Do you know the legend of the wood pigeon? If not, then the next time you hear one, listen and it will almost tell it without further words from me. Once a man went to steal a cow in the days when cattle-lifting was the proper thing and, when deep in the forest, declared that the wood pigeons, or doves, as we call them, insisted that he should "take two—coos—Paddy," "take two—coos—Paddy," and so he did, and still these birds of the forest will say to you if you listen, "take two—coos—Paddy," and for ever after you will hear the same as you listen to their voices.
Just now there is one on the yew tree by the terrace steps strongly insisting upon a double depredation on my part of the adjoining pasture, and his plaint grows louder and more insistent as I close the window, leaving him to exercise his corrupting influence upon those who may pass in the night.
Wandering the next morning up the stone steps and nearly in the forest I find an ancient garden of great extent enclosed by a lofty wall. I have already seen such at Doneraile Court and I know that they are charming spots,—something we can never have in America as we have no time for them, our places change hands so constantly. I enter this one at Bannow House through a trellis of white roses embowering a door in the wall and am confronted by a tree fuchsia towering above me and casting its crimson and purple blossoms down on my cap. The enclosure is five acres in size, surrounded by a wall of brick some thirty feet high. Golden and crimson and white roses nod at me from the walls or peer over the top at the deep, cool woods without. Formal beds bordered in privet line the straight walks. Glories of white lilies, purple lilies, scarlet poppies, and nasturtiums throw splotches of colour all around. In the centre stands an old stone sun-dial and passing through an archway, gnarled, squat apple trees and gooseberry bushes are found lining the paths, while to the walls cling plum and pear trees. Flaming hollyhocks light up shadowy corners, and from a distant tool-house an old cat is sedately leading a lot of kittens anything but stately and a great care to their mother. From under a currant bush wanders an old duck, a sad looking dame, acquainted with grief, I doubt not. She recalls to mind when as a child sitting at the feet of my mother I watched the approach of a similar old duck who gravely waddled up and laid close to the hand which had been good to her a fragment of a shell, striking a note of tragedy thereby. We had often fed her on her nest by the brook and now she brought this as a token that some vandal had destroyed her home, and so we found it. As I am thinking of her in this garden far enough off from that brook a stray cat wanders out from a hot-house and sits down to regard me, bottle flies buzz in the sunlight, and I wonder whether there is an outside world of rushing unrest.
Photo by W. Leonard
Carrig-a-pooka Castle