I now remembered that this was the same priest whose controversial powers had kept me awake for nearly half the night, and whose convivial ones filled up the remainder. I was delighted, however, to renew my acquaintance, and we soon cemented an intimacy, which ended in his proposing that we should sit together at dinner, to which I at once assented.
'Dacent people, dacent people, Captain; but bastes, after all, in the ways of the world—none of the usage de société, as we used to say at St. Omer's. No, no; feræ naturæ, devil a more. But here comes the dinner; the ould story—leg of mutton and turnips, boiled chickens and ham, a cod and potatoes! By the Mass, they would boil one's father if they had him on board,' while he added in a whisper—'by rason they can't roast! So now, will you move down, if you please?'
'After your reverence, if you'll permit. Arma cedant togæ.'
'Thrue for you, my son, sacerdotes priores; and though I am only a priest——'
'More's the pity,' said I, interrupting.
'You're right,' said he, with a slight pinch of my arm, 'whether you are joking or not.'
The dinner was not a very appetising one, nor indeed the company over seductive, so that I disappeared with the cloth, glad to find myself once more in the open air, with the deck to myself; for my fellow-travellers had, one and all, begun a very vigorous attack upon sundry jugs of hot water and crucibles full of whisky, the fumes of which, added to the heat, the smoke, and other disagreeables, made me right happy to escape.
As the evening wore late, the noise and uproar grew louder and more vociferous, and, had not frequent bursts of laughter proclaimed the spirit of the conviviality, I should have been tempted to believe the party were engaged in deadly strife. Sometimes a single narrator would seem to hold the company in attentive silence; then a general chorus of the whole would break in, with shouts of merriment, knocking of knuckles on the table, stamping of feet, and other signs of approbation and applause. As this had now continued for some time, and it was already verging towards midnight, I began to grow impatient; for as sleep stole over my eyelids, I was desirous of some little quiet, to indulge myself in a nap. Blessings on my innocent delusion! the gentlemen below-stairs had as much notion of swimming as sleeping. Of this a rapid glance through a little window, at the extremity of the cabin, soon satisfied me. As well as the steamed and heated glass would permit my seeing, the scene was a strange one.
About forty persons were seated around a narrow table, so closely packed that any attitude but the bolt upright was impracticable. There they were, of every age and sex; some asleep with Welsh wigs and red pocket-handkerchiefs screening their heads from cold, and their ears as well as might be from uproar; some were endeavouring to read by the light of mutton candles, with wicks like a light infantry feather, with a nob at the head; others, with their heads bent down together, were confidentially exchanging the secrets of the last market; while here and there were scattered about little convivial knots of jolly souls, whose noisy fun and loud laughter indicated but slight respect for their drowsy neighbours.
The group, however, which attracted most of my attention was one near the fire at the end. This consisted of his reverence Father Tom, a stout, burly-looking old farmer opposite him, the austere lady from Loughrea, and a little dried-up, potted-herring of a man, who, with a light-brown coat and standing collar, sat up perpendicularly on his seat and looked about him with an eye as lively and an accent as sharp as though it were only noonday. This little personage, who came from that Irish Pennsylvania called Moate, was endeavouring to maintain a controversy with the worthy priest, who, in addition to his polemics, was deep in a game of spoiled five with the farmer, and carrying on besides another species of warfare with his fair neighbour. The diversity of all these occupations might possibly have been overmuch for him, were it not for the aid of a suspicious-looking little kettle that sat hissing and rocking on the hob, with a look of pert satisfaction that convinced me its contents were something stronger than water.