“And you were born there, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a shame—a damned shame.”
Mona is crushed. Knockaloe is lost to her. And this is the peace she has prayed and prayed for!
One day passes, then another. Every morning Mona sees a fresh batch of prisoners leaving the camp, and her heart sinks at the sight of them. Oskar’s turn will come some day. It tears her to pieces to think of it—Oskar going off at that melancholy pace, down the avenue and round by Kirk Patrick.
At length a spirit of defiance takes possession of her. Knockaloe is dear to her by a thousand memories, but it is not the only place on the island. She has heard of a farm in the north that is to be let in November. It is large, therefore it is not everybody who can stock it, but she can, because she has always thought it her duty to put everything she has earned during the war into cattle to meet the requirements of the camp.
She is upstairs in her bedroom, making ready for a visit to the northern landlord, when she hears the loud clatter of hoofs in the avenue. Long John Corlett, who used to come courting her for the sake of the stock, is riding a heavy cart-horse up to the house. He sees her and, without troubling to dismount, he calls to her to come down. Resenting his impudence, she makes him wait, but at length she goes out to him.
“Well, what is it, John Corlett?”
“You’ll have heard, my girl, that I’m the new tenant of Knockaloe?”