‟IS Mr. Linton in, Timsy?”

“He is, sir. Leastways, he’s out, down by the lough, and all of them with him.” The small boy looked up at Sir John O’Neill with more awe than he was wont to regard most people. “Will I get him for you, sir?”

“No—I’ll go down, myself. Is your father well, Timsy?”

“He does be splendid, sir,” said Timsy, his eye brightening. “Only they’ll be takin’ him back soon, to fight them ould Germans.”

“I expect Lord Kitchener can’t do without him,” said Sir John, confidentially. “Never mind,—we’ll have him back in Donegal altogether, before long, please goodness. And whisper, Timsy—when he comes back for good, he’ll have a splendid medal on his coat!” He patted the small boy on the head and left him speechless before a prospect so tremendous.

The Linton party was discovered by the well on the lough shore, where Wally was scratching the nose of the patient donkey and talking to him, as Norah said, as man to man. He had his back to the path down from the garden, and did not hear Sir John’s approach.

“If you’d come back to Australia with us, acushla machree,” he said, “I’d guarantee you the best of grass and you wouldn’t have any water to draw at, all.” The ass drooped his head lower, and appeared, not at all impressed by this dazzling future. “And Murty would love you, and Norah would ride you after cattle.” (“I would not!” from Norah.) “And you could tell the horses about Ireland, and we’d tie green ribbons round your neck on St. Patrick’s Day, and let you wave a green flag with a harp on it in your pearl-pale hand. Oh, lovely ass——!”

“Were you speaking to me?” asked Sir John, politely, near his ear; and Wally jumped, and joined in the laugh against himself.

“We’re twin-souls, this patient person and myself,” he explained. “I’ve found it out, and I’m trying to make the ass see it. Never mind, old chap; we’ll continue this profitable conversation when we are alone; unfeeling listeners only make you bashful.” He produced a carrot from his pocket, and the ass ate it, despondently.

“I’m awfully sorry to have interrupted your heart-to-heart talk; but the fact is, Mr. Linton, I’m simply bursting with an idea, and I had to hurry over and put it before you.” Sir John spoke eagerly, turning to Norah with a laugh. “Is it a good moment to approach him, Norah? I want him to promise to do something.”

“He ate a noble breakfast,” said Norah, gravely. “And he’s nearly finished his pipe. I should think the moment’s favourable. Anyway, it will have to be now, because I simply can’t wait to hear what it is!”

“You see, we know your ideas, O’Neill,” Mr. Linton said, laughing. “They generally combine a great deal of trouble for yourself with something quite new in the way of entertainment for us. This must be particularly outrageous, as you want me to promise beforehand. I think you had better make a clean breast of it.”

“Well, it’s this,” Sir John answered. “The weather is glorious, and the glass is high; it’s useless weather for fishing, and I think you have explored this neighbourhood pretty thoroughly. The motor holds six quite easily. What do you say to a trip north—a little tour, to last about a week?”

Subdued gasps came from Norah, Jim, and Wally. Mr. Linton laughed outright.

“What did I tell you?” he demanded.

“Not at all,” responded Sir John. “I think”—unblushingly—“that Con needs a change; and it would be an excellent way to give him one, if you would only be kind enough to help me. You surely wouldn’t refuse poor Con such a little thing!”

“I’ve re-cast a good many of my ideas about Ireland,” David Linton said. “But to utilize five people to take one chauffeur for a change is certainly what I was brought up to call an Irish way of doing things! Seriously, however, O’Neill, your proposal is a very tempting one. Shall we put it to the committee?”

“The committee says, ‘Carried nem. con.’ I should say,” said Jim. “It would be simply top-hole. But isn’t it putting rather a strain on you and the motor?”

“Certainly not—as far as I am concerned, a run in sea-air is all I need to make me quite fit again,” O’Neill answered. “What do you say about it, Norah?”

“I’m speechless; and as for Wally, he’s leaning up against the ass for support,” said Norah, indicating Mr. Meadows, who grasped the hapless donkey fondly. “It’s the most glorious plan, Sir John; and it’s just like you, to think of it.”

O’Neill’s delicate face flushed with pleasure.

“You’re all such satisfactory people, because you’re never bored,” he said. “And then, you like Ireland, which makes everything delightful. Well, I thought we might have a look at Horn Head and Sheep Haven, Mr. Linton, and perhaps get across to The Rosses; or would you rather have no fixed plan, but just wander about, seeking what we may find? There are innumerable little bays and inlets up there, all rather fascinating; we should be between mountain and sea scenery, and the inns here and there are fairly good.”

“I think we will leave it entirely to you, so far as planning the route goes,” Mr. Linton answered. “You know the country, and we don’t; and as for us, any part of Ireland is good.”

“I vote for having no fixed plan at all,” Jim said. “It’s when you have no plans that the best things happen to you!”

