks of London and Liverpool. But most of these colossal buildings were closed, others were beginning to be converted into ruins. Only two were open ; in one lay two casks, in the other there was nothing at all. I saw but five men in the port; two were lying asleep in a boat drawn ashore, one was sitting in the rigging of a brig, the other two were employed in the warehouses. It makes one's heart sad to see this splendid spot, so well suited for the trade of the universe, so empty and de- solate. It was nine in the morning ; yet all looked so sleepy here and in the town when I returned to it. Most of the shops were still closed, and the men stood at the corners of the streets sleeping or dreaming. And yet all was most beautiful ; the town runs along the hill-side, and the foliage glistens over the roofs. The women, too, are again pretty and kind; the character is quite different; the red petticoats no longer gleam, the naked legs and naked rocks have disappeared for a season. We are once more nearer our own civilisation and age : we believe we are nearer to ourselves ! We often feel a longing for nature, and yet cannot support it when it meets us in its unveiled majesty ; we cannot look at the sun, we cannot understand the voice of the Lord in the storm. The light must be dulled, the tone must be suppressed, all must be clothed. I had reached the most western point of my journey. I now turned eastward again, for I longed to be home. Hence I started direct from TVestport for Belfast, where I intended to take ship. I could fill a volume with the incidents of my journey, but I am drawing to an end,, and must hurry over the ground. 312 THE ISLAXD OF THE SAINTS. CHAPTER XVI. BELFAST — OPULENCE AND CRIME — ANDERSON-ROW — KIDNAPPERS — THE MENAGERIE — AX OLD ACQUAINTANCE — THE SUEZ CANAL — A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD — THE VILLA — THE TORN COAT — THE EMIGRANTS — I ARE WELL TO IRELAND. The capital of Ulster combines, though in a very modest degree, the resources of Liverpool and Man- chester. It is both a manufacturing town and a seaport, and while through its proximity to the sea it enjoys a purer air than Manchester, through whose layer of smoke — a species of wall of China floating in the air — the sun barely penetrates, it is almost more favourably situated than Liverpool Belfast Lough is a broad, splendid, and well-sheltered water, without the freaks of the Mersey, which on stormy spring and autumn nights threatens the ships lying in it, and has often enough swallowed up the little ferry steamers. But the most brilliant picture has its reverse. There are in Belfast dirty dens of corruption, dark nooks of crime, leaving far behind what the most notorious spots in the capitals of the world have to show. The great northern metropolis of Ireland has much to do yet ere it has reached the solid wealth, the firm patrician position of its English prototypes, but it has surpassed them all in the horrors of its dangerous localities. For poverty and AKDERSON-ROW. 313 crime, which always advance hand-in-hand with wealth and luxury, have amalgamated here with the deposit of native Irish wretchedness and filth in such a horrifying way, that the pen for a long time revolts from describing the fearful colour and disgusting smell of this mixture, and despairs of its task when it invites the reader to ac- company it to what is called "the Menagerie 99 and Anderson-row, which I visited with a policeman on one of the last afternoons of my stay in Belfast. Anderson-row is a narrow, short cul-de-sac, which sends to meet the intruder the miasma of rotten straw, filthy rags, and rubbish of even' description, with which the ground is covered instead of pavement. There are some twelve or fourteen houses — if these dens can be so called — in Anderson-row, and in them dwell about two hundred beggars, thieves, and prostitutes. Often these dens are chokingly full of denizens — often some are empty, because their former inhabitants have migrated to prison. Anderson-row is mainly a nursery for young criminals, and these dozen houses, on an average, supply three-fourths of the contingent to the prisons and re- formatories. Women, trembling with frost and hunger, dirty and half naked, stood in the doorways, or lay on the stones under the houses. I had seen in the mud- hovels of the heath what Ireland had to offer in the shape of want and misery, where human beings and animals pass the night under one straw roof, often on one straw bed. In the dens of Anderson-row, however, in the pestiferous air which crime and unnatural sin breathe, no animal could live. Here a man can only exist in the worst stage of degradation, till his inind grows gloomier and gloomier, like the candle which burns in an atmo- sphere full of choke-damp, timidly and droopingly, with- 314 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. out light or warmth, but still burning to the end. The walls of these dens are black, and drip with damp. The windows are stuffed up with rags, and only here and there is a hole left, through which wind and rain enter. We stopped before several of these windows, and looked into the front rooms. There could be noticed a handful of straw, on which lay wretched creatures in an inde- scribable state of shamelessness : drunken women with bloodshot eyes, which they raised idly as they heard us approaching ; boys and girls