There are travellers, cantankerous people, who complain that Irish railway officials are not civil. Perhaps English porters and guards may excel them in the plausible lip service which anticipates a tip. But in the Irishman there is a natural delicacy of feeling which expresses itself in lofty kinds of courtesy. An Englishman, compelled by a sense of duty to see the ticket of a passenger, would have asked for it with callous bluntness. The Irishman, knowing that his victim was in pain, approached the subject of tickets obliquely, hinting by means of an anecdote of great interest, that people have from time to time been known to defraud railway companies.
CHAPTER III
Rosnacree House, the home of Sir Lucius Lentaigne and his ancestors since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought the family to Ireland in search of religious freedom, stands high on a wooded slope above the southern shore of a great bay. From the dining-room windows, so carefully have vistas been cut through the trees, there is a broad prospect of sea and shore. For eight miles the bay stretches north to the range of hills which bound it. For five or six miles westward its waters are dotted over with islands. There are, the people say, three hundred and sixty-five of them, so that a fisher-man with a taste for exploration, could such a one be found, might land on a different island every day for a whole year. Long promontories, some of them to be reckoned with the three hundred and sixty-five islands when the tide is high, run far out from the mainland. Narrow channels, winding bewilderingly, eat their way for miles among the sea-saturate fields of the eastward lying plain. The people, dwelling with pardonable pride upon the peculiarities of their coast line, say that any one who walked from the north to the south side of the bay, keeping resolutely along the high-tide mark, would travel altogether 200 miles. He would reach after his way-faring a spot which, measured on the map, would be just eight miles distant from the point of his departure. Sir Lucius, who loved his home, while he sometimes affects to despise it, says that he believes this estimate of the extent of the sea’s meanderings to be approximately correct, but adds that he has never yet met any one with courage enough to attempt the walk. You do, in fact, come suddenly on salt-water channels in the midst of fields at long distances from the sea, and find cockles on stretches of mud where you might expect frog spawn or black slugs. Therefore, it is quite likely that the high-tide line would really, if it were stretched out straight, reach right across Ireland and far out into St. George’s Channel.
In Rosnacree House, along with Sir Lucius, lives Juliet Lentaigne, his maiden sister, elderly, intellectual, dominating, the competent mistress of a sufficient staff of servants. She lived there in her girlhood. She returned to live there after the death of Lady Lentaigne. Priscilla, Sir Lucius’ only child, comes to Rosnacree House for such holidays as are granted by a famous Dublin school. She was sent to the school at the age of eleven because she rebelled against her aunt. Having reached the age of fifteen she rebels more effectively, whenever the coming of holidays affords opportunity.
Being a young woman of energy, determination and skill in rebellion, she made an assault upon her Aunt Juliet’s authority on the very first morning of her summer holidays. She began at breakfast time.
“Father,” she said, “I may go to meet Cousin Frank at the train, mayn’t I?”
“Certainly,” said Sir Lucius.
It was right that some one should meet Frank Mannix on his arrival. Sir Lucius did not want to do so himself. A youth of seventeen is a troublesome guest, difficult to deal with. He is neither man enough to associate on quite equal terms with grown men nor boy enough to be turned loose to play according to his own devices. Sir Lucius did not look forward to the task of entertaining his nephew. He was pleased that Priscilla should take some part, even a small part, of the business off his hands.
Priscilla glanced triumphantly at her aunt.