The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume II Part 21

I yesterday found in my writing-desk a copy I had made of the letter Lord Carrington wrote to me in answer to mine announcing your former Futtehgur appointment; and now that it can go free I enclose it. I like an expression of Lord Mahon's about him in a note I lately received from him. "My grandfather is in excellent health, and I cannot offer you a better wish than that you may at eighty-one possess the same activity, the same quickness of intellect, the same gus.h.i.+ng, warm-hearted benevolence which distinguishes him." Gus.h.i.+ng benevolence: I like that expression.

Sophy despatched a letter for you last week, in which I am sure she told you all domestic occurrences. Barry has bought Annaghmore in the King's County: an excellent house; and Sophy and Barry and all the children are to stay with us till Sophy's health--very delicate--is strengthened, and till they have furnished what rooms they mean to inhabit at Annamore; this looks better than with the _gh_, but Sophy stickles for the old Irish spelling.

Molly and Hetty, and Crofton and child, are all flouris.h.i.+ng; poor old George is declining as gently and comfortably as can be. When we go to see him, his eyes light up and his mouth crinkles into smiles, and he, as well as Molly, never fails to ask for Master Pakenham. Though _Helen_ cannot reach you for a year, f.a.n.n.y has desired Bentley to send you a copy before it is published. I should tell you beforehand that there is no humour in it, and no Irish character. It is impossible to draw Ireland as she now is in a book of fiction--realities are too strong, party pa.s.sions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their faces in the looking-gla.s.s. The people would only break the gla.s.s, and curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature--distorted nature, in a fever. We are in too perilous a case to laugh, humour would be out of season, worse than bad taste. Whenever the danger is past, as the man in the sonnet says,

We may look back on the hardest part and laugh.

Then I shall be ready to join in the laugh. Sir Walter Scott once said to me, "Do explain to the public why Pat, who gets forward so well in other countries, is so miserable in his own." A very difficult question: I fear above my power. But I shall think of it continually, and listen, and look, and read.

Thank you, my dear brother, for your excellent and to me particularly interesting last letter, in which you copied for me the good observations on the state of your part of India, and the collection of the revenue, rents, etc. Many of the observations on India apply to Ireland; similarity of certain general causes operating on human nature even in countries most different and with many other circ.u.mstances dissimilar, produce a remarkable resemblance in human character and conduct. I admire your generous indignation against oppression and wringing by "any indirection from the poor peasant his vile trash." Some of the disputes that you have to settle at Cucherry, and some of the viewings that you record of boundaries, etc., about which there are quarrels, put me in mind of what I am called upon to do here continually in a little way. I hope Honora and Sophy have given you satisfaction about the exact place of the new walks; as I cannot draw I can do nothing in that way, but I can tell you that I have been planting rhododendrons and arbutus in front of the euonymus tree. I hope you will have a good garden in your new residence, and that you will not be too hot in it. How you could find that your having more to do, made you more able to endure the horrid heat you describe, pa.s.ses my comprehension.

Heat always makes me so indolent, imbecile, and irritable. I remember all this in the only heat _to call heat_, that I was ever exposed to in Paris and Switzerland; I could not even speak, much less write. If I had been under your 107 degrees I should have melted away to the very bone, and never, never, never could have penned that _dropping_ letter as you did to Honora, and with that _puddle_ ink too. Well! we are very, very, very much obliged to you, dear Pakenham, for all the labour you go through for us, and we hope that under the shade of the Himalaya mountains you will be able to write, at your ease and without all manner of _stodge_ in your ink.

_21st_.

This morning brought through Harriet, Margaret Craig's joy at your promotion, and--Honora says I must go out this delightful suns.h.i.+ne morning, and look at all the full-blown crocuses, violets, heath, and pyrus j.a.ponica. I have a standard pyrus now--vulgar things compared with your _Indian Prides_.

Oh! my dear Pakenham, I am sure you are shocked at the death of Sir John Malcolm! both he and Sir James Macintosh, the two whose genius you so admired, and whose conversation you so enjoyed just before you left England--both gone!

_March 8_.

Ever since I finished my last to you I have had my head so immersed in accounts that I have never been able till this moment to fulfil my intention of giving you my travels in Connemara.

