The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 by Maria Edgeworth

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Next day, sun shining and a good breakfast, our spirit of travelling
adventure up within us, we determined that, before proceeding on our
main adventure into Connemara, we would make a little episode to see a
wonderful cave in the neighbourhood. Our curiosity to see it had been
excited by the story of the lady and the white trout in _Lover's
Legends_. It is called the Pigeon-hole; not the least like a
pigeon-hole, but it is a subterraneous passage, where a stream flows
which joins the waters of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. Outerard is on
the borders of Lough Corrib, and we devoted this day to boating across
Lough Corrib, to see this famous cavern, which is on the opposite side
of the lake, and also to see a certain ruined monastery. We passed over
the lake, admiring its beauty and its many islands--little bits of
islands, of which the boatmen tell there are three hundred and
sixty-five; be the same more or less, one for every day in the year at
least. We saw the ruins, which are very fine; but I have not time to say
more about them. We crossed the churchyard and a field or two, and all
was as flat, and bare, and stony as can be imagined; and as we were
going and going farther from the shore of the lake, I wondered how and
when we were to come to this cavern. The guide called me to stop, and I
stopped; and well I did: I was on the brink of the Pigeon-hole--just
like an unfenced entrance to a deep deep well. The guide went down
before us, and was very welcome! Down and down and down steps almost
perpendicular, and as much as my little legs could do to reach from one
to the other; darker and darker, and there were forty of them I am sure,
well counted--though certainly I never counted them, but was right glad
when I felt my feet at the bottom, on _terra firma_ again, even in
darkness, and was told to look up, and that I had come down sixty feet
and more. I looked up and saw glimmering light at the top, and as my
eyes recovered, more and more light through the large fern leaves which
hung over the opening at top, and the whole height above looked like the
inside of a limekiln, magnified to gigantic dimensions, with
lady-fern--it must be lady-fern, because of the fairies--and lichens,
names unknown, hanging from its sides. The light of the sun now
streaming in I saw plainly, and felt why the guide held me fast by the
arm--I was on the brink of the very narrow dark stream of water, which
flowed quite silently from one side of the cavern to the other! To that
other side, my eye following the stream as it flowed, I now looked, and
saw that the cavern opened under a high archway in the rock. How high
that was, or how spacious, I had not yet light enough to discern. But
now there appeared from the steps down which we had descended an old
woman with a light in her hand. Our boy-guide hailed her by the name of
Madgy Burke. She scrambled on a high jut of rock in the cavern; she had
a bundle of straw under one arm, and a light flickering in the other
hand, her grizzled locks streaming, her garments loose and tattered, all
which became suddenly visible as she set fire to a great wisp of straw,
and another and another she plucked from her bundle and lighted, and
waved the light above and underneath. It was like a scene in a melodrama
of Cavern and Witch--the best cavern scene I ever beheld. As she
continued to throw down, from the height where she stood, the lighted
bundles of straw, they fell on the surface of the dark stream below, and
sailed down the current, under the arch of the cavern, lighting its roof
at the vast opening, and looking like tiny fire-ships, one after another
sailing on, and disappearing. We could not help watching each as it
blazed, till it vanished. We looked till we were tired, then turned and
clambered up the steps we had scrambled down, and found ourselves again
in broad daylight, in upper air and on the flat field; and the illusion
was over, and there stood, turned into a regular old Irish beggar-woman,
the Witch of Outerard, and Madgy Burke stood confessed, and began to
higgle with Sir Culling and to flatter the English quality for a
sixpence more.

Meanwhile we were to cross Lough Corrib; and well for us that we had the
prudence to declare, early in the morning, that we would not take a
sail-boat, for a sail-boat is dangerous in the sudden squalls which rise
in these mountain regions and on these lakes, very like the Swiss lakes
for that matter. For instance, on the Lake de Lucerne, I have seen
sunshine and glassy surface change in five minutes to storm and cloud so
black and thick, that Mont Pilate himself could not be discerned through
it more than if he never stood there in all his sublimity.

Our day had changed, and very rough was the lake; and the boatmen, to
comfort us and no doubt amuse themselves, as we rose up and down on the
billows, told us stories of boats that had been lost in these storms,
and of young Mr. Brown last year, that was drowned in a boat within view
of his brother standing on that island, which we were just then to pass.
"And when so near he could almost have reached him, you'd have thought."

