Through Connemara in a governess cart by Martin Ross

Author:Martin Ross [Ross, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780649003631
Google: cmivswEACAAJ
Publisher: Trieste Publishing Pty Limited
Published: 2017-07-25T00:46:23+00:00

CHAPTER VIII.

[Image of two ladies and the letter W]HEN the iron-studded hall-door of Renvyle House Hotel had closed behind us, we found ourselves in a low-panelled hall, with oaken props for guns and fishing rods, and long black oaken chests along its walls. Everything was old-fashioned, even mediæval, dark, and comfortable. Nothing was in the least suggestive of a hotel, unless it might have been a row of letters and telegrams on the chimney-piece, and I was beginning seriously to fear that we had made a mistake, when I noticed my second cousin’s eye-glasses were at full cock, and following their direction, I saw the “Innkeepers’ Regulation” Act hanging framed on the wall. It was both a shock and a relief.

Our various belongings—somewhat disreputable and travel-stained by this time—having been conveyed from the trap, we were told that tea was ready in the drawing-room, and followed the servant through two deep doorways into another room, also mediæval and panelled. “What is so rare as a day in June?” asks Mr. Lowell. Nothing, we can confidently reply, except a fire in July, and there on the brick hearth we saw with gloating, incredulous eyes a heap of burning turf sending a warm, dry glow into the room, and making red reflections in the antique silver tea-service that was placed on a table near it. For ever quelled were our vague anticipations of the hotel drawing-room and its fetishes, the ornate mirrors, the glass-shaded clocks, and the alabaster chimney ornaments; and as we extended our muddy boots to the blaze, and sipped hot tea through a heavy coating of cream, we felt reconciled to the loss of an ideal.

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