I travelled with Sir Culling and Lady Smith (Isabella Carr). Sir Culling, of old family, large fortune and great philanthropy, extending to poor little Ireland and her bogs, and her Connemara, and her penultimate barony of Erris and her ultimate Giants' Causeway, and her beautiful lake of Killarney. And all these things he determined to see.

Infant and nurse, and lady's-maid, and gentleman's gentleman, and Sir Culling and the fair Isabella all came over to Ireland last September, just as f.a.n.n.y had left us, and she meeting them in Dublin, and conceiving that nurse and baby would not do for Connemara, wrote confidentially to beg us to invite them to stay at Edgeworthstown, while father and mother, and maid, and man, were to proceed on their travels.

They spent a pleasant week, I hope, at Edgeworthstown. I am sure Honora did everything that was possible to make it pleasant to them, and we regretted a million of times that your mother was not at home. Sir Culling expected to have had all manner of information as to roads, distances, and time, but Mrs. Edgeworth not being at home, and Miss Edgeworth's local knowledge being such as you know, you may guess how he was disappointed. Mr. Shaw and the Dean of Ardagh, who dined with him here, gave him directions as far as Ballinasloe and a letter to the clergyman there. The fair of Ballinasloe was just beginning, and Sir Culling was determined to see that, and from thence, after studying the map of Ireland and roadbooks one evening, he thought he should get easily to Connemara, Westport, and the Barony of Erris, see all that in a week, and come back to Edgeworthstown, take up Bambino and proceed on a northern or a southern tour.

You will be surprised that I should--seeing they knew so little what they were about--have chosen to travel with them; and I confess it was imprudent and very unlike my usual dislike to leave home without any of my own people with me. But upon this occasion I fancied I should see all I wanted to see of the wonderful ways of going on and manners of the natives better for not being with any of my own family, and especially for its not being suspected that I was an auth.o.r.ess and might put them in a book. In short, I thought it was the best opportunity I could ever have of seeing a part of Ireland which, from time immemorial, I had been curious to see. My curiosity had been raised even when I first came to Ireland fifty years ago, by hearing my father talk of the King of Connemara, and his immense territory, and his ways of ruling over his people with almost absolute power, with laws of his own, and setting all other laws at defiance. Smugglers and caves, and murders and mermaids, and duels, and banshees, and fairies, were all mingled together in my early a.s.sociations with Connemara and d.i.c.k Martin,--"Hair-trigger d.i.c.k,"

who cared so little for his own life or the life of man, and so much for the life of animals, who fought more duels than any man of even his "Blue-blaze-devil" day, and who brought the bill into Parliament for preventing cruelty to animals; thenceforward changing his cognomen from "Hair-trigger d.i.c.k" to "Humanity Martin." He was my father's contemporary, and he knew a number of anecdotes of him. _Too besides_, I once saw him, and remember that my blood crept slow and my breath was held when he first came into the room, a pale, little insignificant- looking mortal he was, but he still kept hold of my imagination, and his land of Connemara was always a land I longed to visit. Long afterwards, a book which I believe you read, _Letters from the Irish Highlands_, written by the family of Blakes of Renvyle, raised my curiosity still further, and wakened it for new reasons, in a new direction. Further and further and higher, Nimmo and William deepened my interest in that country, and, in short, and at length all these motives worked together.

Add to them a book called _Wild Sports of the West_, of which Harriet read to me all the readable parts till I rolled with laughing. Add also that I had lately heard Mr. Rothwell give a most entertaining account of a tour he had taken in Erris, and to the house of a certain Major Bingham who must be the most diverting and extraordinary original upon earth--and shall I die without seeing him? thought I--now or never.

At the first suggestion I uttered that I should like to see him and Erris, and the wonders of Connemara, Lady Culling Smith and Sir Culling burst into delight at the thought of having me as their travelling companion, so it was all settled in a moment. Honora approved, Aunt Mary hoped it would all turn out to my satisfaction, and off we set with four horses mighty grand in their travelling carriage, which was a summer friend, open or half-open. A half head stuck up immovable with a window at each ear, an ap.r.o.n of wood, varnished to look like j.a.panned leather hinged at bottom, and having at top where it shuts a sort of fairy-board window which lets down in desperately bad weather.

