Through Connemara in a governess cart

by E. Oe. Somerville; Martin Ross

withstand, we gently but firmly ushered the majestic goose-lady into the kitchen, and, getting back to bed slept in peace till the usual hideous farmhouse clamour began. We need not dilate upon it here. The war-whoopings of the cocks, the exhausting self-satisfaction of the hens over a feat which, however praiseworthy in itself, lacks originality; the yells of the pigs, and their impatient snuffings and bangings against the kitchen door; all, all, were alike detestable, and we welcomed almost with ecstasy the lowering of the first pair of Joyce legs, which told us that the family, like a certain distinguished cricketer, were going out “leg before.”

My cousin and I are old travellers, and we have two properties, a spirit lamp and a folding indiarubber bath, without which we never take the road. It is my belief that if my second cousin were told that a chariot of fire was at the door, waiting to waft her to the skies, she would rush upstairs for the indiarubber bath and the spirit lamp. After this I suppose I need hardly say that they had accompanied us to Connemara. We do not for an instant wish to insinuate that the bath, as an institution, does not obtain in those parts. We have every reason to believe that it flourishes there; but a melancholy experience has taught us that the age of chivalry is dead, so far as hotels are concerned, and if there is a scarcity or competition in any department, whether of newspapers, or green peas, or baths, the most recent paper, and the first helping, and the last available bath is reserved by the truckling domestics for the largely-eating, heavily-tipping male traveller. We have had moments of fury, when violent death has stalked behind the chambermaid who has just informed us that “the last bat’ in the house is afther goin’ in to the gentleman in No. 11.”

But at such times the remembrance of the indiarubber bath floats sweetly into our minds; and we reflect that its tin rival would have cost sixpence or a shilling. Its gentle influence, combined with a dash of chill penury, represses our noble rage, and we endure the favouritism of the hotel employés with calm; knowing also that retribution is coming for her whose duty it will be to deal with the weird and wobbling thing that will, on the smallest provocation from the unskilled in its ways, become a mere mass of gaping mouths, pouring forth accusation of her and her treatment of the slightest visitor.

At the Widow Joyce’s hot water was unexpectedly abundant, and the spirit lamp was not called into requisition. We were given to understand that the Meejer was loud and instant in his demands for “plenty of biled water,” but how he performed his ablutions with it it is not for us to say. Except they lent him a churn, there was, so far as we could see, no vessels competent to undertake the duties of a bath, and a churn in such a capacity would, we should think, leave a good deal to be desired. We were, however, independent of such makeshifts. The chief drawback to an indiarubber bath is its propensity to slop; but on an earthen floor slop is little accounted, and all would have been well if my second cousin had not persisted in trying to empty it through the air-hole broken by the Meejer in the window. She did this nominally out of kindness to the Widow Joyce, but really because she thought she could pour its contents on the widow’s cat, who was sunning herself on the window-sill. As a matter of fact, I think our luncheon-basket suffered more than the cat—but we will not pursue the subject. My cousin now recognises that it requires an exceptionally high and hardy intellect to control an indiarubber bath, even in repose, and few, very few, are able to direct it in action.

When we went out that morning, we found it was that “gift of God, a perfect day.” Everything looked washed and brilliant after the rain; the little lake was twinkling all over in sharp points of light till it looked as if it were bristling with new pins, and the mountains had left off their half-mourning costumes of black and grey, and wore charming confections of softest green and lavender. We stood out in the sunshine, on the narrow strip that ran between the cottage and the lake, and threw some languid stones at the widow’s geese, who were bobbing along before the wind, led on their voyage by the stout disturber of our slumbers. The air was singing with the noise of streams; each pale blue ravine had a white line dividing it; at the back of the cottage a little over-fed river came foaming into the lake at a pace that ought to have given it indigestion after all it had swallowed the night before, and the plash of the contents of the indiarubber bath, as the widow emptied it on the step of the front door, gave the last note in the chord of water-music.

We had had an excellent breakfast, founded on fresh eggs and hot griddle cake, with a light top dressing of potted meat; we had paid our modest reckoning, and Pat James, the eldest hope of the house of Joyce, was harnessing “the pony.” That “the pony” was giving Pat James a time, not to say seven times and a half time, was obvious from the shouts that came to us through the stable-door, but finally, round the corner of the cow-house, Sibbie’s cross, prim face appeared with Pat James leading her, and the governess-cart reeling over the big ruts in the lane behind her.

“He’s very crabbed, Miss,” said Pat James, in tones of soft reproach, “he’s afther hittin’ me the divil’s own puck inside in the stable.”

There was a spiteful gleam in Sybylla’s bright eye that spoke to the truth of his statement, and we felt sorry for Pat James.

We took a mutually affectionate farewell of the Widow Joyce, promising to convey her respects to the Meejer if we met him in England, as she seemed to think probable, and we set forth to make our way back to “the big road below,” accompanied by Pat James, whose mother had charged him to see us safe over the first bad bit of the road.