Blue-Stocking Hall, (Vol. 2 of 3)

by William Pitt Scargill

This transcendent spot was the limit of our excursion, and how can I, in general terms, more aptly sum up its attractions than in telling you, that reeking, as we were, from Killarney, the matchless scenery of which was still vibrating on every retina, shadowed in our imaginations and resting in the hearts of all our party, who felt as if nature was reposing, admiration drained to its dregs, and language run out, by all that we had been called upon to see, think, and feel, so recently, Glengariffe strung each palsied nerve anew. We rose "like giants refreshed with wine," and experienced that delight which only the highest excitement of mental or physical excellence occasionally produces, namely a consciousness of power within ourselves, of which, till thus extraordinarily elicited, we do not dream of being in possession. Perhaps this is one of the most pleasurable feelings of the human mind, and we now enjoyed it rapturously, surprising our own ears with the awakened flow of eloquence, poured out from fountains which might have been supposed already exhausted; and admiring beauties in all around, the greatest charm of which, though sometimes undiscerned, is the vivid reflection from our own souls. But you must only glance your eye along that blue expanse, and catch a hasty glimpse of that splendid bay, where the concentrated powers of France, while menacing destruction, were themselves destroyed. Before we regain our inn, and rejoin our friends, you must pause for a moment with me in a scene which, from its singularity, delayed our retrograde progress.

Having mounted our shaggy steeds, we turned our faces, like Sir Bertram, "to the wolds," and conceitedly imagined ourselves able to retrace, unassisted, the homeward path; but we were mistaken; and after proceeding for sometime without meeting a living creature of whom to ask the way, we at length espied a thing scarcely human, naked almost to the hips, and trotting at a quick, equal pace, holding a staff horizontally in both hands, and having a tattered weather-beaten bag that looked like an old Spanish wine skin, strapped upon his back.

"Who, and what are you?" exclaimed Russel.

This was not a conciliating address, and accordingly it was rudely answered: "May be as good as yourself. I am a post; and my father was a post before me."

This letter-carrier for so we interpreted him to be, never relaxed his steady trot, nor condescended to be angry. Calm contempt appeared to be the feeling which dictated his reply; and he would have passed on his way with-deigning to look behind him, if Frederick had not said, in his cheerful manner, "My good fellow, I know that you are the very man to tell us how we shall get into the track that leads over the mountain to Killarney, for I have lost my way, and my friends here are strangers?"

The youth immediately became a poste restante, and gazing benignantly on Frederick, setting his voice to a very different modulation from that in which he first spoke and resting his chin on the staff which he now stuck into the ground, he replied, "Why then, indeed, I'd do more than that for ye. Go down till you see the smoke, then turn to the left and face north'ards; turn again to the west, and you'll find a track that will bring you out at the kiln by a short cut, and then you can't miss your way any more, but will get down into the illegant new road, along the upper lake which is so lonesome, and smothered in trees, that you might be murthered there in all aise, and pitched over into the lake, and no one know what become of you during ash nor oak."

"And pray," said Frederick, "how am I to find out north and west in this strange place."

"Then sure, your honour, I suppose, isn't such a poor scholar as that you wouldn't know very well by the sun."

Fred. gave the poor fellow a shilling, and encouraged with this agreeable notice, of the perfect convenience with which we could be "murthered," we pursued our route; and found the instructions which he had received, accurate to a tittle. The smoke, which was the first finger-post in the journey, brought us into a deep ravine, wild, barren, and silent as the grave, yet judging by the wreaths that seemed to be sent up from numerous chimnies that were invisible, populous of human life. We looked for habitations but there was not a single roof to be seen, nor an individual to be met with. Curiosity prompted us to approach nearer to this uncommon defile; and here we found numbers of poor creatures, who, terrified at the sound of so many horses' feet, and dreading a visit from the police, were employed in hastily extinguishing their fires. We speedily tranquillized their minds, and then received that generous welcome and hospitality which the poorest sons and daughters of Erin, never fail to extend to the stranger.

To be a stranger, far from exciting suspicion here, is a free passport to the best which these kind people possess. Whiskey was all which these had to offer, for this was a little colony of illicit distillers. We tasted their pottein (their name here for the purest spirit) to oblige our hosts, and scattering a few pieces of silver amongst them, turned to the left, then to the north, made for the kiln, and were just descending from the moor, into something resembling a road, when a figure stalking along the horizon, of apparently gigantic stature, arrested our attention; we drew up, and as he neared us, we beheld indeed a prodigious form of at least six feet in height, black as Erebus, skin, clothes, and all; and armed with a pole of fully ten feet in length, terminated by an immense bush of holly. Warned by the former incivility which he had excited, Russell now thought proper to leave all enquiries to Frederick, who with a kind, "good morrow my lad," begged to know where this Patagonian was going, and why so accoutered?