The Charm Of Ireland Part 32

I heard the click of a typewriter, as I went up the walk to the rectory, that evening, to spend a few hours with Canon Hannay, and it must be only by improving every minute that he gets through the immense amount of work he manages to accomplish. He had just arranged for an American lecture tour in the following October, and both he and his wife were pleasantly excited at the prospect of encountering American sleeping-cars and soft-sh.e.l.led crabs and corn on the cob, and other such novelties, some of which they had heard were very dreadful. I rea.s.sured them as well as I could; and then we talked awhile about George Moore's inimitable reminiscences, and Canon Hannay's own books; but the gist of the evening was the discussion of Ireland and Irish problems which occupied the greater part of it. It was very late indeed when I arose to say good-night.

CHAPTER XXII

THE TRIALS OF A CONDUCTOR

WE took a last look about the town, next morning, not forgetting the Glendining monument, which has the fascination supreme ugliness sometimes possesses; and then we walked on down to the station, where a loquacious old woman accosted Betty with a tale of woe which culminated in an appeal for aid; and it was suddenly borne in on me that not once in the whole of Connaught had we encountered a beggar. Not even a child had held out its hand or indicated in any way that it desired or expected alms. And I do not know that I can pay any greater compliment to the people of that distressful province than by setting down this fact. We were in Mayo now--and Mayo is different!

The first town out of Westport is Castlebar, which, as Murray puts it, "has all the buildings usual in a county town, viz. Asylum, Gaol, Court-house and Barracks," and they can be seen looming up above the other buildings as the train pa.s.ses, some half mile away. Beyond Castlebar, the line crosses the so-called plains of Mayo, a vast expanse of naked limestone rock, very ugly and sinister; and then to the left is a village dominated by a round tower; and finally we came to Claremorris, where we were to change cars.

Claremorris, no doubt, also has an asylum, a jail, a court-house and a barracks; but we didn't go out to see, for n.o.body seemed to know just when our train might be expected, and we were afraid to run any risks.

So we sat down on the platform, and Betty fell into talk with a clean, nice-looking old man, who was carefully gathering up all the dodgers and posters and old newspapers that were lying around, and folding them up and putting them in his pocket, I suppose to read at leisure after he got home. And he told about where he lived, and how many children he had, and described the disposition of each of them; and then he questioned Betty about her condition in life, and age, and size of family, and all the time he was looking intently at her mouth.

"Tell me, miss," he said, at last, "is them your own teeth you've got?"

"Indeed they are," laughed Betty, and clashed them to prove it.

"I would hardly believe it," he went on, and looked closer. "I niver saw any like them."

"They're strong as iron," and Betty clashed them again.

"And white as snow. I wish my daughter was here, for she will not believe me when I tell her."

Good teeth, as I have remarked before, are the exception in Ireland; and most of those that appear good at first glance, turn out, at second glance, to be fabrications of the dentist. Perhaps it has always been so. Irish poets are fond of dwelling on the glories of Irish hair, and it is still glorious; they tell over and over again of the brightness of Irish eyes, and they are still bright; they describe how many times the beauty of Irish complexions, and there is none to match them anywhere else in the world; but I do not remember that any of them refer to Irish teeth. It is a pity, for many a pretty face is ruined by the ugly teeth a smile discloses.

We got away from Claremorris, finally, after narrowly escaping being carried back to Westport, and proceeded northward over a new line which has been built across the plains of County Mayo. There were few pa.s.sengers, and we had a compartment to ourselves, except for two priests who rode with us for a short distance, and who wanted to know all about President Wilson, of whom they had heard many splendid things.

Just where we crossed into County Sligo I don't know; but we were in it at Collooney, a village more prosperous than most, with a number of mills; and then we came to Ballysadare, where there are some famous salmon fisheries.

As we ran on past Ballysadare, a hill like a truncated cone loomed up on the left, and in the centre of the level top was something that looked like a huge b.u.mp, and as we drew nearer, we saw that it was a great cairn of loose stones piled on top of each other. The hill was Knocknarea, and the cairn, which is six hundred feet around and thirty-five feet high, is said to have been piled over the body of Meave, Queen of Connaught, by her tribesmen, in the first century after Christ. Meave was killed while bathing in Lough Ree by Conal Carnach, who, angry at her share in the death of the mighty Cuchulain, put a stone into a sling and cast it at her with such sure aim that he inflicted a mortal wound. There is some dispute as to whether she was really borne to the top of Knocknarea for burial; but the cairn is called "Miscan Meave," or "Meave's Heap," and if it does not actually cover her body, it probably commemorates her death. She lived so long ago that her name has pa.s.sed into folk-lore--in England as Queen Mab.