Our first day was all prosperous and suns.h.i.+ne, and what Captain Beaufort would call plain sailing. To Ballymahon the first stage. Do you remember Ballymahon, and the first sight of the gossamer in the hedges sparkling with dew, going there packed into the chaise with your four sisters and me to see the museum of a Mr. Smith, who had a Cellini cup and a Raphael plate, and miniatures of Madame de Maintenon, and wonders innumerable--but Sophy at this moment tells me that I am insisting upon your remembering things that happened before you were born, and that even Francis was only one year old at the time of this breakfast, and it was she herself who was so delighted with that first view of the gossamer in the glittering suns.h.i.+ne.

But I shall never get on to Athlone, much less to Connemara. Of Athlone I have nothing to say but what you may learn from the _Gazetteer_, except that, while we were waiting in the antiquated inn there, while horses were changing, I espied a print hanging smoked over the chimney-piece, which to my _connoisseur_ eyes seemed marvellously good, and upon my own judgment I proposed for it to the landlady, and bought it for five s.h.i.+llings (frame excepted); and when I had it out of the frame, and turned it round, I found my taste and judgment gloriously justified. It was from a picture of Vand.y.k.e's--the death of Belisarius; and here it is now hanging up in the library, framed in satin wood, the admiration of all beholders, Barry Fox above all.

But to proceed. It was no easy matter to get out of Athlone, for at the entrance to the old-fas.h.i.+oned, narrowest of narrow bridges we found ourselves wedged and blocked by drays and sheep, reaching at least a mile; men cursing and swearing in Irish and English; sheep baaing, and so terrified, that the shepherds were in transports of fear brandis.h.i.+ng their crooks at our postillions, and the postillions in turn brandis.h.i.+ng their whips on the impa.s.sive backs of the sheep. The c.o.c.ked gold-edged hat of an officer appeared on horseback in the midst, and there was silence from all but the baaing sheep. He bowed to us ladies, or to our carriage and four, and a.s.sured us that he would see us safe out, but that it would be a work of time. While this work of time was going on, one pushed his way from behind, between sheep and the wheel on my side of the carriage, and putting in his head called out to me, "Miss Edgeworth, if you are in it, my master's in town, and will be with you directly almost, with his best compliments. He learned from the landlady your name. He was in the inn that minute, receiving rents he is, if you will be kind enough to wait a minute, and not stir _out of that_."

Kind enough I was, for I could not help myself, if I had been ever so unkindly disposed towards my unknown friend. Up came, breathless, a well-known friend, Mr. Strickland. Introduced amidst the baaing of the sheep to my travelling companions, and, as well as I could make myself heard in the din, I made him understand where we were going next, and found, to my great satisfaction, that he would overtake us next day at Ballinasloe, if we could stay there next day; and we could and must, for it was Sunday. I cannot tell you--and if I could you would think I exaggerated--how many hours we were in getting through the next ten miles; the road being continually covered with sheep, thick as wool could pack, all _coming from_ the sheep-fair of Ballinasloe, which, to Sir Culling's infinite mortification, we now found had taken place the previous day. I am sure we could not have had a better opportunity and more leisure to form a sublime and just notion of the thousands and tens of thousands which must have been on the field of sale. This retreat of the ten thousand never could have been effected without the generals.h.i.+p of these wonderfully skilled shepherds, who, in case of any disorder among their troops, know how dexterously to take the offender by the left leg or the right leg with their crooks, pulling them back without ever breaking a limb, and keeping them continually in their ranks on the weary, long march.

We did not reach Ballinasloe till it was almost dark. There goes a story, you know, that no woman must ever appear at Ballinasloe Fair; that she would be in imminent peril of her life from the mob. The daughters of Lord Clancarty, it was said, "had tried it once, and scarce were saved by fate." Be this as it may, we were suffered to drive very quietly through the town; and we went quite through it to the outskirts of scattered houses, and stopped at the door of the Vicarage. And well for us that we had a letter from the Dean of Ardagh to the Rev. Mr.

