Just Irish Part 10

"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--

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 d.a.m.ned 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.