‘And who are you?’ asks the Irishman.
‘Sir, I’m a gentleman, and pay my way!—and as soon as I get into Bantry, I swear I’ll write a letter to Lord Bandon Bantry, and complain of the treatment I have received here.’
Now, as the unhappy landlord had not said one single word, and as, on the contrary, to the annoyance of the whole house, the stout old gentleman from Cambridge had been shouting, raging, and cursing for two hours, I could not help, like a great ass as I was, coming forward and (thinking the landlord might be a tenant of Lord Bantry’s) saying, ‘Well, sir, if you write and say the landlord has behaved ill, I will write to say that he has acted with extraordinary forbearance and civility.’
O fool! to interfere in disputes where one set of the disputants have drunk half a dozen glasses of whisky in the middle of the day! No sooner had I said this than the other young man came and fell upon me, and in the course of a few minutes found leisure to tell me ‘that I was no gentleman; that I was ashamed to give my name, or say where I lived; that I was a liar, and didn’t live in London, and couldn’t mention the name of a single respectable person there; that he was a merchant and tradesman, and hid his quality from nobody;’ and finally, ‘that though bigger than himself, there was nothing he would like better than that I should come out on the green and stand to him like a man.’
This invitation, although repeated several times, I refused with as much dignity as I could assume; partly because I was sober and cool, while the other was furious and drunk; also because I felt a strong suspicion that in about ten minutes the man would manage to give me a tremendous beating, which I did not merit in the least; thirdly, because a victory over him would not have been productive of the least pleasure to me; and lastly, because there was something really honest and gallant in the fellow coming out to defend his old relative. Both of the younger men would have fought like tigers for this disreputable old gentleman, and desired no better sport. The last I heard of the three was that they and the driver made their appearance before a magistrate in Bantry; and a pretty story will the old man have to tell to his club at the Hoop, or the Red Lion, of those swindling Irish, and the ill-treatment he met with in their country.
As for the landlord, the incident will be a blessed theme of conversation to him for a long time to come. I heard him discoursing of it in the passage during the rest of the day; and next morning when I opened my window and saw with much delight the bay clear and bright as silver—except where the green hills were reflected in it, the blue sky above, and the purple mountains round about with only a few clouds veiling their peaks—the first thing I heard was the voice of Mr. Eccles repeating the story to a new customer.
‘I thought thim couldn’t be gintlemin,’ was the appropriate remark of Mr. Tom the waiter, ‘from the way in which they took their whishky,—raw with cold wather, widout mixing or inything.’ Could an Irish waiter give a more excellent definition of the ungenteel?
At nine o’clock in the morning of the next day, the unlucky car which had carried the Englishmen to Bantry came back to Glengariff; and as the morning was very fine, I was glad to take advantage of it, and travel some five-and-thirty English miles to Killarney.
CHAPTER X
FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY
THE Irish car seems accommodated for any number of persons: it appeared to be full when we left Glengariff, for a traveller from Bearhaven, and the five gentlemen from the yacht, took seats upon it with myself, and we fancied it was impossible more than seven should travel by such a conveyance; but the driver showed the capabilities of his vehicle presently. The journey from Glengariff to Kenmare is one of astonishing beauty; and I have seen Killarney since, and am sure that Glengariff loses nothing by comparison with this most famous of lakes. Rock, wood, and sea stretch around the traveller—a thousand delightful pictures: the landscape is at first wild without being fierce, immense woods and plantations enriching the valleys—beautiful streams to be seen everywhere.