“Day after to-morrow will be the last Sunday in June, but we had better try the wishing spring, too, if Mother will let us,” said Columba.
“I’ll ask her now,” he added, and rushed into the house, shouting first for his mother and then for Captain Conn, sure that one or the other would be ready to plan for the next day’s frolic.
“I’ve been thinking this two months that I ought to go down to see your Aunt Ellen Butler at Thomastown,” said his mother, when he asked her about the picnic. “We’ll take the early morning train and have a good visit with her, and perhaps she will take her children over to the Abbey and we’ll all picnic together.”
It was a merry party that gathered under the old oak tree beside the ruins of Jerpoint Abbey the next day, and the four big lunch baskets looked as if they could hardly hold enough for so many hungry children.
“We’ll help you set out the lunch,” suggested Deena, taking off one of the covers and helping himself to a sandwich.
“You’ll not touch it till it’s ready,” replied Captain Conn. “Run away, every one of you, and stay until I call you.”
“Come to the tower,” called Columba, and all the children followed him as he clambered through one of the windows and climbed the ancient stone steps that led to the top of the square tower.
As they looked out over the beautiful, smiling country, with its green fields and peaceful river, Kathleen drew a long breath. “It makes me think of Donegal, it’s so different,” she said. “Up there it is cold and bleak and bare, and down here it is all so quiet and happy.”
“It wasn’t always quiet and happy here,” said Deena. “This old Abbey has seen days of fighting and bloodshed.”
“Tell us about it,” said Hannah, who liked stories of battles.