“Well—you have all helped me to believe that perhaps I am not altogether on the dust-heap. You came when I was desperate; every day in Rathcullen was making me worse. I couldn’t go into the picture-gallery; the fighting-men on the walls seemed to look at me in scorn to see to what a poor thing the old house had come down. And then you all came, and you didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong with me. You made me one of you—even those youngsters, full of all the energy and laughter and youth of that big young country of yours. They have made a chum of me: I haven’t laughed for years as I’ve laughed in the last fortnight. And I’m fitter than I’ve been for years—I’ve forgotten to think of myself, and when you all go I also am going back, to work. There must be work, even for me.”
“For you! Why, you’re a young man, full of energy, even if you can’t have active service,” said David Linton. “And I am a grey old man, but there’s work for me. Don’t think that you have no job, because you can’t get the job you like; that’s an easy attitude to adopt. Every man can find his job if he looks for it with his eyes open.”
“Well, you have helped mine to open,” O’Neill said. “I was miserable because I had hitched my wagon to a star and had found I couldn’t drive it. The old servants—bless their kind hearts!—were purring over me and pitying me, and I was feeling raw; and then you all walked into my life and declined to notice that I was a useless dwarf——”
“Because you aren’t,” said the other man, sharply. “Don’t talk utter nonsense!”
O’Neill laughed.
“Well—I won’t forget,” he said. “But I am grateful; only I sometimes wonder if I ask for too much of your time. Do you think the youngsters are bored?”
“Bored!” Mr. Linton said in amazement. “Why, they are having the time of their lives! I could not possibly have given them half the pleasure you have Put in their way. You talk of gratitude, but to my mind it should be entirely on our side.”
“No,” said O’Neill firmly. “Still, I’m glad to think they are enjoying themselves,—not merely being polite and benevolent!” Whereat David Linton broke into laughter.
“I trust they’d be polite in any circumstances,” he said. “But even politeness has its limits. You wouldn’t call that sort of thing forced, would you? Look.”
He pointed across a field. Norah and the boys were galloping to meet them. They flashed up a little hill, dipped down into a hollow, and scurried up another rise, where a stiff bank met them, with a deep drop into the next field. Norah’s brown pony got over it with the cleverness of a cat, and she raced ahead of the boys, who set sail after her, vociferating quite unintelligible remarks about people who took unfair short cuts. Their merry voices brought echoes from the hills. Norah maintained her advantage until a low bank brought them out into the road, and all together they trotted towards the waiting motor. Their glowing faces sufficiently answered Sir John’s doubts.