Penelope\'s Irish Experiences
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Kate Douglas Wiggin >> Penelope\'s Irish Experiences
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17 This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset
Penelope's Irish Experiences
by Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Published 1901.
To my first Irish friend, Jane Barlow.
Contents.
Part First--Leinster.
I. We emulate the Rollo books.
II. Irish itineraries.
III. We sight a derelict.
IV. Enter Benella Dusenberry.
V. The Wearing of the Green.
VI. Dublin, then and now.
Part Second--Munster.
VII. A tour and a detour.
VIII. Romance and reality.
IX. The light of other days.
X. The belles of Shandon.
XI. 'The rale thing.'
XII. Life at Knockarney House.
XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancin'.'
XIV. 'Mrs. Mullarkey's iligant locks.'
XV. Penelope weaves a web.
XVI. Salemina has her chance.
Part Third--Ulster.
XVII. The glens of Antrim.
XVIII. Limavady love-letters.
XIX. 'In ould Donegal.'
XX. We evict a tenant.
XXI. Lachrymae Hibernicae.
Part Fourth--Connaught.
XXII. The weeping west.
XXIII. Beams and motes.
XXIV. Humours of the road.
XXV. The wee folk.
Part Fifth--Royal Meath.
XXVI. Ireland's gold.
XXVII. The three chatelaines of Devorgilla.
XXVIII. Round towers and reflections.
XXIX. Aunt David's garden.
XXX. The quest of the fair strangers.
XXXI. Good-bye, dark Rosaleen!
XXXII. 'As the sunflower turns.'
Part First--Leinster.
Chapter I. We emulate the Rollo books.
'Sure a terrible time I was out o' the way,
Over the sea, over the sea,
Till I come to Ireland one sunny day,-
Betther for me, betther for me:
The first time me fut got the feel o' the ground
I was strollin' along in an Irish city
That hasn't its aquil the world around
For the air that is sweet an' the girls that are pretty.'
--Moira O'Neill.
Dublin, O'Carolan's Private Hotel.
It is the most absurd thing in the world that Salemina, Francesca,
and I should be in Ireland together.
That any three spinsters should be fellow-travellers is not in
itself extraordinary, and so our former journeyings in England and
Scotland could hardly be described as eccentric in any way; but now
that I am a matron and Francesca is shortly to be married, it is
odd, to say the least, to see us cosily ensconced in a private
sitting-room of a Dublin hotel, the table laid for three, and not a
vestige of a man anywhere to be seen. Where, one might ask, if he
knew the antecedent circumstances, are Miss Hamilton's American
spouse and Miss Monroe's Scottish lover?
Francesca had passed most of the winter in Scotland. Her indulgent
parent had given his consent to her marriage with a Scotsman, but
insisted that she take a year to make up her mind as to which
particular one. Memories of her past flirtations, divagations,
plans for a life of single blessedness, all conspired to make him
incredulous, and the loyal Salemina, feeling some responsibility in
the matter, had elected to remain by Francesca's side during the
time when her affections were supposed to be crystallising into some
permanent form.
It was natural enough that my husband and I should spend the first
summer of our married life abroad, for we had been accustomed to do
this before we met, a period that we always allude to as the Dark
Ages; but no sooner had we arrived in Edinburgh, and no sooner had
my husband persuaded our two friends to join us in a long, delicious
Irish holiday, than he was compelled to return to America for a
month or so.
I think you must number among your acquaintances such a man as Mr.
William Beresford, whose wife I have the honour to be. Physically
the type is vigorous, or has the appearance and gives the impression
of being vigorous, because it has never the time to be otherwise,
since it is always engaged in nursing its ailing or decrepit
relatives. Intellectually it is full of vitality; any mind grows
when it is exercised, and the brain that has to settle all its own
affairs and all the affairs of its friends and acquaintances could
never lack energy. Spiritually it is almost too good for earth, and
any woman who lives in the house with it has moments of despondency
and self-chastisement, in which she fears that heaven may prove all
too small to contain the perfect being and its unregenerate family
as well.
