Part of the drive from Maynooth to Dublin is exceedingly pretty: you are carried through Leixlip, Lucan, Chapelizod, and by scores of parks and villas, until the gas-lamps come in sight. Was there ever a cockney that was not glad to see them; and did not prefer the sight of them, in his heart, to the best lake or mountain ever invented? Pat the waiter comes jumping down to the car and says, ‘Welcome back, sir!’ and bustles the trunk into the queer little bedroom, with all the cordial hospitality imaginable.
CHAPTER XXIV
TWO DAYS IN WICKLOW
THE little tour we have just been taking has been performed, not only by myriads of the ‘car-drivingest, tay-drinking, say-bathingest people in the world,’ the inhabitants of the city of Dublin, but also by all the tourists who have come to discover this country for the benefit of the English nation. ‘Look here!’ says the ragged bearded genius of a guide at the Seven Churches. ‘This is the spot which Mr. Henry Inglis particularly admired, and said it was exactly like Norway. Many’s the song I’ve heard Mr. Sam Lover sing here—a pleasant gentleman entirely. Have you seen my picture that’s taken off in Mrs. Hall’s book? All the strangers know me by it, though it makes me much cleverer than I am.’ Similar tales has he of Mr. Barrow, and the trans-atlantic Willis, and of Crofton Croker, who has been everywhere.
The guide’s remarks concerning the works of these gentlemen inspired me, I must confess, with considerable disgust and jealousy. A plague take them! What remains for me to discover after the gallant adventurers in the service of Paternoster Row have examined every rock, lake, and ruin of the district, exhausted it of all its legends, and ‘invented new’ most likely, as their daring genius prompted? Hence it follows that the description of the two days’ jaunt must of necessity be short; lest persons who have read former accounts should be led to refer to the same, and make comparisons which might possibly be unfavourable to the present humble pages.
Is there anything new to be said regarding the journey? In the first place, there’s the railroad: it’s no longer than the railroad to Greenwich, to be sure, and almost as well known: but has it been done? that’s the question; or has anybody discovered the dandies on the railroad?
After wondering at the beggars and carmen of Dublin, the stranger can’t help admiring another vast and numerous class of inhabitants of the city—namely, the dandies. Such a number of smartly-dressed young fellows, I don’t think any town possesses: no, not Paris, where the young shopmen, with spurs and stays, may be remarked strutting abroad on fête-days; nor London, where on Sundays, in the Park, you see thousands of this cheap kind of aristocracy parading—nor Liverpool, famous for the breed of commercial dandies, desk and counter Dorsays and cotton and sugar-barrel Brummels, and whom one remarks pushing on to business with a brisk determined air—all the above races are only to be encountered on holidays, except by those persons whose affairs take them to shops, docks, or counting-houses, where these fascinating young fellows labour during the week.
But the Dublin breed of dandies is quite distinct from those of the various cities above-named, and altogether superior; for they appear every day, and all day long, not once a week merely, and have an original and splendid character and appearance of their own, very hard to describe, though no doubt every traveller, as well as myself, has admired and observed it. They assume a sort of military and ferocious look, not observable in other cheap dandies, except in Paris perhaps now and then; and are to be remarked not so much for the splendour of their ornaments as for the profusion of them. Thus, for instance, a hat which is worn straight over the two eyes costs very likely more than one which hangs upon one ear; a great oily bush of hair to balance the hat (otherwise the head no doubt would fall hopelessly on one side) is even more economical than a crop which requires the barber’s scissors ofttimes; also a tuft on the chin may be had at a small expense of bear’s-grease by persons of a proper age; and although big pins are the fashion, I am bound to say I have never seen so many or so big as here. Large agate marbles or ‘taws,’ globes terrestrial and celestial, pawnbrokers’ balls,—I cannot find comparisons large enough for these wonderful ornaments of the person. Canes also should be mentioned, which are sold very splendid, with gold or silver heads, for a shilling on the quays; and the dandy not uncommonly finishes off with a horn quizzing-glass, which being stuck in one eye, contracts the brows and gives a fierce determined look to the whole countenance.
In idleness at least these young men can compete with the greatest lords; and the wonder is, how the city can support so many of them, or they themselves; how they manage to spend their time; who gives them money to ride hacks in the ‘Phaynix’ on fields and race days; to have boats at Kingstown during the summer; and to be crowding the railway-coaches all the day long. Cars go whirling about all day, bearing squads of them. You see them sauntering at all the railway-stations in vast numbers, and jumping out of the carriages as the trains come up, and greeting other dandies with that rich large brogue which some actor ought to make known to the English public: it being the biggest, richest, and coarsest of all the brogues of Ireland.
I think these dandies are the chief objects which arrest the stranger’s attention as he travels on the Kingstown railroad, and I have always been so much occupied in watching and wondering at them as scarcely to have leisure to look at anything else during the pretty little ride of twenty minutes, so beloved by every Dublin cockney. The waters of the bay wash in many places the piers on which the railway is built, and you see the calm stretch of water beyond, and the big purple hill of Howth, and the lighthouses, and the jetties, and the shipping. Yesterday was a boat-race (I don’t know how many scores of such take place during the season), and you may be sure there were tens of thousands of the dandies to look on. There had been boat-races the two days previous: before that, had been a field day—before that, three days of garrison races—to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, there are races at Howth. There seems some sameness in the sports, but everybody goes; everybody is never tired; and then I suppose comes the punch-party, and the song in the evening—the same old pleasures, and the same old songs the next day, and so on to the end. As for the boat-race, I saw two little boats in the distance tugging away for the dear life—the beach and piers swarming with spectators, the bay full of small yachts, and innumerable row-boats, and in the midst of the assemblage a convict-ship lying ready for sail, with a black mass of poor wretches on her deck, who too were eager for pleasure.
Who is not, in this country? Walking away from the pier and King George’s column, you arrive upon rows after rows of pleasure-houses, whither all Dublin flocks during the summer time; for every one must have his sea-bathing, and they say that the country houses to the west of the town are to be empty, or had for very small prices; while for those on the coast, especially towards Kingstown, there is the readiest sale at large prices. I have paid frequent visits to one, of which the rent is as great as that of a tolerable London house; and there seems to be others suited to all purses—for instance, there are long lines of two-roomed houses, stretching far back and away from the sea, accommodating, doubtless, small commercial men, or small families, or some of those travelling dandies we have just been talking about, and whose costume is so cheap and so splendid.