“It’s in regard to a parcel for Miss Joyce, yer honner,” replied Lanty, stepping forward.
“And who is Miss Joyce?” said Percy, intensely amused.
“O mother o’ Moses! he doesn’t know the beautifullest craythur in the intire cunthry,” exclaimed Lanty, hastily adding: “She’s the faymale daughther av ould Miles Joyce, of Knockshin beyant, wan av the rale owld anshient families that kep’ up Connemara sence the times av Julius Saysar.”
“And you have a parcel for her?”
“Troth, thin, I have, bad cess to it! It kem up Lough Corrib, an’ round be Cong, insted of takin’ the car to Clifden, all the ways from Dublin, in a box as big as a turf creel. It’s a gownd—no less—for a grate party to-night; an’, begorra, while it’s lyin’ here they’re goin’ to stay at Frinchpark.”
“It’s too bad,” thought Bingham, “to have the poor girl sold on account of the laziness of this idle rascal. Her heart may be set upon this dress. A new ball-dress is an epoch in a young girl’s existence, and a ball dress in this out-of-the way place is a fairy gift. Hinc illæ lachrymæ! How many hopes cruelly blasted, how many anticipated victories turned into humiliating defeat. If it were not so late—By Jove! it shall not be.” And yielding to a sudden impulse, Percy Bingham ordered Kerrigan to start for Knockshin.
“It’s five mile, yer honner, an’—”
“There is sixpence a mile for you. Go!” And in another instant the parcel-laden Lanty had taken to the bog like a snipe.
Percy Bingham attacked his breakfast upon the following morning with a gusto hitherto unknown to him. “I wonder did that girl”—he had forgotten her name—“get the dress in time? I hope so. How fresh these eggs are! I wonder if she’s as pretty as that ragamuffin described her? These salmon cutlets are perfection. I must have a look at her, at all events. 'Pon my life! those kidneys are devilled to a grain of pepper. This ought to be a good trout day. One more rasher. By George! if the colonel saw me perform this breakfast, he’d make me exchange into the heavies.”
Lighting a cigar and seating himself upon a granite boulder by the edge of the inlet, the purple mountains shutting him in from the world, he proceeded to assort his flies and to “put up” his casts.