Our Little Irish CousinWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
General
Our Little Irish Cousin
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
Children -- Ireland -- Juvenile literature; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature
A quarter of an hour afterward, every one in the little cabin was
settled for the night.
CHAPTER VIII.
BLARNEY CASTLE
NORAH'S friend, Mollie, had just got home from a long journey. At least
it seemed a long one to Norah, who had never been farther away from home
than the Lakes of Killarney.
Mollie had been all the way to Cork and Queenstown with her father and
mother. They went to see Mollie's uncle start for America on a big
steamer.
Queenstown is at the mouth of the River Lee. It used to be called the
Cove of Cork, but the name was changed to Queenstown in honour of Queen
Victoria.
It seemed a very big place to Mollie. As she described the queer cars
running through the city, and the great steamers at the docks, it was a
wonderful picture that little Norah saw in her mind.
Mollie had gone there in a railway train. When the guard shut her and
her parents inside the car and locked the door, she was a little
frightened at first. Then the engine gave a fearful shriek, and the
train moved.
There were many other people in the car, or rather "compartment of the
railway carriage," as they call it in the British Isles. Their cars are
divided into three or four parts, with doors opening on the sides. Each
part is called a compartment.
It was quite a jolly crowd. Every one seemed in good humour, and
strangers were soon talking together as if they had always known each
other. They told funny stories, they joked and laughed, and Mollie soon
forgot her fear of the fast moving train. "It was just like a party,"
she told Norah.
At every station, the guard unlocked the door and let out those who
were going no farther. Others then got in, so the company was changing
all the time.
The compartment in which Mollie rode was a third-class one, and the
floor and seats were quite bare. But these things did not trouble the
little girl. Her parents could not afford to buy tickets to go first or
second-class. They were glad enough to be able to go at all.
Cork was reached at last, and Mollie could hardly sleep nights after
going about the city in the daytime and seeing the strange sights.
When her uncle had gone away on the big steamer, she went with her
father and mother into some of the mills and factories. She saw glass
spun into beautiful shapes, woollen cloths woven by huge machines, and
many other things made as if by magic.
"Sure, it seems as if these big wheels must be turned by the fairies,"
she said to Norah, as she told her little friend of what she had seen.
It was all very interesting, but Norah liked best of all to hear of
Mollie's visit to Blarney Castle. She asked her to repeat it over and
over again.
Not far away from Cork is the busy little town of Blarney. And a little
way out from Blarney is an old, old castle which is visited by people
from all over the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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