“The bridge gone!” exclaimed Catty, in horror.
“All Tom Healey's fault. I told him that the arch had not span enough, and that the buttresses would never stand the first heavy fall of rain from the mountains, and there 's not a vestige of them now!”
“And what did you do?”
“I rode for the Low Meadows, Catty, with all speed. I knew that the river, not being confined there between narrow banks, and spreading over a wide surface, couldn't be very deep. Nor was it. It never touched the girths but once, when we got into a hole. But she is such a rare good beast, that little Sorrel; she dashed through everything, and I don't think I took forty minutes from Kane's Mill to this door, though I never saw a spot of the road all the while, except when the lightning showed it. There now, like a good old dear, don't wring your hands and say, 'Blessed hour!' but just put some more tea in the teapot, and fetch me your brown loaf!”
“But surely you 'll die of cold!—you 'll be in a fever!”
“Nonsense, Catty; I have been out in rain before this. I'm more provoked about that bridge than all else. My excellent aunt will have such a laugh at my engineering skill, when she hears of it. Can't be helped, however. And so there's a dinner-party upstairs, I hear. Fanny told me there were three strangers.”
“So I hear. There's a lawyer from Dublin; and a lady from I don't know where; and young Nelligan, old Dan's son. I 'm sure I never thought I 'd see the day he 'd be eating his dinner at Cro' Martin.”
“And why not, Catty? What is there in his manners and conduct that should not make him good company for any one here?”
“Is n't he the son of a little huckster in Oughterard? Old Dan, that I remember without a shoe to his foot?”
“And is it a reproach to him that he has made a fortune by years of patient industry and toil?”