“Not unlike my own reflections for the last six weeks,” laughed the doctor; “they were gloriously gloomy.”
“See the sunshine over the upper lake.”
“I accept the omen.”
“And the Eagle’s Nest, how superbly it towers over the water! What greens!—from white to russet. How charmingly the foliage of the arbutus seems to suit this lovely scenery!”
And what a scene in its brilliance, its repose, its poetry! Verdure-clad mountains dreaming in the haze of summer, lifting themselves to the blue vault of heaven, the tender green mixing with the cerulean, as a spring leaf with the forget-me-not; mirror-like lakes reflecting every crag, every tree, every bud with that fidelity only known to nature’s mirrors; the path winding tortuously down to the lake, now disappearing in a patch of wood, now meandering through a waving meadow as yet uninvaded by the ruthless scythe. Away stretched the lakes, away the old Weir Bridge—away in shimmering loveliness all too lovely to describe, all too lovely save to gaze and gaze upon, until heart and soul absorbed it in a thirsty greed.
Three days spent in Kitty Darcy’s society—three days in wandering through the ruins of Muckross Abbey, that home of silent prayer, that “congealed Pater Noster,” by the low, dulcet murmur of O’Sullivan’s Cascade, amid the leafy dells of “Sweet Innisfallen,” up the steep ascent of Mangerton, on the fern-caressed road to the police barracks, stopping at the exquisite little chapel perched like an eerie up in its wooded nest and uttering an Ave, always by Kitty’s side, always inhaling the subtle perfume of her presence—three centuries compressed into three days.
The Darcys were en route to a fishing-lodge at Valentia, out where the cable flashes into the wide Atlantic, and the day arrived when farewell—a word that must be, and hath been, a sound that makes us linger—must be said.
“Are you going by the Asia on Friday, uncle?” asked Bertie.
“Why, of course.”
“I am not.”