An excellent road leads from this place through the ‘entire vale’ to the park of Bally-Arthur. The peculiar characteristic of this valley is, that the hills on either side are clothed with such impenetrable beech-woods that there is no visible interval between the masses, and it really looks as if you could ride on the tops of the trees. I here quitted the road, and followed a footpath in the thicket, which led me to a very beautiful view; at the termination of the long glen, the towers of Arklow appeared as if set in a frame. About a mile and a half further on, the path suddenly ends in a ha-ha, over which my horse utterly refused to leap. As the wall was on my side, and the turf below very soft, I hit upon a new expedient: I tied my handkerchief over the eyes of the refractory beast, and pushed him down backwards over the wall. He was very little frightened, and not at all hurt by the fall as I had expected, and grazed peaceably blindfold till I rejoined him. This manœuvre saved me at least five miles.
The new park in which I now found myself,—for all this part of the country is a continued pleasure-ground,—belonged to Shelton Abbey, a modern piece of Gothicry, intended to represent an old abbey. The possessors had been absent for years; and a negro who was at work in the garden, showed me the rooms, in which are some very interesting pictures. The hero of one is the great-grandfather of the possessor; the scene in Italy, and the costume, as well as the manners represented, most strange and even revolting. The civil negro led me across the fields and through a pretty deep ford in the river, (whose ice-cold waters did not seem to alarm him), to the town of Arklow, whence I returned along the high road to dinner at Avoca Inn. In the course of my ride I ascended another hill, from which I looked down into three distinct valleys, the contrasted character of which afforded a most singular view. Scarcely had I seated myself at table (at Avoca), when I was told that some one wished to speak to me. A young man, whom I had never seen, was shown in, and presented to me a pocket-book, which, to my no small astonishment, I recognized as my own; containing, besides other important papers which I always carry about me, all the money I had taken for my journey. I had, Lord knows how, dropped it out of my breast-pocket in the summer-house; and had, therefore, no small reason to congratulate myself on so honourable and obliging a finder. In England I should hardly have had the good fortune to see my pocket-book again, even if a ‘gentleman’ had found it; he would probably have let it lie in peace,—or kept it.
I must here take occasion to explain to you what this far-famed epithet ‘gentleman’ means, since the signification affixed to it is inimitably characteristic of the English.
‘A gentleman’ is neither a man of noble birth, nor a man of noble sentiments (weder ein Edelmann noch ein edler Mann—neither a Nobleman nor a noble man;) but, in strictness,[124] a man of independent means, and perfect knowledge of the usages of good society. He who serves or works for the public in any way, (the higher functionaries of the state, and here and there a poet or artist of the first category only excepted,) is no ‘gentleman,’ or at best only a half a one. I was greatly astonished at hearing a certain well-known personage, with whom all lovers of horses, native and foreign, are well acquainted; who is rich, who is on a footing of intimacy with many Dukes and Lords, and enjoys great consideration, but who presides at a weekly auction of horses (thereby doing useful service to the public)—say of himself, “I can’t imagine how the Duke of B—— could commission me to carry a challenge to Count M——; he ought to have employed a gentleman,—those things are not in my way.”
A really poor man, who is not in a situation to contract debts, can on no terms be a ‘gentleman.’ On the contrary, a rich scamp, who has had what is called a good education, so long as he preserves his ‘character’[125] (reputation) dexterously, passes for a ‘perfect gentleman.’ In the exclusive society of London there are yet finer ‘nuances.’ A man, for instance, who were to manifest any timidity or courtesy towards women, instead of treating them in a familiar, confident, and ‘nonchalant’ manner, would awaken the suspicion that he was ‘no gentleman:’ but should the luckless man ask twice for soup at dinner, or appear in evening dress at a breakfast which begins at three in the afternoon and ends at midnight,—he may be a prince and a ‘millionaire,’ but he is no gentleman.
