This is what Hayes read as he sipped his coffee:
Lisnahoe, December 23d.
My Dear Harold: Home I come from Ballinasloe yesterday, and find your letter, the best part of a week old, kicking about among the bills and notices of meets that make the biggest end of my correspondence. You must be destroyed entirely, my poor fellow, if you’ve been three days in dear dirty Dublin, and you not knowing a soul in it. Come down at once, and you’ll find a hearty welcome here if you won’t find much else. I don’t see why you couldn’t have come anyhow, without waiting to write; but you were always so confoundedly ceremonious. We’re rather at sixes and sevens, for the governor’s got “in howlts” with his tenants and we’re boycotted. It’s not bad fun when you’re used to it, but a trifle inconvenient in certain small ways. Let me know what train you take and I’ll meet you at the station. You must be here for Christmas Day anyhow. Polly sends her regards, and says she knew the letter was from you, and she came near opening it. I’m sure I wish she had, and answered it, for I’m a poor fist at a letter.
Yours truly,
Jack Connolly.
The first available train carried Harold southward. On the way he read the letter again. The notion of entering a boycotted household amused and pleased him. He had never been in Ireland before, and he was quite willing that his first visit should be well spiced with the national flavour. Of course he had his views on the Irish question. Every American newspaper reader is cheerfully satisfied with the conviction that the Celtic race on its native sod has no real faults. A constitutional antipathy to rent may exist, but that is a national foible which, owing doubtless to some peculiarity of the climate, is almost praiseworthy in Ireland, though elsewhere regarded as hardly respectable. At any rate, with the consciousness that he was about to come face to face with the much-talked-of boycott, Harold’s spirits rose, and as he read Polly Connolly’s message they rose still higher. He was a lively young fellow, and fond of excitement. And at one time, as he recalled with a smile and a sigh, he had been almost fond of Polly Connolly.
When he alighted at the station—a small place in Tipperary—the dusk of the early winter evening was closing in, and Harold recollected that his prompt departure from Dublin had prevented him from apprising Jack of his movements. Of course there would be no trap from Lisnahoe to meet this train, but that mattered little. Half a dozen hack-drivers were already extolling the merits of their various conveyances, and imploring his patronage.
Selecting the best-looking car, he swung himself into his seat, while the “jarvey” hoisted his portmanteau on the other side.
“Where to, yer honour?” inquired the latter, climbing to his place.
“To Lisnahoe House,” answered Hayes.