“We’ll leave it at that, then,” said Sir John. “Can we start to-morrow?”

“We have only two weeks more leave,” said Jim. “So the sooner we go the better.”

“And you can be ready, Norah?”

“Me? Oh, certainly,” said Norah, who, Wally declared, was always ready at any time for anything.

“Then, I’ll be off,” Sir John declared. “I left Con hard at work on the car, giving her a thorough overhaul—we could not believe that you would be so hard-hearted as to refuse him the trip! But I have a good many things to see to, and I’ll have a busy day.”

“Could I help you?” Jim asked. “I’m handy at odd jobs.”

“Would you care to? I’ll be awfully glad of your company,” said Sir John warmly. They went off together, the boy’s great shoulders towering above O’Neill’s dwarfed form.

Jim did not return until late that night. Norah, just about to blow out her candle, heard his light step on the stair and called to him softly.

“Not asleep yet, kiddie?” Jim said, sitting down on the bed. “You should be; you’ll be tired to-morrow.”

“I’m all right,” said Norah, disregarding this friendly caution. “Jim, I packed your bag; and there’s a list of things just inside it, in case I made any mistakes.”

“Well, you are a brick!” said Jim, who was accustomed to stern independence, but, like most people, greatly appreciated a little spoiling now and then. “I was looking forward rather dismally to a midnight packing; O’Neill wants to get off quite early in the morning.”

“We guessed that was likely. Did you have a good day, Jim?”

“Quite. I don’t think I was any particular help to O’Neill; he found a few jobs for me, but I fancy he had to rack his brains for them. But we pottered about together all day, and had a very jolly time; he’s such fun when he’s in good form, and he was like a kid to-day. Made me laugh no end.” Jim pondered, beginning to unlace his boots. “I think it’s only when he is alone that those bitter fits get hold of him; and he just dreads being alone. That’s why he took me over, of course.”

“I thought so,” nodded Norah. “But I do think he’s happier than he was, Jim.”

“I believe he is. Well, we’ll try to keep him laughing for the next week or so, anyhow,” said Jim. “Now, you go to sleep, old kiddie.”

The fine weather held, making it easy to leave trout which would have nothing to do with them; and next day the motor took them away into bypaths of Ireland, with new beauty and new legend at every turn. They passed Gartan, and saw the birthplace of Saint Columba, a tiny stone cell with a curiously indented stone; and Columba’s ruined church of grey stone, roofless, and with almost-effaced carvings on its walls. Near it a tall, narrow stone stood crookedly—all that remained of a cross. The ground before it, hard as iron, was hollowed where the knees of thousands of pilgrims had knelt in prayer, and the stone itself was smooth from kisses that had been pressed upon it through century after century. Sir John knew many legends of the hot-tempered, fighting saint, whose warlike proclivities eventually led to his banishment from the Ireland he loved, to work and suffer home-sickness until Death came at last to release him.

“The emigrants pray to him specially, since he, too, knew what it meant to be lonely for Ireland,” Sir John said. “He was a worker: he wrote three hundred books and founded the same number of churches. So he came to be called Columcille—cille meaning church. An O’Donnell he was: one of the old house. He made a famous copy of the Psalms, the disputed ownership of which caused the fight that led to his leaving Ireland: and this copy—it was called The Cathach, or Battler—was an heirloom in the O’Donnell family, who always carried it with them into battle, in a shrine. One hates to think of him, exiled, working, and longing for home. The first monastery he founded was near Derry; he was only a young man then, but long afterwards he wrote that the angels of God sang in every glade of Derry’s oaks. I always think one can see him in this queer little church—big and powerful, with the fighting face and toilworn hands.”

For a time they kept near the railway that creeps through the heart of Donegal: a quaint, narrow-gauge line where the trains saunter, forgetful of time. Its way runs through deep bogs, which made its construction no light matter, since solid foundation was in some places only found eighty feet below the surface, and great causeways, embankments, and viaducts had to be built to carry it. Sometimes, in contrast, the way had to be hewn through solid rock. On one hand lay wild and rugged mountains, with some fine dominating peaks: Muckish—“the hog’s back”—with its long, flattened ridge, changing from every angle of vision; and the great peak of Errigal, bare and glistening, the highest mountain in Donegal.

“It’s a great old peak,” said Sir John, looking at it affectionately. “You can see Scotland from the top—and all over Donegal, and southward to the Sligo and Galway hills.”

“How it glistens!” said Norah, watching the great cone as the motor went slowly along. “What makes it so white?”

“That’s white quartz; it gives it its name, ‘the silver mountain.’ It looks a single peak from here, but as we round it you’ll see that there are really two heads close together; there is a narrow ridge, with a track about a foot wide, connecting them. Some day, when you all come back to stay with me at Rathcullen, we must arrange an expedition for you to climb it.”

