there is reason in the roasting of eggs, and presumably in their poaching, but we are beginning to think we shall never fathom the principle which ordains that the hotel poached egg shall invariably be underdone. charmed we never so wisely, commanded we never so timely, the same pinkish blobs were placed fluent and quaking before us, the same lavish gush answered the diffident knife puncture, and in a moment our plates became like sunrise painted by an impressionist, with red bacon streaks weltering in the widespread orange glories, and the golden mustard blob surmounting all as serenely as ph?bus apollo.
this phenomenon was at all events our only specimen of a letterfrack sunrise. as we sat at breakfast in the coffee-room the mist blew softly against the{124} french windows, and swept past on the road like a procession of ghostly ball dresses; the furniture seemed clammy to the touch, and the paper decorations in the grate mocked the eye with their futile elegance and affectation of summer heat. our fellow guests, evidently habitués of the place, took only the most casual notice of the weather, and talked of local matters with the zest which so surprises the newcomer; of their single or conglomerated prowess in scrambling up the diamond mountain, of their tumbling down it, of their tea, their sandwiches, and their wet boots; while we moodily ate our breakfasts, without even self-respect enough to make conversation for one another. our depression was deepened soon afterwards, on hearing that an ancient raw on sibbie’s shoulder had been touched by the collar in the drive of the day before, and that unless a person described as “jack’s father” could put some additional padding into the collar we could not get on to renvyle that day, though it was only a four mile journey.
the prospect of a day spent in the coffee-room{125}
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jack’s father.
and the little ladies’ drawing-room goaded us to energy. we determined to see the damage for ourselves, and putting on our waterproofs, we paddled out into the yard, and picked our way across it to the stable by some convenient and apparently recognised stepping-stones. the invalid sibbie was in the darkest stall of the stable, standing in severe preoccupation, with her back to the outer world, and as we delicately approached her we became aware of an eye like that of a murderess rolling at us with a white{126} gleam in the obscurity, and saw that her long, bell-rope tail was drawn tightly in. we hastily agreed that we would take jack’s word for the rubbed shoulder, and retired into the yard again. at the door of another stable we found the person whose only identity, or indeed profession, seemed to consist in being jack’s father, sitting on an upturned bucket, with sibbie’s collar in his lap and a monstrous needle in his hand. he explained that he was putting in a pad at each side, stuffed with cotton wool that he had got “from herself, within in the house, because ’twould be kindher than the hay.” he had a serious face, with a frill of grey beard, like a presbyterian minister of the most amiable type, and he looked up as he spoke with an expression that we felt to be kinder even than the cotton wool. “if that collar puts a hurt on the pony agin as long as yee’ll be thravellin’ connemara, ye may—ye may call me blackbird!”
this handsome permission, emphasised by the tug with which the big needle was dragged through the{127} leather, was evidently the highest reassurance known to the speaker, but, notwithstanding, we felt that even to apply the opprobrious name of blackbird to jack’s father would be an indifferent consolation if in the midst of a wilderness of moor and mountain we found the red spot appearing on sibbie’s shoulder. we looked, however, as properly impressed as we were able, and returned to the house in better spirits.
it was not till the afternoon that the weather gave us a chance of starting, and even then it required courage of a high order to turn out of our comfortable quarters into the thick, damp air. the volcanic mountain spikes, that last night had notched the sullen fire of the evening sky, had with one accord taken the veil, and retired from public observation, and the sloping pastures and turnip fields looked as nearly repulsive as was possible for them. under these circumstances we left letterfrack without emotion, and proceeded northward towards renvyle.
after we had gone a little way we began to speculate as to whether the road had been made with an{128} eye to the possibility of a future switchback railway. it seemed to us that at every hundred yards or so we had to get out and trudge up a hill through the mud, our consciences approving our consideration for sibbie, and our every other feeling bewailing it; then came the scrambling into the trap again at the top, the tucking in of wet rugs, the difficult closing of the door, and having driven down the far side, the next hill rose immediately before us in the mist. the next thing we began to notice was that on every hill we met a donkey-cart and some young cattle, evidently coming from some fair or market. there were two courses of procedure on these occasions. the calves turned and fled before us at full gallop along the way they had come, until retrieved with huge expense of shouting and bad language, or they at once jumped the fence by the roadside and stampeded at large through the fields. the donkey-cart, which generally contained a pig, and an old woman screaming in irish, had but one method, which was to cross to the wrong side of the road at the critical{129}
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at tully fair.
{131}{130}
moment, and then, abandoning itself to panic, endeavour to retrace its steps. during three or four miles these recontres became more and more frequent, till at length, when the mist lifted at the top of a hill, we found that we had reached their source. in the hollow between the two hills was a village, its single street black with people, and the roads leading to it full of cattle and pigs. in other words, we had hit off the fair of tully.
my cousin and i began to wonder how we were to get to the other side of it. we drove down into the town with dignity and circumspection, hoping that our aristocratic appearance might clear the way for us; but after a minute or two we were forced to the conclusion that the peasantry were not impressed. not till sibbie’s aggrieved visage was thrust into their midst did the groups separate, and even then they could scarcely spare time from the ardours of debate to give us more than a passing stare of bewilderment. an obstacle that seemed for a time likely to prevent our ever getting to renvyle was a donkey-cart, with{132} its shafts propped on a barrel so as to make a stall for the sale of sugar-stick, gooseberries, and piles of the massive biscuits known as “crackers.” the press of customers and their friends round this brought us to a standstill, and my cousin, in a politely dignified voice, asked those nearest us to move aside. there was a movement and a turning to stare.
