FullReads

The fourth morning after his arrival in Dublin, Mr. Harold Hayes, of New York, entered the breakfast-room of the Shelbourne Hotel in a very bad humour. He was sick of the city, of the people, and of his own company. Before leaving London he had written to his friend, Jack Connolly, that he was coming to Ireland, and he had expected to find a reply at the Shelbourne. For three days he had waited in vain, and it was partly, at least, on Jack’s account that Mr. Hayes was in Ireland at all. When Jack sailed from New York he had bound Harold by a solemn promise to spend a few weeks at Lisnahoe on his next visit to Europe. Miss Connelly, who had accompanied her brother on his American tour, had echoed and indorsed the invitation.

Harold had naturally expected to find at the hotel a letter urging him to take the first train for the south. He had seen a great deal of the Connellys during their stay in the United States, and Jack and he had become firm friends. He had crossed at this unusual season mainly on Jack’s account–on Jack’s account and his sister’s; so it was little wonder if the young man considered himself ill used. He felt that he had been lured across the Irish Channel–across the Atlantic Ocean itself–on false pretences.

But in a moment the cloud lifted from his brow, a quick smile stirred under his yellow moustache, and his eyes brightened, for a waiter handed him a letter. It lay, address uppermost, on the salver, and bore the Ballydoon postmark, and the handwriting was the disjointed scrawl which he had often ridiculed, but now welcomed as Jack Connolly’s.

This is what Hayes read as he sipped his coffee:

LISNAHOE, December 23d.

MY DEAR HAROLD: Home I come from Ballinasloe yesterday, and find your letter, the best part of a week old, kicking about among the bills and notices of meets that make the biggest end of my correspondence. You must be destroyed entirely, my poor fellow, if you’ve been three days in dear dirty Dublin, and you not knowing a soul in it. Come down at once, and you’ll find a hearty welcome here if you won’t find much else. I don’t see why you couldn’t have come anyhow, without waiting to write; but you were always so confoundedly ceremonious. We’re rather at sixes and sevens, for the governor’s got “in howlts” with his tenants and we’re boycotted. It’s not bad fun when you’re used to it, but a trifle inconvenient in certain small ways. Let me know what train you take and I’ll meet you at the station. You must be here for Christmas Day anyhow. Polly sends her regards, and says she knew the letter was from you, and she came near opening it. I’m sure I wish she had, and answered it, for I’m a poor fist at a letter.

Yours truly,

JACK CONNOLLY.

The first available train carried Harold southward. On the way he read the letter again. The notion of entering a boycotted household amused and pleased him. He had never been in Ireland before, and he was quite willing that his first visit should be well spiced with the national flavour. Of course he had his views on the Irish question. Every American newspaper reader is cheerfully satisfied with the conviction that the Celtic race on its native sod has no real faults. A constitutional antipathy to rent may exist, but that is a national foible which, owing doubtless to some peculiarity of the climate, is almost praiseworthy in Ireland, though elsewhere regarded as hardly respectable. At any rate, with the consciousness that he was about to come face to face with the much-talked-of boycott, Harold’s spirits rose, and as he read Polly Connolly’s message they rose still higher. He was a lively young fellow, and fond of excitement. And at one time, as he recalled with a smile and a sigh, he had been almost fond of Polly Connolly.