KILLARNEY, DUBLIN, AND A WAKE.
Martin said that he wouldn’t for the world have folks ask him if he had visited the Lakes of Killarney, and have to say no.
And I believe that thought kep’ him up through all the long day’s journey and the two nights and one day we spent there.
I don’t believe he had any deeper feelin’s and more riz up ones when he looked at them three beautiful lakes, with the mountains a-standin’ up all round ’em with bare heads.
Yes, you’d think them old mountains had took their green caps off and wuz lookin’ down on ’em with deep reverence and respect. They wuz so exquisitely beautiful.
But Martin, mebby, can’t be expected to be as riz up and as elevated as them peaks; anyway, he acted out his nater, which wuz to see everything he could see, to stand round with his hands in his pockets if he felt like it, or if he wuz kinder tired, to lean back and shet up his eyes and rest and have his body dragged along through the places, so’s he could say he had been in ’em.
And Al Faizi acted out his nater, which wuz to stand like a devotee before a shrine as the beauty of them seens busted onto him.
And in noticin’ that the rich, highly cultivated lower lands layin’ about the lakes wuz all fenced in with high walls, and that one or two men owned hundreds and thousands of acres, sacred to the use of some animals they wanted to hunt down for pleasure once or twice durin’ the year, while hundreds and thousands of poor human bein’s wuz starvin’ all round the borders of these immense estates.
Livin’ in miserable, rotten cabins, so poor that one of these rich men would not think of lettin’ one of his beasts stay in ’em for a night. Immortal souls for whom Christ died hungry, starvin’ for a crust and dyin’ for a bit of the luxury that wuz wasted upon dumb brutes.
In noticin’ this, Martin sithed to think that them men wuzn’t to home, so that he could call on ’em.
He said that he would love to say that he had met ’em.
But Al Faizi, after askin’ all he could about the estates of the two or three wealthy men and the thousands of starvin’ ones round ’em, looked dretful thoughtful, and took out his little book with the cross and star on’t and writ a lot in it.
And Martin spoke of its bein’ jest as bad in the north of Scotland, where the Crofters can hardly git enough food to keep from starvin’. And they live in sech huts as no man would keep his animals in.
Big families of boys and girls huddled together like pigs in one small room, with a open fireplace in the middle, with no chimney and no ruff, nothin’ but rotten straw; the smoke blindin’ their eyes, and nothin’ to eat hardly.
And as miserable as this hovel is, the landlord is liable to turn ’em out at any time to make room for happier and better cared-for animals—sheep, deer, etc., etc.
As Al Faizi hearn this his face looked sad and thoughtful, and he wrote down quick a good deal in that little book of hisen.
I think Martin liked it. He thought he wuz takin’ notes of his conversation, and he felt big over it, but I don’t believe it wuz anything personal that Al Faizi writ. I believe it wuz sunthin’ as deep as jestice and as pure as love and pity that he wuz a-writin’ about; anyhow, his face wuz a study as I watched it. There wuz indignation in it and pity and love, and another look, that I felt instinctively wuz a-lookin’ forrered to jedgment.
Lookin’ forrered not many years to the time when things would be different.
Wall, we stayed there and went round part of the way in boats, and part of the way in wagons all of the next day, a-lookin’ at the beautiful gems of lakes in their settin’s of richest emerald, and in little walks about the country, and in comparin’ the heights of luxury to the depths of squalor and misery.
Not fur from here wuz the cottage where Kate Kearney used to live. You know who she wuz, I spoze.
“For did you not hear of Kate Kearney?
She lives on the banks of Killarney;
From the glance of her eye
Shun peril and fly,
For fatal’s the glance of Kate Kearney.”
Whether he flew from her I d’no, but presoom he didn’t, men are so sot in these things.
Peril and danger hain’t a-goin’ to make ’em fly from a pretty woman—no, indeed!
In the lower lake, on an island, wuz the ruins of a big castle, picturesque and ivy-covered. It wuz owned by the O’Donohues. And the boatman said that every seven years the chief of the O’Donohues come back for a night to see his castle.
I thought to myself, mebby he come oftener than that, but didn’t say a word, not wantin’ to do anything to either make or break a legend hundreds of years old.
