"My guardian?" she repeated, the blood rising abruptly to her cheek.

"Just that," Ulick Sullivan answered humorously. "Just that, my darling. It's John Sullivan come back from Sweden. And, as I've told him, I'm not sure that all at Morristown will be as glad to see him as I am." At which Uncle Ulick went off into a peal of t.i.tanic laughter.

But that which amused him did not appear to amuse his niece, She stood staring at Colonel Sullivan as if she were far more surprised than pleased. At length, and with a childish dignity, she held out her hand.

"If you are Colonel John Sullivan," she said, in a thin voice, "you are welcome at Morristown."

He might have laughed at the distance of her tone. But he merely bowed, and with the utmost gravity. "I thank you," he answered. And then, addressing Ulick Sullivan, "I need not say that I had your communication," he continued, "with the news of Sir Michael's death and of the dispositions made by his will. I could not come at once, but when I could I did, and I am here. Having said so much," he went on, turning to the girl and looking at her with serious kindness, "may I add that I think it will be well if we leave matters of business on one side until we know one another?"

"Well, faith, I think we'd better," Ulick Sullivan replied. And he chuckled. "I do think so, bedad!"

The girl said nothing, and when he had chuckled his fill restraint fell upon the three. They turned from one another and looked across the lake, which the wind, brisk at sea, barely ruffled. Colonel Sullivan remarked that they had a little more land under tillage than he remembered, and Ulick Sullivan a.s.sented. And then again there was silence, until the girl struck her habit with her whip and cried flippantly, "Well, to dinner, if we are to have dinner! To dinner!" She turned, and led the way to the gate of the forecourt.

The man who followed was clever enough to read defiance in the pose of her head and resentment in her shoulders. When a beggar-woman, more importunate than the rest, caught hold of her skirt, and Flavia flicked her with the whip as she would have flicked a dog, he understood. And when the dogs in the court fell upon her in a troop and were kicked to right and left, and when a babe, that, clothed in a single shift, was crawling on hands and knees upon the threshold, was removed in the same manner--but more gently--still he understood.

There were other dogs in the stone-paved hall; a hen too, finding its food on the floor and strutting here and there as if it had never known another home. On the left of the door, an oak table stood laid for the mid-day meal; on the right, before a carved stone chimney-piece, under which a huge log smouldered on the andirons, two or three men were seated. These rose on the entrance of the young mistress-they were dependants of the better cla.s.s, for whom open house was kept at Morristown when business brought them thither. And, so far, all was well. Yet it may be that on the instant eyes which had been blind to defects were opened by the presence of this stranger from the outer world. For Flavia's voice was hard as she asked old Darby, the butler, if The McMurrough was in the house.

"Faith, I believe not," said he. "His honour, nor the other quality, have not returned from the fishing."

"Well, let him know when he comes in," she rejoined, "that Colonel John Sullivan has arrived from Sweden, and," she added with a faint sneer, "it were well if you put on your uniform coat, Darby."

The old butler did not hear the last words. He was looking at the new-comer. "Glory be to G.o.d, Colonel," he said; "it's in a field of peas I'd have known you! True for you, you're as like the father that bred you as the two covers of a book! It's he was the grand gentleman!

I was beyond the Mahoney's great gravestone when he shot Squire Crosby in the old church-yard of Tralee for an appet.i.te to his breakfast! More by token, he went out with the garrison officer after his second bottle that same day that ever was--and the creature shot him in the knee--bad luck to him for a foreigner and a Protestant--and he limped to his dying day!"

The girl laughed unkindly. "You're opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, Darby," she said. "If the Colonel is not a foreigner----"

"And sure he couldn't be that, and his own father's son!" cried the quick-witted Irishman. "And if, bad luck, he's a Protestant, I'll never believe he's one of them through-and-through d----d black Protestants that you and I mean! Glory be to G.o.d, it's not in the Sullivans to be one of them!"

The Colonel laughed as he shook the old servant's hand; and Uncle Ulick joined in the laugh. "You're a clever rogue, Darby," he said. "Your neck'll never be in a rope, but your fingers will untie the knot! And now, where'll you put him?"

Flavia tapped her foot on the floor; foreseeing, perhaps, what was coming.

"Put his honour?" Darby repeated, rubbing his bald head. "Ay, sure, where'll we put him? May it be long before the heavens is his bed!