Pounden, else we might have spent the night in the streets, or have paid guineas apiece for our beds, all five of us, for three nights. Mr. and Mrs. Pounden were the most hospitable of people, and they were put to a great trial--dinner just over, and that day had arrived unexpectedly one family of relations, and expectedly another, with children without end.

And how they did stow them and us, to this hour I cannot conceive: they had, to be sure, one bed-chamber in a house next door, which, luckily, Lord and Lady Somebody had not arrived to occupy. Be it how it might, here we stayed till Monday; and on Sunday there was to be a charity sermon for the benefit of the schools, under the patronage of Lord and Lady Clancarty, and the sermon was preached by Archdeacon Pakenham; and after the sermon--an excellent sermon on the appropriate text of the good Samaritan--an immense crowd before the windows filled the fair green, and we went out to see. The crowd of good, very good-natured Irishmen, gentle and simple mixed, opened to let the ladies and English stranger in to see: and fine horses and fine leaping we saw, over a loose wall built up for the purpose in the middle of the fair green; and such shouting, and such laughing, and such hurraing for those that cleared and for those that missed. As for the rest of the cattle-fair, we _lift_ on Monday morning before the thick of it came on.

I forgot to tell you that on Sunday arrived Mr. Strickland, and he with maps and road-books explained to Sir Culling where he should go, and how he was to accomplish his objects. It was settled that we were to go to Loughrea, and to see certain ruins by going a few miles out of our way; and this we accomplished, and actually did see, by an uncommonly fine sunset, the beautiful ruins of Clonmacnoise; and we slept this night at Loughrea, where we had been a.s.sured there was a capital inn, and may be it was, but the rats or the mice ran about my room so, and made such a noise in the holes of the floor, that I could not sleep, but was thankful they did not get on or into my bed.

Next day to Galway, and still it was fine weather, and bright for the open carriage, and we thought it would always be so. Galway, wet or dry, and it was dry when I saw it, is the dirtiest town I ever saw, and the most desolate and idle-looking. As I had heard much from Captain Beaufort and Louisa of the curious Spanish buildings in Galway, I was determined not to go through the town without seeing these; so, as soon as we got to the inn, I summoned landlord and landlady, and begged to know the names of the princ.i.p.al families in the town. I thought I might chance to light upon somebody who could help us. In an old history of Galway which Mr. Strickland picked up from a stall at Ballinasloe, I found prints of some of the old buildings and names of the old families; and the landlord having presented me with a list as long as an alderman's bill of fare of the names of the gentlemen and ladies of Galway, I pitched upon the name of a physician, a Dr. Veitch, of whom I had found a fine character in my book. He had been very good to the poor during a year of famine and fever. To him I wrote, and just as I had finished reading his panegyric to Lady Smith, in he walked; and he proved to be an old acquaintance. He was formerly a surgeon in the army, and was quartered at Longford at the time of the rebellion: remembered our all taking shelter there, how near my father was being killed by the mob, and how courageously he behaved. Dr. Veitch had received some kindness from him, and now he seemed anxious, thirty-five years afterwards, to return that kindness to me and my companions. He walked with us all over Galway, and showed us all that was worth seeing, from the new quay _projecting_, and the new green Connemara marble-cutters'

workshop, to the old Spanish houses with projecting roofs and piazza walks beneath; and, wading through seas of yellow mud thick as stirabout, we went to see archways that had stood centuries, and above all to the old mayoralty house of that mayor of Galway who hung his own son; and we had the satisfaction of seeing the very window from which the father with his own hands hung his own son, and the black marble marrowbones and death's head, and inscription and date, 1493. I daresay you know the story; it formed the groundwork very lately of a tragedy.

The son had--from jealousy as the tragedy has it, from avarice according to the vulgar version--killed a Spanish friend; and the father, a modern Brutus, condemns him, and then goes to comfort him. I really thought it worth while to wade through mud to see these awful old relics of other times and other manners. But, coming back again, at every turn it was rather disagreeable to have "fish" bawled into one's ears, and "fine flat fish" flapped in one's face. The fish-market was fresh supplied, and Galway is famous for _John Dorees_. "A John Doree, ma'am, for eighteen-pence--a s.h.i.+lling--sixpence!" A John Doree could not be had for guineas in London. Quin, the famous actor, wished he was all throat when he was eating a John Doree. But still it was not pleasant, at every turn and every crossing, to have ever so fine John Dorees flapped in one's face. Sir Culling bought one for sixpence, and it was put into the carriage; and we took leave of Dr. Veitch, and left Galway.

