But the dreariness of the scene was soon delightfully relieved by numbers of the peasantry, on their way to the Fair, or _Pattern_ as it is called, being held on the festival of some _Patron_ Saint, at _Leenane_; and the striking colours of their picturesque costume, red, white, and blue, came out most effectively against the sombre darkness of the back-ground. Boats, too, were crossing the water; and a soldier in uniform, coming over in one of them, glowed on the gloomy lake, like a bed of scarlet geraniums in the middle of a fallow field. Some were on foot; but more on horseback, almost every steed carrying double--husbands and wives, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, and for aught I know, “one lovely arm was stretched for,”--nothing in particular, “and one was round her lover.” The bare feet hung gracefully down, and the eyelids, as we passed, hung gracefully down also, and hid those bright Irish eyes. Well, “there is a shame, which is glory and grace,” the most beautiful ornament that woman wears, and nowhere worn with a more becoming, but unaffected, dignity, than here by the maidens of Connamara.
Saddles did not seem to be known, and the bridles, chiefly, were of rope or twisted hay. As to the Fair itself, I imagine that the meeting partook more of a social than of a commercial character, a few sheep being the principal live-stock which we saw exposed for sale. Several stalls exhibited, for the refreshment of visitors, large cakes or bannocks, with currants at an incredible distance from each other (the white bread, _per se_, being, doubtless, a sufficient novelty and treat to many), and any amount of apples. Indeed Paddy seems almost as fond of _pommes d'arbre_ as he is of _pommes de terre_; and in Stations, Steamers, and Streets, they have all but a monopoly of the market.
The landlord of the neat-looking inn at _Leenane_, a fine, tall, manly fellow, reminding us that we had now entered into the country of “big Joyce,” came forth and welcomed us cheerily, as we stopped to change our horse, and almost induced us to stay and see the fun of the fair, together with “the hundred and fifty couple, which would stand up in the afternoon for a jig.” But we had no time to lose, having to meet the _Clifden Car_, at _the Cross Roads_, en route to _Galway_; and as we saw, shortly afterwards, two waggons loaded with constables, who were going to preserve order, we did not regret our departure, nor fail to congratulate each other on the unbroken soundness of our Saxon skulls.