Their wandering way led them from the railway line, after a time; and they struck northward into lonely country of moors and bogs, dotted with tiny cabins from which blue turf-smoke curled lazily. Once they passed an old man riding a grey mare, with his wife perched behind him on a pillion, holding under her shawl a turkey in a sack, from the mouth of which protruded the head of the indignant bird, making loud protests. None of the women they met, whether young or old, wore hats: all had the heavy Irish shawl round head and shoulders,—and whether the face that looked from the folds were that of a withered old woman or a fresh and smiling colleen, somehow the shawl seemed the best setting that could have been devised for it.

Often, for miles and miles, they met no one and passed no habitation: or perhaps the loneliness of the way would be broken by a little thatched cabin, where ragged children ran to the doorway, to gaze, round-eyed, at the strangers. In one little town, however, a fair was in progress, and the cobbled street presented a lively spectacle. Men, women and children; asses, ridden and driven; horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, and a few stray geese, mingled in loud-voiced confusion, while dogs slipped hither and thither, managing to intensify the urgency of any situation. To get the big Rolls-Royce through such a concourse was no easy task, and even with a people so good-humoured, a tactless driver would have achieved swift unpopularity. Sir John, however, was at the wheel himself, and he slowed down to a crawl, sounding the hooter occasionally, more in the manner of a gentle suggestion than anything else. His Irish accent was a shade more in evidence than usual as he exchanged greetings with the crowd.

“ ’Tis a fine season we’re having, thank God!”

“It is, your honour. G’wan now, Mary Kate; get the little ass out of the way of the mothor.”

“Ah, don’t be hurrying her. I have plenty of time.”

“Sure ye’d need it, your honour, the place is that throng.”

“And that’s a good sign; it’s a great fair you’re having!”

“Well indeed, sir, it is not bad, thank God!”

O’Neill swerved to avoid an old woman in an ass-cart, who was talking volubly to some neighbours, while the ass took its own direction among the crowd. Voices broke into swift upbraidings.

“Take a howld of the ass there, will you, Maria Cooney!”

“Oh, wirra, it’s desthroyed she’ll be!”

“She will not, but the great mothor!”

“Is it to scratch the beautiful paint ye would, with the cart!” cried a wrathful man hauling the ass aside bodily, while the unhappy Mrs. Cooney stammered out excuses that no one heard, and blinked feebly at the Rolls-Royce—which was pardonable, since she had never seen one before.

“God help us, ’tis the heighth of a house!”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” said O’Neill, smiling at her distressed face. The crowd broke into smiles in answer.

“ ’Tis not like the Englishman he is—the one that galloped his machine over Ellen Clancy’s gander, an’ he goin’ to Rosapenna!” shrilled a voice.

“Watch him now—and the bonnivs under the wheels of him!”—as a drove of fat pink pigs broke through the crowd, scattered, in the infuriating manner peculiar to pigs, and resisted all efforts to collect them out of harm’s way. Their owner, a lean, black-whiskered man, lifted up his voice and bewailed them.

“Yerra, he have them thrampled! No—aisy, sir, just a moment, till I get at him with a stick. That one do be always in the wrong place.” He hauled a pig bodily from beneath the car, retaining it by one leg, while it drowned any other remarks with its shrieks, and its companions scattered through the crowd, pursued hotly by the dogs.

“Sorry—I ought not to bring a motor through a fair,” said O’Neill, willing to concede the right to the road to the “bonnivs.”

“An’ why wouldn’t you?” said their owner, cheerfully. “Many’s the time I’d not so much as the one left to me when I’d brang ’em through, an’ I scourin’ every boreen after them. Let you go on, sir—it’s all right.”

The motor wormed its way along. When the crowd grew less congested, O’Neill ventured to increase the speed. Just as he did so, a small child, escaping from its mother, who was driving a wordy bargain over a matter of geese, toddled into the road in pursuit of a fat puppy; and having caught it, sat down suddenly, right in the path of the motor.

A girl shrieked, and O’Neill wrenched the car to a standstill, the bonnet not two yards from the baby. Jim was out in the road in a flash, and picked up the urchin, who showed considerable annoyance at the escape of the puppy, but was otherwise quite unmoved, and accepted a penny with a composure worthy of a duke. The crowd collected anew with unbelievable swiftness, and O’Neill groaned.

“ ’Tis Maggie O’Hare’s baby. Woman, dear, where are ye? an’ he after being nearly kilt on ye?”

“Did ye see his honour pull up? An ass wouldn’t have done it, an’ he dhrawin’ a cart!”

“I seen him sit down in the road, in-under the mothor, an’ I knew he was dead, only I’d not time to let a bawl out of me!”

“Is it dead? Sure, look at him, an’ the big gentleman carryin’ him, no less!”