From Galway Sir Culling was obliged to take job horses, as he was warned that we were entering a country where post horses were not to be found, and were never even heard of. Dr. Veitch bid us not think of entering Connemara this night. "You will have to send after me soon, if you don't take care. You have no idea of the places you are going into, and that you may have to sleep in."

The next place we were to go to, and where Dr. Veitch advised us to sleep, was Outerard, a small town or village, where he told us was an inn, or an hotel, as even in these out-of-the-world regions it is now called. It was but fifteen miles, and this with four horses was not two hours' drive; and Sir Culling thought it would be sad waste of daylight to sleep at Outerard, for still he measured his expected rate of travelling by his Bath Road standard. Though we left Galway at three, we were not at Outerard till past seven, with our fine, fresh horses; and excellent horses they really were, and well harnessed too, with well-accoutred postillions in dark blue jackets and good hats and boots, all proper, and an ugly little dog running joyously along with the horses. Outerard, as well as we could see it, was a pretty mountain-scattered village, with a pond and trees, and a sort of terrace-road, with houses and gardens on one side, and a lower road with pond and houses on the other. There is a spa at Outerard to which bettermost sort of people come in the season; but this was not the season, and the place had that kind of desolate look, mixed with _pretensions_ too, which a watering-place out of season always has.

When we came to the hotel, our hearts sank within us. Dusk as it was, there was light enough to guess, at first sight, that it would never do for sleeping--half covered with overgrown ivy, damp, forlorn, windows broken, shattered look all about it. With difficulty we got at the broken gate into the very small and dirty courtyard, where the four horses could hardly stand with the carriage. Out came such a master and such a maid! and such fumes of whiskey-punch and tobacco. Sir Culling got down from his barouche-seat, to look if the house was practicable; but soon returned, shaking his head, and telling us in French that it was quite impossible; and the master of the inn, with half threats, half laughter, a.s.sured us we should find no other place in Outerard. I inquired for the Priest's house. I was on the point of asking, "Has the Priest any family?" but recollected myself in time, and asked whether the Priest's house was large enough to hold us. "Not an atom of room to spare in it, ma'am." Then I inquired for the Chief of the Police, the Clergyman, or the Magistrate? "Not in it, neither, none; but the Chief of the Police's house is there on the top of the hill; but you will not get in."

We went there, however, and up the hill toiled, and to the door of a sort of spruce-looking lanthorn of a house, without tree or shrub near it. But still it might be good to sleep in; and, nothing daunted by the maid's prophecies and ominous voice, we determined to try our fate. Sir Culling got down and rubbed his hands; while, after his man's knocking at the door several times, no one came to open it, though through the large drawing-room window we saw figures gliding about. At last the door half opened by hands unseen, and Sir Culling, pus.h.i.+ng it wholly open, went in; and we sat in the carriage, waiting as patiently as we could.

