“ ’Tis ould, and ’tis falling to decay—it ’ud take a power of money to put it right. Ah, the good days is gone from Ireland—what with the land war and the famine, all the money was swept from her.” Mr. Burke stopped abruptly. He pulled his battered felt hat over his eyes and hammered vigorously at the old boat.
They went up through the fragrant garden, now heavy with evening shadows. Above them the gaunt old house towered, bosomed in its trees, dim with the night mist from the lough. Lights were beginning to twinkle from the windows, and the faint acrid smell of turf fires stole upon the still air. To Norah’s fancy the silent garden was peopled with shadowy forms—tall gallants and exquisite ladies of a bygone day, and little children who ran, laughing, along paths that had no tangle of neglected growth. It was theirs; the dream visions made her feel an interloper as she crossed the threshold into the lit hall.
CHAPTER VI
OF LITTLE BROWN TROUT
“Loughareema! Loughareema!
Lies so high among the heather,
A little lough, a dark lough,
The wather’s black an’ deep:
Ould herons go a-fishing there,
An’ sea-gulls all together
Float roun’ the one green island