"And why didn't he, then?" said I.

"Oh, bless you, ma'am, he couldn't; for," said the boatman, dropping his
oar, which I did not like at all, "for, mind you, ma'am, it was all done
in the clap of one's hand," and he clapped his hands.

"Well, take up your oar," cried I; which he did, and rowed amain, and we
cleared Brown's Island, and I have no more dangers, fancied or other, to
tell you; and after two hours' hard rowing, which may give you the
measure of the width of Lough Corrib at this place, we landed, and were
right glad to eat Mrs. O'Flaherty's ready dinner, Lough Corrib
trout--not the White Lady trout.

Sir Culling had intended to pursue his road this evening and reach Lough
Corrib Lodge to sleep, but before we got the first mouthful of dinner
into our mouths it was stone-dark, whatever kind of darkness that is,
and we agreed on old George's excellent principle to leave it till
"morning, ma'am, if you please."

So the morning came, and a fine morning still it was; and we set out,
leaving Mrs. O'Flaherty curtseying and satisfied. I cannot make out any
wonders, or anything like an adventure between Outerard and Corrib
Lodge; only the road was rough and the country like the Isle of
Anglesea, as if stones and fragments of rock had showered down on the
earth and tracts of bog-heath such as England never saw and Scotland
seldom sees, except in the Highlands. We were only about twice the time
that Sir Culling had calculated on getting over this part of the road
with our powerful Galway horses and steady drivers, and reaching Corrib
Lodge Sir Culling said: "These roads are not so very bad, we shall get
on, Miss Edgeworth, very well, you will see."

Corrib Lodge is a neat bleak-looking house, which Mr. Nimmo built for
his own residence when he was overseer of the roads, now turned into an
inn, kept by his Scotch servant, who used to come with him to
Edgeworthstown, and he gave us bread and butter and milk, and moreover,
hare-soup, such as the best London tavern might have envied. For
observe, that hares abound in these parts, and there is no sin in
killing them, and how the cook came to be so good I cannot tell you, but
so it certainly was. Invigorated and sanguine, we were ready to get into
the carriage again, purposing to reach Clifden this evening--it was now
three o'clock; we had got through half our thirty-six miles; no doubt we
could easily, Sir Culling argued, manage the other half before dark. But
our wary Scotch host shook his head and observed, that if his late
master Mr. Nimmo's road was but open so we might readily, but Mr.
Nimmo's new road was not opened, and why, because it was not finished.
Only one mile or so remained unfinished, and as that one mile of unmade
unfinished road was impassable by man, boy, or Connemara pony, what
availed the new road for our heavy carriage and four horses? There was
no possibility of _going round_, as I proposed; we must go the old road,
if road it could be called, all bog and bog-holes, as our host explained
to us: "It would be wonderful if we could get over it, for no carriage
had ever passed, nor ever thought of attempting to pass, nothing but a
common car these two years at least, except the Marquis of Anglesea and
suite, _and_ his Excellency was on horseback." As for such a carriage as
Sir Culling's, the like, as men and boys at the door told us, had never
been seen in these parts.

Sir Culling stood a little daunted. We inquired--I particularly, how far
it was to Ballinahinch Castle, where the Martins live, and which I knew
was some miles on this side of Clifden. I went into Corrib Lodge and
wrote with ink on a visiting ticket with "Miss Edgeworth" on it, my
compliments, and Sir Culling and Lady Smith's, a petition for a night's
hospitality, to use in case of our utmost need.

The Scotchman could not describe exactly how many _bad steps_ there
were, but he forewarned us that they were bad enough, and as he
sometimes changed the words _bad steps_ into _sloughs_, our Galway
postillions looked graver and graver, hoped they should get their horses
over, but did not know; they had never been this road, never farther
than Outerard, but they would do all that men and beasts could do.

The first bad step we came to was indeed a slough, but only a couple of
yards wide across the road. The horses, the moment they set their feet
upon it, sank up to their knees, and were whipped and spurred, and they
struggled and floundered, and the carriage, as we inside passengers
felt, sank and sank. Sir Culling was very brave and got down to help.
The postillions leaped off, and bridles in hand gained the _shore_, and
by dint of tugging, and whipping, and hallooing, and dragging of men and
boys, who followed from Corrib Lodge, we were got out and were on the
other side.