“Grinning he is, the way you’d say he was the best boy in Ireland. Ah, that’s the dotey wee thing!”

“Sure, that one has no fear at all. He’ll be the boy for the trenches!”

At this point Maggie O’Hare arrived breathlessly, having just become aware of her son’s peril—with some difficulty, owing to six of her friends having excitedly explained the matter together. To an unprejudiced onlooker, it would have seemed that her principal maternal emotion was horror at finding her offspring perched on Jim’s shoulder.

“Come down out of that, Micky—have behaviour, now, an’ don’t be throublin’ the gentleman! Put him down, sir—I’d not have you annoyed with him.” She received Micky with much apparent wrath, but her arms were tight round the little body. “Isn’t it the rascal he is!—an’ I but lettin’ him out of me hand that minute, the way I’d be feedin’ the goose!”

In England, Jim had learned to give tips; and for a moment his hand sought his pocket. Fortunately, he checked the impulse in time. The woman’s eyes met his with the good breeding that lends something of dignity to the poorest Irish peasant.

“He’s a great boy,” he said, in his pleasant voice. “Not a bit of fear in him—have you, Micky?” He lifted his cap, and said “Good-bye,” striding back to the motor. They moved on, slowly, leaving the little town seething behind them.

“It isn’t altogether without incident to drive through a fair!” said O’Neill, dreamily.

Towards evening they came to their halting-place for the night—a grey village, nestling among brown hills.

“The inn used to be very fair, but one can’t guarantee anything in war-time,” Sir John remarked. “Of course it isn’t big enough to suffer from the complaint that suddenly affected all the important hotels—the hurried departure of French cooks and German waiters. Many hotel-keepers will speak until the end of their lives, with tears in their voices, about the awful day when Henri and Gaston, and Fritz and Karl, the props of their establishment, dropped their aprons and fled to their respective Fatherlands. You can’t convince those hotel-keepers that they do not know all about the horrors of war!”

“This little place doesn’t suggest imported cooks and waiters,” said Mr. Linton.

“No, as I remember it, the landlady was the cook, and her daughter the housemaid; and a nondescript gentleman of the ‘odd-boy’ type doubled the parts of boots, barkeeper, groom, and waiter, with any other varieties of usefulness that might be demanded of him. And there he is still, by the same token, bringing in a load of turf.” Sir John indicated a wiry little man leading a shambling old black horse bearing two creels slung across his back, piled high with sods. He turned into the back gateway of the inn as they drew up at the front door; and, hearing the motor, cast a glance over his shoulder, realized the presence of guests, and administered a sounding slap on the black horse’s quarter, disappearing hurriedly. They heard his voice, shrilly summoning the unseen.

“Is himself within?—let ye hurry! There’s a pack of gentry at the door, in a mothor-car!” And a voice yet more shrill:

“Wirra! An’ me fire black out—an’ what in the world, at all, ’ll I give ’em for their dinners!”

They made acquaintance with the problem a little later when, hungry and cheerful, they gathered in the long, low dining-room, where last year’s heather and ling filled the fireless grate. The “odd-boy,” cleansed beyond belief, awaited them.

“What can we have for dinner?” O’Neill inquired.

“Is it dinner? Sure, anything you’d fancy, sir,” said the “odd-boy,” with a nervous briskness that somehow induced disbelief.

“H’m,” said Sir John, remembering the cry of woe that had floated through the air, earlier. “Chops or steaks?”

The “odd-boy” shifted from one foot to the other.

“I’m afeard there’s none in the house, sir,” he said. “ ’Tis the way the butcher——”

“Oh well—cold meat,” O’Neill said, cutting short the butcher’s iniquities.

“Yes, sir—certainly, sir!” said the “odd boy,” and disappeared. There was an interval during which the party admired the view and endeavoured to repress the pangs of hunger. Finally the messenger reappeared.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, nervously. “Cold meat is off, they do be tellin’ me.”

“Well, what can we have?” O’Neill said, losing the finer edge of his patience.

The “odd-boy” grew confidential.

“ ’Tis this way, sir,” he said. “The fair was yesterday: an’ them cattle-jobbers have us ate out of the house. So there’s just three things ye can have, sir: an’ the first eggs; an’ the second’s bacon; and third is eggs and bacon. An’ ye can have your choice-thing of them three!”

THROUGH the tiny window of Norah’s room came the soft sunlight which makes an Irish morning so perfect a thing that to stay in bed a moment longer than necessary would be criminal. Norah woke up, and looked at it sleepily for a few minutes, wishing the window were bigger. It had altogether declined to remain open the night before, until she had propped it with the water-jug, which now stood rakishly on the sill, and had already excited considerable interest and speculation in the street below. She dressed quickly, somewhat embittered by the fact that investigation discovered no sign of a bathroom. The search was a nervous one, since the corridor seemed principally to consist of shut doors; and after cautiously opening one which looked promising, but which revealed a tousled head on a pillow, with loud snores saluting her, she was seized with panic, and fled back to her own room.

