Winnie agreeing, the little girls ran off to the kitchen, and Bobbo, left alone with Murtagh, returned to his subject.
"I say, Murtagh," he continued, "we must just do something to that old Plunkett. He's getting worse and worse."
"I think I'll kill him some day!" burst out Murtagh, with such concentrated passion in his voice that Bobbo looked at him quite startled, and paused for a minute before he answered:
"I don't vote for killing, exactly. But I'd like to dip him in the river, or do something or other that would just take him down a peg."
But Murtagh did not seem disposed to talk any more about it at that moment. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and slowly followed the others to the kitchen, where Mrs. Donegan was buttering slices of brown cake, and at the same time declaring that "she wasn't going to be getting them into bad habits of eating between their meals."
CHAPTER III.
Adrienne's letters were very quickly written. She was anxious to go out to the children, and to make acquaintance with the place. But when she went to look for them they were nowhere to be found.
Enchanted with the place, which, neglected as it was, seemed to her very beautiful, she wandered about for a time in the pleasure-ground and shrubberies that lay at the back of the house; and then, tempted by the lovely brightness of the morning, she set off to make further discoveries. Land seemed to be no consideration in that part of the world; a wide park, dotted with trees and clustering bushes, lay stretched out on three sides of the house; a sunny avenue, winding away between old thorns and oaks, offered a charming walk, and as Adrienne went along she looked around her in delight.
On the left the ground sloped down to the bed of a broad, rocky stream. To the right, undulating park-land stretched for some distance, and, beyond the park, trees and fields and hedges seemed to grow closer and closer together, till out of the indistinctness rose suddenly a bold line of purple hills. In the park, soft-eyed cows were cropping the autumn grass. Thrushes were singing in the thorns. Red haws lay scattered in profusion under the trees. The air was pure, and the earth smelt sweet after the rain.