Farther on we might fare worse from what we could learn, so in some
commotion we got out and said we would rather walk. And when we came to
the next bad step, the horses, seeing it was a slough like the first,
put back their ears and absolutely refused to set foot upon it, and they
were, the postillions agreed, quite right; so they were taken off and
left to look on, while by force of arms the carriage was to be got over
by men and boys, who shouting, gathered from all sides, from mountain
paths down which they poured, and from fields where they had been at
work or loitering; at the sight of the strangers they flocked to
help--such a carriage had never been seen before--to help common cars,
or jaunting cars over these bad steps they had been used. "This heavy
carriage! sure it was impossible, but sure they might do it." And they
talked and screamed together in English and Irish equally unintelligible
to us, and in spite of all remonstrance about breaking the pole--pole,
and wheels, and axle, and body, they seized of the carriage, and
standing and jumping from stone to stone, or any tuft of bog that could
bear them, as their practised eyes saw; they, I cannot tell you how,
dragged, pushed, and _screamed_ the carriage over. And Sir Culling got
over his way, and Lady Smith would not be carried, but leaping and
assisted by men's arms and shouts, she got to the other side. And a
great giant, of the name of Ulick Burke, took me up in his arms as he
might a child or a doll, and proceeded to carry me over--while I,
exceedingly frightened and exceedingly civil, and (as even in the moment
of most danger I could not help thinking and laughing within me at the
thought) very like Rory in his dream on the eagle's back, in his journey
to the moon, I kept alternately flattering my giant, and praying--"Sir,
sir, pray set me down; do let me down now, sir, pray."

"Be asy; be _quite_, can't you, dear, and I'll carry you over to the
other side safely, all in good time," floundering as he went.

"Thank you, sir, thank you. Now, sir, now set me down, if you will be so
very good, on the bank."

Just as we reached the bank he stumbled and sank knee-deep, but threw
me, as he would a sack, to shore, and the moment I felt myself on _terra
firma_, I got up and ran off, and never looked back, trusting that my
giant knew his own business; and so he did, and all dirt and bog water,
was beside me again in a trice. "Did not I carry you over well, my lady?
Oh, it's I am used to it, and helped the Lord Anglesea when he was in
it."

So as we walked on, while the horses were coming over, I don't know how,
Ulick and a tribe of wild Connemara men and boys followed us, all
talking at once, and telling us there were twenty or thirty such bad
steps, one worse than another, farther and farther on. It was clear that
we could not walk all the twelve miles, and the men and Sir Culling
assuring us that they would get us safe over, and that we had better get
into the carriage again, and in short that we _must_ get in, we
submitted.

I confess, Pakenham, I was frightened nearly out of my wits. At the next
trial Lady Culling Smith was wonderfully brave, and laughed when the
carriage was hauled from side to side, so nearly upset, that how each
time it escaped I could not tell; but at last, when down it sank, and
all the men shouted and screamed, her courage fell, and she confessed
afterwards she thought it was all over with us, and that we should never
be got out of this bog-hole. Yet out we were got; but how? what with the
noise, and what with the fright, far be it from me to tell you. But I
know I was very angry with a boy for laughing in the midst of it: a
little dare-devil of a fellow, as my giant Ulick called him; I could
with pleasure have seen him ducked in bog water! but forgot my anger in
the pleasure of safe landing, and now I vowed I could and would walk the
whole ten miles farther, and would a thousand times rather.

My scattered senses and common sense returning, it now occurred to me
that it would be desirable to avail myself of the card I had in my bag,
and beg a night's lodging at our utmost need. It was still broad
daylight, to be sure, and Sir Culling still hoped we should get on to
Clifden before dark. But I did request he would despatch one of these
gossoons to Ballinahinch Castle with my card immediately. It could do no
harm I argued, and Lady Smith seconded me with, "Yes, dear Culling,
_do_," and my dear giant Ulick backed me with, "Troth, you're right
enough, ma'am. Troth, sir, it will be dark enough soon, and long enough
before you're clean over them sloughs, farthest on beyant where we can
engage to see you over. Sure, here's my own boy will run with the speed
of light with the lady's card."

I put it into his hand with the promise of half a crown, and how he did
take to his heels!

We walked on, and Ulick, who was a professional wit as well as a giant,
told us the long-ago tale of Lord Anglesea's visit to Connemara, and how
as he walked beside his horse this gentleman-lord, as he was, had axed
him which of his legs he liked best.

