The golden eagle still haunts these hills, and lying upon the moors of a summer's day you may see the peregrine falcon hanging in the air above and watch him vanish to the cry of the grouse he has struck down, whose head he will tear off amidst the gorse.
Out here on the moors, under the sun on a day like this, you are in the pleasant company of Laziness and Loneliness and Distance and Summer. The scent of the gorse is mixed with the scent of the sea, and the silence of the far-off hills with the sound of the billows booming amidst the coves of the coast.
Except for the sea and the sigh of the wind amidst the heather bells there is not a sound nor token of man except a pale wreath of peat smoke away there six miles towards the hills where lies the village of Drumboyne, and that building away to the west towards the sea, which is Drumgool House.
The railway stops at Coyne, fifteen miles to the east, as though civilisation were afraid of venturing further.
Now if you stand up and shade your eyes and look over there to the north and beyond Drumgool House, you will notice a change in the land. There is the beginning of the four-mile track—four miles of velvety turf such as you will get nowhere else in the whole wide world; the finest training ground in existence.
The Frenches of Drumgool (no relation of any other Frenches) have trained many a winner on the four-mile track. Once upon a time those big stables there at the back of Drumgool House were filled with horses. "Once upon a time"—is not that the sorrowful motto of Ireland?
This morning, as beautiful a September morning as one could wish to see, a bath-chair drawn by a spirited-looking donkey stood at the front steps of Drumgool House.
By the donkey's head, Moriarty, a long, foxy, evil-looking personage in leggings, stood with a blackthorn stick in his hand and a straw in his mouth. He was holding the donkey by the bridle, while Miss French was being assisted into the bath-chair by Mrs. Driscoll, the cook and general factotum of the French household.
Miss French had on a huge black felt hat adorned with a dilapidated ostrich feather. Her pale, inconsiderable face and large dark eyes had a decidedly elfish look seen under this structure. She had also on a cloak, fastened at the neck by a Tara brooch, and Mrs. Driscoll was wrapping a grebe boa round her neck, though the day was warm enough in all conscience.
Miss French had a weakness of the spine which affected her legs. The doctors had given this condition a long Latin name, but the country people knew what was wrong with the child much better than the doctors. She was a changeling. Had Miss French been born of poor folk a hundred years ago she would have undoubtedly met with a warm reception in this world, for she would have been put out on a hot shovel for the fairies to take back. She was a changeling, and she looked it as she sat in the bath-chair, "all eyes, like an owl," while Mrs. Driscoll put the boa round her throat.