Just Irish Part 7

"Just pay your bill and you'll get them all right," said Ma.s.senger. (I should explain that whoever travels with me is called Ma.s.senger. It saves trouble.)

I did not quite understand, but I signified my intention of paying my bill, and the proprietor or his steward was all bows and smiles, and handed it to me, at the same time ringing a bell.

Then the chorus began to a.s.semble. Lads and maidens in the persons of waiters whom I had never seen, and chambermaids of whom I had never heard, began to swarm into the office.

After they had ranged themselves picturesquely the boots began to arrive. Some from neighboring hotels who had heard the bell came running in, and grouped themselves behind the maids. Then a head waiter who looked like a tenor came seriously in and I expected that in a moment I would hear:

"'Tis the very first of May, Though we've not a thing to say, We will stand here, anyway Stand awhile and sing."

I looked at Ma.s.senger and asked him what it all meant.

"It's in our honor," said he. "We've got to sh.e.l.l out."

And sure enough it was. We had to disgorge pro rata to all the a.s.sembled ones, and Ma.s.senger said afterward that he thought one or two of the guests came in for certain of our gratuities.

When we stepped into the 'bus, quite innocent of coins of any sort, I listened, expecting to hear:

"Now, in spite of rainy day, We have gone and made our hay.

And I don't care what you say, When the Yankees come this way We get what they bring."

They got it all right, but I was quite unnerved for some time. The attack had been so sudden.

In Ireland there is nothing to equal this for system, and a copper does make a man feel grateful--or at least it does make him express grat.i.tude. I have yet to hear curses in Ireland.

But when you visit private houses you don't know what to do. Tips are expected there--not by everybody, but by maid and coachman, anyhow, and you wonder what is the right thing to do.

To be sure you have caused trouble. You have placed your boots outside your door, just as you have latterly learned to do at home, and it was a maid who gave them that dull polish that wears out in a half hour. Leave polish behind when you leave America--that seems, by the way, to be the motto of a good many traveling Americans, but I referred to the kind that you can see your face in when imparted by an Italian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILK WAGON, MALLOW]

I had an experience when on my way to visit Lady ----, in County Monaghan, in the central part of Ireland.

Just how much to tip a coachman of a "Lady" I did not know. A shilling did not seem enough, and two shillings seemed a good deal, and the fellow did not have the arrogance of an English coachman. He was simple and kindly, and was willing to talk to me, although he never ventured a word unless I spoke to him.

When I had alighted at Ballybully station a ragged man had seized my valise, and on ascertaining my destination had carried it to a smart jaunting car driven by a liveried driver. I offered him a copper, and he looked at it and said, "Sure, you're too rich a man to be contint with that."

So to contint meself I gave him sixpence, just what I had paid for having my trunk carried one hundred and eighty miles, and climbed to the car.

On the way to the estate of Lady Clancarty (to give her a name also) I figured on what I'd better give. To give too much would be as bad as to give too little. Still, if it cost a sixpence for my suit case to go a hundred yards, a three-mile drive should be worth a half pound at least.

At last, just as we were driving in at the lodge gates, I foresaw that I must make haste--as it would never do to hand out my tip in the presence of my hostess--so I reached over the "well" and handed two shillings to the driver. He seemed surprised and pulled a bit hard on the left line. There was a swerve, a loud snap, and the step of the car was broken short off against the gate!

I was conscience-stricken, but said not a word for a minute. Then the driver said, "I've been driving for twinty-three years and niver had an accident before."

He had jumped out and thrown the step into the "well" between us.

I had visions of the sacking of the old family driver, and all because I had not known how much of a gratuity to give him.

But when I offered to make up the damage he said, "Indeed an' I'll be able to fix it myself." And fix it he did, so that no one was the wiser.

But the pain of those few moments when I expected to be driven into the presence of my hostess with the car a wreck will not soon fade.

As a matter of fact, it was a good half mile to the house after we left the lodge, and when we arrived I jumped from the seat without using the step, and no one ever knew the humiliation that had come to the driver after twenty-three years.

CHAPTER VIII

_Random Remarks on Things Corkonian_

They told me that Cork was a very dirty city. They even said it was filthy, and they said it in such a way as to reflect on Irishmen in general and Corkonians in particular.

Yes, they said that Cork was a dirty city, and so I found it--almost as dirty as New York. This may sound like a strong statement, but I mean it.

When I arrived in Cork I saw a hill and made for it at once, because after railway there is nothing that so takes the kinks out of a fellow's legs as a walk up a stiff hill. And anyhow I was on a walking tour.

I arrived at the top about sunset. On reading this sentence over I find that it sounds as if the hill was an all-day journey, but it was only a matter of a few squares, and when I started the sun had long since made up its mind to set.

In Ireland the sun takes on Irish ways, and is just a little dilatory.

It always means to set, and it always does set in time to avoid being out in the dark, but it's "an unconscionably long time a dying."

At the summit of the hill I saw a church steeple that appealed to my esthetic sense, and I asked a little boy what church it was.

"Shandon churrch, sirr," said he with the rapid and undulating utterance of the Corkonian.

"Where the bells are?" said I.

"Yes," said he, smiling. "And over beyont is the Lee."

"The pleasant waters of the river Lee," I quoted at him, and he smiled again. Probably every traveler who goes to Cork quotes the lovely old bit of doggerel, but the Corkonian smiles and smiles.

The river Lee runs through the center of Cork, and at evening it is a favorite place for fishing, also for learning to swim on dry land.

The fishermen seem to fish for the love of casting, and the little boys swim on the pavement--two pursuits as useless as they are pleasant. Over the bridge the fishermen leaned, and cast their lines in anything but pleasant places--for the river is malodorous--and the little boys stood on benches and dived to the pavement, where they spat and then went through the motions of swimming.

There were dozens of the little boys, and most of them seemed to be brothers. Some of them were quite expert in diving backward, and all of them were dirty, but they seemed to be happy. I could not help thinking how soon the Celtic mind begins to use symbols, for it was easy to see that when the boys spat it signified a watering place to them. I dare say they were breaking a city ordinance in spitting, and if they knew that they were that much happier--stolen sweets are the sweetest.

During the time I watched the setting sun--which was still at it and, by the way, performed some lovely variations on a simple color scheme in the sky--not even an eel was caught, but the fishermen cast under the bridge, let their bait float down the (un) pleasant waters, and drew in their lines again and again--mute examples of a patience that one does not a.s.sociate with Ireland.

At last I left them and started out to find Shandon church, which seemed but a few squares away.

My pathway led through the slums, and up a hill so steep that I hope horses only use it as a means of descent. I pa.s.sed one fireside where the folks looked cosy and happy and warm. It was a summer evening, but chilly, and the place into which I looked was a shop for the sale of coal. Shoemakers' children are generally barefooted, but these people were burning their own coal, and the mother and the dirty children sprawled around the store or home, in a shadow-casting way, that would have delighted Mynheer Rembrandt if he had pa.s.sed by.

I was struck with the population of Cork. It was most of it on the sidewalk, and nearly all of it was under sixteen. Pretty faces, too, among them, and happy looking. I think that sympathy would have been wasted on them. They had so much more room than they would have had in New York, and they were not any dirtier--than New Yorkers of the same cla.s.s.

After I had reached the top of the hill I turned and looked for Shandon church and it was gone. I asked a boy what had become of it, and he told me that in following my winding way through the convolutions known as streets I had gotten as far from the church as I could in the time. He told me pleasantly just how to go to get to the church, and it involved going to the foot of the hill and beginning again.