There's the old master's room, a grand chamber fit for a lord, but there's a small matter of the floor that is sunk and lets in the rats--bad cess to the dogs for an idle, useless pack. And there's the Count's room would do finely, but the vagabonds have never mended the thatch that was burned the last drinking, and though 'twas no more than the width of a flea's leap, the devil of a big bowl of water has it let in! The young master's friends are in the South, but the small room beyond that has the camp truckle that Sir Michael brought from the ould wars: that's dry and snug! And for the one window that's airy, sure, 'tis no drawback at this sayson."

"It will do very well for me, Darby," the Colonel said, smiling.

"Well," Darby answered, rubbing his head, "the Cross be between us and harm, I'm not so sure where's another. The young masther----"

"That will do, Darby!" the girl cried impatiently. And then, "I am sorry, Colonel Sullivan," she continued stiffly, "that you should be so poorly lodged--who are the master of all. But doubtless," with an irrepressible resentment in her voice, "you will be able presently to put matters on a better footing."

With a formal curtsey she left them then, and retreated up the stairs, which at the rear of the hall ascended to a gallery that ran right and left to the rooms on the first floor.

Colonel Sullivan turned with Uncle Ulick to the nearest window and looked out on the untidy forecourt. "You know, I suppose," he said, in a tone which the men beside the fire, who were regarding him curiously, could not hear, "the gist of Sir Michael's letters to me?"

Uncle Ulick drummed with his fingers on the window-sill. "Faith, the most of it," he said.

"Was he right in believing that her brother intended to turn Protestant for the reasons he told me?"

"It's like enough, I'm thinking."

"Does she know? The girl?"

"Not a breath! And I would not be the one to tell her," Uncle Ulick added, with some grimness.

"Yet it may be necessary?"

Uncle Ulick shook his fist at a particularly importunate beggar who had ventured across the forecourt. "It's a gift the little people never gave me to tell unpleasant things," he said. "And if you'll be told by me, Colonel, you'll travel easy. The girl has a spirit, and you'll not persuade her to stand in her brother's light, at all, at all! She has it fast that her grandfather wronged him--and old Sir Michael was queer-tempered at times, G.o.d forbid I should say the other! The gift to her will go for nothing, you'll see!"

"She must be a very n.o.ble girl."

"Devil a better has He made!"

"But if her grandfather was right in thinking so ill of his grandson?"

"I'm not saying he wasn't," Uncle Ulick muttered.

"Then we must not let her set the will aside."

Ulick Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. "Let?" he said. "Faith! it's but little it'll be a question of that! James is for taking, and she's for giving! He's her white swan, and to her mind, sleeping or waking, as Darby says, he'd tread on eggs and sorra a chick the less! Let? Who's to hinder?"

"You."

"It's easiness has been my ruin, and faith! it's too late to change."

"Then I?"

Uncle Ulick smiled. "To be sure," he said slily, "there's you, Colonel."

"The whole estate is mine, you see, in law."

"Ay, but there's no law west of Tralee," Uncle Ulick retorted. "That's where old Sir Michael made his mistake. Anywhere through the length and breadth of old Ireland, if 'twas in the Four Courts themselves, and all the garrison round you, you'd be on honour, Colonel, to take no advantage. But here it would not be the cold shoulder and a little unpleasantness, and a meeting or two on the ground, that's neither here nor there--that you'd be like to taste. I'd not be knowing what would happen if it went about that you were ousting them that had the right, and you a Protestant. He's not the great favourite, James McMurrough, and whether he or the girl took most 'd be a mighty small matter. But if you think to twist it, so as to play cuckoo--though with the height of fair meaning and not spying a silver penny of profit for yourself, Colonel--I take leave to tell you, he's a most unpopular bird."

"But, Sir Michael," the Colonel, who had listened with a thoughtful face, answered, "left all to me to that very end--that it might be secured to the girl."

"Sorrow one of me says no!" Ulick rejoined. "But----"

"But what?" the Colonel replied politely. "The more plainly you speak the more you will oblige me."

But all that Ulick Sullivan could be brought to say at that moment--perhaps he knew that curious eyes were on their conference--was that Kerry was "a mighty queer country," and the thief of the world wouldn't know what would pa.s.s there by times. And besides, there were things afoot--faith, and there were, that he'd talk about at another time.

Then he changed the subject abruptly, asking the Colonel if he had seen a big ship in the bay.

"What colours?" the Colonel asked--the question men ask who have been at sea.

"Spanish, maybe," Uncle Ulick answered. "Did you sight such a one?"

But the Colonel had seen no big ship.