Just Irish Part 9

Human nature is human nature, and the daisies in the field over the pond are always more beautiful than the ones that lie at your feet.

I was received at the monastery by a monk, who on learning that I wished to become a guest, took me over to the guest house, and there a white-robed father took my surname, and I began to feel that I had renounced the world, and that perhaps I was trying something that I would regret, and wouldn't mamma come and get me.

But the bearded man before me was kindly, and when I told him (not wis.h.i.+ng to sail under false colors) that I was a Protestant, he told me that it was a fast day, and had I dined.

Fortunately I had eaten heartily at noon. "If ye have not dined we can give you something substantial," said he, but I decided that it would be better to be treated as the other guests were to be treated, and so I told him, and he said that at six o'clock there would be tea, and that at eight I would retire to my room, and at ten all lights must be out.

It was raining dismally, but he said that I could go for a walk in the garden, or stay in my room, or go to the "smoke shed," to smoke a pipe or a cigar.

I chose the smoke shed as I understood there were other human beings there, and although I had only been in the monastery five minutes, I felt the need of companions.h.i.+p.

After a brother had taken my traps to my room, I went out to the smoke shed, and found there some ten or twelve guests, five or six of them priests, and all Catholics but myself.

They were very quiet as I came up, and I feared to speak above a whisper myself, but a jolly-looking priest, seeing a newspaper sticking out of my raincoat pocket, said: "Is that to-day's paper?"

and on my saying it was, he asked me if he might borrow it, and then he stood up in front of them all and said:

"The news of the day.... 'Irish Ireland. A Leaguer's Point of View.'

'The French Trunk Horror.' 'The Bachelor Tax,' discussed by Mr.

Dooley."

"Rade that, father," said a young chap with a twinkling eye.

"Sure it's in dialect," said the priest with a smile, and his own brogue.

"Never mind. Go ahead. 'Tis a dreary day."

The paper was the Dublin Independent, and in a moment more I was listening to the familiar humor of the funniest man in America, and that in a monastery, of all places.

"'This here pa-aper says,' said Mr. Hennessy, 'that they're goin' to put a tax on bachelors. That's r-right. Why shudden't there be a tax on bachelors? There's one on dogs.'"

Loud was the laughter in the smoke shed at this sally, and none laughed louder than those professional bachelors, the priests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STREET IN YOUGHAL]

"'I suppose,' said Mr. Dooley, 'that next year ye expect to see me throttin' around with a leather collar an' a bra.s.s tag on me neck. If me tax isn't paid th' bachelor wagon'll come around, an' th' bachelor catcher'll la.s.so me an' take me to the pound, an' I'll be kept there three days, an' thin, if still unclaimed, I'll be dhrowned, onless th'

pound keeper takes a fancy to me.'" (Loud laughter by priests and laymen.)

The ice thus broken by my friend Dunne, I was soon in conversation with the group, and discovered two compatriots from Indiana, one a native of Ireland returning to visit it once more before he departed, the other his son.

Vesper bells broke up the talk, and I went with the rest to chapel.

After vespers came "tea," which I had supposed would be literally nothing else, but there was the most delicious graham bread I have had since I came to Ireland, and unlimited milk. There was no b.u.t.ter, as it was a fast day. This I regretted keenly.

Talk went on among us all until a bearded monk in white came in and began to read pa.s.sages from Thomas a Kempis. His enunciation was peculiarly pure, and I doubt not that he was a gentleman born. It was a pleasure to hear such English. While he read we were all silent.

After supper we went out to the garden, and in a sheltered place (although we did not need a shelter, as the fickle rain had stopped) those who wished played a spirited game that consisted of tossing stones into a little pocket of earth. One of the priests was an adept, and he carried all before him.

In such simple pleasures, or in walking, the evening was spent until it came time to go to chapel again.