Financially it has at least a moderate bank account; that is, it is
never penniless, indeed it can never afford to be, because it is
peremptory that it should possess funds in order to disburse them to
needier brothers. There is never an hour when Mr. William Beresford
is not signing notes and bonds and drafts for less fortunate men;
giving small loans just to 'help a fellow over a hard place';
educating friends' children, starting them in business, or securing
appointments for them. The widow and the fatherless have worn such
an obvious path to his office and residence that no bereaved person
could possibly lose his way, and as a matter of fact no one of them
ever does. This special journey of his to America has been made
necessary because, first, his cousin's widow has been defrauded of a
large sum by her man of business; and second, his college chum and
dearest friend has just died in Chicago after appointing him
executor of his estate and guardian of his only child. The wording
of the will is, 'as a sacred charge and with full power.'
Incidentally, as it were, one of his junior partners has been
ordered a long sea voyage, and another has to go somewhere for mud
baths. The junior partners were my idea, and were suggested solely
that their senior might be left more or less free from business
care, but it was impossible that Willie should have selected sound,
robust partners--his tastes do not incline him in the direction of
selfish ease; accordingly he chose two delightful, estimable, frail
gentlemen who needed comfortable incomes in conjunction with light
duties.
I am railing at my husband for all this, but I love him for it just
the same, and it shows why the table is laid for three.
"Salemina," I said, extending my slipper toe to the glowing peat,
which by extraordinary effort had been brought up from the hotel
kitchen, as a bit of local colour, "it is ridiculous that we three
women should be in Ireland together; it's the sort of thing that
happens in a book, and of which we say that it could never occur in
real life. Three persons do not spend successive seasons in
England, Scotland and Ireland unless they are writing an Itinerary
of the British Isles. The situation is possible, certainly, but it
isn't simple, or natural, or probable. We are behaving precisely
like characters in fiction, who, having been popular in the first
volume, are exploited again and again until their popularity wanes.
We are like the Trotty books or the Elsie Dinmore series. England
was our first volume, Scotland our second, and here we are, if you
please, about to live a third volume in Ireland. We fall in love,
we marry and are given in marriage, we promote and take part in
international alliances, but when the curtain goes up again, our
accumulations, acquisitions--whatever you choose to call them--have
disappeared. We are not to the superficial eye the spinster-
philanthropist, the bride to be, the wife of a year; we are the same
old Salemina, Francesca and Penelope. It is so dramatic that my
husband should be called to America; as a woman I miss him and need
him; as a character I am much better single. I don't suppose
publishers like married heroines any more than managers like married
leading ladies. Then how entirely proper it is that Ronald
Macdonald cannot leave his new parish in the Highlands. The one, my
husband, belongs to the first volume; Francesca's lover to the
second; and good gracious, Salemina, don't you see the inference?"
"I may be dull," she replied, "but I confess I do not."
"We are three?"
"Who is three?"
"That is not good English, but I repeat with different emphasis WE
are three. I fell in love in England, Francesca fell in love in
Scotland-" And here I paused, watching the blush mount rosily to
Salemina's grey hair; pink is very becoming to grey, and that, we
always say, accounts more satisfactorily for Salemina's frequent
blushes than her modesty, which is about of the usual sort.
"Your argument is interesting, and even ingenious," she replied,
"but I fail to see my responsibility. If you persist in thinking of
me as a character in fiction, I shall rebel. I am not the stuff of
which heroines are made; besides, I would never appear in anything
so cheap and obvious as a series, and the three-volume novel is as
much out of fashion as the Rollo books."
"But we are unconscious heroines, you understand," I explained.
"While we were experiencing our experiences we did not notice them,
but they have attained by degrees a sufficient bulk so that they are
visible to the naked eye. We can look back now and perceive the
path we have travelled."
"It isn't retrospect I object to, but anticipation," she retorted;
"not history, but prophecy. It is one thing to gaze sentimentally
at the road you have travelled, quite another to conjure up
impossible pictures of the future."
Salemina calls herself a trifle over forty, but I am not certain of
her age, and think perhaps that she is uncertain herself. She has
good reason to forget it, and so have we. Of course she could
consult the Bible family record daily, but if she consulted her
looking-glass afterward the one impression would always nullify the
other. Her hair is silvered, it is true, but that is so clearly a
trick of Nature that it makes her look younger rather than older.
