Martin Ross

“ 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. ”

“ Casting one wild look at the appalling spectacle, she sprang sideways across the road, whirled the trap round, only avoiding the black bog-ditch by a hair’s breadth, and fled at full speed in the direction from which she had just come.
My cousin and I were for the moment paralysed by surprise, and by the sudden horrid proximity of the bog-ditch, which was hospitably prepared to take us all in and do for us, and think nothing of it. Sibbie’s strong little brown back was hooped with venomous speed, and her head was out of sight between her forelegs. ”

“ The delicious mountain wind, which was charged with all the subtle perfumes drawn from bog and heather; the marvellous cloud effects on the great crags of the Twelve Pins; the sparkle and rush of the brown{116} streams under the innumerable hog-backed bridges; the intense blue of the lakes, even the yellow whiteness of the slow-climbing road, all combined to fill us with that vague delightful yearning which can only be satisfied by lunch half an hour earlier than usual.
One only sign of civilisation did we see between Recess and Kylemore, and it was of a wholly unexpected type. ”

“ Given a sloping, sunshiny bank of shingle, a mass of yellow lichen-covered rocks between it and a purple-and-emerald streaked sea, a large empty morning, and a cock-shot, there is no reason why one should ever stop throwing stones. That is how my second cousin and I occupied ourselves the morning after our arrival at Renvyle. We had started early, with sketching materials and luncheon, full of a high resolve to explore several miles of coastline, beginning with the famous Grace O’Malley’s Castle, and ending with afternoon tea and well-earned repose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She would visit at a public-house, at a pigstye, at a roofless ruin, anywhere rather than go along the road. The picnic was beginning; certainly the view was. We looked along the lake and saw how it coiled and spread among its wooded islands; the shrouded hill behind it gave for the moment some indication of its greatness; there was no doubt that even at its worst, as it undoubtedly was, Ballinahinch was worth seeing.
The wind fought with us along the first stretch of the drive, dragging at our hat pins, lifting the rug off our knees; blowing our hair in our eyes ”

“ Tall sliding doors, in perfect order, admitted us to a large quiet yard, so orderly that, as we looked round it, we felt, like Hans Andersen’s black beetle, quite faint at the sight of so much cleanliness, and would have been revived by the only familiar whiff of the cow-shed and pigstye. We gave Sibbie and her luncheon bag to a man who was hanging about, and were proceeding to ask whether we might walk about the grounds, when a door into the house opened, and there issued from it a young woman of such colossal height and figure that we stared at her awe-struck. ”

“ We had been assured, on reliable authority, that Oughterard, fourteen Irish miles from Galway, was the place where we should find what we wanted, and with a dubious faith we climbed the steep side of the mail car, and wedged ourselves between a stout priest and an English tourist. Above us towered the mail baskets, and a miscellaneous pile of luggage, roped together with that ingenuity that necessity has developed in the Irish carman, and crowning all, the patriarchal countenance of a goat looked down upon us in severe amazement from over the rim of an immense hamper. ”

“ It looks almost as if there were sunlight on those children’s petticoats ahead of us.” An enchanting group was advancing to meet us; half-a-dozen or so of children, boys and girls petticoated alike in mellow varieties of the dull red or creamy white Galway flannel, a few cattle wandered in front of them, and in their midst a long-suffering donkey was being ridden by three of them and beaten by the remainder. We were so absorbed in sitting with our heads on one side to better appreciate the artistic unity of the picture that we took no heed of the dangerous forward slant of Sibbie’s ears. ”

“ From one point of view it might have been called a fish dinner, as from clear soup, to raspberries one topic alone filled the mouths of the diners—the outwitting of the wiles of trout and salmon. There was a reading-party of Oxford men, their blazers glowing rainbow-hued among the murky shooting coats of the other diners; there were young curates, and middle-aged majors, and elderly gentlemen—to be an elderly gentleman amounts to a profession in itself—and all, without exception or intermission, talked of fish and fishing. ”

“ I hate people who do nothing but laugh on an emergency, simply because they think it looks brave.
As I turned Sibbie round I saw, nearly a quarter of a mile away, a child standing by a telegraph post, holding in its hand a white disc that I knew must be my hat, and I also saw with much pleasure that the other children, with the cows and the donkey, had left the road, and were climbing up the hillside. ”

“ One youth, whose midge-bites had reached the point at which they might almost be termed confluent, told us that he had lain down on the ground in a kind of frenzy and covered himself with his mackintosh, and that the midges had crawled in through the buttonholes and devoured him as he lay.
We continued our drive towards Westport, with the river on one side, and on the other great green mountains speckled with thousands of sheep; the road was steep, but we persevered up its long shining grey slope, without any definite intention except that of seeing what was on the other side. ”

“ Not, indeed, that chickens are things of the past. Daily through Connemara rises the cry of myriad hens, bereft of their infant broods, and in every hotel larder “wretches hang that fishermen may dine.” Chickens and small brown mutton, mutton and small brown chickens—these, with salmon and trout of a curdy freshness that London wats not of, were the leit-motif of every hotel table d’hôte, and so uniformly excellent were they that we asked for nothing more. ”

“ They at once withdrew, recognising the fact that is early implanted in the mind of every known Irish animal, that sermons in stones are unanswerable. We had got on to a long stretch of bog road, bounded only by the vaguely suggestive mist, and we were beginning to feel the ardour for a long walk awakening in us, when we heard a strange yelping on the road behind us, and looking back, saw a large brindled bulldog advancing out of the mist at a lumbering trot. ”