Now Ulick knew right well that one was a cork leg, but he never let on,
as he told us, and pretended the one leg was just the same as t'other,
and he saw no differ in life, "which pleased my lord-liftenant greatly,
and then his lordship fell to explaining to me why it was cork, and how
he lost it in battle, which I knew before as well as he did, for I had
larned all about it from our Mr. Martin, who was expecting him at the
castle, but still I never let on, and handled the legs one side of the
horse and t'other and asy found out, and tould him, touching the cork,
'sure this is the more _honourable_.'"

Which observation surely deserved, and I hope obtained half a crown. Our
way thus beguiled by Ulick's Irish wit, we did not for some time feel
that we could not walk for ever. Lady Culling Smith complained of being
stiff and tired, and we were compelled to the carriage again, and
presently heavy dews of evening falling, we were advised to let down
those fairy-board shutters I described to you, which was done with care
and cost of nails. I did it at last, and oh! how I wished it up again
when we were boxed up, and caged in without the power of seeing more
than glimpses of our danger--glimpses heightening imagination, and, if
we were to be overturned, all this glass to be broken into our eyes and
ears.

Well! well! I will not wear your sympathy and patience eighteen times
out, with the history of the eighteen sloughs we went, or were got,
through at the imminent peril of our lives. Why the carriage was not
broken to pieces I cannot tell, but an excellent strong carriage it was,
thank Heaven, and the builder whoever he was.

I should have observed to you that while we yet could look about us, we
had continually seen, to increase our sense of vexation, Nimmo's new
road looking like a gravel walk running often parallel to our path of
danger, and yet for want of being finished there it was, useless and
most tantalising.

Before it grew quite dark, Sir Culling tapped at our dungeon window, and
bid us look out at a beautiful place, a paradise in the wilds. "Look
out? How?"--"Open the little window at your ear, and this just before
you--push the bolt back."--"But I can't."

With the help of an ivory cutter lever, however, I did accomplish it,
and saw indeed a beautiful place belonging, our giant guide told us, to
Dean Mahon, well wooded and most striking in this desert.

It grew dark, and Sir Culling, very brave, walking beside the carriage,
when we came to the next bad step, sank above his knees; how they
dragged him out I could not see, and there were we in the carriage stuck
fast in a slough, which, we were told, was the last but one before
Ballinahinch Castle, when my eyes were blessed with a twinkling light in
the distance--a boy with a lantern. And when, breathless, he panted up
to the side of the carriage and thrust up lantern and note (we still in
the slough), how glad I was to see him and it! and to hear him say,
"Then Mr. Martin's very unaasy about yees--so he is."

"I am very glad of it--very glad indeed," said I. The note in a nice
lady's hand from Mrs. Martin greeted us with the assurance that Miss
Edgeworth and her English friends should be welcome at Ballinahinch
Castle.

Then from our mob another shout! another heave! another drag, and
another lift by the spokes of the wheels. Oh! if they had broken!----but
they did not, and we were absolutely out of this slough. I spare you the
next and last, and then we wound round the _Lake-road_ in the dark, on
the edge of Ballinahinch lake on Mr. Martin's new road, as our dear
giant told us, and I thought we should never get to the house, but at
last we saw a chimney on fire, at least myriads of sparks and spouts of
flame, but before we reached it, it abated, and we came to the door
without seeing what manner of house or castle it might be, till the hall
door opened and a butler--half an angel he appeared to us--appeared at
the door. But then in the midst of our impatience I was to let down and
buckle up these fairy boards--at last swinging and slipping it was
accomplished, and out we got, but with my foot still on the step we all
called out to tell the butler we were afraid some chimney was on fire.
Without deigning even to look up at the chimney, he smiled and motioned
us the way we should go. He was as we saw at first view, and found
afterwards, the most imperturbable of men.

And now that we are safely housed, and housed in a castle too, I will
leave you, my dear Pakenham, for the present.

_March 12_.

What became of the chimney on fire, I cannot tell--the Imperturbable was
probably right in never minding it; he was used to its ways of burning
out, and being no more thought of.