When she emerged, fully dressed, she still seemed the only person awake. Downstairs, however, she encountered the “odd-boy,” who was sweeping the hall with a lofty disregard of corners, wherein the dust of many sweepings had accumulated in depressing heaps. Through a cloud of dust he blinked in amazement at her.

“Were you wantin’ anything, miss?”

“No, thanks,” Norah answered; “I was going for a walk. Is there anything to see in the village?”

The “odd-boy” thought deeply, and finally replied with gloom that he didn’t know why anybody would be looking at it at all. Then, suddenly inspired, he hastened to the door in Norah’s wake.

“There’s Willy Gallaher’s ould pig, miss, an’ she after having eleven of the finest little ones yesterday. Ye’d ought to see them. Willy’s the proud man. ’Twas himself was due for a bit of good luck, though, with twins not a week old!”

“Thanks,” said Norah, laughing. “But I’d rather see the twins.” Which astounding preference left the “odd-boy” gaping. Twins were a regrettable everyday occurrence, but eleven “bonnivs” were the gift of Providence, and not to be lightly regarded.

Norah made her way up the narrow street. The air was full of the pleasant smell of newly-lit turf fires, and in the cottages the women were beginning their day’s work. Children ran to peep over the half-door at the stranger, and Norah, peeping over in her turn, saw fat babies crawling about the earthen floors and made friends with them until their mothers picked them up and brought them to the half-door for further admiration. Thus her progress up the street was slow, and it was some time before she came to the outskirts of the village and crossed a green where asses, geese, fowls, and long-haired goats wandered sociably.

Beyond the green the high road curved, and, following it, Norah came upon a narrow river that tumbled from the hills, racing under an old bridge of grey stone in a mass of foaming rapids. On the other side was a little ruined castle, upon which she advanced joyfully, with the passion for anything old which gave the Australians the keenest enjoyment of all their experiences of travel.

It was not much of a castle; the walls had long since collapsed into heaps of broken stone, most of which had been carried away to build cabins and were now concealed under the whitewash of years. A small square tower yet stood, but was obviously unsafe, since the crumbling stairway that wound upwards inside it had been shut off by rusty iron bars. It was not easy to make out the outlines of what had been rooms, for the stones had fallen in all directions, and grass and brambles grew wildly over them. But everywhere, softening the cruelty and destruction of time, ivy clambered; a kindly cloak of green that blotted out harsh outlines and turned the whole into something exquisite.

Norah crossed the bridge and climbed upon a half-fallen wall, perching herself on a huge flat stone that lay bathed in sunshine. Above her the jackdaws which nested in the ivy-covered tower chattered and scolded, flying in and out to their homes; below was no sound save the hurried babble of the river, where now and then came the flash of a leaping trout. It was very peaceful. She tried to “reconstruct” it in the way they loved, seeing again the old days when the castle stood proudly, and chieftains and fair ladies, richly clad, moved about the rooms and looked through the narrow window slits at the river, running just as it ran to-day. It was a fascinating employment; so that she did not hear a light step, until a falling stone brought her back to the present with a jump.

“Did I startle you?” Sir John asked, looking up at her. “They told me you had gone out, and I guessed that if you weren’t somewhere playing with a baby you would have found the ruin!”

“The babies and the ruin are both lovely,” Norah said, smiling. “I’m taking them in turn.”

“Did you sleep well?” Sir John asked, climbing up to the wall, and lighting a cigarette.

“Oh, yes, thanks; only the morning was too nice to stay in bed. I had such a funny little room, all nooks and corners.”

“I had a feather bed!” said Sir John, with a wry face. “Awful things; I don’t know how people ever slept on them. It was very huge and puffy, and I sank down into its depths, and felt as if the waters were closing over my head. Then I dreamed wild dreams of battle. Altogether, I feel as if I had an adventurous night.”

“I read once of an old woman who slept on a turkey-feather bed for twenty years, until at last all the feathers stuck together in a solid mass like a mat, and he had a sealskin coat made out of it!” said Norah.

“I’d love to believe it, but it beats any fishing-yarn I ever heard,” said Sir John, regarding her fixedly. “Do you believe it yourself?”

“I don’t know anything about the ways of featherbeds,” Norah said, laughing. “But I always thought she must have been an unpleasant old lady, for it showed clearly that she hadn’t shaken up her mattress for twenty years. Oh, Sir John, did you find a bathroom?”

“I did not; there isn’t one. I’m sorry, Norah. We ought to have better luck at our stopping-place to-night.”

“I suppose one can’t expect baths everywhere,” Norah said. “The queer part to us is being charged extra for one’s tub; no hotel in Australia ever does anything so ungracious. They rather encourage one to take baths there.”

