(belonging to the estate) whom we shall use. A charming creature, with a high character and a hollow back. I spent this morning in having her heels and mane and ears clipped, and it took two men, and myself, to hold her while her ears were being done. Car or conveyance we have none, at present, but we have many offers of cars. I drive Mama on these extraordinary farmers’ cars, and oh! could you but see the harness! Mouldy leather, interludes of twine in the reins—terrific!”
There follow particulars of the innumerable repairs required in the house.
“My hand is shaking from working on the avenue, I mean cutting the edges of it, which will be my daily occupation for ever, as by the time I get to the end, I shall have to begin again, and both sides mean a mile and a quarter to keep right.... The tenants have been very good about coming and working here for nothing, except their dinners, and a great deal has been done by them. It is, of course, gratifying, but, in a way, very painful. The son of the old carpenter has been making a cupboard for me, also all for love. He is a very smart person and has been to America, but he is still the same ‘Patcheen Lee’—(I have altered most of the names throughout—E.Œ.S.)—“whom Charlie and I used to beat with sticks till he was ‘near dead,’ as he himself says proudly.
“We have many visits from the poor people about, and the same compliments, and lamentations, and finding of likenesses goes on. This takes up a lot of time, and exhausts one’s powers of rejoinder. Added to this, I don’t know yet what to make of the people.... Of course some are really devoted, but there is a change, and I can feel it. I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very active little old man, and a beloved of mine, when he came down on Sunday night to welcome me. After the usual hand-kissings on the steps, he put his hands over his head and stood in the doorway, I suppose invoking his saint. He then rushed into the hall.
“‘Dance Paddy!’ screamed Nurse Barrett (my foster-mother, now our maid-of-all-work).
“And he did dance, and awfully well too, to his own singing. Mama, who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown, and a black hat trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and, with her spade under her arm, joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute, and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall, they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again, and finished with the deepest curtseys.... I went down to the Gate-house after dinner, and there discoursed Nurse Griffy for a long time.” (At Ross, and probably elsewhere in the County Galway, the foster-mothers of “the Family” received the courtesy-title of “Nurse,” and retained it for the rest of their lives. I have been at Ross when the three principal domestics were all ceremoniously addressed as “Nurse,” and were alluded to, collectively, as “the Nursies.” After all, at one time or another, there were probably twelve or fourteen ladies who had earned the title.) “I was amused by a little discourse about the badness of the shooting of the tenants here last winter” (i.e. the Englishmen who took the shooting). “Birds were fairly plenty, but the men couldn’t hit them.
“‘’Tis no more than one in the score they got!’ says Paddy Griffy, who was one of the beaters, with full-toned contempt.
“‘Well, maybe they done their besht,’ says Kitty Hynes, the Gate-house woman, who is always apologetic.
“‘You spoke a thrue word,’ says Paddy Griffy, ‘Faith, they done their besht, Mrs. Hynes! I seen a great wisp o’ shnipes going up before them, and the divil a one in it that didn’t go from them! But you may believe they done their besht!’
“This wants the indescribable satisfaction of the speaker, and the ecstasy of Kitty Hynes at finding that she had said something wonderful.”