“We’re bet; I tould you so,” gasped Lanty, reluctantly heading the boat in the direction of the carriage. A few strokes brought them to the beach.
Percy Bingham raked up his eye-glass and gazed ardently at Mary Joyce, who returned the stare with compound interest. Irish gray eyes with black, sweeping lashes, hawthorn-blossoms on her brow, apple-blossoms on her cheeks, rose-buds on her lips, purple blood in her veins, youth and grace and modesty hovering about her like a delicious perfume.
“May I ask by whose authority you are fishing here?” Mr. Joyce was pale, and suppressed anger scintillated in his eyes. There are a great many things to be done with impunity in Connemara, but poaching is the seven deadly sins rolled into one. “Thou shalt not fish” is the eleventh commandment. Bingham felt the awkwardness of his position at a glance, and met it like a gentleman.
“I cannot say that I am here by any person’s authority. I am stopping at the 'Bodkin Arms’—”
“Och murther! murther! howld your whisht,” interposed Lanty in a hoarse whisper.
“Silence, fellow!” cried Bingham. “I am stopping at the 'Bodkin Arms,’ and, upon asking the proprietor if there was any hinderance to my fishing, he replied that there was none. I ought, perhaps, to have been more explicit with him.”
“Av coorse ye shud,” interrupted Lanty.
“And I can only say”—here he stared very hard at Mary Joyce—“that it mortifies me more than I can possibly express to you to be placed in this extremely painful position.”
“Do not say one word about it,” said Mr. Joyce in a courteous tone. “With the proprietor of the 'Bodkin Arms’ I know how to deal, and with you too, Lanty Kerrigan.” Lanty wriggled in the boat till it rocked again. “But as for you, sir, all I can say is that I regret to have disturbed your fishing, and I wish you very good sport.” And he bowed with haughty politeness.
“I thank you very much for your courtesy,” bowed Bingham, who had by this time landed from the boat, “but I shall no longer continue an intruder.” And seizing his rod, he snapped it thrice across his knee and flung it into the lake.