‘Après la pluie le soleil!’ This day has indemnified me for the last. I was on horseback by six o’clock, on my way to breakfast at Captain S—— ‘s country-house, where the sportsmen were to rendezvous for a hare-hunt. I found six or seven sturdy squires assembled: they do not think much, but their life is all the more gay and careless. After we had eaten and drank the most heterogeneous things,—coffee, tea, whiskey, wine, eggs, beef-steaks, honey, mutton-kidneys, cakes, and bread and butter, one after another,—the company seated themselves on two large cars, and took the direction of the Galtee mountains; where, at a distance of about eight miles, the hounds and horses were waiting for us. The weather was fine, and the ride very pleasant, along a ridge of hills commanding a full view of the fruitful plain, enclosed by mountains and richly varied by a multitude of gentlemen’s seats and ruins which are scattered over the whole level country. I enjoyed these beauties, as usual, alone; my companions had only dogs and horses in their heads. A spot was pointed out to me where a strange phenomenon took place ten years ago. A bog which lay at a considerable elevation, forced up probably by subterranean springs, was completely loosened from its bottom, and travelled on in a mass, sixteen feet high and three or four acres in extent. It moved on in a continual zigzag, according to the nature of the objects it encountered; and thus passed over a distance of nine miles till it reached the nearest river, into which it slowly discharged itself, causing an overflow of the waters. The rate of its progress was about three miles an hour. It laid waste every thing in its course. Houses were levelled with the earth at its touch; trees torn up at once by the roots; the fields completely covered, and the valleys filled with bog. An immense multitude had assembled at the end of its course, without the power of offering the slightest resistance to the progress of this awful and majestic phenomenon.
On our arrival at the appointed place of meeting, the horses were there, but no dogs. There were, however, a great many gentlemen, and instead of hunting hares we now all traversed the fields in every direction in search of the stray hounds. The sort of riding on these occasions is a thing of which people in our country can form no idea. Although most of the fields are enclosed by stone hedges from three to six feet high, and either piled loosely together or regularly cemented, and some of them edged by ditches; or strong walls of earth and stones pointed at the top, from five to seven feet high, with a ditch on one, sometimes on both sides;—all this is not admitted as any pretext whatever for the riders to deviate from a straight line. If I mistake not, I have already described to you how wonderfully the horses here leap; the sagacity is also admirable with which they distinguish a loose hedge from a firm one; one recently thrown up, from one hardened by time. The loose ones they spring over at one leap,—‘clear them,’ according to the technical expression; but they take the firm ones more easily, making a sort of halt at the top. All this takes place equally well in a full gallop, or, with the utmost coolness, at a foot pace, or with a very short run. Some gentlemen fell, but were only laughed at; for a man who does not break his neck on the spot must look for no pity, but on the contrary, ridicule. Others dismounted at very bad places, and their docile steeds leaped without them, and then stood still, grazing while their riders climbed over. I can assure you I very often thought I should be compelled to follow their example; but Captain S——, who knew the excellent horse on which he had mounted me, and was always by my side, encouraged me to trust with perfect security to the admirable creature; so that at the end of the day I had acquired a very considerable reputation even among ‘fox-hunters.’ Certainly it is only in Ireland one sees all that horses are capable of; the English are far behind them in this respect. Wherever a man could get through, my horse found means to do so in one way or other, leaping, crawling, or scrambling. Even in swampy places where he sank up to his girths, he laboured through without the least hurry or agitation, where a more lively and timorous horse, though equally strong, would certainly never have made his way. Such a horse on a field of battle would be beyond all price: but only very early and perfect training, joined to the excellence of the breed, can produce such an one. Experience shows that a peculiar bent of education, continued through centuries, ends in rendering the superinduced qualities natural even in animals. I saw pointers in England, which without any training, stood still and pointed as decidedly the first time they were taken out shooting, as if they had been ever so carefully trained.
The price of these admirable horses was extremely reasonable ten years ago, but since the English have begun to buy them for hunting, it is greatly raised, and an Irish hunter of the quality of the one I rode to-day, would fetch from a hundred and fifty to two hundred guineas. At the Galway races I saw a celebrated blood-hunter, for which Lord Cl—— had given the latter sum. He had won every ‘steeple-chase’ he had ever run; was as light as he was powerful, swift as the wind, a child could manage him, and no hedge was too high, no ditch too wide for him.
