“Thanks—but there is really no reason why we should trouble you to bring the motor. We can easily walk over.”
“There’s every reason; I’ll get you earlier!” said O’Neill, laughing.
The motor slid down the avenue in the driving rain, and the Australians looked at each other.
“Did you ever make friends so quickly with anyone, dad?” Jim asked.
“I don’t think I did,” David Linton answered. “There’s something about him one can’t quite express: so much of the child left in the man. Poor fellow—poor fellow!”
“I think he’s the bravest man I ever saw,” said Norah.
The day at Rathcullen House was the first of many. Sir John was so frankly eager to have them there, and his welcome was so spontaneous and heart-felt, that the Australians suddenly felt themselves “belong,” and the beautiful old house became to them an Irish version of their own Billabong. Ireland, always many-sided, showed them a new and fascinating face. They had loved the lanes and bogs and moors where they had been free to wander. But now they found themselves free of a wide demesne where wealth and art had done all that was possible to aid Nature, with a perfect understanding of where it was best to leave Nature alone. The park, with its splendid old trees, and the well-kept fields around it, gave opportunities for trying Sir John’s horses; and Norah and the boys were soon under the spell of jumping the big banks that the hunters took so cleverly,—although, at first, to see them jump on to a bank, change feet with lightning rapidity, and leap down the far side, seemed to Antipodean eyes more like a circus performance than ordinary riding! Beyond the park stretched miles of deer-forest, unlike an ordinary forest in that it had no trees,—being a great expanse of heathery hills and moor, seamed and studded with rocks, streams babbling here and there, half-hidden in deep channels fringed with long grass and heather and ling. As land, it Was worthless; nothing would grow in the stony barren soil save the moorland plants; but it formed a glorious ground for long rambles. O’Neill was fast recovering his normal strength, and his energy was always like a devouring fire; he could not, however, walk far, and he and David Linton would find rocky seats on the moor while Norah and the boys rambled far over the deer-forest, often stalking patiently for an hour, armed with field-glasses, to catch a glimpse of the shy red-deer.
“A don’t know why people want to shoot them,” Norah said, after a long crawl through the rough heather, which had resulted in a splendid view of a magnificent stag. “They’re so beautiful; and it’s just as much fun to stalk them like this!” To which Jim and Wally returned non-committal grunts, and exchanged, privately, glances of amazement at the strangeness of the feminine outlook.
Sometimes there were days on the lough at the far end of the Rathcullen bog: a well-stocked lough where no outside fishing was permitted, and which yielded them trout of a weight far beyond their dreams; and there were motor-drives far afield, exploring the country-side, with Sir John always ready with legends and stories of the “ould ancient” times. Even on wet days the big Rolls-Royce would appear early in the morning, bearing an urgent invitation; and wet days were easy to spend in Rathcullen—in the great hall, the well-stocked library, the conservatories, or the picture-gallery, where faces of long-dead O’Neills, some of them startlingly like their host, stared down at them from the panelled walls. In the billiard-room Wally and Jim fought cheerful battles, while Mr. Linton would write Australian letters in the library, and Norah and Sir John explore other nooks and corners of the great house, or discourse music after their own fashion. His friendship seemed fitted to each: with Mr. Linton he could be the man of affairs, deeply-read and thoughtful; while to the boys and Norah he was the most delightful of chums, as full of fun even as Wally.
“He fits in so,” said Jim. “He’s never in our way, and—what is a good deal more wonderful—I don’t believe we’re ever in his!”