The morning of our start from Dublin opens windy and with drifting clouds but is a fair day for hereabouts, and after all these grey skys are very soothing to one's eyes.
Our motor rolls up at ten A.M. and proves to be a handsome new Panhard of fifteen horse-power. Packing and stowing take a half-hour the first day, as economy of space is to be desired, and the proper arrangement of luggage is a question to be considered. However, all is done and I roll off to the "Kildare Street Club," where Boyse awaits me.
His traps necessitate a new arrangement of all the luggage, which I am not allowed to superintend at all, but am carried off to a room well to the rear where a whiskey and soda is vainly pressed upon me. I should much prefer to stay outside and boss the job of loading up, but that would be undignified. So we stay cooped up until all is arranged, and then sally forth and roll away with the utmost grandeur of demeanour. I object several times during the day to the arrangement of those traps, impressing upon Boyse the truth of the old saying, "if you want a thing done, go,—if not, send—" and pointing out to him that therein lies the reason for the increasing glory and prosperity of our country and the evident decadence of the British Empire.
He does not take me as serious,—perhaps I am not,—but daily life must have its spice and we spend many hours like Pat and "Dinnis" on the quay at Cork of a Saturday evening, "fighting each other for conciliation and hating each other for the love of God."
Speeding away through Dublin's busy streets and out into Phœnix Park, existence becomes life once more. The rushing winds drive the last taint of the city and its world of men and women off and away. Beyond the confines of the park we enter at once into the green country; tall hawthorn hedges toss their branches above us as we speed onward, the car moving like a bird. These are not French roads but they are far from bad. Mile after mile glides by us, and a sharp rain forces the top over our heads, but not for long,—it is soon down again, and we give ourselves up for an hour to the enjoyment of mere motion. And then history claims our attention. Dublin is of course rich in its memories but leave it for the present and speeding westward some thirty miles pause at the foot of Tara Hill, the most renowned spot in Ireland. There are few in our Western land who do not remember the sweet old song of Moore's:
"The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled."
And there are many to whom its melodies will recall those better days when voices long since sunken into silence sang them off into dreamland with those words.
Green grow the grasses to-day over this site of Ireland's most ancient capital. Gone are its garland-hung walls, silent its harps for ever.