CHAPTER V
And thus the young couple parted, going in opposite directions, each carrying in their thoughts a poignant memory of the other. Since Mary was a small child, “Master Ulick” had been secretly worshipped as her hero—the natural consequence of hearing on all sides praises of his feats of horsemanship, his courage, and his generosity. Little pitchers have long ears, and what they imbibe they remember. For a girl of her age, and class, Mary Foley was a widely-read young person. Mrs. Hogan at “The Arms” had a fancy for the child, and, knowing she was crazy after books, endowed her with various odds and ends that careless visitors or fishing folk, had left behind them. Mary had a wonderful imagination, and from the germs of her favourite characters, she composed a Paladin of her own. He was the embodiment of the Heir of Redcliff, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the Black Knight, and Charles O’Malley, and his name she never whispered, but all the same it was some one resembling Master Ulick, whom she crowned with a choice selection of other men’s laurels. It therefore will be seen that if Mary’s little sixteen-year-old heart was free, it was not fancy free!
As soon as Mary reached home and opened the half-door, her mother cried out—
“Mary asthore! What in the living world kep’ ye?”
“Sure I am afther meeting Masther Ulick,” was the breathless reply. “There beyant, in the boreen.”
“Did ye, agra; and what is he like now he’s a grown man?”
“Faix I couldn’t rightly explain, only he is tallish and upstanding, and I got a smell of tobacco off him!”
“Great fathers, child!”
“Yes; an’ he has a small moustache on his upper lip, and a great big smile on him, and grey eyes—his eyes”—and she drew in her breath—“is real beautiful!”