_A Dinner I Didn't Have_
The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang aglee, or words to that
effect, and in a small village in County Wicklow I fared differently
from what had been my expectation.
I had a letter to a literary man of whom I had heard nothing but
pleasant words, and I looked forward to spending several hours with
him.
I had dispatched my letter of introduction to him over night,
intending to perch on his door sill during a flight from Dublin
further south: Waterford and Cork.
The day was beautiful (whenever the clouds rolled away from before the
sun) and as I left my grips in the station and fared forth I imagined
how pleasantly we would talk together on matters and things, how soon
we would find we had mutual friends, how possible it was that one or
the other of us would commit the bromide of "It's a small world after
all, isn't it?"
It was a long time before the dinner hour, but if he invited me to
stay on and dine I would certainly do it. Tasteful napery, handsome
women, light and joyous talk, delicate viands and sparkling wines--
"Plaze, sorr, would ye help a poor man to's dinner. I've walked from
Ovoca the day an' devil a bit or a sup is in me."
A beggar!
The idea of a man who never saw me before asking me and evidently
expecting me to help him to a dinner.
But of course when you meet a fellow out in the country away from
professional beggars you naturally feel like helping him, particularly
if the Irish weather is so fine that it hasn't rained for a quarter of
an hour--
[Illustration: THATCHED COTTAGE, WICKLOW]
"Oh, thank ye, sorr. May your bed in heaven be aisy an' may ye
oversleep on the day of judgment."
A kind wish.
As I walked on I couldn't help thinking how similar was his case to my
own. In all probability he had the price of a meal in his pocket when
he met me and I too had the price of several meals in my pocket and
even as he had "braced" a total stranger, so I was about to do the
same thing, only I expected intellectual talk, a dinner, possibly a
drive around the country, and when all was said and done I wouldn't be
able for my _quid pro quo_ to call down such a blessing as he had
given me.
At last I came to the lodge of Heatherdale and asked if Mr. W---- was
in.
He was not. He had gone by an early train to Dublin and would not be
back until seven.
Oh, such a noise of falling air castles.
My letter had been to him, not to his wife.
I could not, or at least I felt that I could not present my card to
her and explain that I was very much disappointed, and would Mrs.
W---- kindly entertain me with intellectual talk and food and drink.
I turned sadly away and put on my raincoat (for it had begun to rain
dismally as soon as the lodgekeeper had told me Mr. W---- was out) and
made my way back to the station, intending to take the next train.
The urbane station master, resplendent in a gay new uniform, told me
kindly but firmly that there was no train until seven o'clock, that
that train did not go as far as Waterford, only to Wexford, and that
my through ticket to Waterford was good for this day only and would be
waste cardboard when the morning dawned, and I took the first train
from Wexford there.
That meant the price of an excellent dinner thrown away----
An excellent dinner. It was twelve o'clock; time to begin to think of
a dinner of some kind.
No (said the station master) there was no hotel in the place. I might
get something at some farmhouse, but no dinner anywhere.
And Mr. W---- in Dublin for the day. What good had the tramp's
blessing done me?
I left the station and walked toward the village. At last I came to a
"public" and there I found my tramp drinking porter with gusto--but
nothing else. His hunger had evidently departed. Perhaps the same
thing that had put it to flight would allay mine.
But the first incivility that I have received since I came to Ireland
was offered me here. The proprietress of the public laughed at me and
said that they had nothing but bread in the house--and she evidently
did not care to part with that.
"There's a good hotel at Rathdrum, sorr," said the tramp to me. "It's
not five miles away an' the road light as a feather, barrin' the
mud."
I had no notion of going five miles on the light road on the light
breakfast I had eaten--and no certainty that there would be a dinner
at Rathdrum, so I left the public, and the rain having stopped and the
sunshine having come out with a most businesslike air, as much as to
say, "See here, you clouds have been running things altogether too
much lately; it's now my turn at the wheel," I set out as blithely as
I could (with the thought of my letter of introduction crossing Mr.