But let us back from Babylon’s tyrannous jargon to the freedom of the hills. The country through which I now rode was strikingly like the flat part of Switzerland, gradually rising till I found myself opposite to the highest mountains of Wicklow, whose heads were shrouded in clouds. The valley of Glenmalure has a character of desolate sublimity, which harmonized perfectly with the weather. In the midst stands a deserted and already decaying barrack, which looks like a haunted castle;—neither tree nor bush is to be seen, and the sides of the mountains are covered with loose stones. The valley has only subterranean inhabitants, and their life produces death. Here are great lead-works, whose unwholesome exhalations are traced on the pallid faces of the workmen. I dressed myself in a black slop, and was driven into one of the entrances,—a gloomy and terrific journey. The passages were cold as ice; pitch-darkness reigned in them, and a cutting wind loaded with a death-like smell blew in our faces. Minute drops fell with a hollow sound from the low roof, which bent us nearly double; and the jolting of the car, which a man dragged slowly over the rugged bottom, completed the picture of horrors.
The delicate state of my chest did not permit me to remain long here, and I gave up all further researches, glad ‘once more to see the rosy light.’
I had now to ride over a new and magnificent military road (for the government has the watchfulness of a bad conscience about Ireland,) over one of the mountains which enclose the valley. The view from the heights was extensive and beautiful, and yet of a very different character from any I had yet seen: it was much improved by a most favourable light thrown by the sun from beneath a line of black clouds. No effect of light gives such clearness and brilliancy to distant objects as this. The rays lay in broad stripes like a glory on the intersecting lines of hills; and the two ‘Sugar Loaves’ stood overtopping all, in deep blue against this clear horizon. The way down the mountain is so serpentine that I could gallop along it with ease. It was nevertheless quite evening before I reached the last valley which I had yet to see in this day’s tour—the Valley of the Seven Churches. Here stood, above a thousand years ago, ‘sic fabula docet,’ a large city with seven churches, which the Danes destroyed. A handsome gateway still remains almost entire, though the key-stone is wanting. Time has repaired this loss by a thick ivy branch, which holds together the whole arch. Seven distinct ruins are, according to the popular belief, the remains of those holy structures which gave its name to the valley. Only one of them indisputably bears this character, and is remarkable from one of the highest of those strange mysterious towers, without doors or windows, which are found near many ruins of religious houses in Ireland. At the further end of the valley, sunk in the deepest hollow and most sacred repose, sleep two dark lakes, celebrated for the adventures of Saint Kevin. The rocks around them are uncommonly steep, and in many places formed like stairs. In one is a narrow and deep cleft, exactly as if cut by a mighty blow. The legend tells that the young giant Fian MacCumhal, being thought by his comrades yet too weak to serve in the war they were then waging, cleft the rock with his sword, and so put an end to their doubts. Further still, in a rock overhanging the lake, you descry a black hole in the cave,—Saint Kevin’s cell.
Here the saint sought refuge from the persecuting love of the king’s beautiful daughter Cathelin, and lived for a long time in solitude on roots and herbs. In a fatal hour the wandering fair-one discovered the fugitive, and surprised him in the dead of night on his mossy couch. With sweet kisses she awakened the ungallant saint; who seeing his danger, took the desperate resolution of pushing Cathelin over the precipice into the lake, where she lost life and love in its dark waters.
But the man of God felt some touch of human pity, and commanded that no other life should ever be lost in these waters,—a charm which, as my guide testified, is in full force to this day. This ‘cicerone’ was a pretty, and as usual half-naked, boy of about eleven; his dress was a specimen of an Irish toilette, worthy of mention. He wore the coat of a grown man, which besides many diaphanous places, was deficient in a sleeve and a half, and one flap, while the other streamed after him like the tail of a comet. Neckcloth, waistcoat, and shirt were dismissed, as wholly superfluous: to make amends, the remains of a pair of red plush breeches made a most magnificent appearance, though in somewhat strong contrast with the naked legs beneath. To see this figure scramble over the rocks like a squirrel, singing all the while bits of “Tommy”[126] Moore and Walter Scott, was certainly characteristic. As he led me to the cave, at a point where the passage was rather slippery, he cried, “Oh you can come on very well; I brought Sir Walter Scott here, and he climbed over the worst places, though he had a lame foot.” He could talk of nothing else; and recited rapidly four lines which Scott or Moore, I forget which, had composed in the cavern. These people are so exactly suited to the wild and ruin-clad country, that without them it would lose much of its romantic interest.