“ We breakfasted leisurely and late next morning, serenaded by the screams of pigs, for it was fair day, and the market square was blocked with carts tightly packed with pigs, or bearing tall obelisks of sods of turf, built with Egyptian precision. We cast our eye abroad upon a drove of Connemara ponies, driven in for sale like so many sheep, and my second cousin immediately formed the romantic project of hiring one of these and a small trap for our Connemara expedition.
“They are such hardy little things,” she said, enthusiastically, “we had two of them once, and they always lived on grass. ”

“ As a matter of fact, my cousin crammed the pistol into her uninjured pocket, I filled my hands with stones, and we pursued at our best speed, seeing from time to time above the heaving backs and brandished tails of the galloping cattle the dark body of the bulldog as he was swung into the air over his victim’s head. Suddenly the whole cortége wheeled, and flourished up a bohireen that led to a cottage, and in the quick turn the cow fell on her knees, and lay there exhausted, with the bulldog prone beside her, exhausted too, but still holding on. ”

“ We have travelled with many stewardesses on the various routes between England and Cork, and we have found that, as a species, they have at least two great points in common. They are all Irish, and they are all relentlessly conversational. They have no respect for the sanctity of the silence in which the indifferent sailor wishes to shroud herself; it is impossible for them to comprehend those solemn moments, when the thoughts are turned wholly inwards in a tumult of questioning, while the body lies in mummy stillness waiting for what the night shall bring forth. ”

“ It need scarcely be said that the new road ran by a lake, or lakes; every road we have seen in Connemara makes for water like an otter, and finds it with seeming ease, sometimes even succeeding in getting into it. In a forlorn hollow by one of these lakes, we came on a little Roman Catholic chapel, with its broken windows boarded up, and its graveyard huddled under a few wind-worn trees on the hill behind. ”

“ The little black and brindled cattle stared at us defiantly as we drove along, and the only human creature we met on the road was a grey old bagpiper, who looked as though he might have lost his way among the hills some time in the last century, and had only just found the New Line when we met him. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The road that was to be our portion was the one known as the New Line, leading out of the Recess and Clifden road into another road that leads through the Pass of Kylemore, and on into Letterfrack, where we meant to spend the night. Sibbie was fresh and full of going, and the long level road, following the curves of Lough Inagh and Lough Derryclare, inspired her with a fine and unusual zeal. The accustomed boats, each with its little patient whipping figure, were paddling about the lakes, and, according to our custom, we reined in the fiery Sibbie to watch them. ”

“ He left us after about half a mile, and when we saw him last he was sitting on a big rock, his slouched felt hat and creamy flannel “bawneen” looking all that could be desired against their background of clear blue sky, whilst the cat performed unearthly gambols in the heather at his bare feet.{114}
“After all,” we said to each other, as we turned into the main road, and set Sibbie’s long nose for Recess, “it was just as well we missed our way, for if we hadn’t we should have missed Pat James.” ”

“ But the stings of the midges have died away, and the recollection of the glassy curve of the river, the mirrored wild flowers at its brim, the classical grove of pines and slender white birches, and the luminous purple reflection of the mountain lying deep in the{195} stream beneath them are the things that come into our minds when we think of our last day in Connemara. As a companion picture, belonging, too, to that day, I seem still to see my cousin’s sailor hat flying from her head like a rocketing pheasant, in a gust that caught us as we crossed the Killaries on our return journey. ”

“ Once only in Galway did we see live fish without stint or hindrance, when, afterwards, we leaned over the bridge in Galway town itself, and could have counted by the hundred the dark backs of the salmon that lie all day still and shadowy in the clear water below the weir. ”

“ The cup of bovril of which we partook when the first five miles of our journey had been accomplished was “strong as first love, and wild with all regret”; it was the last of a staunch and long-enduring little pot, and economy required that no scraping of it should remain at the final unpacking{196} of the hamper. Gingerbread biscuits that had been hoarded like gold pieces were flung en masse to a passing tramp before even the preliminary blessing had flowed from her lips; and the last of the seedcake was forced into Sibbie’s reluctant mouth. ”

“ Our various delays of luncheon and sketching, &c., along the road had made us later than usual, and we were only just in time for the table d’hôte at Mr. O’Grady’s fuchsia-covered hotel. There was a wonderful sunset that evening, and after dinner we wandered out to see as much as we could before bedtime. It was the strangest country we had yet seen. A long down-sloping tract of semi-cultivated land, and, starting up round its outskirts, tall, crudely conical mountains, “such a landscape as a child would draw,” my second cousin said. ”

“ We ourselves might have framed many moving sentences about the desolate houses standing amongst the neglected timber within their broken demesne walls, but “all our mind was clouded with a doubt,” and from the peculiar protrusion of my cousin’s nether lip, I could gather that her moodiness was the outward token of an agitated mental parade of all the Oughterard horseflesh with which she was acquainted. ”

“ An enterprising advertiser asks, “What is more terrible than war?” We answer unhesitatingly, oranges in the hands of young children.
However, everything, even the waits at the stations between Limerick and Athenry, comes to an end if you can live it out, and at about nine o’clock at night we were in Galway. Scarcely by our own volition, we found ourselves in an hotel ’bus, and we were too tired to do more than notice the familiar Galway smell of turf smoke as we bucketted through Eyre Square to our hostelry. ”