“Ah, sure, that’s only the priest,” said the lady of the house; “and he’s the qui’test man ever ye seen. God bless him! He’ll not disturb ye at all.” This was our friend’s experience, and though possibly it had gained flavour and body with age, it had, at all events, made us look forward with a fearful interest to what might be our lot in Connemara.
But the first vision of the long Recess dinner-table dissipated all our hopes of the comic squalor that is endured gladly for the sake of its literary value, and I may admit that the regret with which my cousin and I affected to eat our soup and pursue our dinner through its orderly five or six courses was not altogether sincere. From one point of view it might have been called a fish dinner, as from clear soup, to raspberries one topic alone filled the mouths of the diners—the outwitting of the wiles of trout and salmon. There was a reading-party of Oxford men, their blazers glowing rainbow-hued among the murky shooting coats of the other diners; there were young curates, and middle-aged majors, and elderly gentlemen—to be an elderly gentleman amounts to a profession in itself—and all, without exception or intermission, talked of fish and fishing. Not to talk to the comrade of your travels at a table d’hôte is an admission of failure and incapacity, so much so that rather than sit silent, I would if need were, repeat portions of the Church Catechism to my friend in a low conversational voice. My cousin and I have seldom been forced to this extreme, and on this occasion we kept up the semblance of a cultured agreeability to one another in a manner that surprised ourselves. But the volume of discussion raging round us overwhelmed us in the end. We felt the Academy and the jennet to be alike an impertinence; we faltered and became silent.
Opposite to us sat one of the most whole-souled of the elderly gentlemen, with a face of the colour and glossy texture of Aspinall’s Royal Mail red enamel, in vigorous conversation with a callow youth in a pink blazer, one of whose eyes was closed by midge-bites; and, though the general chorus might rise and wane in the long intervals between the courses, their strident bass and piping tenor sustained an unflagging duet.
“I assure you, my dear sir,” protested the elderly gentleman, earnestly, with an almost pathetic oblivion of the difference in age between him and his neighbour, “it is not a matter of a fly with these Glendalough trout. I have seen a man fail repeatedly with a certain butcher, and immediately afterwards the same butcher, put pleasantly to a fish, you understand, rose him at once.”
“H’m,” returned the Pink Blazer, gloomily, receiving this, to us, surprising statement, with perfect calm, “my experience—and I’ve fished these lakes for years—is that a full-bodied Jock Scott”—but we will not betray our ignorance by trying to expound second-hand the profundities of the Pink Blazer. When they had been given to the world, he hid his little midge-bitten face in a tumbler of shandygaff, while his aged companion gravely continued the argument.
There were only two or three other ladies at the table, and they evidently had, by long residence in the hotel, been reduced to assuming an interest in the prevailing topic, which we found hard to believe was genuine. They may, of course, have been enthusiasts, but their looks belied them.
Next morning we were awakened by the babble of fishermen in the hall, then the rattle of cars on the gravel told that they had started on their daily business, and when at a subsequent period we came down to breakfast, we found ourselves alone, and the hotel generally in a state of peaceful lethargy. It was, so we had heard excited voices in the hall proclaiming, a splendid day for fishing. This meant that when we looked out of the window we saw two blurred shadows that we believed to be mountains, and heard the rushings of over-fed streams, which, thanks to the mist, were quite invisible. But the hotel weather-glass stood high, and at ten o’clock we were hopeful; at eleven we were despairing; at twelve we were reckless, and we went to our room to get ready for a walk. We have hitherto omitted all reference to one important item of our equipment, and even now, remembering that we were travelling in a proclaimed district, I mention with bated breath the fact that my second cousin insisted on taking an ancient and rusty revolver with her. She had secretly purchased a box of cartridges, weighing several pounds, and at the last moment she had requested me to stow this armoury in the travelling-bag—“In case of mad dogs and things on the road,” she said. The pistol, in its leather case, I consented to, but the tin box of ammunition was intolerable, and we compromised by putting six cartridges into an “Easy Hair Curler” box, which really might have been made for them. So far there had been no occasion to use it, but now, as my cousin struggled into her mackintosh, she remarked tentatively, “Don’t you think this would be a good day for the revolver?”
I said I was not much of a judge, but she might bring it if she liked; and having secreted it and a few “easy hair curlers” in her mackintosh pocket, she was ready for the road.
We paused in the hall for a last vengeful look at the barometer, which still stood cheerfully at Set Fair (we believe its constructor to have been a confirmed fisherman), and at the door we encountered the two hotel dogs—a large silky black creature of the breed that is generally selected to adorn penwipers, and a smirking fox-terrier, with polite, and even brilliant manners of a certain flashy hotel sort.
“Would they come for a walk with the ladies?” said I, my voice assuming the peculiar drivelling tone supposed to be attractive to dogs.