Francesca came into the room just here. I said a moment ago that
she was the same old Francesca, but I was wrong; she is softening,
sweetening, expanding; in a word, blooming. Not only this, but
Ronald Macdonald's likeness has been stamped upon her in some
magical way, so that, although she has not lost her own personality,
she seems to have added a reflection of his. In the glimpses of
herself, her views, feelings, opinions, convictions, which she gives
us in a kind of solution, as it were, there are always traces of
Ronald Macdonald; or, to be more poetical, he seems to have bent
over the crystal pool, and his image is reflected there.
You remember in New England they allude to a bride as 'she that was'
a so-and-so. In my private interviews with Salemina I now
habitually allude to Francesca as 'she that was a Monroe'; it is so
significant of her present state of absorption. Several times this
week I have been obliged to inquire, "Was I, by any chance, as
absent-minded and dull in Pettybaw as Francesca is under the same
circumstances in Dublin?"
"Quite."
"Duller if anything."
These candid replies being uttered in cheerful unison I change the
subject, but cannot resist telling them both casually that the
building of the Royal Dublin Society is in Kildare Street, just
three minutes' from O'Carolan's, and that I have noticed it is for
the promotion of Husbandry and other useful arts and sciences.
Chapter II. Irish itineraries.
'And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
For the fair hills of holy Ireland.'
--Sir Samuel Ferguson.
Our mutual relations have changed little, notwithstanding that
betrothals and marriages have intervened, and in spite of the fact
that Salemina has grown a year younger; a mysterious feat that she
has accomplished on each anniversary of her birth since the forming
of our alliance.
It is many months since we travelled together in Scotland, but on
entering this very room in Dublin, the other day, we proceeded to
show our several individualities as usual: I going to the window to
see the view, Francesca consulting the placard on the door for hours
of table d'hote, and Salemina walking to the grate and lifting the
ugly little paper screen to say, "There is a fire laid; how nice!"
As the matron I have been promoted to a nominal charge of the
travelling arrangements. Therefore, while the others drive or sail,
read or write, I am buried in Murray's Handbook, or immersed in
maps. When I sleep, my dreams are spotted, starred, notched, and
lined with hieroglyphics, circles, horizontal dashes, long lines,
and black dots, signifying hotels, coach and rail routes, and
tramways.
All this would have been done by Himself with the greatest ease in
the world. In the humbler walks of Irish life the head of the
house, if he is of the proper sort, is called Himself, and it is in
the shadow of this stately title that my Ulysses will appear in this
chronicle.
I am quite sure I do not believe in the inferiority of woman, but I
have a feeling that a man is a trifle superior in practical affairs.
If I am in doubt, and there is no husband, brother, or cousin near,
from whom to seek advice, I instinctively ask the butler or the
coachman rather than a female friend; also, when a female friend has
consulted the Bradshaw in my behalf, I slip out and seek
confirmation from the butcher's boy or the milkman. Himself would
have laid out all our journeyings for us, and we should have gone
placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is, we are already
pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, and Ireland bids
fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelter fashion
imaginable.
Francesca's propositions are especially nonsensical, being
provocative of fruitless discussion, and adding absolutely nothing
to the sum of human intelligence.
"Why not start without any special route in view, and visit the
towns with which we already have familiar associations?" she asked.
"We should have all sorts of experiences by the way, and be free
from the blighting influences of a definite purpose. Who that has
ever travelled fails to call to mind certain images when the names
of cities come up in general conversation? If Bologna, Brussels, or
Lima is mentioned, I think at once of sausages, sprouts, and beans,
and it gives me a feeling of friendly intimacy. I remember
Neufchatel and Cheddar by their cheeses, Dorking and Cochin China by
their hens, Whitby by its jet, or York by its hams, so that I am
never wholly ignorant of places and their subtle associations."
"That method appeals strongly to the fancy," said Salemina drily.
"What subtle associations have you already established in Ireland?"
"Let me see," she responded thoughtfully; "the list is not a long
one. Limerick and Carrickmacross for lace, Shandon for the bells,
Blarney and Donnybrook for the stone and the fair, Kilkenny for the
cats, and Balbriggan for the stockings."
"You are sordid this morning," reproved Salemina; "it would be
better if you remembered Limerick by the famous siege, and
Balbriggan as the place where King William encamped with his army
after the battle of the Boyne."
"I've studied the song-writers more than the histories and
geographies," I said, "so I should like to go to Bray and look up
the Vicar, then to Coleraine to see where Kitty broke the famous
pitcher; or to Tara, where the harp that once, or to Athlone, where
dwelt Widow Malone, ochone, and so on; just start with an armful of
Tom Moore's poems and Lover's and Ferguson's, and, yes," I added
generously, "some of the nice moderns, and visit the scenes they've
written about."