“It’s a ridiculous charge, especially where a water-supply is no trouble,” O’Neill answered. “Did I ever tell you the story of a friend of mine who was staying in a very old-fashioned country-house, where his early cup of tea was brought in by a very old butler? My friend asked for a bath, and was told there was no hot water available—‘the pipes have froze on us,’ said the butler, sadly. Next day it was the same; but the third morning the butler came in with triumph in his eye.

“ ‘Sure, the bath will be all right this morning, sir,’ he said, confidentially. ‘I have the hot wather beyant.’

“He went out, and returned panting under an enormous bath of the flat tin-saucer variety, which he put down with pride, while my friend—who happened to be as big as your father—watched him, much thrilled. Next he laid down a smart bath-mat, and hung over a chair a bath-towel as large as a sheet. Finally, he went out, and brought back a very small can of hot water, which he poured very carefully into the bath; as my friend said, it made a thin film of wet on its great flat surface. The old butler straightened up, beaming.

“ ‘Now, sir,’ he said, proudly—‘ye can have your little dive!’ ”

Norah’s shout of laughter was echoed by Wally and Jim, whose heads suddenly appeared over the ivy-covered wall.

“I don’t see why you retire to ruins to tell your best stories, O’Neill,” Jim said. “Also, we feel that it’s breakfast-time, and we’ve been scouring the country for you both.”

“I begin to feel that way myself,” Norah said, jumping down.

Mr. Linton was smoking in front of the hotel. In the dining-room, the “odd-boy,” again thinly disguised for the moment as a waiter, hovered about their table for orders, a procedure which seemed superfluous, since the possibilities of the house did not exceed the inevitable bacon and eggs. No one, however, was disposed to quarrel with the meal; and very soon after, they were again on the road, leaving the friendly little village by a winding highway that soon brought them within sight and sound of the sea—one of the deep inlets that thrust themselves far into the wild northern coast of Ireland. The road led, now close to the shore, now striking across country to find a short cut over the neck of a peninsula. They skirted little bays where a golden beach gleamed invitingly, and ran out on rocky headlands, on which the sullen sea thundered. Inland, the country grew more and more lonely and desolate.

“How on earth do these people get a living?” Jim ejaculated, looking at the wretched cabins in a tumbledown village. “The soil is nearly all stone—and how horribly bleak it must be in winter! This is July, and still the wind is wild enough.”

“I don’t think they get much of a living at all,” Sir John said. “Fishing helps, of course; and all the able-bodied men hire themselves out for the harvesting to Scotch and English farmers, and bring home what seems a big sum in these parts, together with stories of the wealth across the water:

“Indeed, they don’t do that here,” said Mr. Linton, looking at the ragged boy by the wayside.

“Not they—shoes only come with years of discretion, and often, not then. But don’t they look rosy and well?—nothing of the pinched look of the youngsters in a city slum.”

“No—I think the air must be nourishing!” remarked Wally.

“You’re quite right; it is. But they grow little crops, in tiny corners between the stones. The soil is bad enough; they are lucky if they are near the sea, for then they can bring up mussels and kelp as manure. There’s a woman bringing some now”; and Sir John pointed to a bent figure, bare-legged, a red shawl over head, and on her back a huge basket, beneath which she was labouring up a steep cliff-path. “She has a kish full of shell-fish there—you wouldn’t find it a light load, even on the level, but they carry hundreds of them up these cliffs. There are parts of Donegal so bleak that they have to warm the ground before sowing the seed; they burn the dried sea-weed on the prepared soil, and sow the crop while the ashes are still smoking.”

“Great Scott!” said Jim, feebly. “Fancy an Australian doing that!”

Sir John laughed grimly.

“I fancy an Australian would flee in horror if he were offered as a gift a tract of land that supports hundreds of these people,” he said. “You should see them reaping their tiny, pocket-handkerchief crops; they do it with a little reaping-hook, and, upon my word, some of them are so small that you might harvest them with a pair of scissors! Of course they’re not worth much; but then these people are accustomed to live on very little, and they scarcely need more than they have, if the sea is kind and the fishing fair. They look wild enough; but they are intelligent, even if ignorant, and you will always meet with courtesy among them.”

“They would make great fighting men,” Jim observed, watching a broad-shouldered, dark-faced young fellow who was digging in a tiny field by the road. He had paused to look at the motor, one foot on the spade, and his splendid young body upright.

“Oh, every sound Irishman is that naturally,” Sir John said, with a laugh. “And the women could do their bit if occasion arose. Did you hear, by the way, of the women of Limerick, when some of the disaffected idiots of whom there are too many in the country made a pro-German demonstration there lately? They chose a day when most of the loyal men of the city were away; these fellows were from Dublin, and they made a procession and planned quite a little show. But they reckoned without the women.”

