Penelopes Irish Experiences | Page 7

do indeed," we agreed, "and the plan is quite worthy of you; we can say no more."
We had now developed so many more ideas than we could possibly use that the labour of deciding among them was the next thing to be done. Each of us stood out boldly for her own project,--even Francesca clinging, from sheer wilfulness, to her worthless and absurd itineraries,--until, in order to bring the matter to any sort of decision, somebody suggested that we consult Benella; which reminds me that you have not yet the pleasure of Benella's acquaintance.
Chapter III.
We sight a derelict.
'O Bay of Dublin, my heart you're troublin', Your beauty haunts me like a fever dream.' Lady Dufferin.
To perform the introduction properly I must go back a day or two. We had elected to cross to Dublin directly from Scotland, an easy night journey. Accordingly we embarked in a steamer called the Prince or the King of something or other, the name being many degrees more princely or kingly than the craft itself.
We had intended, too, to make our own comparison of the Bay of Dublin and the Bay of Naples, because every traveller, from Charles Lever's Jack Hinton down to Thackeray and Mr. Alfred Austin has always made it a point of honour to do so. We were balked in our conscientious endeavour, because we arrived at the North Wall forty minutes earlier than the hour set by the steamship company. It is quite impossible for anything in Ireland to be done strictly on the minute, and in struggling not to be hopelessly behind time, a 'disthressful counthry' will occasionally be ahead of it. We had been told that we should arrive in a drizzling rain, and that no one but Lady Dufferin had ever on approaching Ireland seen the 'sweet faces of the Wicklow mountains reflected in a smooth and silver sea.' The grumblers were right on this special occasion, although we have proved them false more than once since.
I was in a fever of fear that Ireland would not be as Irish as we wished it to be. It seemed probable that processions of prosperous aldermen, school directors, contractors, mayors, and ward politicians, returning to their native land to see how Herself was getting on, the crathur, might have deposited on the soil successive layers of Irish-American virtues, such as punctuality, thrift, and cleanliness, until they had quite obscured fair Erin's peculiar and pathetic charm. We longed for the new Ireland as fervently as any of her own patriots, but we wished to see the old Ireland before it passed. There is plenty of it left (alas! the patriots would say), and Dublin was as dear and as dirty as when Lady Morgan first called it so, long years ago. The boat was met by a crowd of ragged gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of them stockingless, and in men's shoes, and several of them with flowers in their unspeakable hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting cars because we had not been expected so early, and the jarveys were in attendance on the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for a piece of lost luggage that I saw the stewardess assisting a young woman off the gang plank, and leading her toward a pile of wool bags on the dock. She sank helplessly on one of them, and leaned her head on another. As the night had been one calculated to disturb the physical equilibrium of a poor sailor, and the breakfast of a character to discourage the stoutest stomach, I gave her a careless thought of pity and speedily forgot her. Two trunks, a holdall, a hatbox--in which reposed, in solitary grandeur, Francesca's picture hat, intended for the further undoing of the Irish gentry--a guitar case, two bags, three umbrellas; all were safe but Salemina's large Vuitton trunk and my valise, which had been last seen at Edinburgh station. Salemina returned to the boat, while Francesca and I wended our way among the heaps of luggage, followed by crowds of ragamuffins, who offered to run for a car, run for a cab, run for a porter, carry our luggage up the street to the cab-stand, carry our wraps, carry us, 'do any mortial thing for a penny, melady, an' there is no cars here, melady, God bless me sowl, and that He be good to us all if I'm tellin' you a word of a lie!'
Entirely unused to this flow of conversation, we were obliged to stop every few seconds to recount our luggage and try to remember what we were looking for. We all met finally, and I rescued Salemina from the voluble thanks of an old woman to whom she had thoughtlessly given a three-penny bit. This mother of a 'long