He showed us into a drawing-room, where we saw by firelight a lady
alone--Mrs. Martin, tall and thin, in deep mourning. Though by that
light, but dimly visible, and by our eyes _dazed_ as they were just
coming out of the dark, but imperfectly seen, yet we could not doubt at
first sight that she was a lady in the highest sense of the word,
perfectly a gentlewoman. And her whole manner of receiving us, and the
ease of her motions, and of her conversation, in a few moments convinced
me that she must at some time of her life have been accustomed to live
in the best society--the best society in Ireland; for it was evident
from her accent that she was a _native_--high-life Dublin tone of about
forty years ago. The curls on her forehead, mixed with gray, prematurely
gray, like your mother's, much older than the rest of her person.

She put us at ease at once, by beginning to talk to us, as if she was
well acquainted with my family--and so she was from William, who had
prepossessed her in our favour, yet she did not then allude to him,
though I could not but understand what she meant to convey--I liked her.

Then came in, still by firelight, from a door at the farther end of the
room, a young lady, elegantly dressed in deep mourning. "My
daughter--Lady Culling Smith--Miss Edgeworth:" slight figure, head held
up and thrown back. She had the resolution to come to the very middle of
the room and make a deliberate and profound curtsey, which a
dancing-master of Paris would have approved; seated herself upon the
sofa, and seemed as if she never intended to speak. Mrs. Martin showed
us up to our rooms, begging us not to dress unless we liked it before
dinner; and we did not like it, for we were very much tired, and it was
now between eight and nine o'clock. Bedchambers spacious. Dinner, we
were told, was ready whenever we pleased, and, well pleased, down we
went: found Mr. Martin in the drawing-room--a large Connemara gentleman,
white, massive face; a stoop forward in his neck, the consequence of a
shot in the Peninsular War.

"Well! will you come to dinner? dinner's ready. Lady Culling Smith, take
my arm; Sir Culling, Miss Edgeworth."

A fine large dining-room, and standing at the end of the table an
odd-looking person, below the middle height, youngish, but the top and
back of his head perfectly bald, like a bird's skull, and at each temple
a thick bunch of carroty red curly hair, thick red whiskers and light
blue eyes, very fair skin and carnation colour. He wore a long green
coat, and some abominable coloured thing round his throat, and a look as
if he could not look at you, and would. I wondered what was to become of
this man, and he looked as if he wondered too. But Mr. Martin, turning
abruptly, said, "M'Hugh! where are you, man? M'Hugh, sit down man,
here!"

And M'Hugh sat down. I afterwards found he was an essential person in
the family: M'Hugh here, M'Hugh there; very active, acute, and ready,
and bashful, a daredevil kind of man, that would ride, and boat, and
shoot in any weather, and would at any moment hazard his life to save a
fellow-creature's. Miss Martin sat opposite to me, and with the light of
branches of wax candles full upon her, I saw that she was very young,
about seventeen, very fair, hair which might be called red by rivals and
auburn by friends, her eyes blue-gray, prominent, like pictures I have
seen by Leonardo da Vinci.

But Miss Martin must not make me forget the dinner, and such a dinner!
London _bon vivants_ might have blessed themselves! Venison such as Sir
Culling declared could not be found in England, except from one or two
immense parks of noblemen favoured above their peers; salmon, lobsters,
oysters, game, all well cooked and well served, and well placed upon the
table: nothing loaded, all _in_ good taste, as well as _to_ the taste;
wines, such as I was not worthy of, but Sir Culling knew how to praise
them; champagne, and all manner of French wines.

In spite of a very windy night, I slept admirably well, and wakened with
great curiosity to see what manner of place we were in. From the front
windows of my room, which was over the drawing-room, I looked down a
sudden slope to the only trees that could be seen, far or near, and only
on the tops of them. From the side window a magnificent but desolate
prospect of an immense lake and bare mountains.

When I went down, and to the hall door at which we had entered the night
before, I was surprised to see neither mountains, lake, nor river--all
flat as a pancake--a wild, boundless sort of common, with showers of
stones; no avenue or regular approach, no human habitation within view:
and when I walked up the road and turned to look at the castle, nothing
could be less like a castle. From the drawing I send you (who it was
done by I will tell you by and by), you would imagine it a real castle,
bosomed high in trees. Such flatterers as those portrait-painters of
places are! And yet it is all true enough, if you see it from the right
point of view. Much I wished to see more of the inhabitants of this
castle, but we were to pursue our way to Clifden this day; and with
these thoughts balancing in my mind of _wish_ to stay, and _ought_ to
go, I went to breakfast--coffee, tea, hot rolls, ham, all luxuries.

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