Knocknarea, with its strange shape, dominates the whole landscape, and is in sight all the way to Sligo, for the train describes a half-circle around it. Sligo itself is a considerable town, with more bustle about its streets than is usual in western Ireland, and the proprietor of its princ.i.p.al hotel is a canny individual who follows the precept, once so popular with American railroads, of charging all the traffic will bear.

When I asked the price of a double room, he looked me over, and then he said ten shillings the night.

"Ten shillings a night!" I echoed, in some surprise, for I had not expected to encounter rates so metropolitan on the west coast of Ireland; and then I asked to see the room, thinking it might be something palatial. But it was quite an ordinary room; clean and airy and comfortable enough; but I judged the usual charge for it was about five shillings. There are few things I detest more than being overcharged. "Come along," I said to Betty. "There's another hotel in this town; we'll have a look at it."

The proprietor was waiting nervously in the lobby.

"What's the matter?" he asked, as we came down. "Isn't the room all right?"

"Oh, it's right enough," I said; "but I'm not going to pay two prices for it."

"But this is the best hotel in Sligo," he protested. "There's an American millionaire and his wife staying here right now."

"Well, I'm not a millionaire," I said; "and even if I were, I wouldn't pay ten shillings for that room," and I started to walk out, for I didn't want to argue about it.

But he followed me to the door.

"What would you pay, now?" he asked, ingratiatingly.

I looked at him in surprise, for I hadn't had any idea of fixing his rates for him.

"Five shillings," I said.

"You may have it for six," he countered.

I hesitated. I didn't like the man; but it was a nice room, and the dining-room looked clean. Probably we should fare worse if we went farther.

"All right," I agreed finally; and I am bound to admit that he never showed any malice, but treated us as nicely as possible during all our stay in Sligo. Perhaps he is a retired jarvey, and this is just his way of doing business.

Sligo, with its well-built houses and bustling streets, has every appearance of being prosperous, and I have been told that it is one of the few towns in Ireland which is growing in population. It has had its share of battles and sieges, for Red Hugh O'Donnell captured it from the English, and then the English captured it from Red Hugh, and camped in the monastery and did what they could to destroy it; but enough of it remains to make a most interesting ruin, and we set out at once to see it.

It is a Norman foundation, dating from 1252, but a good deal of the existing structure is later than that. The most interesting feature, to my mind, is the row of eight narrow lancet windows lighting the choir of the church. I like these early lancets, and I am inclined to question whether the wide windows and elaborate tracery of later Gothic are as dignified and severely beautiful. There is a grace and simplicity about these tall, narrow openings, with their pointed arches, which cannot be surpa.s.sed.

There are some interesting monuments, too, in the choir, notably a most elaborate one to O'Conor Sligo against the south wall. O'Conor and his wife, life-size, kneel facing each other in two niches, over and below and on either side of which are sculptured cherubs and saints and skulls and swords and drums and spades and hooks and hour-gla.s.ses, together with the arms of the family and an appropriate motto or two. From the choir, a low door gives access to the charnel-house, and beyond that is the graveyard; while from the nave there is an entrance to the cloisters, three sides of which are very well preserved, though the level of the ground almost touches the base of the pillars.

It is, I should say, at least four feet higher than it was when the cloisters were built, and this accretion is mostly human dust, for the graveyard has been in active use for a good many centuries. Burials grew so excessive, at last, that before one body could be placed in the ground, another had to be dug out of it; and gruesome stories are told of the ruthless way in which old skeletons were torn from the graves and thrown out upon the ground and allowed to lie there, a scandal to the whole county. All that has changed now, and there wasn't a bone in sight the day we visited the place. Indeed, the old caretaker waxed very indignant about the way he had been wronged.

"'Tis in that book you have in your hand the slander is," he said, and nodded toward my red-bound Murray, and I read the sentence aloud:

"The exposure of human remains, and the general neglect here and in other church ruins, are a scandal to the local authorities."

