In accordance with this arrangement, the two girls rode towards Mrs. Sheridan's after breakfast. Kathleen O'Connor was a perfect horsewoman. Sylvia Jackson, on the other hand, was unused to horses, and very nervous; but she was too proud to confess the fact. Kathleen, while recognising Sylvia's lack of capacity was too charitable to comment upon it. She had protested once, when her friend asked to be allowed to ride a rather high-spirited horse, but when Sylvia retorted hotly, Kathleen offered no further opposition. Thus it came about that Sylvia rode in constant dread, and made a nervous, fidgety horse a thousand times more irritable.
The road towards the upper bridge that crosses the Grey at Swynford is bordered by stretches of green grass. Along this the two girls rode at an easy canter, saving when Dr. Marsh's car rushed past, the doctor driving furiously, as was his way. This incident upset Sylvia's horse for a considerable time, but he quietened down into an easy canter in the deserted bye-road that leads from Swynford, along the farther bank of the Grey, to Mrs. Sheridan's.
At a rise in the road they paused to look down on the cottage. It stood surrounded by pine trees, with a small garden around it. It was a demonstration of Mrs. Sheridan's perpetual industry that she found time to keep the garden in order, despite her numberless other duties. A bright little patch of gay colours she had made of it, and behind it she had cultivated a neat kitchen garden.
"The river has not done any harm to Mrs. Sheridan's cottage," cried Kathleen, with great relief, as she viewed the flood waters, still several feet below the level of the garden.
"Can you understand anyone living in such a poky, ramshackle little hovel?" asked Sylvia. "I would rather be dead and buried than live there."
"Mrs. Sheridan cannot choose; she must live there or die. She is a great woman," said Kathleen.
Mrs. Sheridan met them at the gate, clean, tidy, and talkative. She was noted throughout the district for her loquacity, but, if she spoke at great length, she always spoke kindly.
"Is it you, Miss O'Connor?" she cried. "Sure, it was like yourself to be thinking of me and Michael. Michael and me, we was thinking of you. Only last Sunday I said to the boy, 'Miss Kathleen will be going to Mass,' the which I couldn't do myself, and more is the pity; but when Dan was down with the chickenpox, Father Healy himself, no less, the Lord bless the good man! told me it was my duty to be with Dan. 'The Lord will excuse you from the chapel,' he said to me, 'and you can read the Mass to Dan.' The which I did to Michael here, and him listening to me as if he understood it all, every word. But won't you come inside, you and the young lady? You will be excusing the house, miss; and if you would be taking a cup of tea or a glass of milk, there's no spirits in the house to be offering you, for I think it is putting temptation in the way of some that's too fond of it."
"Yes, we will come inside and see Michael," cried Kathleen. "And if we might have a cup of tea——."
"Not for me," Sylvia whispered; "I couldn't drink tea in a place like this."