Perhaps it was the suggestive contrast between his diligence and their idleness which irritated Flavia; but she set down her annoyance to another cause. The man was an Englishman, and therefore an enemy: and what did he there? Had the Colonel left him on guard?
Flavia's heart swelled at the thought. Here, at least, she and hers were masters. Here, three hours west of Tralee—and God help the horse on that road that was not a "lepper"—they brooked no rival. Colonel John had awakened mixed feelings in her. At times she admired him. But, admirable or not, he should rue his insolence, if he had it in his mind to push his authority, or interfere with her plans.
In the meantime she stood watching William Bale, and a desire to know more of the man, and through him of the master, rose within her. The house was quiet. The McMurrough and his following had gone to a cocking-match and race-meeting at Joyce's Corner. She went down the stairs, took her hood, and crossed the courtyard. Bale did not look up at her approach, but he saw her out of the corner of his eye, and when she paused before him he laid down his work and made as if he would rise.
She looked at him with a superciliousness not natural to her. "Are all the men tailors where you come from?" she asked. "There, you need not rise."
"Where I came from last," he replied, "we were all trades, my lady."
"Where was that?"
"In the camp," he answered.
"In Sweden?"
"God knows," he replied. "They raise no landmarks there, between country and country, or it might be all their work to move them."
For a moment she was silent. Then, "Have you been a soldier long?" she asked, feeling herself rebuffed.