Delphi was called so by some genius who saw in its lake and overhanging mountains a resemblance to the home of the oracle. The boatmen were not able to remember when the little lake had been converted and rebaptized, or who the missionary had been, but rumour pointed to a Bishop and a Dean of the Irish Church, who, within the recollection of old inhabitants, had been the first to impart civilisation to the Killaries; who had built the charming fishing-lodge at the head of the lake, and had fished its waters, attired in poke bonnets and bottle-green veils. We had not been more than five minutes there before we understood the rationale of the bonnets and veils, and wished that we had been similarly protected from the blood-thirsty midges, that made our wanderings by the lake and our lunch by the river a time of torture.
But the stings of the midges have died away, and the recollection of the glassy curve of the river, the mirrored wild flowers at its brim, the classical grove of pines and slender white birches, and the luminous purple reflection of the mountain lying deep in the stream beneath them are the things that come into our minds when we think of our last day in Connemara. As a companion picture, belonging, too, to that day, I seem still to see my cousin’s sailor hat flying from her head like a rocketing pheasant, in a gust that caught us as we crossed the Killaries on our return journey. It crested the “surges” gallantly for a few minutes, but finally filled and sank with all hands, that is to say, two most cherished hatpins, before we could reach it.
That moment was the beginning of the end. One of the most important members of the expedition had left it, and the general dissolution was at hand. The regret with which we paid our hotel bill was not wholly mercenary, but was blended with the finer pathos of farewell. The cup of bovril of which we partook when the first five miles of our journey had been accomplished was “strong as first love, and wild with all regret”; it was the last of a staunch and long-enduring little pot, and economy required that no scraping of it should remain at the final unpacking of the hamper. Gingerbread biscuits that had been hoarded like gold pieces were flung en masse to a passing tramp before even the preliminary blessing had flowed from her lips; and the last of the seedcake was forced into Sibbie’s reluctant mouth. The frugalities of a fortnight were dissipated in one hour of joyless, obligatory debauch.
It was eight o’clock that evening when, after five or six hours’ driving, we came down the long slope of the moor outside Oughterard. The mountains of Connemara were all behind us, in the pale distant guise in which we had first known them, and the only things that remained to us of our wanderings in their valleys were the governess-cart and the tired, but still dauntless, Sibbie. Even these would not be ours much longer; the door of Murphy’s hotel would soon witness our final separation, and to-morrow we should be, like any other tourists, swinging into Galway on the mail-car.
“Well, at all events,” said my cousin, as we said these things to each other, “we have converted Sibbie.
“THE REGRET WITH WHICH WE PAID OUR HOTEL BILL WAS NOT WHOLLY MERCENARY, BUT WAS BLENDED WITH THE FINER PATHOS OF FAREWELL.”