buried in filth, and thrown together in immoral community. The policeman had a story about each of these women and children, worthy of transcribing and preserving as a memorial of human nature. These stories begin at times in a very respect- able house of Belfast. The constable pointed me out a woman who, looking older from the traces of former vices and uninterrupted suffering than she really was, sat cowering in the corner of a room, the upper end of which was filled with dirty steaming forms, some sitting, others lying. This woman belonged to an artisan's family; her brothers and sisters are known to be re- spectable people. Her parents died. In her fifteenth year this girl became a mother; then she was on the streets for several years, and at length came to Anderson- row, where the prostitutes' career ends. When the few charms which compassionate nature gives to every one of us on our road through life have worn off, the wretched women come here, and the beggar is then* prey, who gives them a crust out of his pocket, or the thief who shares the proceeds of his plunder with them. This woman had made two attempts at self-murder. With her spectral eyes, her sunken face, and her wildly-tangled black hair, she sits there, until some day one of those THE MENAGERIE. 315 poisonous diseases, which in this quarter one communicates to the other, or the gallows, puts an end to her life. The young fry I saw here are only partly born on the straw heaps of Anderson-row; another and no small por- tion is stolen ! The policeman showed me an old stout wo- man, with an unendurably roguish face, who had gained a name in this branch of industry. Her den is subjected to continued examinations, and is constantly under sur- veillance, and yet it has been impossible hitherto to catch this criminal in the act, although it is known that the majority of the youthful population quartered on her are stolen children of twelve or thirteen years of age. This woman keeps several young women, by whom the boys are utterly corrupted in an unnatural way ; they are in- structed how to pilfer in the streets and the port, and seduce other boys by representations and promises to Anderson-row. In this way this criminal den is con- stantly filled afresh ; and respectable parents who have lost their son sent on an errand, and whose traces they have tried in vain to find by advertisements, discover him again, years after, in the criminal, whom the magistrate sentences to lengthened imprisonment. The reader will be surprised that nothing is done to end this fearful trade, but those who carry it on are so cunning that it has hitherto been found impossible to convict them. The last house before which I stopped is the most dis- gusting and notorious of all. It is called the u Menagerie," and one hundred wretches dwell in it, when all the inmates have returned from prison. When any great and extraordinary crime is committed in Belfast, the attention of the police is first turned on the Menagerie, and in nine cases out of ten not in vain. The policeman asked me if I should like to enter this house, but I was 316 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. obliged to decline his offer. The mud in wliich I sank up to the ankles when I stepped across the threshold frightened me back, and the pestilential air that met me from the darkness seemed full of infectious poisons. But we walked up to the window, and saw inside several women, and three or four children. I put a piece of silver tlirough a broken pane, and at once one of the women came up and greedily tore it from my grasp. u What is your name ? " I asked her. She told me, and the policeman whispered in my ear, u Let out of prison a fortnight back." u Have you food in the house ? 5 " Yes," the woman said, and produced a piece of half- putrid, sour-smelling bread. " Is that all?" fasked. * Yes." " Are you married ? " The woman laughed loudly. u Will you be my husband ! Come if you will." u Do you attend no church ? " She was silent for a moment, and then said, u Church and prison at times." Then she laughed at her joke, and the constable said, " A fortnight ago, last time : is it not so ! n u Yes," the woman replied. "How can you live in this atmosphere? Are these rooms never cleaned ? " " No," she said. u When it grows too bad the cholera comes, and then there's air." She laughingly disappeared in the gloom of the com- fortless room, but I turned back to the cheery streets of Belfast, crowded with people, and gleaming with thou- sands of gaslights. THE TORS' COAT. 311 On the second morning after my arrival in Belfast, I stood before a large and stately house of business in Linen Hall-street. The sunshine, which poured between the gables of the opposite houses, fell on a brass plate on the right of the door, and I read the words, u Maerie, Son, and Co." These words were the same I read on the card the head of the firm formerly gave me if Killarney, telling me how delighted he and all his would be if I did not forget them as I passed through Belfast. After the identity was thus established, I walked into the passage and pulled a bell, upon which a glass-door opened, and an old man appeared, who was short and ill tempered, and said nothing, but looked at me, thus giving me to understand that he was ready to listen to me. " I wish to speak with Air. Maerie," I said, after we had stood opposite each other