Her mind was still full of her book, and having piled fresh wood upon the fire, she settled down contentedly to finish it.
The children left her just time. She was reading the last lines, when a banging of doors, a sudden clatter of little feet across the hall, a confusion of voices and laughter mixed with the short, playful barks of a dog, announced that they were coming. The next minute Bobbo burst open the schoolroom door and rushed in, followed by the two girls, all rosy—laughing, panting, and all trying to talk at the same time. Royal jumped round them and barked in chorus, till the sounds became so mixed that it was difficult to say who was barking and who was talking.
"Down, Royal; be quiet, my beauty!" cried Winnie, at last, while Bobbo exclaimed: "Oh, Nessa, we've had such fun, and Royal behaved so splendidly. You never saw such a dog. He does every single thing Winnie tells. He's the best king of our tribe we could possibly have; he flew at them like—Oh, it was glorious to see how they ran!"
Here all the children again tried to tell what had happened, and Bobbo's voice was lost in the Babel that ensued.
Nessa had shut up her book on their entrance, and laughingly put her hands to her ears.
"How can I hear a single word," she exclaimed, "if you all talk at once?"
"All right; give me something to eat, and I'll be as quiet as a lamb," cried Bobbo, sitting down to the tea-table as he spoke, and seizing upon some bread and butter. "I am starving."
"But do just listen," cried Winnie. "It was such fun to see them. You'd have thought Royal was a wild bea—Oh, where's the milk?" she exclaimed, suddenly interrupting herself. "He must have some supper."
"Here's the milk," said Nessa. "And where is Murtagh? And what is it that Royal has done?"
"Oh, Murtagh! He'll be here in a minute. Well, we were on the island, and we'd got some big stones out of the river, and we were building away when we heard some one coming. First we thought it was you, and we thought that was jolly, so we called out: 'Here we are, awfully busy. Are you going to help us?' But then Royal jumped up and began to growl, and a man called back again: 'I think we'll help ye with the wrong sides of our shovels;' and lo and behold! there were two of the men—Hickey and that red-headed donkey, Phelim—with picks and shovels on their shoulders, and would you like to know what they wanted?"