"And be disappointed," quoth Francesca cynically. "Poets see
everything by the light that never was on sea or land; still I won't
deny that they help the blind, and I should rather like to know if
there are still any Nora Creinas and Sweet Peggies and Pretty Girls
Milking their Cows."
"I am very anxious to visit as many of the Round Towers as
possible," said Salemina. "When I was a girl of seventeen I had a
very dear friend, a young Irishman, who has since become a well-
known antiquary and archaeologist. He was a student, and
afterwards, I think, a professor here in Trinity College, but I have
not heard from him for many years."
"Don't look him up, darling," pleaded Francesca. "You are so much
our superior now that we positively must protect you from all
elevating influences."
"I won't insist on the Round Towers," smiled Salemina, "and I think
Penelope's idea a delightful one; we might add to it a sort of
literary pilgrimage to the homes and haunts of Ireland's famous
writers."
"I didn't know that she had any," interrupted Francesca.
This is a favourite method of conversation with that spoiled young
person; it seems to appeal to her in three different ways: she
likes to belittle herself, she likes to shock Salemina, and she
likes to have information given her on the spot in some succinct,
portable, convenient form.
"Oh," she continued apologetically, "of course there are Dean Swift
and Thomas Moore and Charles Lever."
"And," I added "certain minor authors named Goldsmith, Sterne,
Steele, and Samuel Lover."
"And Bishop Berkeley, and Brinsley Sheridan, and Maria Edgeworth,
and Father Prout," continued Salemina, "and certain great speech-
makers like Burke and Grattan and Curran; and how delightful to
visit all the places connected with Stella and Vanessa, and the spot
where Spenser wrote the Faerie Queene."
"'Nor own a land on earth but one,
We're Paddies, and no more,'"
sang Francesca. "You will be telling me in a moment that Thomas
Carlyle was born in Skereenarinka, and that Shakespeare wrote Romeo
and Juliet in Coolagarranoe," for she had drawn the guidebook toward
her and made good use of it. "Let us do the literary pilgrimage,
certainly, before we leave Ireland, but suppose we begin with
something less intellectual. This is the most pugnacious map I ever
gazed upon. All the names seem to begin or end with kill, bally,
whack, shock, or knock; no wonder the Irish make good soldiers!
Suppose we start with a sanguinary trip to the Kill places, so that
I can tell any timid Americans I meet in travelling that I have been
to Kilmacow and to Kilmacthomas, and am going to-morrow to Kilmore,
and the next day to Kilumaule."
"I think that must have been said before," I objected.
"It is so obvious that it's not unlikely," she rejoined; "then let
us simply agree to go afterwards to see all the Bally places from
Ballydehob on the south to Ballycastle or Ballymoney on the north,
and from Ballynahinch or Ballywilliam on the east to Ballyvaughan or
Ballybunnion on the west, and passing through, in transit,
Ballyragget,
Ballysadare,
Ballybrophy,
Ballinasloe,
Ballyhooley,
Ballycumber,
Ballyduff,
Ballynashee,
Ballywhack.
Don't they all sound jolly and grotesque?"
"They do indeed," we agreed, "and the plan is quite worthy of you;
we can say no more."
We had now developed so many more ideas than we could possibly use
that the labour of deciding among them was the next thing to be
done. Each of us stood out boldly for her own project,--even
Francesca clinging, from sheer wilfulness, to her worthless and
absurd itineraries,--until, in order to bring the matter to any sort
of decision, somebody suggested that we consult Benella; which
reminds me that you have not yet the pleasure of Benella's
acquaintance.
Chapter III. We sight a derelict.
'O Bay of Dublin, my heart you're troublin',
Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream.'
Lady Dufferin.
To perform the introduction properly I must go back a day or two.
We had elected to cross to Dublin directly from Scotland, an easy
night journey. Accordingly we embarked in a steamer called the
Prince or the King of something or other, the name being many
degrees more princely or kingly than the craft itself.
