CHAPTER XXII.—HOW A DRIVE IN A JAUNTING CAR ENDED IN A MOTOR TRIP.
It was near a small village toward the west coast of Ireland where Elinor’s relatives lived, and the first impression of the straggling, cobble-paved street flanked with wretched hovels was hardly cheerful.
They had left Miss Campbell and Maria at the inn to rest and the four girls had taken a jaunting car and started off, ostensibly for a drive, but really on a search for the Butler cousins.
The jaunting car of Ireland is a vehicle peculiar to that country alone. It has two wheels like a dog cart, and the seats run sideways so that the passengers sit back to back and see only half the landscape as they jolt along. The driver is supposed to sit on a cross-piece in front, right over the horse’s tail, but he just as often sits at the side to drive his nag, urging him on with an occasional lazy flick of the whip. To-day he shared one of the seats with Elinor and Mary.
“Do you know a family named Butler around here, driver?” began Elinor diplomatically.
“Shure an’ there be a mony of that name in Oirland,” answered the man, blinking at the sunlight, “and a good name it is, I’m thinkin’.”
“I’m looking for the family of Thomas Butler,” Elinor ventured.
“An’ it’s Tom ye’re lookin’ for, is it?”
“Do you know him?” asked Elinor surprised at his familiarity in the use of her cousin’s name.
“Shure an’ I ought to know him,” chuckled the man. “An’ if God and his howly saints are good to me, I’ll know him for mony a day to come. He’s a good soul, is Tom. He wur-rks all the time, for shure, and nivver rests at all, exceptin’ whin the night comes an’ he falls on his bed for weariness. He’s a good fam’ly man, is Tom.”
“Good family,” repeated Elinor. “Yes, that’s what I understood. It’s a very good family.”
“It is indade, Miss. But my manin’ was different. Tom is a good provider. There’s more than sphuds on his table. There’s milk in a-plenty and eggs just fresh from the hins. Tom, he keeps two cows and a great number of powltry, includin’ of six foine ducks and as many more tur-rkeys.”
“DO YOU KNOW A FAMILY NAMED BUTLER AROUND HERE, DRIVER?” BEGAN ELINOR DIPLOMATICALLY.
Elinor’s bosom friends were too alive to her own poignant anguish even to smile over this enlightening description of Tom Butler and his powltry, but it was a very difficult position and Nancy, irrepressible giggler that she was, held her breath until her face was purple and tears of laughter filled her eyes.
“An’ what may you be wantin’ with Tom Butler, Miss?”
“I—I thought I’d like to call on him and his family,” faltered Elinor, not daring to look at Mary and feeling strangely glad that Billie and Nancy were sitting with their backs to her so that they could not see her crimson face.
“Is it from America ye’ve come?” asked the man, stirring up the old horse with his whip.
“Yes.”
“Ye be knowin’ some of the Butler kin there, I’m thinkin’?” asked the man with some excitement.
“Yes.”
“Get along with you, you slow-movin’ beast,” exclaimed the driver, unexpectedly addressing himself to his nag. “Shure and the divvel’s put weights in your hind feet. Ye’re a snail and no horse at all, at all.”
The road lay between fields a-bloom with red poppies and daisies. Occasionally groups of barefooted girls passed by and there was many a lounger by the wayside smoking his afternoon pipe,—which might with equal truth also be called his morning pipe and his noonday and evening pipe.
At last the car paused in front of a little stone cottage set in the midst of a small plot of ground. A woman was sitting in the doorway peeling potatoes and a tall pretty girl about Elinor’s own age came running around the side of the house with a basket of eggs.
“I be bringin’ a visitor for you, owld woman,” the man called pleasantly. “A young loidy from the States who is acquainted from some of the Butler fam’ly.”
“And indade, news of the Butler fam’ly will be like the sound of swate music to your ears, Tom,” called the woman.
Elinor started violently.
“Are you Thomas Butler?” she demanded.
“Shure, an’ I’m the mon,” he answered amiably. “I’m Thomas Butler as was soundin’ his own praises a while ago. If a mon don’t sound his own praises, there’s no one ilse as will do it for him.”
The other girls laughed, relieved to give vent to their repressed feelings. So these were Elinor’s much-boasted relations! Poor, proud Elinor, who always wore her hair in a coronet braid because she secretly believed her ancestors were of royal blood! They tacitly determined to leave the situation entirely in her hands, and when Elinor, whose face wore the expression of one who is about to take a bad dose of medicine, descended from the cart, they followed and shook hands with Mrs. Thomas Butler and her daughter, Eileen. Presently the jovial Thomas hitched his horse and came into the house after them.
There was not much furniture in the room in which they had been hospitably invited to sit down,—a table and a few chairs; a set of shelves whereon stood the household china, and a few cooking utensils. The floor was paved with stone slabs. On the mantel ticked a small wooden clock between two brass candlesticks, such as are used at all Irish wakes to stand at the head of the coffin. The room was unceiled at the top and crossed with smoke-blacked rafters. Chickens walked fearlessly in and out and a little fat pig stuck his nose in at the back door and grunted at them.
Eileen brought in a pitcher of milk and four thick glasses and shyly placed them on the table.
“An’ now, ye don’t be after tellin’ me that ye know me fust cousin, Michael Butler, a sthreet car conductor in the city of Saint Loose, the name of the county has eschaped me moind?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t met him,” answered Elinor apologetically.
