Yesterday we returned home, tearing ourselves away from the lovely African, who however had promised soon to follow us. To-day I took advantage of a leisure day to ride to Castle Hackett, a solitary hill in the neighbourhood, believed by the people to be a favourite resort of the fairies, or ‘good people’ as they call them. No nation is more poetical, or more richly endowed with fancy. An old man who has the care of the woods of Castle Hackett, and has the reputation of knowing more than other men about the ‘good people,’ told us these circumstances connected with the death of his son, in the style of a romance.
“I knew it,” said he, “four days before—I knew he would die; for as I was going home that evening about twilight, I saw them scouring in a wild chase over the plain: their red dresses fluttered in the wind; and the lakes turned to ice as they came near, and walls and trees bowed themselves to the earth before them; and they rode over the tops of the thicket as if it were over the green grass. In front rode the queen, on a white stag-like horse; and by her I saw, with a shudder, my son, whom she smiled upon and caressed; while he, with a fevered eye, looked wistfully at her, till all were past Castle Hackett. Then I knew it was all over with him;—that same day he took to his bed;—on the third I carried him to the grave. There was not a handsomer or a better lad in Connemara, and it was for that the queen chose him.”
The old man seemed so firmly and unaffectedly convinced of the truth of his story, that it would only have offended him to express the least doubt of it. He replied to our inquiries for further details with great readiness, and I promise myself the pleasure of giving you the most accurate description of the dress of the fairy queen for your next masked ball. At the foot of this hill is a pretty country-seat; and the hill itself is covered to its summit with young and thriving plantations. On the top is a sort of artificial ruin, made of loose stones piled together,—laborious and almost dangerous to climb. The view from it is, however, worth the exertion. On two sides the eye wanders over the almost immeasurable plain; on the other two lies Lough Corrib, a lake thirty miles in length, behind which are the mountains of Clare; and in still remoter distance the romantic ridge of Connemara. The lake just at its middle bends inland like a river, and its waters gradually lose themselves between the lofty mountains, which seem to form a gateway for their entrance. Just at this point the sun set; and Nature, who often rewards my love for her, displayed one of her most wondrous spectacles. Black clouds hung over the mountains, and the whole heavens were overcast. Only just at the point where the sun looked out from beneath the dusky veil, issued a stream of light which filled the whole ravine with a sort of unearthly splendour. The lake glittered beneath it like molten brass; while the mountains had a transparent, steel-blue lustre, like the gleam of diamonds. Single streaks of rose-coloured cloud passed slowly across this illumined picture over the mountains; while on both sides of the opened heavens, distant rain fell in torrents, and formed a curtain which shut out every glimpse of the remaining world. Such is the magnificence which Nature has reserved for herself alone, and which even Claude’s pencil could never imitate.
On our way home my young friend discoursed largely on the perfections of Mrs L——. Among other things, he said, “Never with all her vivacity did I see, even for an instant, the least trace of impatience or ill-humour about her; never had a woman a sweeter temper.” This word is, like ‘gentle,’ untranslatable. Only the nation which invented ‘comfort’ was capable of conceiving ‘good temper,’ for ‘good temper’ is to the moral what ‘comfort’ is to the physical man. It is the most contented, the most comfortable state of the soul: the greatest happiness both for those who possess it, and for those who feel its influence. Perhaps it is found in perfection in woman alone; for it is rather a passive than an active quality: and yet we must by no means confound it with mere apathy, which is either tedious, or exasperates one’s anger and contempt; whereas ‘good temper’ soothes and tranquillizes all who approach it. It is a truly kind, loving and cheerful principle; mild and balmy as a cloudless Mayday. With ‘gentleness’ in his own character, ‘comfort’ in his house, and ‘good temper’ in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete. ‘Good temper,’ in the highest sense, is doubtless one of the rarest qualities;—the consequence of an absolute harmony, or equilibrium of the moral powers,—the most perfect health of the soul. Great and striking single qualities cannot therefore be combined with it; for wherever one quality is predominant, the equilibrium is destroyed. It is possible to be most captivating, to inspire passionate love, admiration or esteem, without ‘good temper;’—to be perfectly and lastingly amiable without it, it is impossible. The contemplation of harmony in all things has a salutary effect on the mind; often unconscious of the cause, the soul is gladdened and refreshed by it, whatever be the sense through which it is communicated. A person therefore who is gifted with ‘good temper,’ affords us continual enjoyment, without ever awakening our envy, or exciting any vehement emotion. We gain strength from his tranquillity, courage from his cheerfulness, comfort from his resignation; we feel our anger vanish before his loving patience, and are finally the better and the happier for listening to the spiritual music of his harmony.