One of my companions (and they were there from all parts of Ireland, and you might hear the Scotch accent of the north, the pure Dublin and Wicklow Elizabethan English, the slightly thickened Waterford variety, and the hurried talk of the Corkonian, as well as other styles I could not place--probably west coast dialects, mournful and slow) asked me what I thought of Ireland, and I told him my impressions had been tremendously favorable so far. He said that a man who had returned not long since told him that Ireland was hopelessly behind the times, and I told him, for his comfort, that to take one instance in which Ireland was up to date, the tram service in Dublin was far ahead of that of New York, both in the elegance of its rolling stock, its cheapness, and the civility of its employes. He was much amused at the idea of horse cars in New York. (Electric cars play an important part in all the large Irish cities, and a ride on the top of one to Howth, a lovely suburb of Dublin, is worth every bit of the eight cents it costs).

They have yet to introduce the transfer system, but in other particulars, like Mr. O'Reilly, "they're doin' dam' well." All this I told him.

At eight I sought my room, where there was reading matter suitable to the place, but the candle was not conducive to extended reading unless I held it close to the book, and then it dazzled me, and at nine o'clock I was in my bed, and until two in the morning the house was quiet, save for a snore here and there. But at two the bells began to ring, and kept it up at intervals all through the night. I was told this, but "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," came to my aid, and I dreamed it was a feast day and that all the monks were sitting at the breakfast table, singing at each other joyfully.

Next day was a feast day (to my relief). I was up at six, but it was some time after that that I heard steps in the hall. I had looked out of the window from time to time, hoping to see some one in the garden.

The table of the duties of the day hung in my room, and I noticed that breakfast was at nine. Luckily I had some chocolate, or I might have felt I was likely to faint by the wayside.

I did not go to early devotion, and when I heard the footsteps in the hall I opened my door and found that it was Father David, the keeper of the gate, going around to see if any were still in bed. When he saw me, he said to the brother who accompanied him, "Oh, it doesn't make any difference with him." Then to me, "Would you like to walk in the garden?" I said that I would, and walked round and round its lonely paths for over an hour, now and then eating a square of chocolate to keep off death.

But before eight the good father came and asked me if I'd like to see the interior of the monastery, and he showed me the bakeshop with its most up to date ovens, and oh, how hungry the smell of baking made me, and the steam-saw, and the creamery, and the library with its old newspaper telling to Irishmen that Cromwell had departed to his rest the day before. Not very sorrowful news, that, I imagine, to the Irishman of that day.

And Father David showed me and the other Americans an incubator, and explained the process, with an innocent circ.u.mstantiality that we respected. Why tell him that the woods were full of incubators in America? The things that appealed most to him, however, was the big circular saw that would saw up a log of wood in a "minyit."

With his permission I took a photograph of a beautiful Irish cross in the graveyard, but when I suggested my taking him, he averted his palms at me. Such vanities were not for him.

At breakfast there were eggs and milk and tea, and delicious b.u.t.ter in abundance, and the reading of some holy book by Father David, which did not stop all conversation. Being a feast day, there was one priest who felt his tongue could be loosened, and he kept up an undercurrent of conversation, to Father David's annoyance, but it was a human touch that was not out of place.

The monks are themselves vegetarians, but a school is run in connection with the monastery, and the students are allowed meats.

At nine my jarvey called for me and took me to the boat for Youghal, and I made my offering and shook hands with Father David, and felt that I had been benefited by my stay in the retreat. I even felt that had I more time at my disposal, I would stay on for several days, talking with the guests, pitching stones into the hole, and looking at the rolling landscape and the awe-inspiring hills behind the chapel spire.

One thing in America had interested Father David--the Thaw trial--and he wanted to know if Thaw would be hanged.

One day the only American news in the 'Derry papers was to the effect that Evelyn Thaw thought of going on the stage.

Not our art, or our literature, or our suppression of the boss, but the Thaw trial, is the thing that has made a deep impress on Great Britain and Ireland, and everywhere I am asked to give an opinion.

The Thaw trial was a matter of moment to the good old man, with his incubators and his steam saw and his absence of personal vanity.

As half way down the mountain I turned and looked back at the spire against the somber hills (for it had begun to rain) I wished that my camera would take them for me, but I knew that snapshots of hills are like literary snapshots--inadequate.

CHAPTER X

_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--