for a while, he behind. I before, the glass-door, which was partly closed. He looked at me more closely than before, and his old grey eye, as it slowly and contemptuously went up and down me, and at length rested on my hat, told me that my clothes must certainly have suffered considerable damage in the deserts. Indeed, when I raised my eyes and looked at myself in the glass-door, I exactly resembled in my own mind the first Irishman I saw on the first morning I walked the streets of Dublin. I was Hibernian, even to the lining of my coat. Those parts of it which had not adhered to the Connamara thorns fluttered round me as I walked like the rags of a flag that had been in many actions. But I had in the mean while written my name on a piece of paper, which I gave the porter with as much dignity as is compatible with a torn lining and a hat that has reverted to a state of nature, and told him that I would await him here. The little misanthrope, 318 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. after closing the glass-door as a safeguard, walked away, but he did not hurry himself, for it was long ere the first door in the passage creaked. But he came back all the quicker, and, with a most reverential face, informed me that Mr. Macrie was highly delighted, and Mr. Macrie begged me to walk in, and Mr. Macrie was waiting for me. Then he requested me to follow him, and showed me the way with the utmost devotion, as if his eyes had never rested on a torn lining and a crushed hat. Mr. Macrie was standing at a tall desk, which reached above his chest, and it was long ere he could shake my hand, for I found him deeply engaged with Egyptian antiquities, owing to the figure of a pyramid which one of his clerks, with a taste for the fine arts, had proposed as the trade mark for his linen bales destined for export to Alexandria. After asking me my opinion about mum- mies, pyramids, and hieroglyphics, he said we would let that matter rest for the present, and welcomed me most cordially. Then he telegraphed to Mrs. Macrie to say I had arrived, and would dine with him, and that the car- riage was to meet us at the station. In the mean while he proposed to show me the curiosities of Belfast. The first was his warehouse, the second was his factory ; both of which we duly inspected. The third curiosity — according to Mr. Macrie's opinion — was a globe in the library of Queen's College, on which he (my learned friend) proposed to prove to me, that since the railway ran across the Isthmus of Panama, Belfast had entered a new stage of its development, and that when the Suez Canal was finished it would successfully contend with London for the world's commerce. It is true I had not the remotest conception what the Panama Railway and the Suez Canal had to do with Belfast, and Mr. Macrie, THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 319 when I asked him, could not give me a satisfactory ex- planation. He continually said, u Only wait ! the globe !" This globe seemed to be the object of his tenderest affection, and he must have distinguished it by repeated visits, for the officials employed in Queen's College library- smiled when they saw Mr. Macrie walk in. The globe stood in a window niche. Mr. Macrie gave it a slight pat immediately after our arrival, just as you playfully tap a child's plump cheek, and round went the ball, with Asia, and Africa, and the ocean. Mr. Macrie took a distant departure ; he began with the revolution of the earth on its axis, and spoke so loudly, like a professor, that the young gentlemen sitting reading at the tables looked up, some in annoyance, others laughing. So soon as the globe stood still Mr. Macrie approached his subject nearer, and, after his fashion of pursuing his studies, set all five fingers of either hand at once in motion. "Here we have Belfast," he said; "have we not?" He covered with his right forefinger the British Isles, and a few adjacent countries, such as France, Germany, and Denmark. Hence Belfast was surely included. "Yes," I said. " Here we have the Isthmus of Panama," he continued, as he laid his left forefinger somewhere else ; " have we not?" What he stated to be the isthmus was nothing of the sort, but some region in the undiscovered portions of the North Pole ; but " yes," I said. " Good ! " Mr. Macrie continued, highly satisfied with my docility. u Here our ship sails " — and here he worked with his two thumbs over the polished surface of the globe, begging me to hold it, that it might not turn — "here our ship sails," he repeated, "from Belfast to 320 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. America, from America to the West Indies ; then comes the Panama Railway, behind that comes our ship again, and we sail to Australia, East India, and China. Is not that a remarkable voyage ? " Mr. Maerie concluded this part of his lecture. It certainly was, for the ship had made its entire voyage Overland, while the railway ran through the Polar Seas. Mr. Maerie only made a few remarks on the subject of the Suez Canal, for the day was advanced, and we must make haste if we wished to catch the next train. The village where Mr. Maerie s country-house was situated was on the line, and was reached in about ten to twelve minutes. The road is exquisite ; you see the Antrim mountains, and the Belfast bay opens out the farther you go. Ships, too, at length appeared: and