“An’ is it me second cousin, Edward, ye be after knowin’?”
“Edward Butler is my uncle,” answered Elinor steadily.
“Well, may the howly Saint Pathrick and all his sainted brith’rin stand witness to this,” cried Thomas in the throes of paralyzing astonishment. “An’ you his niece, beghorra! His saloon must have prospered surely to be sindin’ his niece to Oirland in such grand stoile.”
“My uncle isn’t in that business,” began Elinor, blinking back her tears. “He’s a lawyer, and has a factory besides for manufacturing automobile supplies.”
The other girls mercifully endeavored to engage Eileen and her mother in conversation until they saw Elinor stand up and heard her say:
“You haven’t two sons and another daughter? Oh, then there’s some mistake. My cousins have quite a family of children.”
The man gave her a bland and innocent stare. It was impossible to ruffle his equable disposition.
“’Tis a mistake, surely, then, Miss, and you are not me cousin at all, at all, but the kin of the owld Squire who lives five miles the other side of the village. I’m sorry, but the matin’ was a plisint break in the day’s wor-rk, an’ I’m not begrudgin’ you of the toime I spent; an’ missin’ the sicond thrain with the most passengers. But I’m thinkin’ ye’ll have to git somebody else to drive ye to the owld Squire’s. It’s only last St. Michaelmas he called me a lazy blackguard, and me a hard wur-rkin’ man, beghorra!”
“That will be all right, Mr. Butler,” put in Billie. “If you’ll take us back to the village, we’ll go in the motor car to Squire Butler’s.”
“And we’ll gladly pay you for the time we’ve kept your vehicle,” said Elinor in tones of majestic relief.
Half an hour later they were informed by the man at the inn who had been giving the “Comet” a good dusting down, that Tom Butler was a lazy fellow who never did a lick of work except drive his old jaunting car,—an inheritance from his wife’s father,—back and forth from the station to the inn or to houses thereabouts.
“It’s his owld woman as runs the fam’ly, Miss, an’ his dowter as looks after the powltry.”
Armed with specific directions, they now sped in the “Comet” out of the inn yard, along the slovenly little street and into the country.
And, oh, the burst of hysterical laughter, long pent up, and the joy of being back in the smooth-running motor car after that jolting two-wheeled vehicle; but best of all, the supreme relief of not being related to Thomas the carter; his cousin Michael, the conductor, from Saint Loose, and his cousin Edward, keeper of a saloon, heaven knows where.
How they laughed and joked and teased Elinor, who was quite willing to be teased, you may be sure, being on the safe side now. With feelings very different from their recent emotions they finally stopped at a pretty little lodge built into a high stone wall. A barefooted girl opened the gate and up a neat gravel drive they sped. Presently they arrived at the front door of a charming old house covered with ivy, with windows opening right onto the lawn. It was not a large or pretentious dwelling, the home of Squire Butler, just a rambling, comfortable, pretty old place set in the midst of shrubbery and shade trees. Through the open casements of the drawing-room came the sweet fairy notes of a harp and a girl’s voice singing:
“Kathleen Mavourneen, the gray dawn is breaking,
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill.”
In a moment they were ushered into that same drawing-room, and the singer, slender and graceful, with soft blue eyes and dark hair, came forward.
“Is this Kathleen?” began Elinor. “I am your cousin, Elinor Butler, from America.”
Pretty soon all the Butlers were assembled in the drawing-room: Squire Butler, jovial and handsome; Mrs. Butler, still young and fresh-looking, although she was past fifty; Richard, home from Cambridge, and another Elinor, older than her sister and even prettier.
It seemed to the Motor Maids that never before had they met such charming people. Back of the house was an old-fashioned flower garden, separated from the kitchen garden by a tall hedge of fuchsias in full bloom. The rich color of the pendent blossoms made a splendid background for a group of wicker chairs and a table; hither the entire company now repaired for tea. An old lady drove up in a pony carriage and joined them, and two ruddy-faced girls wearing short skirts and stout walking boots made their appearance. They had taken the short ten-mile cut, they said, and timed themselves to arrive at four-thirty. One of them later joined Billie, Nancy and Richard Butler in a set of tennis, and played so well that Billie felt ashamed, and resolved secretly to get into practice before she played tennis again with Irish and English girls.
Mary Price and Kathleen wandered off to see the garden where roses clambered against the old walls and honeysuckle filled the air with its perfume. Along the paths, growing in profusion, were wall flowers, stock, marigolds, old-fashioned pinks, fragrant clumps of rosemary and many other flowers and herbs.
Squire Butler desired mightily to send a trap into the village for Miss Campbell and Madame Cortinas and all the luggage, too. But the girls assured him that they were due at Castle Abbey, Lord Glenarm’s place, in two days. Finally, Billie and young Richard Butler dashed back to the village in the motor car and returned with the two ladies for dinner.
As a matter of fact, this visit to Elinor’s Irish cousins was the most enjoyable episode in their entire trip. And to make it more complete, the moon came out after dinner, flooding the lawn and garden with its golden light. Then Maria quite forgot that she had intended to keep her vocation as a singer a secret and enchanted them all by singing:
“‘There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass
Or night dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentler on the spirit lies
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.’”