ORIGINAL.
THE TALE OF A TOMBSTONE.
BY D. O'C. TOWNLEY.
It is quite true to say, that the American makes a mistake who, in his European tour, leaves Ireland out in the cold unvisited. He at least fails to make an acquaintance which could not prove otherwise than interesting, and possibly to find a burying-place where, if he had them, he might dispose of his superfluous prejudices bearing upon that island and its people—prejudices for the most part begotten of ill-directed reading or formed with the hasty conclusions of a very limited experience.
If a politician, he cannot fail to learn, ere he travels many miles, whether in Connaught or in Ulster, what he ought not to do with a people having a desire to see them prosperous and contented. If a historian, he may find food for a chapter unwritten by Hume and Smollet, or even by the more impartial Macaulay; a chapter which may throw some light upon the cause, ever obscurely and often untruthfully given, whose effect is that spirit of retrogression which hovers over the unhappy island and lays its blighting hand upon every acre from Cork to the Giant's Causeway. If he be a painter, a poet, or a novelist, he may find in Ireland and her people an Eldorado with mines as inexhaustible as the ore is rich. If a tourist merely, even such a one as does London in a fortnight, Paris in a week, and the Rhine on the fastest steamer upon that ancient river—that brilliant soul who takes his sleep o' moonlit nights, and on the days which follow, sits yawning over dinner till the shadows fall, and the storied head· [{793}] lands have been passed unseen—even such as he, stupid or blasé, as the case may be, may find in Ireland something to awake to momentary energy, at least, his sleeping thought and action.
Approaching the fall of 18—, having done the continental celebrities the year before, and having been in England since early in the month of May, I concluded, before returning to New York, that I should pay a flying visit to the emerald cradle of that prolific race, which is, in the language of the stump, when it suits the orators to say so, the bone and sinew of these States; the great level which uproots our forests; the great spade which hollows our canals; the huge pick and shovel and barrow, that lay our iron roads over mountain and morass; and the mighty polling power which develops the peculiarities of legislators, contributes most generously to the revenue of the excise, and to the sustenance of the many good and bad people whose business of life it is to get this truly erratic people into all manner of trouble, including jails, and out of it.
With no prejudices against the Irish people, and some clear-sightedness as to the causes of their proverbial discontent, unthriftiness, and frequent turbulence, I went quite ready to sorrow or be glad, just as either mood was suggested by my surroundings; neither to sneer at their emotional enthusiasm nor to turn disgusted from their hilarious mirth.
Crossing from Holyhead to Dublin, I remained in that city for a few days, then visited the south and west, leaving the industrious north to finish off with. But as the purpose of this sketch is not to retail either impressions of the country or its people, or all the personal experiences of my journey, I must proceed to the narration of the single incident, the object of this writing, referring the reader, if his appetite lean in the direction, to the pencillings of Mr. Willis or the much more truthful story-telling of Mrs. Hall. My immediate purpose is gained if I have in a slight degree awakened the reader's interest for that which follows, and if he understands that I had now almost reached that period which I had set down for the close of my tour and my return home.
Of the month I had set apart for Ireland—the bonne bouche, or, if you like the Celtic better, the "doch an durhas" of my feast—I had but one week left when I found myself at Warrenpoint, a pleasant watering place on the margin of the bay of Carlingford, going northward to Belfast. Here I had been two days, rather longer than I had proposed to remain, but the season and the place at this time of the year are especially attractive. So near Ireland's' highest mountain as I then was, it occurred to me how discreditable the confession would be that I had not seen it save in the purple distance, and I concluded to do myself the honor of a near acquaintance—sit upon its topmost ridge, and rifle a sprig of heather from its venerable crown as a relic of the nearest spot to heaven on the Isle of Saints.