“That is certainly something,” said his father. “In the dim future I suppose you and Norah may get married; but I warn you here and now that you needn’t expect me to appear in a top-hat. However, there’s no need to face these problems yet, thank goodness. Suppose we leave the kitchen to fight it out alone, and go and inspect the cottage?”
It nestled at the far side of a belt of shrubbery: a cheery, thatched place, with wide casement windows that looked out on a trim stretch of grass. At one side there was actually a little verandah! a sight so unusual in England that the Australians could scarcely believe their eyes. Certainly it was only a very tiny verandah.
Within, all was bright and cheery and simple. The cottage had been used as a “barracks” when the sons of a former owner had brought home boy friends. Two rooms were fitted with bunks built against the wall, as in a ship’s cabin: there was a little dining-room, plainly furnished, and a big sitting-room that took up the whole width of the building, and had casement windows on three sides. There was a roomy kitchen, from which a ladder-like staircase ascended to big attics, one of which was fitted as a bedroom.
“It’s no end of a jolly place,” was Jim’s verdict. “I don’t know that I wouldn’t rather live here than in your mansion, Norah; but I suppose it wouldn’t do.”
“I think it would be rather nice,” Norah said. “But you can’t, because we want it for the Hunts. And it will be splendid for them, won’t it, Dad?”
“Yes, I think it will do very well,” said Mr. Linton. “We’ll get the housekeeper to come down and make sure that it has enough pots and pans and working outfit generally.”
“And then we’ll go up to London and kidnap Mrs. Hunt and the babies,” said Norah, pirouetting gently. “Now, shall we go and see the horses?”
They spent a blissful half-hour in the stables, and arranged to ride in the afternoon—the old coachman was plainly delighted at the absence of a chauffeur, and displayed his treasures with a pride to which he had long been a stranger.
“The ’orses ’aven’t ’ad enough to do since Sir John used to come,” he said. “The General didn’t care for them—an infantry gent he must have been—and it was always the motor for ’im. We exercised ’em, of course, but it ain’t the same to the ’orses, and don’t they know it!”
“Of course they do.” Norah caressed Killaloe’s lean head.