When Michael left me I spent some time in an hotel, and
then wandered down to the railway.
A wild crowd was on the platform, surging round the train in every
stage of intoxication. It gave me a better instance than I had yet
seen of the half-savage temperament of Connaught. The tension of
human excitement seemed greater in this insignificant crowd than
anything I have felt among enormous mobs in Rome or Paris.
There were a few people from the islands on the platform, and I got
in along with them to a third-class carriage. One of the women of
the party had her niece with her, a young girl from Connaught who
was put beside me; at the other end of the carriage there were some
old men who were talking Irish, and a young man who had been a
sailor.
When the train started there were wild cheers and cries on the
platform, and in the train itself the noise was intense; men and
women shrieking and singing and beating their sticks on the
partitions. At several stations there was a rush to the bar, so the
excitement increased as we proceeded.
At Ballinasloe there were some soldiers on the platform looking for
places. The sailor in our compartment had a dispute with one of
them, and in an instant the door was flung open and the compartment
was filled with reeling uniforms and sticks. Peace was made after a
moment of uproar and the soldiers got out, but as they did so a pack
of their women followers thrust their bare heads and arms into the
doorway, cursing and blaspheming with extraordinary rage.
As the train moved away a moment later, these women set up a frantic
lamentation. I looked out and caught a glimpse of the wildest heads
and figures I have ever seen, shrieking and screaming and waving
their naked arms in the light of the lanterns.
As the night went on girls began crying out in the carriage next us,
and I could hear the words of obscene songs when the train stopped
at a station.
In our own compartment the sailor would allow no one to sleep, and
talked all night with sometimes a touch of wit or brutality and
always with a beautiful fluency with wild temperament behind it.
The old men in the corner, dressed in black coats that had something
of the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in
Gaelic. The young girl beside me lost her shyness after a while, and
let me point out the features of the country that were beginning to
appear through the dawn as we drew nearer Dublin. She was delighted
with the shadows of the trees - trees are rare in Connaught - and
with the canal, which was beginning to reflect the morning light.
Every time I showed her some new shadow she cried out with naive
excitement -
'Oh, it's lovely, but I can't see it.'
This presence at my side contrasted curiously with the brutality
that shook the barrier behind us. The whole spirit of the west of
Ireland, with its strange wildness and reserve, seemed moving in
this single train to pay a last homage to the dead statesman of the
east.
Part III
A LETTER HAS come from Michael while I am in Paris. It is in
English.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - I hope that you are in good health since I have
heard from you before, its many a time I do think of you since and
it was not forgetting you I was for the future.
I was at home in the beginning of March for a fortnight and was very
bad with the Influence, but I took good care of myself.
I am getting good wages from the first of this year, and I am afraid
I won't be able to stand with it, although it is not hard, I am
working in a saw-mills and getting the money for the wood and
keeping an account of it.
I am getting a letter and some news from home two or three times a
week, and they are all well in health, and your friends in the
island as well as if I mentioned them.
Did you see any of my friends in Dublin Mr. - or any of those
gentlemen or gentlewomen.
I think I soon try America but not until next year if I am alive.
I hope we might meet again in good and pleasant health.
It is now time to come to a conclusion, good-bye and not for ever,
write soon - I am your friend in Galway.
Write soon dear friend.
Another letter in a more rhetorical mood.
MY DEAR MR. S., - I am for a long time trying to spare a little time
for to write a few words to you.
Hoping that you are still considering good and pleasant health since
I got a letter from you before.
I see now that your time is coming round to come to this place to
learn your native language. There was a great Feis in this island
two weeks ago, and there was a very large attendance from the South
island, and not very many from the North.
Two cousins of my own have been in this house for three weeks or
beyond it, but now they are gone, and there is a place for you if
you wish to come, and you can write before you and we'll try and
manage you as well as we can.
I am at home now for about two months, for the mill was burnt where
I was at work.
