CHAPTER XXXVIII
O’SHEA’S BARN
There were many more pretentious houses than O’Shea’s Barn. It would have been easy enough to discover larger rooms and finer furniture, more numerous servants and more of display in all the details of life; but for an air of quiet comfort, for the certainty of meeting with every material enjoyment that people of moderate fortune aspire to, it stood unrivalled.
The rooms were airy and cheerful, with flowers in summer, as they were well heated and well lighted in winter. The most massive-looking but luxurious old arm-chairs, that modern taste would have repudiated for ugliness, abounded everywhere; and the four cumbrous but comfortable seats that stood around the circular dinner-table—and it was a matter of principle with Miss Betty that the company should never be more numerous—only needed speech to have told of traditions of conviviality for very nigh two centuries back.
As for a dinner at the Barn, the whole countyside confessed that they never knew how it was that Miss Betty’s salmon was ‘curdier’ and her mountain mutton more tender, and her woodcocks racier and of higher flavour, than any one else’s. Her brown sherry you might have equalled—she liked the colour and the heavy taste—but I defy you to match that marvellous port which came in with the cheese, and as little, in these days of light Bordeaux, that stout-hearted Sneyd’s claret, in its ancient decanter, whose delicately fine neck seemed fashioned to retain the bouquet.
The most exquisite compliment that a courtier ever uttered could not have given Miss Betty the same pleasure as to hear one of her guests request a second slice off ‘the haunch.’ This was, indeed, a flattery that appealed to her finest sensibilities, and as she herself carved, she knew how to reward that appreciative man with fat.
Never was the virtue of hospitality more self-rewarding than in her case; and the discriminating individual who ate with gusto, and who never associated the wrong condiment with his food, found favour in her eyes, and was sure of re-invitation.
Fortune had rewarded her with one man of correct taste and exquisite palate as a diner-out. This was the parish priest, the Rev. Luke Delany, who had been educated abroad, and whose natural gifts had been improved by French and Italian experiences. He was a small little meek man, with closely-cut black hair and eyes of the darkest, scrupulously neat in dress, and, by his ruffles and buckled shoes at dinner, affecting something of the abbé in his appearance. To such as associated the Catholic priest with coarse manners, vulgar expressions, or violent sentiments, Father Luke, with his low voice, his well-chosen words, and his universal moderation, was a standing rebuke; and many an English tourist who met him came away with the impression of the gross calumny that associated this man’s order with underbred habits and disloyal ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener, and there was a sweet encouragement in the bland nod of his head, and a racy appreciation in the bright twinkle of his humorous eye, that the prosiest talker found irresistible.
There were times, indeed—stirring intervals of political excitement—when Miss Betty would have liked more hardihood and daring in her ghostly counsellor; but Heaven help the man who would have ventured on the open avowal of such opinion or uttered a word in disparagement of Father Luke.