“Arabs themselves were never more punctilious. My host was the grandfather of our little friend the fairy queen, a man of nigh eighty, who had been tried on two capital charges, and ought, I suspect, to have been convicted on both. His friends, to the number of twenty odd, were all Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, or whatever other name includes lawbreakers of the first magnitude; and one, as handsome and frank-featured a young fellow as ever you saw, who accompanied me to the lake side this evening, had made his escape from Castlebar gaol when under sentence of death, and actually went back to the town to witness the execution of his cousins on the following Saturday, it being, as he said, the only mark of affection he was able to show them.”
“I make you my compliment, as the French say, on your company. And the women, what were they like?”
“I saw but two: an old hag that was brought down special to give an opinion upon me from external traits, and pronounce whether I had the colour of hair or eyes that indicated a tendency to bear witness against my neighbour; the other was a sickly creature, bedridden though in the prime of life, mother of little Katherine.”
“But explain how you could have prolonged your stay amongst such people. What were you doing? what were you saying?”
“Doing? The whole day we walked the mountains. They led me by paths known only to themselves over an immense mountain district, showing me all that was noteworthy, and pointing out effects of scenery and picturesque spots with a feeling and taste that amazed me. They used no cant of art, none of that tricky phraseology, it is true, which we accept as the vernacular of all landscape description; but in their wild imagery and reckless imagination they gave names to the places which showed how deeply objects of terror or beauty had appealed to them. Then at nightfall we gathered close to the turf fire and the potato ‘kish,’ a wide, open basket, which served as strainer and dish together. There we supped, talked politics, religion, law, and a little literature—at least so far as the Life of Freeny and the story of Moll Flanders enter into biographical letters.”
“How I should like to have drawn a cordon of policemen round the party and netted the whole.”
“You might like to have planned the campaign, but I’ll be sworn if you had been favoured with a look at the company you’d never have led the expedition.”
“What a traveller’s knack it is to exaggerate the war-paint of one’s Indian friends,” said Grenfell, superciliously. “But here we are with our supper waiting for us, and even Mr. ‘O’Rorke’s noble feast’ will contrast favourably with your host’s.”
The meal ended, they seated themselves on the door-sill, looking out into the still and starry night, and resumed the theme they were discussing.
“I take it that you said you were a mere tourist rambling for pleasure?” asked Grenfell.