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Progressing, we come to the Constabulary Barracks, where a couple of constables, with such moustaches as would make a young Cornet groan, are polishing up their carbines. Our London police are well-favoured in appearance, but if the Irish constables were to take their place, there would not be a single female-servant, to be “warranted heart-whole,” in the great Metropolis, and the very name of Meat-safe would become a by-word and a laughing-stock.
In the river hard by, a girl, standing ankle-deep, from time to time, like the young lady in “the Soldiers Tear” held aloft a snowy—never mind what; and, having plunged it into the stream, and placed it upon a stone, belaboured it (as though it were a drunken husband) with an implement of wood, which much resembled a villager's clumsy cricket-bat.
Two Schools, and one actually at work! real pupils, making the pace too severe to last (when they saw us looking at them), with real slate-pencils over real slates! I wonder whether they were doing the “Irish Arithmetic,” of which O'Hara declares the following to be a faithful specimen:—
“Twice 5 is 6;
The 9s in 4 you can't;
So dot 3, and carry 1;
And let the rest walk!”
Returning, after a prolonged and pleasant stroll, we found the horses in the car, and the driver seated on his box. Now, an English coachman would have yelled at us, and English passengers would have scowled on us, for detaining them; but the Irishman gave us a pleasant smile of recognition, as though it was very kind of us to come back at all, and did not start for full five minutes, to assure us that we had caused no inconvenience. Certainly, it was one of those warm, still, delicious summer days on which nobody wants to start, satisfied with the calm enjoyment of the present, and so absorbed and occupied in doing nothing, that it seems to be quite a triumphal effort to rouse one's-self and light a cigar! At length, our charioteer speaks to his horses, whose drooping heads acknowledge the soporific influence of the day; and, awaking from their favourite night-mares, they bear us on our road to Cork.
Now we pass the tower, antique and ivy-clad, of Carrigadrohid, (nice name for a naughty pointer, requiring frequent reprimands on a broiling day in September!); a handsome residence on the hill beyond, with the pleasant waters of the river Lee, which accompanies us from its source at Gougatie-Barra to Cork, winding below it; and change horses at Dripsey. Between this latter place and Cork, the signs of civilisation became so painfully prominent, and the scenery so excruciatingly English, that, having secured ourselves by our rug-straps, to the iron bar behind us, our “custom always of an afternoon,” when we felt inclined for a siesta, we closed our eyes in sadness, and tried to dream of Connamara and Killarney. But sights, too dreadful for description, scared sleep away. Carts, whereupon was gaudily emblazoned “Albert Bakery,” and “Collard and Collard” fascinated our unwilling gaze; and we shortly found ourselves among the suburbs disgustingly neat, and the houses offensively comfortable, of “that beautiful city called Cork.”
On the right and left, as you approach, are two very imposing and extensive structures, Queen's College, and (“great wit to madness nearly is allied”) the Lunatic Asylum,—the latter so large, that it might have been erected to accommodate those numerous patients who have lost their reason in vain attempts to understand Mr. Bradshaw's Railway Guide.
Cork is, indeed, a “beautiful city,” delightfully situated, handsomely built, and having more the appearance of energy, prosperity, and comfort, than any other city we saw in Ireland. To my fancy the old prophecy is fulfilled,—
“Limerick was, Dublin is, and Cork shall be
The finest city of the three.”