Mr. Mitchell Henry’s place, Kylemore Castle, stands close in among the woods under the side of Kylemore Mountain, with a small lake shutting it off from the road. It is a great, imposing grey mass of turrets and towers, and, close by, the white spire of a charming little limestone church is reflected among the trees in the lake, and gives an amazing finish of civilisation to the whole view—in fact, civilisation and fuchsia hedges are the leading notes from Kylemore to Letterfrack, wide crimson banks of fuchsia lining
MR. MITCHELL HENRY’S PLACE, KYLEMORE CASTLE.
the road, and prosperous farm buildings presiding over fat turnip fields, until the road lifts again into the barer uplands whereon is situated the village of Letterfrack.
No map we have as yet encountered pays Letterfrack the compliment of marking it, but it is nevertheless a very fine place, with a post and telegraph office, an industrial school, and a tolerably regular double row of houses of all sorts. Our various delays of luncheon and sketching, &c., along the road had made us later than usual, and we were only just in time for the table d’hôte at Mr. O’Grady’s fuchsia-covered hotel. There was a wonderful sunset that evening, and after dinner we wandered out to see as much as we could before bedtime. It was the strangest country we had yet seen. A long down-sloping tract of semi-cultivated land, and, starting up round its outskirts, tall, crudely conical mountains, “such a landscape as a child would draw,” my second cousin said. There was something volcanic and threatening about these great dark tents, showing awfully against the red background of the sunset. We were almost glad when everything melted into a grey sea-fog—for the sea, though out of sight, was very near—and we had to walk back the hotel; while from a shadowy cottage back of the road the piercing screams of a concertina rendered in maddening iteration the first theme of the “Sweethearts” waltz. Only one incident did we meet with on our way back. Quite suddenly, out of the greyness, three men appeared, and as they passed us, one of them turned and said, “Genoong i dhieri,” which, being translated, is “God speed you.”
We said feebly “Good evening,” and it was not till we were nearing the hotel that my second cousin remembered that she should have answered, “Ge moch hay ritth,” which is the Irish method of saying, “The same to you.”