And now they sat down to dinner, and lo and behold, to the great surprise of Mr. Carter, and perhaps also to the surprise of the host, a magnificent turbot smoked upon the board. The fins no doubt had been cut off to render possible the insertion of the animal into the largest of the Drumbarrow parsonage kitchen-pots,—an injury against which Mr. Townsend immediately exclaimed angrily. "My goodness, they have cut off the fins!" said he, holding up both hands in deep dismay. According to his philosophy, if he did have a turbot, why should he not have it with all its perfections about it—fins and all?
"My dear Æneas!" said Mrs. Townsend, looking at him with that agony of domestic distress which all wives so well know how to assume.
Mr. Carter said nothing. He said not a word, but he thought much. This then was their pretended poorness of living! with all their mock humility, these false Irishmen could not resist the opportunity of showing off before the English stranger, and of putting on their table before him a dish which an English dean could afford only on gala days. And then this clergyman, who was so loudly anxious for the poor, could not repress the sorrow of his heart because the rich delicacy was somewhat marred in the cooking. "It was too bad," thought Mr. Carter to himself, "too bad."
"None, thank you," said he, drawing himself up with gloomy reprobation of countenance. "I will not take any fish, I am much obliged to you."
Then the face of Mrs. Townsend was one on which neither Christian nor heathen could have looked without horror and grief. What, the man whom in her heart she believed to be a Jesuit, and for whom nevertheless, Jesuit though he was, she had condescended to cater with all her woman's wit!—this man, I say, would not eat fish in Lent! And it was horrible to her warm Irish heart to think that after that fish now upon the table there was nothing to come but two or three square inches of cold bacon. Not eat turbot in Lent! Had he been one of her own sort she might have given him credit for true antagonism to popery; but every inch of his coat gave the lie to such a supposition as that.
"Do take a bit," said Mr. Townsend, hospitably. "The fins should not have been cut off, otherwise I never saw a finer fish in my life."
"None, I am very much obliged to you," said Mr. Carter, with sternest reprobation of feature.
It was too much for Mrs. Townsend. "Oh, Æneas," said she, "what are we to do?" Mr. Townsend merely shrugged his shoulders, while he helped himself. His feelings were less acute, perhaps, than those of his wife, and he, no doubt, was much more hungry. Mr. Carter the while sat by, saying nothing, but looking daggers. He also was hungry, but under such circumstances he would rather starve than eat.
"Don't you ever eat fish, Mr. Carter?" said Mr. Townsend, proceeding to help himself for a second time, and poking about round the edges of the delicate creature before him for some relics of the glutinous morsels which he loved so well. He was not, however, enjoying it as he should have done, for seeing that his guest ate none, and that his wife's appetite was thoroughly marred, he was alone in his occupation. No one but a glutton could have feasted well under such circumstances, and Mr. Townsend was not a glutton.
"Thank you, I will eat none to-day," said Mr. Carter, sitting bolt upright, and fixing his keen gray eyes on the wall opposite.