Roger, who had stood by, silent but a little impatient, now intervened. “These are old family things,” he explained, “that I brought with me from home. They are very rare. But the bed is new, and I think it very pretty. I had it made only a few months ago.” He motioned his guests into chairs, and produced a large earthenware pot which he offered to Jeremy. Jeremy removed the lid, and saw, somewhat to his surprise, that it contained a dark, finely cut tobacco.
“It’s Connemara,” he said laconically. The old priest shook a long finger at him.
“Ah, Roger, Roger!” he chided. “When will you learn to be thrifty? Cannot you smoke the tobacco of your own country? Winchcombe is good enough for me,” he added to Jeremy, bringing a linen bag and a cherrywood pipe out of the folds of his robe.
“I’ve no pipe,” said Jeremy, fumbling mechanically in his pockets. Roger, without speaking, went to a chest, and produced two new, short clay pipes, one of which he handed to Jeremy, while he kept the other himself. All three were silent for a moment while they filled and lighted from a taper; and the familiar operation, the familiar pause, afflicted Jeremy with an acute memory of earlier days. Then while his palate was still savoring the first breath of the strong, cool Irish tobacco in the new pipe, the priest began again his rambling spoken reveries.
“Tell me,” he demanded suddenly, “did you live in the time of the first Speaker?”
Jeremy, hampered by a grievous lack of historical knowledge, tried to explain that the Speaker was a functionary dating from centuries before his time. The old man jumped in his chair with childlike enthusiasm.
“Yes, yes!” he cried. “This generation has almost forgotten how he came by his name. But I meant the great-grandfather of our Speaker, the first to rule England. You know he was the only strong man when the troubles began. Do you remember him? Surely you must remember him?” Jeremy shook his head, considering. He did not even recall what had been the name of the Speaker when he fell asleep. But his mind caught at a word the priest had used.
“The troubles?” he repeated.
“Yes,” the priest answered, a little taken aback, throwing a glance at Roger. “Don’t you know? The wars, the fighting....”
“The war ...” Jeremy began. He knew a great deal about what had been called by his generation, quite simply, The War.