Accordingly, we started by the night mail which leaves Euston Square at twenty-five minutes past eight P.M.
For the first two hours I was haunted, I confess, by the dread of the Scotch limited mail running into us, as I knew it was to leave the same spot only five minutes later; and both trains being express, if any hitch should occur to us between the stations, we might “telescope” each other without any means of preventing it. At least, so it seemed to my ignorant mind. Harry fortunately knew nothing of this; but his thoughts were none the less running upon danger, remembering some terrible accidents to this same Irish mail—notably the one some four years ago, when Lord and Lady Farnham, Judge Berwick and his sister, and others we knew, were reduced to a heap of ashes in a few minutes by an explosion of petroleum which caught fire in a collision. Luckily, Harry fell asleep on quitting Chester, and never noticed the fatal spot, nor awoke until we drew up at five minutes past three A.M. alongside the mail packet Leinster some way out on the pier at Holyhead.
The night was fine, the sea calm, the passengers tired; so every one slept tranquilly until the stewardess, rushing into the ladies’ cabin, announced that we had passed the Kish light some time, and should be “in” in half an hour.
Without conveying any meaning to an English lady close by, the word quickly roused me; for it was full of memories—sad, yet happy. Many and many an evening, when living once on the Wicklow shore, had I sat watching on the far horizon the sparkling light which marked the well-known light-ship nine miles off the Irish coast. Of a summer’s night it shone like a twinkling star, suggestive of cool, refreshing breezes far away upon the calm waters, when perchance a hot breeze hung heavily over the land; but in winter the simple knowledge of its existence, with two men living there on board in a solitude that was broken only once a month, while the winds and waves raged fiercely around the ship, often haunted my dreams and made the stormy nights doubly dreary all along the Wicklow sea-board.
“The Kish light! Has not that a delightful, pleasant home sound?” said a middle-aged woman near, looking at me as if she had divined my thoughts. “And these boats—there are no others to be compared to them! The English have no excuse for not coming to Ireland,” she continued, “with vessels of this kind, that are like true floating bridges, so steady, swift, and large. Who could be ill in them? No one!”
I was puzzled to think who she could be; for though the face was not unfamiliar, I could give it no name. It was that of a lady, certainly, with a bright, intelligent, happy expression; but I saw that her garb was coarse as she bent and rummaged for something in her bag. In a moment, however, the mystery was solved by her lightly throwing a snow-white piece of linen over her head, which, as if by magic, took the form of the cornet of a Sister of S. Vincent de Paul.
“Sister Mary!” I exclaimed, “whom I knew at Constantinople!”
“The same,” she answered. “I thought I knew you!” And shaking hands cordially, we sat down to talk over the past.
She was a native of Ireland—her accent alone betrayed her, though she had not seen her native land for years—and I had known her in the East, after which she had been to Algiers and various other parts. Now, to her great joy, she had been ordered for a while to one of the convents of the order in Dublin—a joy which, though she tried, nun-like, to subdue it, burst forth uncontrollably the nearer we approached the land. Coming with me on deck to watch our entrance into Kingstown Harbor, the first person we met was Harry West, who eyed my companion with amazement; for he had never seen a Sister of Charity in living form before, though he entertained that sort of romantic admiration for them which the most rigid Protestants often accord to this order, though they deny it to every other. Turning round again, my surprise was great at encountering the Bishop—the Catholic Bishop—of ——shire, on his way to the consecration of a church in the far west of Ireland. “Quelle heureuse rencontre!” said his lordship playfully; for we were very old friends. “You see I am attracted also to the dear old country! You smile,” he continued, noticing my amused expression as I introduced Harry to him. “Oh! yes, I know I am a Saxon, pur sang. But we English bishops and priests always feel as if we were at home the instant we put our foot on shore in the Green Isle. There’s Kingstown and its church, where I shall go to say Mass the moment we land. Watch, now!” he added, as we drew up alongside the jetty; “you’ll see how civil the men will be the instant they perceive I am a bishop.” As he spoke a porter rushed by, and an impulse seized me to give him a hint to this effect. At once the man knelt down, in all his hurry, “for his lordship’s blessing;” nor did he limit his attentions to this, but insisted on carrying his luggage, not only on shore, but up to the hotel, refusing, as the bishop later told us, to accept a penny for his time and trouble—“the honor of serving his lordship and of getting his blessing was quite reward enough!”
Harry, standing by, could not believe his eyes. It was a phase of life quite unknown to him. But there was no time for meditation; the train was on the pier, the whistle sounded, and we were soon on the road to Dublin.