How many words, you will say, to describe one! And yet, dear Julia, I have very imperfectly expressed what ‘good temper’ is.
September 13th.
The beautiful view of yesterday evening enticed me to take a nearer survey of what I had beheld at a distance. My obliging friend speedily fitted out an equipage for this purpose, a little ‘char à banc,’ which was drawn by two horses ‘tandem’ (one horse before another). We determined to visit Lake Corrib, Cong and its caverns, and to return in the night. After four hours smart trotting, and some little accidents to our frail tackle, we reached Cong, at a distance of twenty miles, where we ate a breakfast we had brought with us, of lobster prepared after the Irish fashion.[130] Knives and forks were not to be had, so that we adopted the Chinese mode of eating. We then set out to the caverns, accompanied as usual by a half-naked cortège.
Every one of them was on the watch to do us some service: if I stooped to pick up a stone, ten or a dozen scrambled for it, and then asked for money; if there was a gate to open, twenty rushed to it, and expected a like reward. After I had given away all my small money, came one who affirmed that he had shown me some trifle or other. I unwillingly refused him, and told him my purse was empty. “Oh,” said he, “a gentleman’s purse can never be empty!”—no bad answer; for under the form of a compliment lurks a sort of reproach. “You look too much like a ‘gentleman’ not to have money, but if you are so ungenerous as not to give any, you are not a true gentleman; and, if you really have none, still less are you one.” The crowd felt this, and laughed till I bought my deliverance from him.
But to return to the ‘Pigeon-hole.’ It lies in the middle of a field, bare, and treeless, which, although flat, is covered with masses of limestone of a peculiar form, between which the scanty soil is with difficulty cultivated. These pieces of rock are as smooth as if polished by art, and look like stones regularly piled and half prepared for some colossal building. In this rocky plain, at about half a mile from Lough Corrib, is the entrance of the cave, like a broad dark well, in which thirty or forty steps, roughly hewn in the rock, lead down to the stream, which here flows subterraneously, making its way through long and romantic arches, till at length it rises into day, and turns a mill. It then buries itself a second time in the earth, and at length appears again as a broad, deep, and crystal river, and thus flows on till it falls into the lake.
Not far from the cave before which we were now standing lives a ‘Donna del Lago’ who pays the lord of the soil four pounds a-year for the privilege of showing the ‘Pigeon-hole’ to strangers. She was admirably fitted for the porteress of such an entrance to the nether world, and indeed the whole scene could not be better ‘in character,’ as the English say. We had descended the steps in the dark, and heard the rush of invisible waters, when the gigantic, haggard old woman, with a scarlet cloak loosely thrown around her, long streaming white hair, and a firebrand in each hand, came down—the living original of Meg Merrilies. It was a wild scene! Her flickering torches threw fitful gleams on the rolling water, and the lofty vaulted roof bristling with stalactites; and now and then brought out the pale and squalid figures behind her with a broad red glare. She took some bundles of straw, and with words which sounded like an incantation, lighted them and threw them blazing into the stream. As they floated rapidly away, they disclosed new grottoes, more grotesque forms, and at length, after a hundred windings, disappeared in the distance like small tapers. We followed them, scrambling over the slippery stones as far as we could, and discovered here and there a trout in the ice-cold water. They have this peculiarity, that whatever bait may be offered them, no attempt to catch one has ever succeeded. The people of course think them enchanted.