“Nice kid,” said Jim, getting up. “Let’s go out and reconnoitre.”
The shadows were lengthening across the strip of tree-fringed grass leading to the gate. Near the house, the garden was a wilderness of colour and fragrance. Roses and sweet-peas, stocks and asters, nasturtiums and clematis, in a bewildering tangle, jostled each other in the untidy beds and on the old stone walls. Here and there was a mouldering summer-house, its entrance almost blocked with hanging creepers, while in shady nooks in the winding walks were seats with an appearance of old age that suggested prudence in sitting down.
Presently they came upon a path leading abruptly down-hill to the lough. They followed it, passing out of the garden into a little field where small black Kerry cattle looked inquisitively at them, and through a rickety gate on to the shore, where grey pebbles made a rough beach. A disconsolate donkey, attached to a windlass, walked round and round in a weary circle, pumping water up to the house—a spectacle which promptly set Norah to hunting for a thistle for him, which the donkey received coldly.
“It would take more than a thistle to sweeten that job,” said Wally. “Come and look at the boat.”
Mr. Patsy Burke was rather feverishly busy with the boat—it had apparently occurred to him that since the new-comers would assuredly want her it might be as well to make certain that she was sound. She was not sound—to rectify which obvious condition Mr. Burke laboured mightily.
“She’s seen better days,” remarked Mr. Linton, looking at the ancient vessel with critical eyes. Already she had been extensively patched: her paint was merely a memory, and she bore “a general flavour of mild decay.” The oars, which lay near, had also been mended many times. They did not match: a fact which the Australians were to discover later.
“Ah, sure, she’s a good boat,” said Mr. Burke. “ ’Tis only the thrifle of a leak she have in her. You wouldn’t ask an aisier or a kinder boat to pull than that one—begob, she’s the best boat to be found on any lough hereabouts.” This assertion also was to be verified by time. “In the ould times, when the family was here, many’s the day I’ve seen her, full of red cushions and fine ladies, and she tearing up the lough like a racehorse!” The poetic nature of Mr. Burke’s memories moved him to a sigh.
“Who was the family?” queried Mr. Linton.
“The O’Donnells, to be sure,” answered Mr. Burke, his long face expressing faint surprise at ignorance so vast. “They owned all this country, from the ould ancient times—but there’s none of them left now. Me gran’father, and his gran’father before him, was tenants under them. I’m told they were kings, one time. But there’s nothing left of any of the ould stock now—all their houses is sold, or falling to pieces, an’ they at the ends of the earth, seeking their fortune.”
“The house is very old, isn’t it?” Norah asked.