CHAPTER XXVI.
AT SALVANETRA.
Terence Devlin, who had charge of the Batistelli grounds, was an early riser, as all conscientious gardeners should be. Smoking his pipe, with his spade resting upon his shoulder, he stood regarding an old withered tree.
“Not wan drap av rain finds its way to the roots av this ould giant tree. I do believe it’s full nine hundred years ould.”
“Terence!”
The gardener turned when he heard his name called, and saw his wife, Snodine, running towards him; if the movement of a woman weighing nearly three hundred pounds could be called running.
“What the divil’s the matter?” was the husband-like salutation which greeted her when she met him.
As soon as she could speak, Snodine said: “I’ve been up to the castle, an’ sure it’s bad off they be up there. Young Master Julien is as dead as was Father Francis when they took him out of the river where he’d been slapin’ for a wake, and the Blessed Virgin prasarve us, it’s now goin’ on two days since the poor mad craythur was taken away. Pray Heaven the docthors may cure her, for a swater lady niver walked the earth.”
“Ah, Snodine, it’s a broken heart she has—and whin they tell her the Count is dead——”
“An’ do ye think they’ll tell her that same? Sure, they’d not be such a pack o’ fools.”
“’Twas hard enough to lose the brother, poor lad! But the swateheart, Snodine; and they to be marrit so soon, too. Oh, Lord help the poor mad lady! She loved the Count dearly, they tell me. An’ whin is the wake to be for the poor lad, Snodine?”