The figures in black and white came to the window, and each had pocket-handkerchiefs in their hands or at their eyes. Sir Culling reappeared, ordered the horses to be turned about again; and when he had remounted his barouche-seat, which he did with all convenient speed, he informed us that a lady had died in this house a few days before, of cholera; that she had this day been buried; that under any other circ.u.mstances the master and mistress would have been happy to receive us, but now it was quite impossible, for our sake and their own. The damp, broken-windowed hole was preferable; so back we went. But as we went along the _high_ road, down in the _low_ road on the other side of the pond, through the duskiness we saw lights in several houses; and in front of one long house which looked whiter than the rest, we stopped at an opening in the road where was a path which led to the valley beneath, and Sir Culling, who proved in this our need an active knight, sallied down to adventure another trial; and in a few minutes after _im_merging into this mud castle, and emerging from it, he waved his arm over his head in sign of triumph, and made a sign to the postillions to turn down into the valley, which they did without overturning us; and to our satisfaction we found ourselves housed at Mrs. O'Flaherty's, who did not keep an inn, observe; her admitting us, observe, depended upon our clearly understanding that she did not so demean herself. But she in the season let her house as a boarding-house to the quality, who came to Outerard to drink the waters or to bathe. So, to oblige us poor travellers, without disgrace to the blood and high descent of the O'Flaherties, she took us in, as we were quality, and she turned her two sons out of their rooms and their beds for us; and most comfortably we were lodged. And we ate the John Doree we had brought with us, and I thought it not worth all the talking about it I had heard; and, for the first time in my days or nights, I this night tasted a _toombler_ of anti-Parliament whiskey, _alias_ poteen, and water; and of all the detestable tastes that ever went into my mouth, or smells that ever went under my nose, I think this was the worst--literally smoke and fire spirit. Isabella observed that she had often drank Innishowon and water with dear Agnes and Joanna Baillie. There's no disputing about tastes; therefore I did not dispute, only set down the tumbler, and sip took never more; for I could as soon have drank the chimney smoking. The doors, just opening with a latch, received us into our bed-rooms, with good turf fires on the hearth, coved ceilings, and presses, and all like bed-rooms in an English farm-house more than an Irish: wonderful comfortable for Outerard, after fear of the cholera and the dead woman especially.

Next day, sun s.h.i.+ning and a good breakfast, our spirit of travelling adventure up within us, we determined that, before proceeding on our main adventure into Connemara, we would make a little episode to see a wonderful cave in the neighbourhood. Our curiosity to see it had been excited by the story of the lady and the white trout in _Lover's Legends_. It is called the Pigeon-hole; not the least like a pigeon-hole, but it is a subterraneous pa.s.sage, where a stream flows which joins the waters of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. Outerard is on the borders of Lough Corrib, and we devoted this day to boating across Lough Corrib, to see this famous cavern, which is on the opposite side of the lake, and also to see a certain ruined monastery. We pa.s.sed over the lake, admiring its beauty and its many islands--little bits of islands, of which the boatmen tell there are three hundred and sixty-five; be the same more or less, one for every day in the year at least. We saw the ruins, which are very fine; but I have not time to say more about them. We crossed the churchyard and a field or two, and all was as flat, and bare, and stony as can be imagined; and as we were going and going farther from the sh.o.r.e of the lake, I wondered how and when we were to come to this cavern. The guide called me to stop, and I stopped; and well I did: I was on the brink of the Pigeon-hole--just like an unfenced entrance to a deep deep well. The guide went down before us, and was very welcome! Down and down and down steps almost perpendicular, and as much as my little legs could do to reach from one to the other; darker and darker, and there were forty of them I am sure, well counted--though certainly I never counted them, but was right glad when I felt my feet at the bottom, on _terra firma_ again, even in darkness, and was told to look up, and that I had come down sixty feet and more. I looked up and saw glimmering light at the top, and as my eyes recovered, more and more light through the large fern leaves which hung over the opening at top, and the whole height above looked like the inside of a limekiln, magnified to gigantic dimensions, with lady-fern--it must be lady-fern, because of the fairies--and lichens, names unknown, hanging from its sides. The light of the sun now streaming in I saw plainly, and felt why the guide held me fast by the arm--I was on the brink of the very narrow dark stream of water, which flowed quite silently from one side of the cavern to the other! To that other side, my eye following the stream as it flowed, I now looked, and saw that the cavern opened under a high archway in the rock. How high that was, or how s.p.a.cious, I had not yet light enough to discern. But now there appeared from the steps down which we had descended an old woman with a light in her hand. Our boy-guide hailed her by the name of Madgy Burke. She scrambled on a high jut of rock in the cavern; she had a bundle of straw under one arm, and a light flickering in the other hand, her grizzled locks streaming, her garments loose and tattered, all which became suddenly visible as she set fire to a great wisp of straw, and another and another she plucked from her bundle and lighted, and waved the light above and underneath. It was like a scene in a melodrama of Cavern and Witch--the best cavern scene I ever beheld. As she continued to throw down, from the height where she stood, the lighted bundles of straw, they fell on the surface of the dark stream below, and sailed down the current, under the arch of the cavern, lighting its roof at the vast opening, and looking like tiny fire-s.h.i.+ps, one after another sailing on, and disappearing. We could not help watching each as it blazed, till it vanished. We looked till we were tired, then turned and clambered up the steps we had scrambled down, and found ourselves again in broad daylight, in upper air and on the flat field; and the illusion was over, and there stood, turned into a regular old Irish beggar-woman, the Witch of Outerard, and Madgy Burke stood confessed, and began to higgle with Sir Culling and to flatter the English quality for a sixpence more.

