Irish born as I am, there is something in the breath of Ireland that makes my heart rise. The sound of the soft Irish voices is music to my ear. I forgive the slipshod ways because of the general delightfulness. Distressful country as it is—more than ever, now, alas! the battle-ground of factions—from the moment of our landing joyfully on its shores, to the sad hour of parting, our too rare visits to Ireland have been punctuated by kindly and innocent laughter. Impossible, beloved people! They break the heart of the politician and of the reformer; but how enchanting they are to just a foolish person such as I am, who likes to go and live among them and enjoy them without political bias; who can laugh at and with them, and love them as they are!

Our last journey to Ireland began in mirth, and ended in the agonies of a bad passage which accentuated all our regrets. The traject thither had been accomplished with no such drawbacks.

The Master of the Villino is remarkably indifferent to anything the sea can do; but I like to have a comfortable cabin to myself, and a large port-hole for the sea-wind to blow through. I cannot say I’m fond of feeling like the German lover:

between wave and hollow. But it is the woes of other people that really undo me. On this particular passage—a bright fresh day it was, with what’s called, I suppose, “a choppy sea”—I was quite ready to defy the elements, when suddenly there arose, from the next-door cabin, sounds.... No—even in recollection these things are not to be dwelt upon!

“My dear,” said I to my companion, “let us talk and drown the outcries of this shameless and abandoned woman.”

Fortunately I had a companion with whom conversation is always as easy as it is interesting. We began to enjoy our own pleasant humour very much, and did not allow a moment’s silence to fall between us, lest—

We were travelling by North Wall; and when the placidity of the Liffey odoriferously enfolded us, we emerged cheerfully on deck to join some friends, for the sake of whose agreeable company we had chosen this particular route.

The dear little lady who was about to be our hostess we found charitably administering dry biscuits to a very dilapidated-looking, green-faced young woman with the unmistakable appearance of—but again, no!

“Poor Mrs. Saunders has been feeling so faint,” said our friend, with the cheerful sympathy of the good sailor.

We were introduced to the languid one.

“Poor thing,” we said, “you do look bad! Have you been ill?”

One is very crude in one’s questions on board ship.

“Oh, no; not ill!” She flung the suggestion from her with an acid titter. Then rolling a jaundiced eye upon us:

“Were you ill?”

“Oh, no,” we said; “we quite enjoyed the passage.”

The sufferer turned her glance from our brutality to the sympathetic neighbour.

“If I could have slept,” she said plaintively. Then she looked back darkly at us. “There were some horrible people in the cabin next me, who would talk, and talk, and talk.”

“Well,” we exclaimed, and it was indeed in all innocence, “you were at least better off than we were. For there was a creature in the cabin next to us—the most disgusting—the most unbridled—”

It was not till we saw the dreadful rage in her eyes that we realized! It is a horrible little anecdote, but it started us laughing even before we set foot on the quays.

The next incident partakes of the tragi-comedy in which every Irish problem is set. All Ireland stands like one of those figures of mimes on an old drop-curtain; a laughing face behind a tragic mask—or indeed the reverse. We laughed while our hearts grew sad at the sight of a stalwart devil-may-care individual in a frieze coat who strolled up to a group of jarvies while we sat in the cab waiting for our luggage to be loaded. The whole business was conducted with a fine artful carelessness. Now one, now another of the standing group of cab-drivers would lurch up against him of the frieze coat or clasp him jovially by the hand, and there would ensue a passage of coppers from one grimy palm to another. Then out of a deep side-pocket of the frieze coat a black bottle would be drawn, with all the dÉsinvolture of the conjuring trick. No doubt some four yards away on either side stood a policeman; the illicit traffic was conducted, so to speak, under his nose. But, splendid fellow as he is, is he not, too, an Irishman? He knows when to sniff in another direction.

And here we may parenthetically remember a charming and typical spectacle which once met our eyes in the County Wicklow: a local police station, a large placard commanding that all dogs shall be muzzled, and five or six curs of different low degrees snapping untrammelled in the sunshine at the feet of two smiling members of the constabulary.

Some brutish Saxon member of our party stops to point out the discrepancy.

“Unmuzzled, is it?” says the elder policeman genially. “And, begorra, so it is, ma’am. But, sure, isn’t that Tim Connolly’s little dog? Sure, what ’ud we be muzzling him for? Thim orders is only for stray dogs!”

We drove away across the cobbled Dublin streets at a hand gallop. Whether the poor animal that drew us had to be kept at this unnatural speed lest it should collapse altogether, or whether our “jarvey” had had more than one pull at the black bottle I know not; certainly we went in peril of our lives. Shaving off corners, striking the edge of the curb, oscillating violently from side to side, the antique vehicle threatened at every leap and bound to break into fragments like a pantomime joke. The Dublin cab is a thing apart. From the musty straw upon which your feet rest, to the dilapidated blue velveteen cushion upon which you leap, to its wooden walls and rattling windows, you would not find its like upon any other point of the globe. It searches you to your least bone socket; and the noise of its career deafens your wails on the principle of the “painless extractor” at the fair, who blows a trumpet for every wrench.

It was useless for us to thrust our heads out of the window, like “Bunny come to town”; the frightful clatter of an arrest, a grunt, and a start at fresh speed were the only result. We trembled in every limb and so did the poor horse, as we were at last flung out in front of our hotel with a jerk that nearly broke the bottom of the cab in two.

We tendered what we knew to be considerably more than the fare. The driver surveyed it and looked at us, then rolled a disgusted glance back to the coins, and dropped them into his pocket.

“Is that all? And me afther dhriving you in such style!”