“Troth, thin, there’s not, but Kate Kearney’ll give ye a dhrop o’ the mountain dew, me lady,” replied the driver.
Bertie strode on before. There was a something exhilarating in speeding up the craggy pass, in bounding from rock to rock like a mountain deer, in plunging through the purple heather, and in leaping saucy brooklets flashing their glittering waters in the glorious sunlight. In vain did Kate Kearney assail him with blarney, blandishments, and bog oak, with “a dhrop o’ the craythur” under the thin disguise of goat’s milk. In vain did arbutus-wood venders, and mendicants, and wild-flower girls trudge by his side and cling to his heels. He distanced them all, leaving them standing at different places in the middle of the road, baffled and worsted in the encounter. Up against the sky line stood the ponies. Up against a sheer wall of dull gray rock covered with ferns, and mosses, and lichens leant a wooden shanty, and for this shanty Bertram Martin made.
A party had ascended before him; they were from the Victoria Hotel—two gentlemen and two ladies. One gentleman was seated on a granite boulder as Bertie reached this coigne of vantage.
“Glorious day, sir,” exclaimed the tweed-covered excursionist.
“Superb,” replied Bertie, flinging himself on the purple heather to await the arrival of Kirwan.
“You’re from the other side of the pond. Have a cigar,” flinging over his case in a right royal manner.
Bertie selected a weed.
“Have a light,” shying a silver fusee-box which the doctor dexterously caught.
“From New York?”
“Yes.”