I could not help thinking what Mrs Doyle and the children would say if they saw me tucked under such fine bed-clothes, and stretched under such a grand canopy; and to tell the truth, I wished myself safely out of it, and in my own crib at Ballyorley. Yet to the obliging inquiries of my entertainers, on the ensuing morning, “if my bed had been comfortable?” I was unable to say No. But what are comforts? thought I to myself all the time. Indeed, the consideration of this question has occupied my mind a good deal since, for I find the notions attached to the term “comfort” are infinitely varied.
When I left Castle F——, the weather was cold; I mounted, however, the roof of a coach, and proceeded with many other passengers for Salisbury. We had not gone far when rain fell in torrents, driven by a piercing blast; umbrellas and coats were not waterproof, and when we alighted at the inn-door at Salisbury, there were none of the outsides who were not more or less wet and miserable.
Four of us determined to remain at the inn all night; and as we threw off dripping cloaks and mufflers, and approached a blazing fire in a small snug parlour, where a cloth, and knives and forks, and a plate-warmer, gave indications of a hot dinner, we all agreed that this was true comfort; nor was this opinion changed when soon afterwards we sat in dry clothes by a fire, with—but let no one mention this to Father Mathew—a hot tumbler of brandy punch before each of us.
But though we were unanimous on this occasion, I soon found that the utmost difference of opinion prevailed on other points, as to real comfort. One of the gentlemen, who sat at my right hand, whispered to me in confidence that there was no comfort in a single life, that his house was cheerless, his servants great plagues from want of a mistress to keep them in order, and his furniture going to destruction. My companion on the other side, whose wife I understood to be a virago, gave a groan, shook his head two or three times, and whispered to me, “If the gentleman wishes to enjoy comfort, he will leave matrimony alone.”
Having occasion to hire a good brickmaker to bring over with me to teach my workmen how bricks ought to be made, I went into several cottages inhabited by labourers in Shropshire. In the first into which I went, and this was very well furnished, were a man and his wife at breakfast. They had tea and sugar, a large white quartern loaf, and some crock butter. Very good, said I to myself; these people are exceedingly comfortable. The man was a common field labourer, and earned twelve shillings a-week the year round. They had a piece of meat every day at dinner with their greens or potatoes, and bread into the bargain, and bread and butter in the evening.
There stood a little boiler in a back kitchen, which I understood was for brewing small beer occasionally; and nothing seemed wanting in the way of comforts to this couple.
I was not offered a chair, nor did either of them ask me to sit down, but they answered such questions as I put to them.
“I’m glad to see you so comfortable,” said I. “May I ask if you have any others in family?”
“No, we’re only ourselves. We ha’n’t no children, boys nor girls,” said the woman in rather a dissatisfied tone.