Part 19 (2/2)
”'The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind; Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me, That saddened the joy of my mind.
I looked for the lamp which, she told me, Should s.h.i.+ne when her Pilgrim returned; But, though darkness began to enfold me, No lamp from the battlements burned!
”'I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely, As if the loved tenant lay dead;-- Ah, would it were death, and death only; But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften My very worst pains into bliss; While the hand, which had waked it so often, Now throbbed to a proud rival's kiss.'”
I wish I could convey the tremor of the voice with which O'Connell, journeyman tailor, recited these silly lines. I can see him yet, standing there, one hand against his heart, his eyes straining up to the battlements from which no welcoming light gleamed. I can see the proprietor of the little shop, as he lounged against his counter, smiling good-naturedly. I can see the two or three other men who had drifted in, listening with all their ears.
And then O'Connell went on to tell how O'Rourke, finding his wife had fled with MacMurrough, appealed to his overlord, King Turlough O'Conor, and how the two of them so hara.s.sed MacMurrough that he was compelled to restore Dervorgilla to her husband and to flee to England, where he went to Strongbow and persuaded him to bring his Normans to Ireland to help him in his feud; and how Strongbow, once he got a firm grip on the land, refused to loosen it, and the curse of English rule had been on Ireland ever since.
I looked this story up, afterwards, and found that legend tells it much as O'Connell did, and it is probably true. But, just the same, it is hardly fair to lay the whole blame for Ireland's woes on Dervorgilla, for the Normans had been looking longingly across the Irish Sea years before MacMurrough fled to them, and would no doubt have crossed it, sooner or later, without an invitation. The tragic point of the story is that, as usual, the invader found the Irish divided and so unable to resist. We shall see the castle from which Dervorgilla fled, before our journey is done, and also the place where she lies buried, at Mellifont, in the valley of the Boyne.
The quotation from Tom Moore had turned my little tailor's thoughts toward poetry, and he asked if I knew this poem and that, and when I didn't, as was frequently the case, he would quote a few lines, or sing them, if they had been set to music.
”Of course you know 'To the Dead of Ninety-eight'?” he asked.
”Yes,” I said; ”but that is not Johnson's n.o.blest poem. Do you know his 'Ode to Ireland'?”
”I do not,” he answered. ”Let us have it, sir.”
How sorry I was that I couldn't let them have it, or didn't have a copy that I could read to them, for it is a stirring poem; I had to confess that I didn't know it, but I can't resist quoting one splendid stanza now--
”No swordsmen are the Christians!” Oisin cried: ”O Patrick! thine is but a little race.”
Nay, ancient Oisin! they have greatly died In battle glory and with warrior grace.
Signed with the Cross, they conquered and they fell; Sons of the Cross, they stand: The Prince of Peace loves righteous warfare well, And loves thine armies, O our Holy Land!
The Lord of Hosts is with thee, and thine eyes Shall see upon thee rise His glory, and the blessing of His Hand.
”Have you heard Timothy Sullivan's 'Song from the Backwoods'?” he asked me finally, and when I said I never had, he sang it for the a.s.sembled company, and a splendid song I found it. Here it is:
Deep in Canadian woods we've met, From one bright island flown; Great is the land we tread, but yet Our hearts are with our own.
And ere we leave this shanty small, While fades the Autumn day, We'll toast Old Ireland!
Dear Old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurray!
We've heard her faults a hundred times, The new ones and the old, In songs and sermons, rants and rhymes, Enlarged some fifty-fold.
But take them all, the great and small, And this we've got to say:-- Here's dear Old Ireland!
Good Old Ireland!
Ireland, boys, hurray!
As he went on with the song, the others in the shop warmed up to it and joined in the chorus so l.u.s.tily that a crowd gathered outside; and the shopkeeper got a little nervous, fearing, perhaps, a visit from some pa.s.sing constable, and he whispered in O'Connell's ear, when the song was done, and there were no more songs that evening.
But still we sat and talked and smoked and O'Connell told me something of himself: of the fifteen s.h.i.+llings a week he could earn when he had steady work; of the three-pence a week he paid out under the insurance act, and how, if he was sick, he would draw a benefit of ten s.h.i.+llings a week for six months. He said bitterly that, if he lived in England, he would get free medical attendance, too, but that had been refused to Ireland through the machinations of the doctors and their friends. He told of the blessing the old age pension had been to many people he knew, and he admitted that England had been trying, of late years, to atone for her old injustices toward Ireland, and was now, perhaps, spending more money on the country than she got out of it.
”But there is a saying, sir, as you know,” he concluded, rising and knocking out his pipe, ”that h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions; and however good England's intentions may be, she can never govern us well, because she can never understand us. Besides, it's not charity we want, it's freedom. Better a crust of bread and freedom, than luxury and chains! We'll have some hard fights, but we'll win out. Come back in ten years, sir, and you'll see a new Ireland. Take my word for it. It's glad I am that I came in here this night,” he added. ”I was feeling downcast and disheartened; but that is all over now. This talk has been a great pleasure to me. Good-bye, sir; G.o.d save you!” and he disappeared into the night.
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