“They certainly couldn’t—whoever ‘they’ may be,” said Wally, laughing. “There are just about as many trout in this lough as there are in the front garden, I believe. Who’ll come to one of the others to-morrow?—I’ll have to learn their names before I say them in public. I vote for the one that belongs to the Champions!”
“Lough Nacurra—ye might do worse,” said Patsy. “ ’Tis a good little lough, and there’s a small little island in it, that ’ud be a good place for you to be taking your dinners. The boat’s no great thing at all—but she’s better than the one on Lough Anoor.”
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Linton. “Is she worse than this one?” The boat on Lough Aniller had not struck the party as an up-to-date craft.
“She is,” said Mr. Burke. “But there’s no distance to be pulling her: sure, the lough’s not big enough to go any ways far. If ’twas Lough Anoor, now, there’d be no good in me comin’ with you, for five couldn’t sit in her. Four’ll be all she’ll hold.”
“Is she safe?” asked Mr. Linton.
“Is it safe? Sure, you wouldn’t sink that one, not if you danced in her,” said Patsy.
They had drifted almost to the end of the lough. Above them the high road crossed the stone bridge. The whir of a motor hummed across it, and, looking up, they saw a grey runabout car, driven by a man of whose face little could be seen, since goggles hid his eyes and his cap was pulled low. Patsy touched his cap hastily as the car vanished in its own dust.
“ ’Tis the young masther,” he said; and added, as if in further explanation, “Sir John, I mean—Sir John O’Neill.”
“Does he live here?” Norah asked.
“He do, miss. But a lot of his time he’s somewhere else—London or foreign parts.”