W---- on his way to town and me a homeless wanderer) and before long I
came to a little whitewashed cabin in front of which a handsome old
woman in a man's cap was bending over some flowers.
"Good morning. Can you let me have something to eat?"
"Sure 'tis little I have," said she, with a smile that took five years
off her age.
"Some fresh eggs, perhaps, or some milk?"
"Aye, I can give ye those, but me house is no place for the likes----"
"That'll be just what I want," said I, and she went into the house and
bade me follow.
Fresh eggs and unlimited milk are not the same as brill and young lamb
and sauterne and cigars and witty conversation, but when you are
hungry from outdoor exercise they are not so bad.
And Mrs. Kelly, like every other man, woman, and child in the whole of
Ireland, had relatives in America.
She'd a son there long since and Ja-mes just turned twenty-one had
gone there this summer to the "states of Indiana. Did I know the
states of Indiana?"
I told her I did, that I'd been to them many a time. And where did
"Ja-mes go to--to what city?"
To Lafayette (with as French an accent as you'd wish) and was I ever
there?
I was. Her face lighted up.
If I went there again would I ask for Ja-mes Kelly an' he'd be her son
an' as fine a boy as ever left Ireland (with a true Dublin roll of the
r).
Still thinking of the dinner I had not had at Heatherdale house I
asked her if she knew Mr. W----.
"Sure I do, an' the finest man in all Ireland. Me boy Ja-mes worked
there at gardening and whin he was leaving for America Mr. W---- gave
a dinner for him to all the villagers and gave him a watch with his
name on it and 'in remimbrance of Heatherdale' in it. Oh, yes, a fine
man an' humble. Sure, if Jimmy'd be sick for a day it's Mr. W----
would be down here in me cottage askin' afther him an' could he be
doing annything for him.
"Humbleness. That what the blissed Lord taught us. He could have been
borrn in a palace, but he was borrn in a stable in Bethleh_a_m. Are
you a Catholic?"
"No--"
"Ah, never mind. There's arl kinds of good people----"
"Is Mr. W---- a Protestant?"
"Sure, I dunno," was Mrs. Kelly's guarded reply. "He goes to the
Protestant church, but I don't know what he is, on'y he's a good
man--none better in all Ireland.
"The good Lord," she continued, as she filled up my cup with rich milk
(she had no tumblers at all, she said), "taught us to be kind to one
another and to be humble, the same as He was kind and humble, although
He could have had a palace if He'd chosen, and if we keep His
commandments we'll all go to heaven, but if we don't (here the good
Mrs. Kelly lowered her voice) we'll be damned in everlasting fire. The
Lord tells us so."
I told her that I had heard such things, that I had a grandmother who
taught me all about "Bethleh_a_m" and the rest----
"Oh, the good woman," said Mrs. Kelly, feelingly. "Well, it's true.
Be kind and be good and be humble and ye'll be rewarrded."
After I had finished the lunch she asked me if I could take a picture
of her.
I told her that I could, but she must come out of doors. Off came her
man's cap and she arranged her wisps of white hair and washed her face
and then said, "Be sure to get me eyes good and clear. I do take a
fairly (very) good picture, and me eyes always come out fine."
The good woman had eyes she might well be proud of in spite of her
desire to be humble, and they danced and snapped with joy as I leveled
the camera at her and took her photograph.
All the afternoon I climbed the beautiful heather purpled hills in the
vicinity with her youngest son, a boy of nineteen, eating wild
fraochans, a kind of whortle-berry, and had "afternoon tea" with her
at six and then went on to catch my train.
The son was a very intelligent boy and I was struck with his easy and
correct use of English. He told me that it was easier to understand me
than an Englishman, and I took it as a compliment, for I certainly
never heard better English spoken than is talked in the Dublin
district by rich and poor alike. London and New York should come to
Dublin and vicinity to learn the proper pronunciation of English.
[Illustration: WICKLOW PEASANTS]
As I left the village I felt that I had lost one good time to have
another, and the day on the hills made me sleep like a top.