‘When you are dead
The robins so red
Will take strawberry leaves and over you spread.’”
Mr. Sanders shrank from such a fate. Also he had sat down during the discussion and felt rested. He agreed to go on. Mr. Dick, the Berseker spirit strong in him, wheeled both bicycles. They climbed a long hill and found walking even hotter work than bicycling. But they had their reward. From the top of the hill the entrance gate and the trees of Rosivera were visible.
“A sail, a sail!” cried Mr. Dick. “We are saved!
‘We shall hear the sweet music of speech,
Nor finish our journey alone.’”
“It looks like a gentleman’s place,” said Mr. Sanders, “a dilapidated gentleman’s place. I mean to say, of course, the dilapidated place of a gentleman.”
Mr. Dick was not a stickler for the nice arrangement of adjectives.
“Of course,” he said, “it’s a dilapidated gentleman’s place. All gentlemen’s places in Ireland are dilapidated. That is one of the consequences of the recent land legislation.”
“Rents,” said Mr. Sanders, who took a special delight in all kinds of figures, “were reduced twenty per cent. all round on an average at the first fixing. Then they were reduced again by——”
“Come on,” said Mr. Dick. “The proprietor, whoever he is, must have enough left to buy a repair outfit. Let’s go and borrow it.”
He had heard quite as much as he wanted to hear about rent fixing and land purchase during the fortnight he had spent in Ireland. He did not want to go into the matter again. It required intricate calculations, and Mr. Dick had no taste for arithmetic. Mr. Sanders sighed and followed his friend down the hill.