Part 31 (2/2)

”Oh, not at all, miss,” she protested. ”We have a very good time in the winter with a dance every week; and at Christmas Mr. McKeown do be givin' us a big party here at the hotel. Then there will be maybe two or three weddings, and as many christenings, and some of the girls who have been to America will come home for a visit and there will be dances for them, so there is always plenty to do.”

So Leenane has its social season, just the same as New York and Paris and London; and I suppose the same is true of every Irish village. The Irish are said to be great dancers, but we were never fortunate enough to see them at it.

You may perhaps have noticed that in such Irish conversations as I have given in these pages, I have contented myself with trying to indicate the idiom, without attempting to imitate the brogue; and this is because it is impossible to imitate it with any degree of accuracy.

Such imitation would be either a burlesque or would be unreadable. For example, while we were talking to the waitress at Leenane, Betty asked her what a very delicious jam which she served with our tea was made of.

”Black torn, miss,” she answered--at least, that is what it sounded like.

”Black torn?” repeated Betty. ”What is it? A berry or a fruit?”

The girl tried to describe it, but not recognisably.

”Can you spell it?” asked Betty at last.

”I can, miss; b-l-a-c-k, black, c-u-r-r-a-n-t, torn,” answered the girl.

We bade good-bye to Leenane, that afternoon, taking the motor-bus for Westport, and my friends of the constabulary were out to see me off and shake hands, and Gaynor sent a ”G.o.d speed ye” after us from the door of his little shop, and the schoolmaster and his sister waved to us from the door of the school. It was almost like leaving old friends; and indeed, I often think of them as such, and of that drab little town crouching at the head of Killary, and of how serious a thing life is to those who dwell there. We looked back for a last glimpse of it, as we turned up the road out of the valley--the row of dingy houses, the grey mountains rising steeply behind them, the broad sheet of blue water in front--how plainly I recall that picture!

There were three other pa.s.sengers on the bus--an elderly man and woman, rather obese and grumpy, and a younger man with clean-shaven eager face; and we were puzzled for a time to determine their relations.h.i.+p, for the younger man was most a.s.siduous in attending to the wants of his companions and pointing out the places of interest along the road. And then, finally, it dawned upon us--here was a personally conducted party; a man and wife who had brought a guide along to see them safely through the wilds of Ireland!

The road from Leenane to Westport is not nearly so picturesque as that from Clifden, for we soon ran out of the hills, and for miles and miles sped across a wild bog, without a sign of life except a few sheep grazing here and there. We met a flock of them upon the road, and the way the shepherd's dog, at a sharp whistle from him, herded his charges to one side out of the way was beautiful to see.

Then at last, far below us, at the bottom of a valley, we saw the roofs of Westport, and we started down the road into it--a steep and dangerous road, for we came within an ace of running down a loaded cart that was labouring up; and when we came to the foot of the hill, we were startled by a remarkable monument looming high in the middle of the princ.i.p.al street--a tall, fluted shaft, with two seated women at its base, rising from an octagonal pedestal, and surmounted by a heroic figure in knee breeches and trailing robe--without question the very ugliest monument I ever saw. It was so extraordinarily ugly that we came back next day to look at it, and discovered the following inscription:

To the Memory of GEORGE GLENDINING Born in Westport 1770 Died in Westport 1845

If the deceased had any other claim to fame except that he was born in Westport, and also ended his days there, it does not appear upon his monument.

Westport has only one hotel, and it is probably the worst in Ireland.

When we had been ushered along its dark and dirty corridors, into a room as dingy as can be imagined, and had found that it was the best room to be had, and that there was nothing to do but grin and bear it, we sat down and looked at each other, and I could see in Betty's disgusted face some such thought as Touchstone voiced: ”So here I am in Arden. The more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place.”

”'Travellers must be content,'” I said. ”Let's get out of here and look at the town.”

Betty agreed with alacrity; but we soon found that it is a dull and uninteresting place, offering no diversion except a stroll through Lord Sligo's demesne. The gate was open, so we entered and plodded along a sticky road, past the square, unimpressive mansion-house, out to the head of Clew Bay. We walked on, past the longest line of deserted quays and empty warehouses we had encountered in Ireland. There must be half a mile of quays, and the warehouses are towering, four-storied structures, with vast interiors given over to rats and spiders; and all along that dreary vista, there was just one boat--a small one, unloading lumber.

It was government money, I suppose, which built the quay, and a government board which authorised it; and looking at it, one realises where Canon Hannay got the local colour for the descriptions of the activities of government boards which are scattered through his Irish stories. For Canon Hannay, whose pen name is George A. Birmingham, lives here at Westport; and the bay which faces it is the scene of most of his tales.

It is a beautiful bay, dotted with the greenest of islands; and it was among those islands that the irrepressible Meldon sailed in quest of Spanish gold; it was there the Major's niece had her surprising adventures; and I have wondered since if the grotesque statue back in the town may not have suggested that of the mythical General John Regan.

And there, in the distance, towering above the bay, is Croagh Patrick, the great hill, falling steeply into the water from a height of 2500 feet, down which Saint Patrick one fine morning drove all the snakes and toads and poisonous creatures in Ireland, to their death in the sea below. Indeed, the marks of their pa.s.sage are still plainly to be seen, for the precipice down which they fell is furrowed and sc.r.a.ped in the most convincing manner:

The Wicklow hills are very high, And so's the Hill of Howth, sir; But there's a hill much bigger still, Much higher nor them both, sir; 'Twas on the top of this high hill St. Patrick preached his sarmint That drove the frogs into the bogs And banished all the varmint.

The legend is that St. Patrick, who had spent forty days on the mountain in fasting and prayer, stood at the edge of the precipice and rang his little bell--the same bell we have seen in the museum at Dublin--and all the snakes and toads in Ireland, attracted by the sound, plunged over the cliff and so down into the sea.

From a distance, Croagh Patrick seems to end in a sharp point; but there is really a little plateau up there, some half-acre in extent, and a small church has been built there, and on the last Sunday in July, pilgrims gather from all over Ireland and proceed to the mountain on foot and toil up its rugged sides and attend Ma.s.s on the summit and then make the rounds of the stations on their knees, just as has been done from time immemorial. For Croagh Patrick is a very holy place, since Ireland's great apostle prayed and fasted there, and those who pray and fast there likewise shall not go unrewarded.

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