John Pat looked dutifully along the coast-line as her gesture commanded, and changed his basket into the other hand, but offered no comment.
“And there, across the bay,” the girl went on, “is the land that’s marked on the Four Masters’ map for the O’Dalys. Ye were there many’ times, John Pat, after crabs and the like. Tell me, now, did ever you or anny one else hear of a castle built there be the O’Dalys?”
“Sorra a wan, Miss Katie.”
“There you have it! My word, the impidince of thim O’Dalys—strolling beggars, and hedge teachers, and singers of ballads be the wayside! ’Tis in the books, John Pat, that wance there was a king of Ireland named Hugh Dubh—Hugh the Black—and these bards so perplexed and brothered the soul out of him wid claims for money and fine clothes and the best places at the table, and kept the land in such a turmoil by rayson of the scurrilous verses they wrote about thim that gave thim less than their demands—that Hugh, glory be to him, swore not a man of ’em should remain in all Ireland. ‘Out ye go,’ says he. But thin they raised such a cry, that a wake, kindly man—St. Columbkill that was to be—tuk pity on ’em, and interceded wid the king, and so, worse luck, they kept their place. Ah, thin, if Hugh Dugh had had his way wid ’em ’t would be a different kind of Ireland we’d see this day!”
“Well, this Hugh Dove, as you call him”—spoke up a clear, fresh-toned male voice, which was not John Pat’s—“even he couldn’t have wanted a prettier Ireland than this is, right here in front of us!”
Kate, in vast surprise, turned at the very first sound of this strange voice. A young man had risen to his feet from behind the furze hedge, close beside her, his rosy-cheeked face wreathed in amiable smiles. She recognized the wandering O’Ma-hony from Houghton County, Michigan, and softened the rigid lines into which her face had been startled, as a token of friendly recognition.
“Good morning,” the young man added, as a ceremonious afterthought. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
“You seem to be viewing our country hereabouts wid great complateness,” commented Kate, with a half-smile, not wholly free from irony. There really was no reason for suspecting the accidental character of the encounter, save the self-conscious and confident manner in which the young man had, on the instant, attached himself to her expedition. Even as she spoke, he was walking along at her side.
“Oh, yes,” he answered, cheerfully, “I’m mixing up business and pleasure, don’t you see, all the while I’m here—and really they get so tangled up together every once in a while, that I can’t tell which is which. But just at this moment—there’s no doubt about it whatever—pleasure is right bang-up on top.”
“It is a fine, grand day,” said Kate, with a shade of reserve. The frankly florid compliment of the Occident was novel to her.