On a shooting and fishing trip in England and Scotland I made an impromptu detour to Ireland at the invitation of old friends. They lived in Ballsbridge, the embassy row of Dublin with servants and an enormous garden. The Georgian mansion belonged to the French bank where my friend worked but was no less splendid. On the Saturday morning after my arrival my friend Patrick appeared in the kitchen just after we came down to breakfast. An Anglo-Irish giant, he seemed forever in possession of a joke which he could not share but which preoccupied his mind. I had always seen him in suits in London and never outside of a fox hunting print had I seen anyone so accoutered. He wore a yellow silk Tattersall waistcoat, and except for his scarlet coat, was a symphony of pastels. My hosts, Michel and Ghilsaine whom I had known in New York and who both hunted, took his garb as a matter of course and merely remarked that he was smart. I made no secret of my ignorance and asked why he was dressed like a fire engine.
“I am a Master of the Meath Hunt, “he replied while sipping his coffee. Had it been me, by then I would have gotten my breakfast all over the vest by that point but he remained spotless.
“Why don’t you come along? You can follow.” I thought this was akin to observing the secret rites of Druids and punishable by death but learned, to the contrary, that ordinary mortals frequently just watched. Michel got out the car, and we made a convoy out of Dublin and into the iridescent green of the countryside. The landscape seemed everywhere to be moist, as If it had just been painted on before coming to life. At the start of the meeting, there was a certain amount of tension in the air. We were waiting for Patrick’a ex-wife. She drove up in a new Range Rover with a very expensive looking horse box as the truck was called, following behind. A groom led her horse out of this second vehicle. I would like to die and come back as this quadruped. It looked like its hair was gray silk on which a gifted Chinese painter had contrived abstract islands of black ink. Its mane and tail were braided and the saddle, which looked like the softest imaginable leather, rested on its back like a small cushion. Jane was a petite blonde, quite beautiful in a cold, Northern way with fine features. She wore black except for the splash of white silk at her throat. Her coiffeur had been braided and arranged in a becoming bun, presumably by the same one that had ministered to her horse, and was further held in place by a fine mesh net. She leapt into the saddle with more grace than I could climb onto the seat of a car. It was only by the way that she and Patrick studiously avoided each other’s gaze that you could ascertain their estrangement. Like him, she seemed to know and be highly regarded by everyone and they formed two groups, like children before a game at school. They all were drinking, in spite of the early hour, “hot port” which had been mulled from a mediocre tawny into a fiery concoction. They were all waiting for someone, evidently a person of some importance, whom they called the doctor. When at last he arrived I thought he was an invalid. A woman who was nearing 70 helped him from the car. His small trunk was attached to a long pair of legs that formed the shape of a permanent horse shoe, as if he had been sitting on a steed of enormous girth for a hundred years and had only just climbed down. He walked with great difficulty, and his steps were as painful to watch as they seemed to be for him. Like Patrick, he wore a scarlet coat, and was the joint Master of the Meath. Unlike Patrick’s wife the doctor required help to gain the saddle but once there he came alive and it was hard to tell where the doctor began and the horse ended. The animal was the hue of rich coffee. Its head was bent inward as if it were studying the plans for the day and preparing to give the doctor its report. Its eyes were intelligent and soulful but would admit no one but the doctor. I tried to pat him on the neck and catch his eye but he dismissed me with a snort and tried to step on my foot.
There is great confusion at the start of a hunt. Horses, grooms, visitors and dogs swelled into a melee. There were Jack Russell terriers, racing in circles and barking. There were retrievers on leashes, black Labs and goldens, in the charge of Burberry clad hunt followers. Then there were the fox hounds, a dissonant canine choir. I was waiting for someone to explain the rules or fire a starting gun. Instead they drifted into a field, a walk became a trot and they were away. We clamored into the cars and followed others who appeared to know what was going on. The hunt moved like a giant octopus, spreading and collecting itself as it morphed over the landscape. And then they found the fox. They were away in earnest across country now and we went around by a road, and watched from a stone bridge, then down another road where they were expected and did not come.
They rode through a field of what looked like some kind of cereal crop, and which the horses appeared to be trampling. Old Reynard went to earth in a grove of trees and the Meath Hunt paused in a body to consider the matter.
“Dig it out,” shouted someone. A shovel was produced.
“No, leave the poor thing alone” said a pretty girl who was visiting from England. A debate ensued. The traditionalists wanted to dig out the fox, the neofoxologists were for clemency. At the height of the dispute an angry little man appeared in dirty blue overalls driving a mudspattered suv. I thought at first that they had trespassed on his land and he was angry about the damaged crops.
“Why do you think I let you ride across my farm? Its lambing time and the foxes kill my lambs. I am going to stay here and wait until you dig out that fox and you will bloody well kill it.“
Patrick surrendered his horse to a groom and joined us.
“The doctor has invited us to his house on the Hill of Tara. This is something you must see. “
Tara is located about twenty miles north-west of Dublin. Until a thousand years ago it was the temporal and mythical soul in Ireland’s breast. It is hard to image the fairy people casting spells and the men of Ulster doing battle on its grassy slopes. It was here that the doctor had his house. What is it that makes one house cold and another warm? The world came to a standstill at its doors and inside were all manner of things necessary to human comfort:
A fire was blazing merrily in a neat fireplace, the logs going nicely on the backs of bright andirons. The walls were festooned with prints depicting the glories of country life. There were chairs and sofas in which you could sit with dogs at your feet and daydream of the Story of Deirdre or doze with a glass of something warming before you. The doctor’s wife had prepared for us and all manner of cold meat, bread, cheese and condiments had been spread on a sideboard with cut glass decanters labeled like pet dogs with silver collars port, burgundy, cognac and whiskey.
It must have been the port. Or the excellent, simple fare. Or the warmth of the fire after the crisp air of the open fields. I wish I could remember the stories the doctor gave us of the days of the High Kings, when the Hill of Tara rang with the clash of heroes, and was the dwelling place of the Irish Gods . I slept in the car on the way back to Dublin and somehow found my bed. In the morning my clothes were in a pile on a chair and Tara was already receding from the grasp of my memory like a tide. I have since seen pictures of the hill and wonder if the doctor’s house was really there. Still I know even today that on a starry night, when you are alone and all your friends are dead or forgotten, you could stand at the top of Tara and face to the East, and Macha, the most beautiful of all fairy women, would walk toward you naked and confident from the singing sea.
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From the War Canoe