CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
People who live much together in small and secluded districts, grow at length to feel a very great distrust for all strangers. Their own ways and their own topics have become such a perfect world to them, that to feel ignorant of these themes appears like affectation or contempt; and the luckless man who drops down into such a “coterie,” is invariably deemed impertinent or a fool. Jack Massing-bred fully appreciated this difficulty; but it imparted such a piquancy to his “adventure,” as he persisted in calling it to himself, that he would n't have dispensed with it, had he been able. It was in this temper he entered the room where the guests were now assembled, and, rather impatiently, awaiting his arrival.
It is a very cold, calculating sort of interval, that ten minutes before dinner; and men regard the stranger presented to them with feelings far more critical than kindly. Massingbred did not go through the ordeal unscathed; and it was easy to see in the constraint and reserve of all present, how little his appearance contributed to the promise of future conviviality. He made no effort to dispel this impression, for, after saluting each in turn, he walked to the window, and amused himself with what was passing in the street.
The dinner was announced at last, and passed off drearily enough; none liked to adventure on any topic of local interest, and they knew of little others. Brierley was stiffly polite; the priest blandly tranquil; the host himself uneasy and anxious; and poor old Peter Hayes, of the Priory, downright melancholy.
Massingbred saw the effect he was producing, and saw it with pleasure. His calculation was this: “Had I started 'at speed' with these fellows, they would have blown me at once. All my efforts to assimilate myself to their tastes, to join in their habits and adopt their notions, would have been detected in a trice. They must be brought to believe that they have made a convert of me themselves; the wider the space between us at first, the greater will be their merit in making me forget it in the end.”
As the whiskey-punch made its appearance, and the bottle of port was passed up beside the stranger, Massingbred thought the time was come when he might change his tactics, and open the campaign in force. “No,” said he, as the host pushed the wine towards him, “I 've come over here to try and learn something about Ireland, and I must give myself every advantage of judging from a native point of view. This excellent old port may strengthen a man to stand by many an old prejudice, but my object is to lay in a new stock of ideas, and I 'd rather try a new regimen.”
“That 's your bottle, then, sir. Try that,” said Brierley, pushing towards him a small square decanter of a faint greenish fluid.
“That is 'poteen,' Mr. Massingbred,” said the host. “It's the small still that never paid the King a farthing.”
“I like it all the better, for that reason,” said Jack. “There's something independent in the very thought of a liquor that never submitted to the indignity of a gauger.”