The Irish are such good cooks that we in the east (of America) have been employing them for two generations. Let us not forget that.
We entered the dining-room and had an appetizing soup and then the Irish potatoes (oh, such Irish potatoes!) and anything tenderer or better cooked than the chicken it would have been hard to find. We looked at each other and decided that we would not go on to Port Salon next day, but would spend another night in Rathmullan, and we said so to the maid.
"But you'll take other rooms?" said she, alarmed at once.
"Oh, yes, honey, we'll go anywhere you put us."
Now you know we had an itinerary, and to stay longer at Rathmullan was to cut it short somewhere else, but the stillness and calm, the purple shadows on the mountains and the lake (Lough Swilly means Lake of Shadows), had us gripped and we were content to stay and make the most of it.
A simple, golden rule sort of people the inhabitants are. We came on a man clipping hawthorn bushes and asked him how far it was to a certain point and whether we could "car" it there.
He told us we could and then he said, "Were ye thinkin' of hirin' a car, sir?"
"Yes," said O'Donnell.
"I have one," said he.
"Well," said O'Donnell, "we've talked to the landlady about hiring hers——"