“What—did they take a hand?” asked Mr. Linton.

“They did, indeed, with sticks and stones and whatever other missiles came handy. It was most effective: they broke up the procession completely, and the gallant rebels had to be rescued by the police. The women had a great day. I asked one why they didn’t leave the matter entirely to the police, and she looked at me in scorn and asked why would they accommodate themselves with the ignorance of policemen? And indeed, I didn’t know. After all, some things are managed much better without the law.”

The road had for some time been leading away from the sea, and now began to climb up a steep cutting, between rock-walls fringed with ferns and mosses. On the hills above them a few goats browsed, their kids cutting capers among the boulders, with complete enjoyment of the game. They mounted steadily for awhile; then, topping the rise, began to glide downwards. The road turned and twisted as they neared the level ground, following the course of a little stream that came rushing from some unseen source. Sir John, who was driving, sounded his horn steadily.

“There are not many people on these roads,” he said, over his shoulder. “But it doesn’t do to take risks with the country folk.”

“No. Still, I never saw a more desolate road, so far as traffic goes,” Mr. Linton answered. “We have not seen a soul for miles on it.”

“I don’t think there is a soul on it,” said Sir John, laughing.

The motor swung round a corner, with a prolonged hoot; and there, so close that the bonnet of the car seemed almost to be touching the ass’s nose, came an old woman, nodding sleepily in a cart. There was no time to stop, and no room to turn. The ass planted all four feet stubbornly, stopping dead, and they heard a faint cry from the shawled old figure.

“Sit tight,” said O’Neill between his teeth.

The brake jammed hard on as he spoke; they had been running down-hill slowly, with the power shut off. The ass backed indignantly; and the great motor swerved to one side, where there was a little more room in the cutting, bumped heavily over dry channels worn by the winter rains, and rammed her bonnet gently into the rock wall. The occupants of the tonneau found themselves in a heap on the floor. The car throbbed to silence, and the old woman in the ass-cart said, “God help us!” loudly.

“Well, indeed, He did,” said O’Neill, under his breath. “Are you all right, all of you?”

“We’re mixed, but undamaged,” Jim answered. “What about you, O’Neill?”

“I’m all right. How is she, Con?”

Con had swung himself out before the car finally stopped, and was examining the battered bonnet dismally, finally appealing for help to push her away from the wall.

“In a minute,” O’Neill said.

He walked over to the old woman, who still sat motionless on the floor of the ass-cart, her withered face pitifully afraid.

“Did you not hear the horn?” O’Neill asked.

“I did, sir—but I didn’t rightly know what it was, an’ I half asleep.” She rocked herself to and fro, wretchedly. “Oh, wirra, the great mothor! Is it desthroyed entirely, sir?”

“It is not—but it’s the mercy of Heaven we’re not all killed, and you and the little ass, too. When you hear that horn, mother, get to one side of a road quickly: and don’t be afraid to call out, if it happens to be a narrow road.”

“I . . . I . . .” She looked at him helplessly, her voice breaking.

“Don’t worry—you’re all right,” he said gently. “Is it tired you are?”

“I been sittin’ up with my son these two nights,” she said, finding words. “Mortal ill he was, an’ the woman he married no more use than a yalla-haired doll. An’ when they’re sick they do be wantin’ their mothers again, like as if they’d gone back to be little boys.” Just for a moment he caught a gleam of triumph in her dulled eyes.

“And is he better?”

“He is, sir, God be praised, and I’m gettin’ home to me man; there’s no knowin’ what he’ll have done to himself, not used to bein’ alone and all.”

Something passed from O’Neill’s palm into the trembling, work-worn old hand.

“That’s to bring you luck for your son,” he said, forestalling her protests. “Let you get home, mother, and have a meal. Wait a moment.”

He unscrewed the cap of his flask, and made her drink out of the silver cup, to her own great horror.

“If I’d a tin, itself!” she protested. “But your honour’s cup!”

“Drink it up,” said O’Neill, unmoved. He took back the cup and stood aside; and the little ass moved on, the old woman calling down blessings upon him, with tears finding well-accustomed furrows down her cheeks.

“Sitting up two nights, and probably doing the work of the house during the day, in addition to nursing; and most likely on bread and stewed black tea!” said O’Neill, indignantly, striding back to the motor. “You wouldn’t wonder if she went to sleep in front of the car of Juggernaut. Poor old soul! I say, you people have been busy!”

They had levered the heavy car back, chocking the wheels with great stones, and the chauffeur was making explorations into her vital parts. Sir John joined him, and they discoursed unintelligibly in technical language.

“Well, it might be worse, but it’s not too good,” Sir John said, at last, emerging from the investigation and wiping his hands on a ball of cotton-waste. “There’s no moving her without men and horses, and no getting her going again until we get some spare parts; and they’re no nearer than Belfast or Dublin; possibly we shall have to telegraph to London for them.”