We had intended, too, to make our own comparison of the Bay of
Dublin and the Bay of Naples, because every traveller, from Charles
Lever's Jack Hinton down to Thackeray and Mr. Alfred Austin has
always made it a point of honour to do so. We were balked in our
conscientious endeavour, because we arrived at the North Wall forty
minutes earlier than the hour set by the steamship company. It is
quite impossible for anything in Ireland to be done strictly on the
minute, and in struggling not to be hopelessly behind time, a
'disthressful counthry' will occasionally be ahead of it. We had
been told that we should arrive in a drizzling rain, and that no one
but Lady Dufferin had ever on approaching Ireland seen the 'sweet
faces of the Wicklow mountains reflected in a smooth and silver
sea.' The grumblers were right on this special occasion, although
we have proved them false more than once since.
I was in a fever of fear that Ireland would not be as Irish as we
wished it to be. It seemed probable that processions of prosperous
aldermen, school directors, contractors, mayors, and ward
politicians, returning to their native land to see how Herself was
getting on, the crathur, might have deposited on the soil successive
layers of Irish-American virtues, such as punctuality, thrift, and
cleanliness, until they had quite obscured fair Erin's peculiar and
pathetic charm. We longed for the new Ireland as fervently as any
of her own patriots, but we wished to see the old Ireland before it
passed. There is plenty of it left (alas! the patriots would say),
and Dublin was as dear and as dirty as when Lady Morgan first called
it so, long years ago. The boat was met by a crowd of ragged
gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of them stockingless, and in
men's shoes, and several of them with flowers in their unspeakable
hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting cars because we had
not been expected so early, and the jarveys were in attendance on
the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for a piece of
lost luggage that I saw the stewardess assisting a young woman off
the gang plank, and leading her toward a pile of wool bags on the
dock. She sank helplessly on one of them, and leaned her head on
another. As the night had been one calculated to disturb the
physical equilibrium of a poor sailor, and the breakfast of a
character to discourage the stoutest stomach, I gave her a careless
thought of pity and speedily forgot her. Two trunks, a holdall, a
hatbox--in which reposed, in solitary grandeur, Francesca's picture
hat, intended for the further undoing of the Irish gentry--a guitar
case, two bags, three umbrellas; all were safe but Salemina's large
Vuitton trunk and my valise, which had been last seen at Edinburgh
station. Salemina returned to the boat, while Francesca and I
wended our way among the heaps of luggage, followed by crowds of
ragamuffins, who offered to run for a car, run for a cab, run for a
porter, carry our luggage up the street to the cab-stand, carry our
wraps, carry us, 'do any mortial thing for a penny, melady, an'
there is no cars here, melady, God bless me sowl, and that He be
good to us all if I'm tellin' you a word of a lie!'
Entirely unused to this flow of conversation, we were obliged to
stop every few seconds to recount our luggage and try to remember
what we were looking for. We all met finally, and I rescued
Salemina from the voluble thanks of an old woman to whom she had
thoughtlessly given a three-penny bit. This mother of a 'long wake
family' was wishing that Salemina might live to 'ate the hin' that
scratched over her grave, and invoking many other uncommon and
picturesque blessings, but we were obliged to ask her to desist and
let us attend to our own business.
"Will I clane the whole of thim off for you for a penny, your
ladyship's honour, ma'am?" asked the oldest of the ragamuffins, and
I gladly assented to the novel proposition. He did it, too, and
there seemed to be no hurt feelings in the company.
Just then there was a rattle of cabs and side-cars, and our self-
constituted major-domo engaged two of them to await our pleasure.
At the same moment our eyes lighted upon Salemina's huge Vuitton,
which had been dragged behind the pile of wool sacks. It was no
wonder it had escaped our notice, for it was mostly covered by the
person of the sea-sick maiden whom I had seen on the arm of the
stewardess. She was seated on it, exhaustion in every line of her
figure, her head upon my travelling bag, her feet dangling over the
edge until they just touched the 'S. P., Salem, Mass., U.S.A.'
painted in large red letters on the end. She was too ill to respond
to our questions, but there was no mistaking her nationality. Her
dress, hat, shoes, gloves, face, figure were American. We sent for
the stewardess, who told us that she had arrived in Glasgow on the
day previous, and had been very ill all the way coming from Boston.
"Boston!" exclaimed Salemina. "Do you say she is from Boston, poor
thing?"
("I didn't know that a person living in Boston could ever, under any
circumstances, be a 'poor thing,'" whispered Francesca to me.)
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