He went to Connemara, or “Captain Conn” as she was always called, with his grievance. “She’s gone off with Feena again,” he said wrathfully, “and here I’ve been planning to show her St. Canice’s Church and the Round Tower ever since she came. I can tell her plenty of stories about the old Round Tower, if it’s stories she wants.”
“Perhaps she would not like your stories,” suggested Connemara. “Feena would never tell her that great stones were dropped from the top of the Round Tower, down one hundred feet on the heads of men, murdering Danes though they were.”
“Well, the Danes deserved all the trouble they found; they made enough for us, the spalpeens!” said Columba, the gentle dove. “We were a peaceable nation, content to fight among ourselves, when the Danes came crowding into the land. I’m glad Brian Boru was man enough to drive them out again.
“But then,” he added, “if she doesn’t like to hear about the priests carrying stones to the top of the tower to drop them on the heads of the Danes, I can tell her that they carried their precious books into the tower for safety; and that they used to stand at the four little windows at the top looking out over the country to watch for the approach of an enemy.
“Or I can take her down to Kilkenny Castle and tell her how Strongbow, the Governor of Ireland, built his fortress there nearly a thousand years ago, and brought his bride, the daughter of the King of Leinster, to live in the Castle. Then I can show her St. Canice’s Cathedral, where the soldiers of Cromwell’s army, when they were besieging the city in 1650, used to amuse themselves by smashing the beautiful windows and throwing the bells down out of the tower.”
Connemara could not help laughing as she looked at her brother’s earnest face. “’Tis plain that you know the history of the city,” she said, “but your stories are all about wars. To-morrow is market-day. Ask Kathleen to go with you down through the city streets to see the old peddler women in their bright shawls, selling their wares in the little booths and tents. That will be a strange sight to the child, after lonely Donegal; and she’ll like it better than battles.”
After supper that night she took Kathleen within the cosy shelter of her arms and talked with her about little Mary Ellen and her life in Tonroe.
“She’s like Victoria,” said Kathleen, “gentle and loving. I wish she could be here instead of me. She used to wish that whole troops of boys and girls would come over the bare Donegal hills to play with us.”
But when, on the next afternoon, Columba took her in the donkey-trap and drove in and out among the streets of Kilkenny, she almost forgot Tonroe and the little sister.
They went first to the market, and Kathleen spent one of the precious shillings she had earned stacking peat to buy a string of pink beads to send to Mary Ellen. Then they drove past the Cathedral and down to the Castle, and came home along the bank of the River Nore, which is one of the prettiest rivers in all Ireland.