This my cousin Walter Fitzwilliam told me.'
It is true that the aforesaid cousin Walter may have been a better
raconteur than historian; still, local tradition vigorously opposes
any lessening of the number of the countess's years, pinning its
faith rather on one Hayman, who says that she presented herself at
the English court at the age of one hundred and forty years, to
petition for her jointure, which she lost by the attainder of the
last earl; and it also prefers to have her fall from the historic
cherry-tree that Sir Walter planted, rather than from a casual nut-
tree.
Down the lovely river we went, lazily lying back in the sun, almost
the only passengers on the little craft, as it was still far too
early for tourists; down past Villierstown, Cooneen Ferry,
Strancally Castle, with its 'Murdering Hole' made famous by the
Lords of Desmond, through the Broads of Clashmore; then past Temple
Michael, an old castle of the Geraldines, which Cromwell battered
down for 'dire insolence,' until we steamed slowly into the harbour
of Youghal--and, to use our driver's expression, there is no more
'onderhanded manin'' in Youghal than the town of the Yew Wood, which
is much prettier to the eye and sweeter to the ear.
Here we found a letter from Salemina, and expended another
eighteenpence in telegraphing to her:-
PEABODY, Coolkilla House, near Mardyke Walk, Cork.
We are under Yew Tree at Myrtle Grove where Raleigh and Spenser
smoked, read manuscript Faerie Queene, and planted first potato.
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