Meanwhile we were to cross Lough Corrib; and well for us that we had the prudence to declare, early in the morning, that we would not take a sail-boat, for a sail-boat is dangerous in the sudden squalls which rise in these mountain regions and on these lakes, very like the Swiss lakes for that matter. For instance, on the Lake de Lucerne, I have seen suns.h.i.+ne and gla.s.sy surface change in five minutes to storm and cloud so black and thick, that Mont Pilate himself could not be discerned through it more than if he never stood there in all his sublimity.

Our day had changed, and very rough was the lake; and the boatmen, to comfort us and no doubt amuse themselves, as we rose up and down on the billows, told us stories of boats that had been lost in these storms, and of young Mr. Brown last year, that was drowned in a boat within view of his brother standing on that island, which we were just then to pa.s.s.

"And when so near he could almost have reached him, you'd have thought."

"And why didn't he, then?" said I.

"Oh, bless you, ma'am, he couldn't; for," said the boatman, dropping his oar, which I did not like at all, "for, mind you, ma'am, it was all done in the clap of one's hand," and he clapped his hands.

"Well, take up your oar," cried I; which he did, and rowed amain, and we cleared Brown's Island, and I have no more dangers, fancied or other, to tell you; and after two hours' hard rowing, which may give you the measure of the width of Lough Corrib at this place, we landed, and were right glad to eat Mrs. O'Flaherty's ready dinner, Lough Corrib trout--not the White Lady trout.

Sir Culling had intended to pursue his road this evening and reach Lough Corrib Lodge to sleep, but before we got the first mouthful of dinner into our mouths it was stone-dark, whatever kind of darkness that is, and we agreed on old George's excellent principle to leave it till "morning, ma'am, if you please."

So the morning came, and a fine morning still it was; and we set out, leaving Mrs. O'Flaherty curtseying and satisfied. I cannot make out any wonders, or anything like an adventure between Outerard and Corrib Lodge; only the road was rough and the country like the Isle of Anglesea, as if stones and fragments of rock had showered down on the earth and tracts of bog-heath such as England never saw and Scotland seldom sees, except in the Highlands. We were only about twice the time that Sir Culling had calculated on getting over this part of the road with our powerful Galway horses and steady drivers, and reaching Corrib Lodge Sir Culling said: "These roads are not so very bad, we shall get on, Miss Edgeworth, very well, you will see."

Corrib Lodge is a neat bleak-looking house, which Mr. Nimmo built for his own residence when he was overseer of the roads, now turned into an inn, kept by his Scotch servant, who used to come with him to Edgeworthstown, and he gave us bread and b.u.t.ter and milk, and moreover, hare-soup, such as the best London tavern might have envied. For observe, that hares abound in these parts, and there is no sin in killing them, and how the cook came to be so good I cannot tell you, but so it certainly was. Invigorated and sanguine, we were ready to get into the carriage again, purposing to reach Clifden this evening--it was now three o'clock; we had got through half our thirty-six miles; no doubt we could easily, Sir Culling argued, manage the other half before dark. But our wary Scotch host shook his head and observed, that if his late master Mr. Nimmo's road was but open so we might readily, but Mr.

Nimmo's new road was not opened, and why, because it was not finished.