"Now, I ask ye to look around, sir," continued the caretaker, excitedly, "and tell me if ye see anywhere aught to warrant such words as them ones. Human remains, indeed! Ye see, sir, it was like this. The day the felly was here who wrote that book, I had just picked up a bone which had got uncovered on me, and slipped it under a tomb temporary like, till I could find time to bury it decent; and then he come by, and saw it, and that was what he writ. The bones do be workin' up to the surface all the time--and how can that be helped, I should like to know? But I put them under again as soon as I see them. As for neglect--look about ye and tell me if ye see neglect."

I a.s.sured him that everything seemed to be in good shape, for the gra.s.s had just been cut and everything was very tidy. And then he told me that he and his helper had been working on the place for a week past, because, in a few days, the Irish Antiquarian Society was to meet at Sligo, and its members would be poking their noses about everywhere.

From which I inferred that, perhaps, at ordinary times, the place may be rather ragged, and that an occasional bone _may_ escape the guardian's watchful eye.

When we got back to the hotel and entered the dining-room for dinner, we were amused to find that the American millionaire and wife, of whom the proprietor had boasted, were no other than the personally-conducted couple who had come with us on the coach from Leenane to Westport. They were eating grumpily, while their guide, who ate with them, was doing his best to impart an air of cheerfulness to the meal by chattering away about the country. The head-waiter hovered near in a tremor of anxiety, and almost jumped out of his skin whenever the guide raised his finger.

I went into the smoking-room, later on, to write some letters; and presently the door opened, and the guide slipped in, and closed the door carefully, and sat down with a sigh, and got out a pipe and filled and lighted it, and rang for a whiskey and soda. And then I caught his eye, and I couldn't help smiling at its expression, and in a minute we were talking. He was a special Cook guide, he told me, and the two people with him were from Chicago.

"I fancied," he went on, "when I took this engagement, that I was going to have an easy time of it with just two people, but I have never worked so hard in my life. The man is all right; but all the woman wants to do is to keep moving on. You know Glengarriff? Well, then you know what a jolly place it is, and what a splendid trip it is over the hills from Macroom. Would you believe me, that woman would not even turn her head to look at that view. I would say to her, 'Now, Mrs. Blank, isn't that superb!' and she would just bat her eyelids; and when we got to Glengarriff, she raised a most awful row because we had to stay there over night, and because there was no light but candles in the bedrooms.

"I don't know why such people travel at all," he went on wearily. "Yes I do, too--she travels just to buy post-cards and send them back home. She buys a hundred at every stop, and as soon as she gets them addressed and posted, she is ready to start on. Ruins? Why she won't look at ruins.

She wouldn't even get out of the carriage at Muckross Abbey--but she thinks that new Catholic cathedral at Killarney a marvel of beauty. It is the only thing she has grown enthusiastic about since she has been in Ireland. We had planned to stay at Killarney four days, but she wanted to go on before she had been there four hours. I tell you, sir, it's disheartening."

I asked him how long he had been conducting for Cook, and he said only for a short time, for he was an actor by profession, and hoped to return to the stage some day. But by a run of bad luck, he had been involved in three or four failures, and had been driven to Cook's to make a living.

He had been to America, and he told me with what company, but I have forgotten, and then he was going on to tell me what roles he had played and which of them had been his greatest successes, and the worn, hara.s.sed look left his face--and just then the door opened and the Chicagoan stuck his head in, and frowned when he saw us talking and laughing together; and my companion grew suddenly sober, and went out to see what was wanted, and I didn't see him again. I suppose they were on their way at daybreak.

Sligo is the centre of one of the most interesting districts in Ireland for the antiquarian. There is that great cairn on the top of Knocknarea, and on the plain of Carrowmore near the mountain's foot is such a collection of megalithic remains as exists nowhere else in the British Isles, while on the summit of a hill overshadowing Lough Gill is a remarkable enclosure, resembling Stonehenge, but far more extensive.

It was for Carrowmore we set off on foot, next morning, determined to spend the day, which was beautifully bright and warm, in a leisurely ramble over the plain, which, four thousand years ago, was the scene of a great battle, in which the De Dananns were again the victors, as they were at Moytura, below Lough Mask. This battle is known as Northern Moytura, and here the De Dananns met and conquered Balor of the Evil Eye and his Formorians, and after that they were undisputed masters of Erin for a thousand years, until the Milesians, or Gaels, sailing from south-western Europe, beached their boats upon the sh.o.r.e of Kenmare Bay.