“But she’s not desthroyed entirely?” Norah said, happily.

“She is not. Hadn’t we the luck of the world that it happened where it did, just on level ground and where there was a little room to manœuvre! If it had been three minutes earlier, on the side of the hill, in the narrow cutting, we should simply have gone clean over the poor old soul and her ass. Nothing could have saved them.”

“It might easily have been infinitely worse,” Mr. Linton said. “But I’m sorry for the car, O’Neill.”

“Oh, the car’s nothing,” Sir John answered, cheerfully. “I’m only sorry for the interruption to our trip. However, things might be more uncomfortable. We’re only three or four miles from Carrignarone, where I meant to stop the night: there is quite a passable inn there, small and homely, but it’s clean and comfortable enough. We could stay there for a few days, while Con goes to Belfast to get what is necessary—that is, if you like. The coast is interesting, and we might get some sea-fishing. Of course, if you thought that too slow, we could drive to the railway, and get back to Killard.” He looked rather wistful. “I had hoped this was going to be such a jolly trip,” he said.

“Why, so it is,” Jim responded. “I’m awfully sorry for the damage to the motor, but we’re going to have plenty of fun all the same. It will be rather good fun to be on a coast again, and we’re all keen on sea-fishing. And you know, O’Neill, we wouldn’t make any definite plans, so that the unexpected could take charge of us!”

“It has certainly done that,” Sir John said, laughing. “Well, I think the next thing is lunch: a good thing I got the hotel to put us up something, though it will probably be only hard-boiled eggs.”

It was hard-boiled eggs, and they ate them merrily, sitting on the bank of the little stream, where lichen-covered boulders, smooth and weather-worn, made convenient seats.

“I am perfectly certain,” Mr. Linton said, “that if I were in London and ate an enormous meal of soda-bread, eggs like bullets, and very black tea out of a Thermos, I should have dyspepsia. Not that I ever had it; but the mixture sounds dyspeptic when you couple it with London. But sitting on the bank of a Donegal river it seems quite the proper thing, and I shall be very well after it.”

“No one could be anything but well in Donegal,” Wally said, decisively. “Whew-w, Jim! think of the trenches, in a fortnight!”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe. “I want my little hit-back at Brer Boche, but I’d much rather it was in the open: there’s no romance in war when you carry it on in an over-populated ditch.”

“Lucky young animals!” said Sir John, openly envious—and the boys flushed a little. As a rule, they were careful not to talk of the Front in the presence of the man whose whole soul longed to be out there with them. “But you’ll all come back, won’t you? and Mr. Linton, when the war is over, or when these ancient campaigners next get leave, you will bring them back to Rathcullen? I want to know that that is a settled thing.”

“That is a matter which I don’t need to put to the committee,” Mr. Linton replied, looking at the cheery faces. “We’ll certainly come, O’Neill, since you are so good. And then, when we pack up finally for Australia and Billabong, what about you? You know it’s high time you visited that little country of ours.”

“He’s coming with us,” said Norah, with decision. “Say you are, Sir John—please!”

“Well, indeed, I begin to think I am,” O’Neill answered. “I was getting terribly old when you invaded Donegal, but now I believe I shall soon be nearly as young as Mr. Linton! At any rate, I might follow you out.” But the boys protested, arguing that there was no point in travelling alone when they might make a family party.

“It would be miles jollier,” said Wally. “Then we could ‘personally conduct’ you to Billabong, and you would have the unforgettable experience of seeing Brownie go mad. I’m quite certain she and Murty will be delirious on the day that Norah comes marching home again!” So they planned happily, in gay defiance of the guns thundering across the Channel. That sullen menace was only a fortnight ahead, and already Norah dreamed of it at night. But in the daytime it was better to pretend that it did not exist.

Con was left with the motor, to administer what “first-aid” was possible: and after lunch the rest of the party set off along the road to Carrignarone, which was reached after an easy walk of an hour and a half. It was a little fishing-village, boasting a better inn than others of its type, since in normal years the sport to be obtained brought a small harvest of visitors. War, however, had meant lean times—wherefore the people of the inn fell thankfully on the windfall afforded them by a stranded party of six, and ran three ways at once in preparing for their comfort. A cart, with a couple of strong horses, was forthcoming, and under the charge of Jim and Wally, set off to the rescue of the motor—which was eventually towed into the village, where it caused what the war-reports term “a certain liveliness.” At the steering-wheel sat Con, a picture of humiliation—deepening to disgust when the carter politely offered him a whip!

“Them machines do be all very well to play with, for genthry an’ for them that have too much money,” said the carter, drawing a distinction that was not lost on his hearers. “But ’tis mighty glad they are of the ould horses when annything goes wrong with the works!” Which was so obviously true at the moment that no one had any spirit to contradict him.