Only one mile or so remained unfinished, and as that one mile of unmade unfinished road was impa.s.sable by man, boy, or Connemara pony, what availed the new road for our heavy carriage and four horses? There was no possibility of _going round_, as I proposed; we must go the old road, if road it could be called, all bog and bog-holes, as our host explained to us: "It would be wonderful if we could get over it, for no carriage had ever pa.s.sed, nor ever thought of attempting to pa.s.s, nothing but a common car these two years at least, except the Marquis of Anglesea and suite, _and_ his Excellency was on horseback." As for such a carriage as Sir Culling's, the like, as men and boys at the door told us, had never been seen in these parts.

Sir Culling stood a little daunted. We inquired--I particularly, how far it was to Ballinahinch Castle, where the Martins live, and which I knew was some miles on this side of Clifden. I went into Corrib Lodge and wrote with ink on a visiting ticket with "Miss Edgeworth" on it, my compliments, and Sir Culling and Lady Smith's, a pet.i.tion for a night's hospitality, to use in case of our utmost need.

The Scotchman could not describe exactly how many _bad steps_ there were, but he forewarned us that they were bad enough, and as he sometimes changed the words _bad steps_ into _sloughs_, our Galway postillions looked graver and graver, hoped they should get their horses over, but did not know; they had never been this road, never farther than Outerard, but they would do all that men and beasts could do.

The first bad step we came to was indeed a slough, but only a couple of yards wide across the road. The horses, the moment they set their feet upon it, sank up to their knees, and were whipped and spurred, and they struggled and floundered, and the carriage, as we inside pa.s.sengers felt, sank and sank. Sir Culling was very brave and got down to help.

The postillions leaped off, and bridles in hand gained the _sh.o.r.e_, and by dint of tugging, and whipping, and hallooing, and dragging of men and boys, who followed from Corrib Lodge, we were got out and were on the other side.

Farther on we might fare worse from what we could learn, so in some commotion we got out and said we would rather walk. And when we came to the next bad step, the horses, seeing it was a slough like the first, put back their ears and absolutely refused to set foot upon it, and they were, the postillions agreed, quite right; so they were taken off and left to look on, while by force of arms the carriage was to be got over by men and boys, who shouting, gathered from all sides, from mountain paths down which they poured, and from fields where they had been at work or loitering; at the sight of the strangers they flocked to help--such a carriage had never been seen before--to help common cars, or jaunting cars over these bad steps they had been used. "This heavy carriage! sure it was impossible, but sure they might do it." And they talked and screamed together in English and Irish equally unintelligible to us, and in spite of all remonstrance about breaking the pole--pole, and wheels, and axle, and body, they seized of the carriage, and standing and jumping from stone to stone, or any tuft of bog that could bear them, as their practised eyes saw; they, I cannot tell you how, dragged, pushed, and _screamed_ the carriage over. And Sir Culling got over his way, and Lady Smith would not be carried, but leaping and a.s.sisted by men's arms and shouts, she got to the other side. And a great giant, of the name of Ulick Burke, took me up in his arms as he might a child or a doll, and proceeded to carry me over--while I, exceedingly frightened and exceedingly civil, and (as even in the moment of most danger I could not help thinking and laughing within me at the thought) very like Rory in his dream on the eagle's back, in his journey to the moon, I kept alternately flattering my giant, and praying--"Sir, sir, pray set me down; do let me down now, sir, pray."

"Be asy; be _quite_, can't you, dear, and I'll carry you over to the other side safely, all in good time," floundering as he went.

"Thank you, sir, thank you. Now, sir, now set me down, if you will be so very good, on the bank."

Just as we reached the bank he stumbled and sank knee-deep, but threw me, as he would a sack, to sh.o.r.e, and the moment I felt myself on _terra firma_, I got up and ran off, and never looked back, trusting that my giant knew his own business; and so he did, and all dirt and bog water, was beside me again in a trice. "Did not I carry you over well, my lady?

Oh, it's I am used to it, and helped the Lord Anglesea when he was in it."

So as we walked on, while the horses were coming over, I don't know how, Ulick and a tribe of wild Connemara men and boys followed us, all talking at once, and telling us there were twenty or thirty such bad steps, one worse than another, farther and farther on. It was clear that we could not walk all the twelve miles, and the men and Sir Culling a.s.suring us that they would get us safe over, and that we had better get into the carriage again, and in short that we _must_ get in, we submitted.