This appeal was timed by seeing that Walpole had just lighted a fresh cigar, whose fragrant fumes were wafted across the speaker’s nose.
Firm to his determination to maintain silence, Walpole paid no attention to the speech, nor uttered a word of any kind; and as a light drizzling rain had now begun to fall, and obliged him to shelter himself under an umbrella, he was at length saved from his companion’s loquacity. Baffled, but not beaten, the old fellow began to sing, at first in a low, droning tone; but growing louder as the fire of patriotism warmed him, he shouted, to a very wild and somewhat irregular tune, a ballad, of which Walpole could not but hear the words occasionally, while the tramping of the fellow’s feet on the foot-board kept time to his song:—
‘’Tis our fun they can’t forgive us,
Nor our wit so sharp and keen;
But there’s nothing that provokes them
Like our wearin’ of the green.
They thought Poverty would bate us,
But we’d sell our last “boneen”
And we’ll live on cowld paytatees,
All for wearin’ of the green.
Oh, the wearin’ of the green—the wearin’ of the green!
’Tis the colour best becomes us
Is the wearin’ of the green!’
‘Here’s a cigar for you, old fellow, and stop that infernal chant.’
‘There’s only five verses more, and I’ll sing them for your honour before I light the baccy.’
‘If you do, then, you shall never light baccy of mine. Can’t you see that your confounded song is driving me mad?’
‘Faix, ye’re the first I ever see disliked music,’ muttered he, in a tone almost compassionate.
And now as Walpole raised the collar of his coat to defend his ears, and prepared, as well as he might, to resist the weather, he muttered, ‘And this is the beautiful land of scenery; and this the climate; and this the amusing and witty peasant we read of. I have half a mind to tell the world how it has been humbugged!’ And thus musing, he jogged on the weary road, nor raised his head till the heavy clash of an iron gate aroused him, and he saw that they were driving along an approach, with some clumps of pretty but young timber on either side.
‘Here we are, your honour, safe and sound,’ cried the driver, as proudly as if he had not been five hours over what should have been done in one and a half. ‘This is Kilgobbin. All the ould trees was cut down by Oliver Cromwell, they say, but there will be a fine wood here yet. That’s the castle you see yonder, over them trees; but there’s no flag flying. The lord’s away. I suppose I’ll have to wait for your honour? You’ll be coming back with me?’
‘Yes, you’ll have to wait.’ And Walpole looked at his watch, and saw it was already past five o’clock.
CHAPTER X
THE SEARCH FOR ARMS
When the hour of luncheon came, and no guests made their appearance, the young girls at the castle began to discuss what they should best do. ‘I know nothing of fine people and their ways,’ said Kate—‘you must take the whole direction here, Nina.’
‘It is only a question of time, and a cold luncheon can wait without difficulty.’
And so they waited till three, then till four, and now it was five o’clock; when Kate, who had been over the kitchen-garden, and the calves’ paddock, and inspecting a small tract laid out for a nursery, came back to the house very tired, and, as she said, also very hungry. ‘You know, Nina,’ said she, entering the room, ‘I ordered no dinner to-day. I speculated on our making our dinner when your friends lunched; and as they have not lunched, we have not dined; and I vote we sit down now. I’m afraid I shall not be as pleasant company as that Mr.—do tell me his name—Walpole—but I pledge myself to have as good a appetite.’
Nina made no answer. She stood at the open window; her gaze steadily bent on the strip of narrow road that traversed the wide moor before her.
‘Ain’t you hungry? I mean, ain’t you famished, child?’ asked Kate.
‘No, I don’t think so. I could eat, but I believe I could go without eating just as well.’
‘Well, I must dine; and if you were not looking so nice and fresh, with a rose-bud in your hair and your white dress so daintily looped up, I’d ask leave not to dress.’
‘If you were to smooth your hair, and, perhaps, change your boots—’
‘Oh I know, and become in every respect a little civilised. My poor dear cousin, what a mission you have undertaken among the savages. Own it honestly, you never guessed the task that was before you when you came here.’
‘Oh, it’s very nice savagery, all the same,’ said the other, smiling pleasantly.
‘There now!’ cried Kate, as she threw her hat to one side, and stood arranging her hair before the glass. ‘I make this toilet under protest, for we are going in to luncheon, not dinner, and all the world knows, and all the illustrated newspapers show, that people do not dress for lunch. And, by the way, that is something you have not got in Italy. All the women gathering together in their garden-bonnets and their morning-muslins, and the men in their knickerbockers and their coarse tweed coats.’
‘I declare I think you are in better spirits since you see these people are not coming.’
‘It is true. You have guessed it, dearest. The thought of anything grand—as a visitor; anything that would for a moment suggest the unpleasant question, Is this right? or, Is that usual? makes me downright irritable. Come, are you ready? May I offer you my arm?’
And now they were at table, Kate rattling away in unwonted gaiety, and trying to rally Nina out of her disappointment.
‘I declare Nina, everything is so pretty I am ashamed to eat. Those chickens near you are the least ornamental things I see. Cut me off a wing. Oh, I forgot, you never acquired the barbarous art of carving.’
‘I can cut this,’ said Nina, drawing a dish of tongue towards her.
‘What! that marvellous production like a parterre of flowers? It would be downright profanation to destroy it.’
‘Then shall I give you some of this, Kate?’
‘Why, child, that is strawberry-cream. But I cannot eat all alone; do help yourself.’
‘I shall take something by-and-by.’
‘What do young ladies in Italy eat when they are—no, I don’t mean in love—I shall call it—in despair?’
‘Give me some of that white wine beside you. There! don’t you hear a noise? I’m certain I heard the sound of wheels.’
‘Most sincerely I trust not. I wouldn’t for anything these people should break in upon us now. If my brother Dick should drop in I’d welcome him, and he would make our little party perfect. Do you know, Nina, Dick can be so jolly. What’s