第26章

Under our educational regime, the 'metaphysical' veneer, badly applied in the first place, and wholly unsuited to the foundation material, is slowly disappearing, and our Benella is gradually returning to her normal self. Perhaps nothing has been more useful to her development than the confusion of Knockarney House.

Our windows are supported on decrepit tennis rackets and worn-out hearth brushes; the blinds refuse to go up or down; the chairs have weak backs or legs; the door knobs are disassociated from their handles. As for our food, we have bacon and eggs, with coffee made, I should think, of brown beans and liquorice, for breakfast; a bit of sloppy chicken, or fish and potato, with custard pudding or stewed rhubarb, for dinner; and a cold supper of--oh! anything that occurs to Molly at the last moment. Nothing ever occurs either to Molly or Oonah at any previous moment, and in that they are merely conforming to the universal habit. Last week, when we were starting for Valencia Island, the Ballyfuchsia stationmaster was absent at a funeral; meantime the engine had 'gone cold on the engineer,' and the train could not leave till twelve minutes after the usual time.

We thought we must have consulted a wrong time-table, and asked confirmation of a man who seemed to have some connection with the railway. Goaded by his ignorance, I exclaimed, "Is it possible you don't know the time the trains are going?"

"Begorra, how should I?" he answered. "Faix, the thrains don't always be knowin' thimselves!"

The starting of the daily 'Mail Express' from Ballyfuchsia is a time of great excitement and confusion, which on some occasions increases to positive panic. The stationmaster, armed with a large dinner- bell, stands on the platform, wearing an expression of anxiety ludicrously unsuited to the situation. The supreme moment had really arrived some time before, but he is waiting for Farmer Brodigan with his daughter Kathleen, and the Widdy Sullivan, and a few other local worthies who are a 'thrifle late on him.' Finally they come down the hill, and he paces up and down the station ringing the bell and uttering the warning cry, "This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops!"--giving one the idea that eternity, instead of Killarney, must be the final destination of the passengers. The clock in the Ballyfuchsia telegraph and post office ceases to go for twenty-four hours at a time, and nobody heeds it, while the postman always has a few moments' leisure to lay down his knapsack of letters and pitch quoits with the Royal Irish Constabulary. However, punctuality is perhaps an individual virtue more than an exclusively national one.

I am not sure that we Americans would not be more agreeable if we spent a month in Ireland every year, and perhaps Ireland would profit from a month in America.