Watching with interest the nautical skill with which, having fastened a rope to the stern, the boat was swung round, with her head in the direction from whence she came, intimating thereby the monotonous character of her avocations, I did not perceive that one by one the passengers were taking their departure.
'Good-bye, Captain,' cried Father Tom, as he extended his ample hand to me; 'we'll meet again in Loughrea. I'm going on Mrs. Carney's car, or I'd be delighted to join you in a conveyance; but you'll easily get one at the hotel.'
I had barely time to thank the good father for his kind advice, when I perceived him adjusting various duodecimo Carneys in the well of the car, and then having carefully included himself in the frieze coat that wrapped Mrs. Carney, he gave the word to drive on.
As the day following was the time appointed for naming the horses and the riders, I had no reason for haste. Loughrea, from what I had heard, was a commonplace country town, in which, as in all similar places every new-comer was canvassed with a prying and searching curiosity. I resolved, therefore, to stop where I was; not, indeed, that the scenery possessed any attractions. A prospect more bleak, more desolate, and more barren, it would be impossible to' conceive—a wide river with low and reedy banks, moving sluggishly on its yellow current, between broad tracts of bog or callow meadow-land; no trace of cultivation, not even a tree was to be seen.
Such is Shannon Harbour. No matter, thought I, the hotel at least looks well. This consolatory reflection of mine was elicited by the prospect of a large stone building of some storeys high, whose granite portico and wide steps stood in strange contrast to the miserable mud hovels that flanked it on either side. It was a strange thought to have placed such a building in such a situation. I dismissed the ungrateful notion, as I remembered my own position, and how happy I felt to accept its hospitality.
A solitary jaunting-car stood on the canal side—the poorest specimen of its class I had ever seen. The car—a few boards cobbled up by some country carpenter—seemed to threaten disunion even with the coughing of the wretched beast that wheezed between its shafts; while the driver, an emaciated creature of any age from sixteen to sixty, sat shivering upon the seat, striking from time to time with his whip at the flies that played about the animal's ears, as though anticipating their prey.
'Banagher, yer honour? Loughrea, sir? Bowl ye over in an hour and a half. Is it Portumna, sir?'
'No, my good friend,' replied I, 'I stop at the hotel.'
Had I proposed to take a sail down the Shannon on my portmanteau, I don't think the astonishment could have been greater. The bystanders, and they were numerous enough by this time, looked from one to the other with expressions of mingled surprise and dread; and indeed had I, like some sturdy knight-errant of old, announced my determination to pass the night in a haunted chamber, more unequivocal evidences of their admiration and fear could not have been evoked.
'In the hotel!' said one.