At length we found the dogs: the men who had the care of them having got completely drunk. Our hunt did not end till the approach of twilight. It was become excessively cold, and the flickering fire, with the table spread before it, shone most agreeably upon us on our arrival at Captain S——’s house. A genuine sportsman’s and bachelor’s feast followed. There was no attempt at show or elegance. Glasses, dishes, and all the furniture of the table, were of every variety of form and date: one man drank his wine out of a liqueur glass, another out of a champagne glass, the more thirsty out of tumblers. One ate with his great-grandfather’s knife and fork, his neighbour with a new green-handled one which the servant had just bought at Cashel fair. There were as many dogs as guests in the room: every man waited on himself; and the meats and potables were pushed on the table in abundance by an old woman and a heavy-fisted groom. The fare was by no means to be despised, nor the wine either, nor the potheen clandestinely distilled in the mountains, which I here tasted for the first time genuine and unadulterated. For sweetening a pudding, two large lumps of sugar were handed about, and we rubbed them together as the savages do sticks for kindling the fire. That the drinking was on a vast and unlimited scale you may safely presume: but though many at last could not speak very articulately, yet no one attempted any thing indecorous or ill-bred; and the few who were much excited, enhanced the merriment by many a ‘bon mot’ or droll story.
I am indebted for the great cordiality, I might say enthusiasm, with which I am received here, to my visit to the ‘Man of the People,’ with whom the curious believe me to be in God-knows-what connection. I am greeted with hurrahs in every village I ride through; and in Cashel, the market-place, in which my inn stands, is daily filled with people, who congregate at an early hour, and cheer me every time I go out. Many press forward and ask leave to shake my hand, (a no very gentle operation,) and are quite happy when they have accomplished this.
We rose from table very late. I was packed into my host’s car with another gentleman, and set off for Cashel through an icy fog. Every individual ran out to my assistance. One would draw a pair of furred gloves on my hands; another lent me a cloak; a third tied a handkerchief round my neck;—every man insisted on doing me some little service: and with many a ‘God bless his Highness!’ I was at length suffered to depart. The gentleman with me, Mr. O’R—, was the most original, and the most drunk of any. Equally bent on doing me some kindness, he invariably made the matter worse than he found it. He unfastened my cloak, in trying to fasten it; tore off my handkerchief, instead of tying it; and fell upon me, in his efforts to make room. His poetical humour displayed itself as characteristically when we reached the Rock of Cashel. It was dreadfully cold, and the cloudless firmament twinkled and glittered as if bestrewn with diamonds. Between the road and the rock, however, a thick mist lay along the earth, and covered the whole surrounding country as with a veil, though it did not rise higher than to the foot of the ruin. Its base was invisible, and it appeared as if it stood built on a cloud in the blue æther, and in the midst of the stars. I had been admiring this striking night-scene some time, when my neighbour, whom I thought asleep, suddenly cried aloud, “Ah, there is my glorious rock! look, how grand! and above all, the sacred place where all my ancestors repose, and where I too shall lie in peace!” After a pause he tried in a fit of greater ecstasy to stand up, which but for me would probably have ended in his falling from the carriage. As soon as he was firm on his legs, he took off his hat reverently, and with a sort of devotion, at once affecting and burlesque, called out with tears in his eyes, “God bless Almighty God, and glory to him!” Notwithstanding the nonsense, I was touched by the feeling which broke through it, and in this at least I sympathized with my whole soul.
October 15th.
Lord H——, whom I knew in London, invited me to spend some days at his beautiful residence in this neighbourhood. This invitation I was obliged to refuse, but went to-day to dine with him. The well-kept pleasure-ground, and the excavation of a hollow for a little lake, recalled to me but too strongly the castle where you, my dear! are now living, to be able to look at it without emotion. When shall we see each other again! when shall we breakfast under the three lime-trees with the swans who so trustingly fed out of our hands, while your tame doves picked up the crumbs at our feet, and the little coco, surprised and jealous, looked at the audacious birds with his wise eyes,—a picture at which the ‘blasé’ man of the world shrugs his shoulders contemptuously, but which touches our hearts in all its native simplicity.
Lord H—— is not one of those Irish nobles who withdraw the whole of their revenues from their country: he sometimes resides there: but he understands his interest so ill, that instead of placing himself at the head of the people, he sets himself in opposition to them. The natural consequence ensues: Lord Llandall, though a Protestant, is beloved:—Lord H—— is hated, though personally he does not appear to me to deserve it. I heard much of his excessive cruelties towards the Catholics, and I was indeed witness to his violent temper on this subject. I think, however, that in this case, as in so many others, the mere change of one’s own point of view alters all the relations of things. This is a grand rule of the practical philosophy of life, and the effect is certain: for the objects are only raw material matter; every thing depends on the manner in which the individual understands and shapes them. How many situations may thus be transformed from black into rose-coloured, as soon as one resolutely takes off the black spectacles, or puts on the rose-coloured ones. With what spectacles will you read my letter?—I hear your answer, and kiss you for it.
Heaven guard you, and keep you in this mind!