Wall, we wuz a-layin’ out to leave there the next mornin’, but Martin, by his pryin’ round, found that there wuz a-goin’ to be a wake that night in a cabin not fur from the tarvern where we wuz a-stayin’, and by payin’ some money—I d’no how much—he got a chance to attend to it, and he said that Josiah and I could go if we wanted to. He told me he didn’t spoze that Al Faizi would care about goin’, and he wanted Alice and Adrian to rest, for the next mornin’ early we wuz to set out for Dublin.
But I thanked him real polite, and told him that “I would stay with the children.”
And afterwards, seein’ that Al Faizi wanted to go, them three men sot off.
A old man had passed away, and they wuz a-makin’ a great wake for him.
They didn’t stay long, for they said that the whiskey and drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out.
DRINKIN’ AND TOBACCO-SMOKIN’ IN THE LITTLE HOVEL DROVE ’EM OUT.
But Martin observed complacently that he would be glad to say that he had been to a real Irish Wake.
Al Faizi spoke of the old wimmen wailers, and said that they had jest sech professional mourners in Egypt and parts of Africa, and he wondered quite a good deal how that custom come way off here in this fur-off Ireland, but he spozed that it wuz in some way brought here from the East. Mebby it come down from them old days nobody knows anything about, of which relics remains in them old round towers, etc. So old nobody knows who built ’em, or what for.
He wondered a good deal, but didn’t take out that book of hisen with the star and cross on’t. No, he writ in another book with a plain Russia leather cover on’t.
My pardner restrained himself until the others had departed to their couches, but I see that he wuz fearful agitated and excited.
And sez he, the minute they went out—
“I tell you, Samantha, it wuz a excitin’ seen, and,” sez he, “what a excitement it would make in Jonesville if we should have one!” Sez he dreamily—
“Uncle Nate Bentley is over ninety; there might be one arranged easy.”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, don’t you go to lookin’ forrered to any sech doin’s!”
“Why?” sez he; “if I should leave you, you could probble git the Widder Lummis up to Zoar and Drusilla Bentley to wail for a little or nothin’.”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, no widder or old maid is a-goin’ to wail over you by my hirin’ ’em to; if they wail, it will be at their own expense.
“You will have one true mourner, Josiah Allen, whose grief will be too deep and heartfelt to display it before a crowd, with whiskey and tobacco as accessories.”
“Oh! I didn’t expect you’d have any drinkin’ or smokin’. I knew your principles too well. They might smoke a little catnip, or sunthin’ of that sort, or pass round some lemonade.”
Sez I, “There will be nothin’ of the kind done, Josiah Allen.”
But he sprunted up and sez, “You seem to be settlin’ things all your own way. I should think that I ort to have some say in it. Whose funeral is it, I’d like to know, we’re talkin’ about?”
But I sez, “I don’t want to hear another word of sech talk, and I won’t.” And I riz up and sallied off to bed, and in sweet slumber that man soon forgot all his stylish ambitions.
Wall, the next day we sot off to Dublin, and havin’ arrived there with no casualities worth mentionin’, we settled down in a good-sized tarvern, and after a little rest we meandered around to see the sights of the place.
Martin said that he wanted to visit the great manafacturys where Irish Poplin is made, as he had some friends who wuz interested in that trade, and that it would be expected of him.
And I then mentioned to Josiah, seein’ that he wuz right here at the headquarters, perhaps it would be best for me to buy a gray poplin dress. I knew it would last like iron.
But Josiah said with deep earnestness, that if I only knew how much better he liked my old gray parmetty dress to home I never would speak on’t. Sez he, “You look perfectly beautiful in it, and there is so many associations connected with it.”
Sez I, “I should think there would be, seein’ I’ve worn it stiddy for upwards of eighteen years without alterin’ it.”
“Wall,” sez he, “it is a perfect beauty, and you look lovely in it.”
He hadn’t been so complimentary to me for upwards of fourteen years, and I wuz touched by it, and gin up the thought of gittin’ a new dress.
Oh! how many, many wimmen have done the same thing under the same circumstances.