“holy biddy! what’s thim?” exclaimed a girl, pushing back against the donkey-cart, and in so doing sending some of the “crackers” sliding down into the mud.
the proprietress, an old woman with protruding teeth and generally terrific aspect, made a futile attempt to avert the catastrophe, and then whirled round upon us with a ferocity whetted by this disaster and matured by long combat with small boys.
“that the divil may blisther yerself and thim!” she screamed. “what call have thim dirty thravellers here throwin’ down all before thim? aha! i knew ye,” she said, addressing herself to my second cousin in tones of thunder, “and yer owld mother before ye,{133} the time ye were thravelling the counthry in a pack on her back, puckin’ at every hall-doore in the counthry beggin’ spuds! for so grand as ye are, with yer specs on yer nose and yer fine sailor hat on the back of yer head!”
my cousin and i should, of course, have passed on with a pale hauteur, as if we had not heard this amazing effort of biographical romance, but we are, unfortunately, not of the complexion that turns pale with ease; on the contrary, we became a violent turkey-cock scarlet, and ended by a collapse into unsuppressible laughter, in which the crowd joined with unfeigned delight, as they at length made a way for us to pass.
“don’t mind her at all, miss,” said a cattle drover, encouragingly, as he dragged a calf from before the wheel; “that one’d bother a rookery with her tongue; there isn’t a fair in the counthry but she’ll be bawling and fighting in it this way, so it’s little regard the people pays to her and her chat. sure, as shakspeare says, “ye’ll always know a rale lady wherever ye see her!{134}”
this gallantry was so refreshing, that we did not stop to inquire more closely into the whereabouts of the quotation, and we slowly made our way out of the fair, past the bulging, grimy tents where porter and whisky were sold, and the screaming crowd of children in front of a showman’s booth, till the last knot of blue-cloaked women was circumnavigated, and the last incensed pig was dragged from between sibbie’s forelegs.
we looked back as we crawled up the hill outside the village, and wondered what the pleasure could be of standing all day long in the drizzle, in mud ankle-deep, as many do who have nothing either to buy or sell. but a fair is not to them merely a place of business, it is a conversazione, extending from sunrise to sunset, at which the keen spectacular enjoyment of bargaining is blended with the purely personal pleasure of getting drunk.
another mile or two of switchbacking brought us in sight of trees, which, in connemara, answers to coming in sight of land, as far as civilisation is con{135}cerned; before long we were driving underneath them, and pulling up at the entrance gate of a demesne. we drove down a long avenue (when we say “avenue” in ireland, we mean it according to the true sense of the word, and do not necessarily imply that it is over-arched with trees), with the sound of the sea in our ears, and became aware that we were on a strip of land like the battlefield of lyonesse.
“on one side lay the ocean, and on one lay a great water.”
we wound by the edge of the lake, and might easily have mistaken the frothy ripple along its shore for the salt lip of the tide, but for the tall band of reeds that shook stiffly in the mist-laden wind. but we were nearing the sea every moment. we emerged from a plantation, and came in sight of it at last, and at the same time came to our destination, a long, grey, two-storey house, with low elizabethan windows, and pale weather-slated walls, wholly unexpected, and altogether unique, as far, at all events, as this part of ireland is concerned.{136}
anyone who knows galway at all, knows the name of blake; and anyone who read the reports of the parnell commission will remember the mrs. blake whose evidence there was thought by both sides to be of so remarkable a kind. renvyle house, at whose oaken, iron-studded door sibbie was now joyfully coming to a standstill, has been the home of the blakes for several centuries; now, in its old age, it is the home of any tourist who chooses to go there. the bad times and the agitation hit renvyle very hard; so hard that when the fight with the land league was over, mrs. blake was not able to sit down and tranquilly enjoy her victory. she had, on the contrary, to rise up and give all her energies to repairing the ruin that such a victory meant. her plan was a daring one for a boycotted woman to undertake; but it was carried out to its fullest intention. before long, advertisements appeared in the newspapers and the guide books to the effect that renvyle house had been added to the list of connemara hotels, and the sound of traffic, “the coorsing and{137} recoorsing” of cars began to be heard on the long avenue by the lake, as in the old times, when “exclusive dealing” and decrees of isolation were unknown.
we cannot here say much about the difficulties she had to contend with. whatever they were they were overcome. it is both easier and pleasanter to speak of the advantages at her command. the charming, rambling old house, with its innumerable panelled bedrooms, the lakes, “shtiff” with brown trout, the woods and rocks in which hide all manner of strange beasts—from otters and seals downwards—the untainted atlantic for the tourist to disport himself in or upon, as seems good to him, and the tallest mountains of connemara to stare at across the bay, while sprawling at ease on such a level, creamy stretch of sand as is seldom found except in those places where it is the sole and much-bragged-of attraction. we had heard of all these things in advance; we were accustomed to thinking of renvyle as an hotel; and yet, when we knocked at the door, and a grave and{138} decorous man-servant appeared, the look of everything conspired to make us forget that we were tourists, prepared to exercise our lawful right of “bed and board,” and we came very near stammering out an inquiry if mrs. blake was at home.