the pleasant variety of the water was combined with the charm of the landscape. Mr. Maerie was for a long time silent as we rolled' along, evidently engaged with maritime questions of unlimited importance. Suddenly he surprised me by the unexpected information that Na- poleon's head was there, close to the shore. >• Where?" I asked. U Close to the shore,'' Mr. Maerie repeated. What was close to the shore, howeyer, was nothing more than a hill, which, according to Mr. Maerie s as- severation, resembled the features of the First Napoleon, and eyen wore the well-known hat. My fancy was not in a healthy state that day, or else was fatigued by its voyage to Panama and the North Pole; in short, the train stopped ere I could delight my anxiously expectant friend with the news that I had seen Napoleon s head " close to the shore." An elegant carriage, drawn by two splendid brown THE VILLA. 321 horses, awaited us; and I went along by my friend's side more pleasantly than I had done for many a long day. We ascended a hill ; an iron gate opened and shut, and from the pretty villa two charming girls sprang out to meet us. Jane and Ellen cried a welcome to me, and said it was a day they should never forget on which I entered their father's house. Mrs. Macrie received me at the door. I could not re- frain from making a reference to my torn lining, and hid the hat very craftily, which had suffered even more than before through repeated bows and other marks of respect. But Mrs. Macrie was kind enough to say that the man was w r elcome in every Irish home who did not spare his coat when his object was to examine the state of that un- happy country. Smilingly she bowed, smilingly she walked before me, and a splendid dining-room received us all. The heavy curtains were half drawn to keep out the sun, which threw its parting beams over the sea ; a pleasant fire crackled in the grate, and we took our seats at a richly-covered table. It was a grand sight to see Mr. Macrie at the head of his table in his white choker, always striving to bring the conversation back to antiquities, and constantly warning his daughters to " mark " so-and-so. What a pretty picture, too, this pair presented — two rosebuds, so young, so lovely, so fresh still with the morning dew of existence! Merriment presided over the little party, and I fancied myself in Paradise. The Spanish and French wines were followed by some from my home, and we all drank to the Germany I was so soon to see again, in glasses filled with Eudes- heimer Berg. It is evening. The steamer is ready which is to bear Y 322 THE ISLAND OF THE SAINTS. me from Ireland's coasts. Many people have assembled on board it — careless people, who leave this land to-day, as they have already gone a hundred times from one coast to the other, and perhaps return to-morrow, with- out feeling any sensation. The deck is crowded with merchants and ladies, frightened about sea-sickness, and with their children and servants, their waiting-maids and lapdogs. But there, in the gloom of the forecastle, sit twenty girls crouched together; they have veiled their heads, and are sobbing and shrieking, and on the shore stand hundreds of others, girls and boys, old men and old women, and they are sobbing and shrieking too — it is the Irish croon, which I had heard once before, and shall never forget ; and these twenty girls are emigrating to Melbourne, and quitting their beloved country, and their father and mother, and brother and sister; they are Irish girls, for they sob and shriek so! And the paddles begin slowly revolving, and the twenty girls shriek more loudly, and one of them rushes to the ship's side and wrings her hands and laments that she cannot leave her beloved Ireland, and would sooner be buried in the waves, and an Irish lad rushes towards her, and the others are obliged to hold him, and then he throws a cake and a purse on board the vessel, and in that purse is Irish earth, which must be placed in her grave when she dies. And the paddles bite deeper in the water, and the vessel moves, and the waves roll, and it is night, and Ireland's coast sinks in the heavy night-fog, and the light-vessels flash on both sides. Then comes the dark- ness, and the long heavy solitude of the icy sea : and the word is monotonously passed from the paddle-bridge to the wheel, and u Steady!" is the cry when a reef comes FAKE WELL TO IRELAND. 323 or a ship sails past ; and the twenty girls still sit trembling with cold on deck, and their eyes are fixed on the west, where their land has sunk in gloom. And then comes the grey autumn morning, and the landing on the English coast. The twenty girls, with swollen eyes and tangled hair are going farther — to Liverpool, where the great ship is to receive them and convey them to Melbourne. They give me their hand in turn, and they weep and wish me good-by, and I take my last farewell of Ireland ; then they go onwards, and I gaze after them, and, as they slowly disappear in the fog, I feel my farewell from Ireland as a sharp pain, and the Land of the Saints passes away for ever with its twenty exiled daughters. THE END. II III I lllf BEAUFORT HOUSE, 6TRAXD. DOES MOT CIRCUWTE BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless re- served. Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. The borrower is responsible for books drawn on his card and for all fines accruing on the same.