第40章
Fortunately his Magnificence was English, and betrayed no surprise at the arrival in this humble fashion of a dinner guest, but simply summoned the Irish housekeeper, who revived her with wine, and called on all the saints to witness that she'd never heard of such a shameful thing, and such a disgrace to Ballyfuchsia. The idea of not keeping a ladder in a house where the door-knobs were apt to come off struck her as being the worst feature of the accident, though this unexpected and truly Milesian view of the matter had never occurred to us.
"Well, I got Miss Peabody to the dinner-party," said Benella triumphantly, when she was laboriously unlacing my frock, later on, "or at least I got her there before it broke up. I had to walk every step o' the way home, and the donkey laid down four times, but I was so nerved up I didn't care a mite. I was bound Miss Peabody shouldn't lose her chance, after all she's done for me!"
"Her chance?" I asked, somewhat puzzled, for dinners, even Castle dinners, are not rare in Salemina's experience.
"Yes, her chance," repeated Benella mysteriously; "you'd know well enough what I mean, if you'd ben born and brought up in Salem, Massachusetts!"
* * *
Copy of a letter read by Penelope O'Connor, descendant of the King of Connaught, at the dinner of Lord and Lady Killbally at Balkilly Castle. It needed no apology then, but in sending it to our American friends, we were obliged to explain that though the Irish peasants interlard their conversation with saints, angels, and devils, and use the name of the Virgin Mary, and even the Almighty, with, to our ears, undue familiarity and frequency, there is no profane or irreverent intent. They are instinctively religious, and it is only because they feel on terms of such friendly intimacy with the powers above that they speak of them so often.
At the Widdy Mullarkey's, Knockarney House, Ballyfuchsia, County Kerry.
Och! musha bedad, man alive, but it's a fine counthry over here, and it bangs all the jewel of a view we do be havin' from the windys, begorra! Knockarney House is in a wild, remoted place at the back of beyant, and faix we're as much alone as Robinson Crusoe on a dissolute island; but when we do be wishful to go to the town, sure there's ivery convaniency. There's ayther a bit of a jauntin' car wid a skewbald pony for drivin', or we can borry the loan of Dinnis Rooney's blind ass wid the plain cart, or we can just take a fut in a hand and leg it over the bog. Sure it's no great thing to go do, but only a taste of divarsion like, though it's three good Irish miles an' powerful hot weather, with niver a dhrop of wet these manny days. It's a great old spring we're havin' intirely; it has raison to be proud of itself, begob!
Paddy, the gossoon that drives the car (it's a gossoon we call him, but faix he stands five fut nine in his stockin's, when he wears anny)--Paddy, as I'm afther tellin' you, lives in a cabin down below the knockaun, a thrifle back of the road. There's a nate stack of turf fornint it, and a pitaty pot sets beside the doore, wid the hins and chuckens rachin' over into it like aigles tryin' to swally the smell.
Across the way there does be a bit of sthrame that's fairly shtiff wid troutses in the saison, and a growth of rooshes under the edge lookin' that smooth and greeny it must be a pleasure intirely to the grand young pig and the goat that spinds their time by the side of it when out of doores, which is seldom. Paddy himself is raggetty like, and a sight to behould wid the daylight shinin' through the ould coat on him; but he's a dacint spalpeen, and sure we'd be lost widout him. His mother's a widdy woman with nine moidtherin' childer, not countin' the pig an' the goat, which has aquil advantages. It's nine she has livin', she says, and four slapin' in the beds o' glory; and faix I hope thim that's in glory is quieter than the wans that's here, for the divil is busy wid thim the whole of the day. Here's wan o' thim now makin' me as onaisy as an ould hin on a hot griddle, slappin' big sods of turf over the dike, and ruinatin' the timpers of our poulthry. We've a right to be lambastin' thim this blessed minute, the crathurs; as sure as eggs is mate, if they was mine they'd sup sorrow wid a spoon of grief, before they wint to bed this night!
Mistress Colquhoun, that lives at Ardnagreena on the road to the town, is an iligant lady intirely, an' she's uncommon frindly, may the peace of heaven be her sowl's rist! She's rale charitable-like an' liberal with the whativer, an' as for Himself, sure he's the darlin' fine man! He taches the dead-and-gone languages in the grand sates of larnin', and has more eddication and comperhinson than the whole of County Kerry rowled together.
Then there's Lord and Lady Killbally; faix there's no iliganter family on this counthryside, and they has the beautiful quality stoppin' wid thim, begob! They have a pew o' their own in the church, an' their coachman wears top-boots wid yaller chimbleys to thim. They do be very openhanded wid the eatin' and the drinkin', and it bangs Banagher the figurandyin' we do have wid thim! So you see Ould Ireland is not too disthressful a counthry to be divartin' ourselves in, an' we have our healths finely, glory be to God!
Well, we must be shankin' off wid ourselves now to the Colquhouns', where they're wettin' a dhrop o' tay for us this mortial instant.
It's no good for yous to write to us here, for we'll be quittin' out o' this before the letther has a chanst to come; though sure it can folly us as we're jiggin' along to the north.
Don't be thinkin' that you've shlipped hould of our ricollections, though the breadth of the ocean say's betune us. More power to your elbow! May your life be aisy, and may the heavens be your bed!
Penelope O'Connor Beresford.