“Will you have your tay, plase, miss?”
The words at first mingled with the dreams which had all night disturbed my sleep. On being repeated, the unfamiliar accent, accompanied by the clink of a cup and saucer, made me open my eyes. A pleasant-looking, red-haired girl was standing by my bed, tray in hand.
“You’re after having a great sleep, miss. I was twice here before, and there wasn’t a stir out of you.”
“Is it very late?” I asked, with an alarming recollection of my uncle’s punctuality.
“Oh, not at all, miss. The masther’s only just after having his breakfast.”
“What!” I gasped. “You should have called me earlier.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry, miss! Sure he always ates his breakfast by himself, and there’s no sayin’ how late it’ll be before Masther Willy’s down.”
Calmed by this assurance, I did not hurry myself over my dressing, but from time to time stopped to look at the view from my windows.
It was a quiet October day, with a grey yet luminous sky, that lit with a grave radiance the group of yellow elms that divided the avenue from a heathery expanse of turf-bog, with low hills beyond. From the other window, which was almost over the hall door, I could see to the left a dark belt of trees that went round to the back of the house; and in front, at the foot of the lawn, the curve of a little bay. This was separated from the larger waters of Durrusmore Harbour by a low promontory, along whose ridge a meagre line of fir trees was etched against the grey sky. Leaning out of the window, and looking westwards towards the mouth of the harbour, I saw the Atlantic lying broad and white under the light of the soft clear morning.
I went downstairs, and as I passed along the corridor, I felt, even on this still day, the air circulating freely through broken panes in the skylight and the staircase window, making it easy to account for the ghostly eddyings of the wind the night before.