Chapter XXII. The Weeping West.
'Veiled in your mist, and diamonded with showers.'
Alfred Austin.
Shan Van Vocht Hotel,
Heart of Connemara.
Shan Van Vocht means in English the 'Poor Little Old Woman,' one of the many endearing names given to Ireland in the Gaelic. There is, too, a well-known rebel song called by this title—one which was not only written in Irish and English, but which was translated into French for the soldiers at Brest who were to invade Ireland under Hoche.
We had come from Knockcool, Donegal, to Westport, in County Mayo, and the day was enlivened by two purely Irish touches, one at the beginning and one at the end. We alighted at a certain railway junction to await our train, and were interested in a large detachment of soldiers—leaving for a long journey, we judged, by the number of railway carriages and the amount of luggage and stores. In every crowded compartment there were two or three men leaning out over the locked doors; for the guard was making ready to start. All were chatting gaily with their sweethearts, wives, and daughters, save one gloomy fellow sitting alone in a corner, searching the crowd with sad eyes for a wished-for face or a last greeting. The bell rang, the engine stirred; suddenly a pretty, rosy girl flew breathlessly down the platform, pushing her way through the groups of onlookers. The man's eyes lighted; he rose to his feet, but the other fellows blocked the way; the door was locked, and he had but one precious moment. Still he was equal to the emergency, for he raised his fist and with one blow shattered the window, got his kiss, and the train rumbled away, with his victorious smile set in a frame of broken glass! I liked that man better than any one I've seen since Himself deserted me for his Duty! How I hope the pretty girl will be faithful, and how I hope that an ideal lover will not be shot in South Africa!
And if he was truly Irish, so was the porter at a little way station where we stopped in the dark, after being delayed interminably at Claremorris by some trifling accident. We were eight persons packed into a second-class carriage, and totally ignorant of our whereabouts; but the porter, opening the door hastily, shouted, “Is there anny one there for here?”—a question so vague and illogical that none of us said anything in reply, but simply gazed at one another, and then laughed as the train went on.
We are on a here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow journey, determined to avoid the railways, and travel by private conveyance and the public 'long cars,' just for a glimpse of the Weeping West before we settle down quietly in County Meath for our last few weeks of Irish life.
Thus far it has been a pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas; in fact, we're desthroyed wid the dint of the damp! 'Moist and agreeable—that's the Irish notion both for climate and company.' If the barometer bore any relation to the weather, we could plan our drives with more discretion; but it sometimes remains as steady as a rock during two days of sea mist, and Francesca, finding it wholly regardless of gentle tapping, lost her temper on one occasion and rapped it so severely as to crack the glass. That this peculiarity of Irish barometers has been noted before we are sure, because of this verse written by a native bard:—
'When the glass is up to thirty,
Be sure the weather will be dirty.
When the glass is high, O very!
There'll be rain in Cork and Kerry.
When the glass is low, O Lork!
There'll be rain in Kerry and Cork!'