To lose things by accident is, as we all know, calamitously easy, to lose them designedly is not only difficult but takes nerve and, at the right moment, want of principle.
There was once a red silk parasol, of the genus known to the trade as an en tout cas, which, literally translated, meant that in sunny weather it was cumbrous and heavy, and that during showers it wept tears of indelible maroon upon its possessor. It passed through an unloved youth into an abhorred middle age, with a crooked nose, a swelled handle, and a mottled complexion, unfit for society, yet not sufficiently decayed for a jumble sale. I and another went to Dublin for a week, and on starting found that the red umbrella had been put on the car by the servants, who held it in high esteem. We did not give it a thought; it would, of course, return upon the car to its lair in the back hall. As the train moved out into sunlight the red umbrella revealed itself, looming upon us through the netting where a careful porter had placed it. Not as yet recognising the hand of Fate, we lightly regarded it, and determining that it should be left in the train, straightway forgot its existence until an equally attentive porter placed it respectfully in our cab in Dublin. Had we kept our heads we should have offered it to him, murmuring something about having no change. Like most inspirations, this, unfortunately, did not occur to us till some five minutes later, but it suggested the idea of giving it to a housemaid, and on this understanding it accompanied us to our destination. During a week it disgraced our host's umbrella stand, and during that week we discovered that the housemaid, who, from the first, was quelling, was a Plymouth Sister, and would probably have regarded such a gift as an attempt to sap her religious convictions. When, on departure, it was deliberately forgotten, it was the Plymouth Sister who snatched it from the umbrella stand and breathlessly hurled it into our cab. It was obvious that to throw it out of the window in streets crowded with traffic would merely have involved a heavy fee to an inevitable rescuer; we reserved it for the window of the train, confidently, even enjoyably. Yet, such was its inveteracy, in the train the spell of forgetfulness again held us. The moments when it was remembered were precisely when the train stopped at stations, or the windows were blocked with fellow passengers, who would probably have pulled the communication cord to retrieve it. As we neared the long bridge of Athlone a final resolve was made. The network of big girders glided by, the broad Shannon glittered far below. The red umbrella shot like a spear through the girders and dropped out of sight. "So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur—"
The train crept into Athlone Station and there entered upon a prolonged wait among roomy and silent platforms. We exulted at leisure over the reel umbrella. A hurrying foot was distantly heard; doors opened and shut in rapid succession down the length of the train. We disinterred our tickets. The door of our carriage was opened and a heated boy put in his face.
"Did anny one here lose a red umbrella?"
It was the supreme moment in a duel with Destiny.
I replied to his question with a firm and simple negative.
CHILDREN OF THE CAPTIVITY
The road to Connemara lies white across the memory, white and very quiet. In that far west of Galway, the silence dwells pure upon the spacious country, away to where the Twelve Pins make a gallant line against the northern sky. It comes in the heathery wind, it borrows peace from the white cottage gables on the hill side, it is accented by the creeping approach of a turf cart, rocking behind its thin grey pony. Little else stirs, save the ducks that sail on a wayside pool to the push of their yellow propellers; away from the road, on a narrow oasis of arable soil, a couple of women are digging potatoes; their persistent voices are borne on the breeze that blows warm over the blossoming boglands and pink heather.
Scarcely to be analysed is that fragrance of Irish air; the pureness of bleak mountains is in it, the twang of turf smoke is in it, and there is something more, inseparable from Ireland's green and grey landscapes, wrought in with her bowed and patient cottages, her ragged walls, and eager rivers, and intelligible only to the spirit.
Over in England there are clustered cottages half buried in rich meadows, covered with roses to the edge of their mellow roof tiles, shaded by venerable and venerated trees, pleasant resting-places for the memory. From one of them comes forth a mild-faced elderly woman in a mushroom hat, the embodiment of respectability and hard work. If you talk to her you will be impressed by her sincerity, her reticence, her reverence for cleanliness, and further, as the conversation progresses, by her total lack of humour, and her conscientious recital of details not essential to the story. You will admire and like her, and she will bore you; so will her husband, with the serious face and sober blue eyes, and you will be ashamed of being bored.