“Hullo, Mick. Is it the dog-cart they’ve sent?”
“’Tis the shut carriage, Masther Willy,” said Mick; “and ’tis waiting without in the street.”
With some difficulty I followed Mick through the crowd of carts in the station yard, to where a landau and pair were standing in the road. The moonlight was bright enough for me to see the fine shapes of the big brown horses, who were evincing so lively an interest in the movements of the engine that the coachman had plenty to do to keep them quiet.
“You’re welcome, miss,” said that functionary, touching his hat; and I got into the carriage, followed by Willy, with the usual number of impedimenta that appear necessary to male travelling youth.
“It’s a good long drive,” he said, arranging rugs over our knees—“twelve Irish miles. But we won’t be very long getting there. You won’t have time to be tired of me—I hope not, anyhow.”
This was more like my idea of the typical Irishman, but was, nevertheless, rather discomposing from a comparative stranger. It was said, moreover, with a certain conquering air, which plainly showed that Willy was not accustomed to being found a bore. I could think of no very effective reply, so I laughed vaguely, and said I hoped I should not.
We had been driving at a good pace for about an hour, when we left the high-road and began the ascent of a long steep hill. At the top the carriage turned a sharp corner, and I saw below me, on my right, a great sheet of water all alight with the misty splendour of a full moon. Black points of land cut their way into the expanse of mellow silver, and the small islands were scattered like blots upon it.
“That’s Roaring Water Bay,” said Willy; “and that mountain over there’s called Croagh Keenan”—pointing to a shadowy mass that formed the western limit of the bay. “You haven’t anything to beat that in America, I’ll bet!” An assertion which I refrained from combatting.
Our road now lay for a mile or two along the top of a hill overlooking the bay, and though Willy had done his best to make himself agreeable, I was tired enough to be extremely glad when the carriage swung sharply between high gate-posts, and we entered the avenue of Durrus.
As we passed the lodge, I caught, in the moonlight, a glimpse of the pretty face of a girl who opened the gates, and asked who she was.