But the loading process was long drawn out, and when at last we began our ascent of the Foyle there were indubitable symptoms of morning in the eastern skies, and we saw that our entrance into the tender was like the entrance of early ones into a theater before the lights are turned up. After a while the curtain is lifted and the scenic glories are revealed to eyes that have developed a proper amount of eagerness and receptivity.
With the first steps of day a young Irishman returning to his native land mounted a seat and recited an apostrophe, "The top of the mornin' to ye," and then a mist lifting suddenly, Ireland, dewily green and soft and fair, lay revealed before our appreciative eyes.
A Real Irish Bull
The sun, when he really began his morning brushwork, painted the trees and grasses in more vivid greens, but there was a suggestiveness of early spring in the first soft tones that was fully valued by eyes that had been used to leaden skies for more than half the days of the voyage.
But I am no poet to paint landscapes on paper, so we will consider ourselves landed at Londonderry and furnished with a few hours of necessary sleep, and anxious to begin our adventures.
Our party consisted of a half dozen whose itineraries were to run in parallels for a time. There were four ladies and two of us were men. One of the men had to come to Ireland on business, and he found he had awaiting him an invitation to lunch that day with a country gentleman with whom he had corresponded on business matters.
As the one least strange to the country this American had tendered his good offices, American fashion, to the ladies who would be traveling without male companions after we left them, and so he dispatched a messenger with a note to the effect that he must regretfully decline, and stating his reasons for so doing.