Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/478

 . 15, 1864.] “That does not sound so bad; but what is the name of the place?”

“Cashel,” I replied, courageously.

“Cashel!” repeated my mother, musingly, “what part of the country is it in?”

“The south—the province of Munster.”

“And the county?”

It was some minutes before I ventured to answer that last question, but at length I said “Tipperary,” with as much sang froid as possible.

“Tipperary!” exclaimed my mother, opening her eyes. “My dear boy, this is dreadful!”

“Not in the least, mother. I shall quite enjoy being among strange people in a strange land.”

“But such a monstrous county—so barbarous!” said my anxious parent. “Had you been ordered to any other place in the world I would not have murmured at the command, but Tipperary is too bad.”

As well as I could I endeavoured to console my mother under the heavy blow she received in learning that my regiment had been sent to the most lawless part of the fair land of Erin. I had never been in Ireland yet. Familiar as I was with many a foreign country, in all my early love of wandering I had never thought of visiting England’s sister isle, and I knew as little about this then new region as I did of Japan. I was just twenty-three, and had been in the army five years—quartered during that period at Malta, Gibraltar, and Canada. Before obtaining my commission I had travelled for a year abroad under the guidance of a tutor, and had visited many a classic land. Latterly I had spent more than two months of leave on the Continent, and on my return to England for a short visit home I received the announcement that my regiment had been sent to Tipperary—head-quarters Templemore, detachment at Cashel, where my company was now stationed. I had only a few days to loiter over my preparations for departure to Ireland, and it was with no small degree of curiosity that I contemplated a sojourn in the heart of a proverbially dangerous locale. I got out the map of Ireland, learned the geography of the province of Munster, discovered Cashel almost in the centre of Tipperary, and trusted to the future to enlighten me further. In those days, reader, travelling was not so expeditious and comfortable as now-a-days. Railroads had not penetrated far through Ireland, and many of the principal towns were as unapproachable as they had been fifty years before. Cashel was in this respect better off than many of its compeers, and after reaching Dublin, I had the good fortune to be conveyed as far as Maryborough by railway, where I exchanged my comfortable seat in the train for a fusty, dingy, ricketty coach, that was to penetrate to the remote region of Cork, dropping me on the way at Cashel.

“Will you have room for my luggage on that conveyance?” I demanded, in a tone of authority and doubt, as I looked at the already heavily-laden vehicle that stood awaiting the arrival of passengers from the train.

“What weight of luggage have you?” asked the guard, screwing up his eyes as he glanced at a somewhat inordinate quantity of boxes and packages near me.

“All this,” I answered, with military promptness and fierceness, pointing to my possessions.

“No room for the half of it,” coolly observed the fellow, without looking at me.

“And what is to be done?—have you got no other mode of carrying luggage than that small coach?”

While I was speaking I observed that a travelling chaise had emerged from the tram and was now being attached to four well-conditioned horses; while the owner, a good-looking man, about six or seven and twenty, of gentlemanly appearance, watched the process of harnessing composedly, supporting on his arm a very pretty girl, who I fancied was looking now and then at myself while I stormed about my luggage. One or two glances from her soft blue eyes disarmed my wrath almost instantly: I felt ashamed of having betrayed such violence.

“Sir Denis has engaged nearly all the spare room for his luggage, sir,” said the coachman; “we’d accommodate you with pleasure, but you can’t expect impossibilities; see, there’s the lady’s-maid putting up two more bandboxes! Perhaps Sir Denis might consent to let some of his trunks wait till Friday if you’re in an out-and-out hurry with yours. I’ll just step over and ask him.” And before I had time to reply he advanced to the gentleman standing beside the chaise, speaking a few words to him which I did not hear as he occasionally pointed in my direction.

“Oh! I should regret putting you to inconvenience,” said the gentleman, now coming towards me, while he dropped the arm of his fair companion, who stood in the background; “I will take some of our luggage on the carriage if you have no room for yours on the coach.”

I bowed, coloured probably, and said a few civil things—thanks and all that.

“You are going to Cork, I presume?” said Sir Denis.

“No; Cashel is my destination.”

“Indeed! you belong to the 32nd then?” observed the gentleman, pleasantly.