But the numerous shops wuz full of the loveliest goods of all kinds, and politer creeters than them clerks I don’t want to see.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral wuz of course one of the first places we visited. They say that this wuz built, in the first place, by St. Patrick himself about fourteen hundred years ago, but if that wuz so, I thought St. Patrick would feel sorry for the filth and wretchedness that surrounded the meetin’-house up to the very door.
There wuz a magnificent carved marble sarcophagus of Archbishop Whateley, with his own marble figger stretched out on top of it.
And a monument to that kinder queer, kinder mean, smart chap, Swift, and a tablet to poor Stella, who would a-done better if she had married some other feller, mebby not so smart, but better natered and a better provider.
Poor creeter, I’m sorry for her!
There wuz lots of other interestin’ monuments and memorials, but Time and Martin wuz in a hurry, so we did not delay.
We visited Trinity College, the castle, the beautiful part of the city where the rich folks lived, and the Liberties, where it seemed as if all the liberty the poor creeters had wuz the liberty to be jest as poor and degraded and nasty as they could be.
There wuz beautiful parks, one on ’em over eighteen hundred acres in it, full of beauty, and we see lots of statutes, erected to the great men who had been born in Dublin—the Duke of Wellington, the great orator, Daniel O’Connell, etc.
The monument to Nelson, the hero of the Nile, is one hundred and ten feet high before he stands up on it, and he is 11 feet high.
He is in a sightly place.
If his sperit comes back in some still moonlight night, and looks over the world with him, I wonder if it ever looks over the mistakes he made? I wonder if the beautiful Lady Hamilton ever comes into its thoughts?
I wonder if he’s sorry for it, that he stands up so high and she so low in the opinion of people—so low, when once he felt it his greatest glory and happiness to kneel at her feet?
But such surmises are futile, futiler than there’s any need on.
To resoom.
Charles Lever, the novelist, wuz born in Dublin, and so wuz Tom Moore.
We went to the birthplace of Moore.
It wuz a common-lookin’ buildin’, though it had a bust of the poet in front up between the winders.
The lower part of the house wuz used as a grocery store, and Josiah himself proposed that we should buy here some little souvenir of the poet.
I wuz dumbfoundered. I never knew him to propose any outlay of the kind before, and I sez as much.
“Wall,” sez he, “I knew you wuz always wantin’ to buy sunthin’ to remember sech romantic places by, and I thought here would be a good chance.”
I wuz so touched by his thoughtfulness that I sez—“Dear Josiah, what had you got it into your head to buy?”
And he said that he thought a few crackers and a little cheese and a herrin’ or two would be as good as anything.
“Did you mean to keep ’em, Josiah?” sez I, for a dark suspicion swept over me.
And he owned up that he layed out to nibble on ’em a little on the way back to the hotel.
I see right through it, and I didn’t fall in with his overtoor. Somehow, herrin’s and cheese seemed incongrous with Lally Rooks, and Peris, and Paradises, and I told him so.
And he sez, “Dum it all, they had to eat in Paradise if they kep’ alive, and,” sez he, “a Peri, if she knew anything, wouldn’t object to a slice of good cheese and some soda crackers.”
So I told him that if he wanted sunthin’ to eat to buy it; but, sez I, “never veneer a selfish thought with the fine gold of romance and tender memories.”
And he said that he didn’t want nothin’ to do with varnish of any kind, he wanted some cheese and crackers. So he bought a few, I guess; I didn’t watch him.
I myself wuz quite took up with lookin’ round the place, sanctified by genius of a certain kind, and I murmured almost onbeknown to myself the words I had hearn Tirzah Ann repeat. She always loved Moore fur better than Thomas J. did. Though Thomas J. thought well enough on him, but Tirzah Ann used to rehearse and sing him by the hour, so in spite of myself I had learnt lots of his poetry by heart.
And as I looked round the room I found myself entirely onbeknown to myself a-hummin’ over the “Last Rose of Summer,” and the “Meetin’ of the Waters,” and the “Harp that once through Tara’s Halls.”
That last one Tirzah Ann ust to sing a sight, and I always liked to hear it, though I never got it into my head jest who Mr. Tara wuz, or what line of business he wuz in.
Wall, knowin’ that Tirzah Ann would prize it so high, I bought some choclate drops of candy to take home to her.
They wuz as sweet as Moore’s poetry, and softer, some.
