"She was in it till a whale came up the river," replied James, with the simplicity of Holy Writ, "and b'Jove he banished her!" "It's a wonder you'd let him treat a lady that way, James," said Dr. Hickey. It was still twilight when we left the dining-room, and strayed to the open hall door, and out into the September evening. In the east a rose-pink moon was rising in lavender haze, and a faint wind blew from it; the subtle east wind of September, warmed by its journey across the cornfields, turf-scented by the bogs. There was a narrow garden between the hotel and the river, a place where were new and already-neglected flower-beds, and paths heavy with coarse river gravel, and grass that had been cut, not too recently, with a scythe. A thatched summer-house completed the spasmodic effort of the hotel to rise to smartness. The West of Ireland cannot be smart, nor should any right-minded person desire that it should be so. Dr. Hickey and I sat and smoked on the parapet wall above the river, while the slated and whitewashed town darkened into mystery. Little lights came slowly out, and behind the town the grey shape of Dreelish mountain lowered in uncompromising abruptness, a brooding presence, felt rather than seen. In the summer-house James was lighting a Chinese lantern, of a somewhat crumpled and rheumatic outline. "Well, now, that's a great notion!" said Dr. Hickey, with the lethargic and pessimistic humour of his type. "That'll be in the prospectus--'Hotel grounds illuminated every night.' I wonder did they buy that at the Jumble Sale after the Fancy Fair in the Town Hall?" We sat there, and the moon and the round red Chinese lantern looked at each other across the evening, and had a certain resemblance, and I reflected on the fact that an Irishman is always the critic in the stalls, and is also, in spirit, behind the scenes. "Look at James now," said the Doctor. "He's inviting the ladies out to have coffee in the summer-house. That's very fashionable. I suppose we should go there too." We sat with Mrs. and Miss M'Evoy in the summer-house, and drank something that was unearthly black in the red light, and was singularly unsuggestive of coffee. The seats were what is known as "rustic," and had aggressive knobs in unexpected places; the floor held the invincible dampness of the West, yet the situation was not disagreeable. At the other side of the river men were sitting on a wall, and talking, quietly, inexhaustibly; now and then a shout of laughter broke from one of them, like a flame from a smouldering fire. "These lads are waiting to go back on the night mail," said the Doctor; "you wouldn't think they're up since maybe three this morning to come in to the fair." Here a railway whistle made a thin bar of sound somewhere out under the low moon, that had now lifted herself clear of the haze. A voice called from the hill-side: "Hora-thu! Tommeen! Let yee be coming on!"