Penelope's Irish Experiences

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

'The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made.'

There are many parts of Ireland where one could not find a habitable house to rent, but in this locality they are numerous enough to make it possible to choose. We had driven over perhaps twenty square miles of country, with the view of selecting the most delectable spot that could be found, without going too far from Rosnaree. The chief trouble was that we always desired every dwelling that we saw. I tell you this with a view of lessening the shock when I confess that, before we came to the Old Hall where we are now settled for a month, and which was Salemina's choice, Francesca and I took two different houses, and lived in them for seven days, each in solitary splendour, like the Prince of Coolavin. It was not difficult to agree upon the district, we were of one mind there: the moment that we passed the town and drove along the flowery way that leads to Devorgilla, we knew that it was the road of destiny.

The whitethorn is very late this year, and we found ourselves in the full glory of it. It is beautiful in all its stages, from the time when it first opens its buds, to the season when 'every spray is white with may, and blooms the eglantine.' There is no hint of green leaf visible then, and every tree is 'as white as snow of one night.' This is the Gaelic comparison, and the first snow seems especially white and dazzling, I suppose, when one sees it in the morning where were green fields the night before. The sloe, which is the blackthorn, comes still earlier and has fewer leaves. That is the tree of the old English song:—

'From the white-blossomed sloe
My dear Chloe requested
A sprig her fair breast to adorn.
“No, by Heav'ns!” I exclaimed, “may I perish,
If ever I plant in that bosom a thorn!”'

And it is not only trees, but hedges and bushes and groves of hawthorn, for a white thorn bush is seldom if ever cut down here, lest a grieved and displeased fairy look up from the cloven trunk, and no Irishman could bear to meet the reproach of her eyes. Do not imagine, however, that we are all in white, like a bride: there is the pink hawthorn, and there are pink and white horse-chestnuts laden with flowers, yellow laburnums hanging over whitewashed farm-buildings, lilacs, and, most wonderful of all, the blaze of the yellow gorse. There will be a thorn hedge struggling with and conquering a grey stone wall; then a golden gorse bush struggling with and conquering the thorn; seeking the sun, it knows no restraints, and creeping through the barriers of green and white and grey, it fairly hurls its yellow splendours in great blazing patches along the wayside. In dazzling glory, in richness of colour, there is nothing in nature that we can compare with this loveliest and commonest of all wayside weeds. The gleaming wealth of the Klondike would make a poor showing beside a single Irish hedgerow; one would think that Mother Earth had stored in her bosom all the sunniest gleams of bygone summers, and was now giving them back to the sun king from whom she borrowed them.

It was at twilight when we first swam this fragrant, golden sea—twilight, and the birds were singing in every bush; the thrushes and blackbirds in the blossoming cherry and chestnut-trees were so many and so tuneful that the chorus was sweet and strong beyond anything I ever heard. There had been a shower or two, of course; showers that looked like shimmering curtains of silver gauze, and whether they lifted or fell the birds went on singing.

“I did not believe such a thing possible but it is lovelier than Pettybaw,” said Francesca; and just here we came in sight of a pink cottage cuddling on the breast of a hill. Pink the cottage was, as if it had been hewed out of a coral branch or the heart of a salmon; pink-washed were the stone walls and posts; pink even were the chimneys; a green lattice over the front was the only leaf in the bouquet. Wallflowers grew against the pink stone walls, and there is no beautiful word in any beautiful language that can describe the effect of that modest, rose-hued dwelling blushing against a background of heather-brown hills covered solidly with golden gorse bushes in full bloom. Himself and I have always agreed to spend our anniversaries with Mrs. Bobby at Comfort Cottage, in England, or at Bide-a-Wee, the 'wee, theekit hoosie' in the loaning at Pettybaw, for our little love-story was begun in the one and carried on in the other; but this, this, I thought instantly, must somehow be crowded into the scheme of red-letter days. And now we suddenly discovered something at once interesting and disconcerting—an American flag floating from a tree in the background.

“The place is rented, then,” said Francesca, “to some enterprising American or some star-spangled Irishman who has succeeded in discovering Devorgilla before us. I well understand how the shade of Columbus must feel whenever Amerigo Vespucci's name is mentioned!”

We sent the driver off to await our pleasure, and held a consultation by the wayside.

“I shall call at any rate,” I announced; “any excuse will serve which brings me nearer to that adorable dwelling. I intend to be standing in that pink doorway, with that green lattice over my head, when Himself arrives in Devorgilla. I intend to end my days within those rosy walls, and to begin the process at the earliest possible moment.”