“Now, look here, ye omadhaun, this gentleman must be called with a cup of tea at a quarter-past five to-morrow morning in order to catch his train at six. If you let him lose that train I’ll kill ye as dead as meat. D’ye mind me now?”
Trembling in every limb, and with his eyes fixed upon Mr. Lane’s benevolent countenance till they seemed as if they would start from their sockets, the poor wretch repeated several times:
“Yis, sorr, yis, sorr!”
Mr. Lane and I said farewell, and I turned in. Now I have always been able to wake at will, at least since I left the sea, and I have only to remember on going to bed at what hour I wish to rise and that time I wake. So I had no fear. And I awoke at five, rising and making a leisurely toilet. At 5.30, feeling that I should like that cup of tea very much, I opened my bedroom door to go in search of it, when at the first step I took in the dark corridor I fell headlong over the prostrate form of the sub-deputy-boots, who was solidly asleep upon the mat at my door. He had nothing to say that was intelligible, but listened, as I thought, to my request for a cup of tea. Then he fled, and I saw him no more, but happily I had only to cross the platform to my train which had a breakfast car attached, so all was well.
Yet another Irish experience. I was staying with some very dear friends at a delightful little town on the County Down Railway, and on a certain evening was due in Belfast to lecture at eight o’clock. My friend and his wife accompanied me, and very jolly we were. Suddenly the train drew up at a large station, and I said cheerily, “Here we are, then.”
“Oh, no,” chirruped my host, looking out of the window. “This is Holywood. Next stop’s Belfast.” So as I had not seen the name-board, and as my friend used that section of line twice nearly every day of his life, I did not bother, but resumed the pleasant conversation. After what I thought was a rather long wait, we began to move out of the station, but in the wrong direction! Upon my remarking the fact, my friend said airily:
“Oh, they’re only shunting. They often do that at Holywood, to get the train on to its right platform at Belfast.”
But the rate of the train accelerated until suddenly we rushed through Holywood, and my friend smote his knee forcibly, crying to his wife:
“That was Belfast, and this is the fast to Bangor! We’ll not stop till we get to Bangor!”
My thoughts flew to that great audience in the Grosvenor Hall awaiting me, but I realised that I was in Ireland, where things have a way of adjusting themselves, and nobody seems to mind. A great deal of the personal element was to the fore during the next hour, and eventually I turned up on the platform only half an hour late, to be uproariously welcomed by two thousand people, who took the whole affair as a huge joke.