Through a street in the town of Killarney flashed a red motor car,
slowly, because the way was paved with rough cobbles, and there were
countless chickens and ducks on the highway, and barefooted children
playing at the doors of the thatched-roof cottages.
"Wilhelmina, my dear, you must turn into a better street," groaned Miss
Campbell. "One might as well ride in a 'jolting car' and be done with
it."
"You mean a 'jaunting car,' Cousin," exclaimed Billie, obediently
turning the motor into a broad, shady avenue. "I only wanted to give you
a glimpse into an Irish byway," she added by way of apology.
"I don't care to take it in that unnerving fashion," answered Miss
Campbell. "Besides, you will ruin Maria's voice and make it turn
tremolo."
"I'm not afraid," laughed Maria Cortinas, sitting on the back seat
between Miss Campbell and Elinor Butler. "I'm off on a holiday to enjoy
the sights and I shall not remember that I have a voice for several
weeks."
At last they took a road which led to that enchantingly beautiful and
historic region, in which lie three exquisite little lakes like three
gems in an emerald setting. For some time the way lay between the walls
of a great estate, but finally it emerged from those confines and crept
down close to the waters. Ranges of mist-clad mountains overhang the
chain of lakes, broken at intervals by fairy glens shut in by tall green
cliffs. Numbers of little wooded islands dot the waters and everywhere
are ancient ruins and the thatched-roof huts of the Irish peasant.
"I wish poor Feargus were with us now," Miss Campbell remarked
regretfully. She had always felt a great tenderness for the Irish boy.
"He would have been a splendid guide around the lakes; he told me he
knew them well."
"Poor Feargus," echoed the others, wondering for the hundredth time what
had been the reason for his sudden departure from Edinburgh.
"Do you know that one man owns the town of Killarney and most of the
region about the lakes?" announced Mary reading from the guide book.
"Is he as rich as the Duke of Kilkenty?" asked Billie.
"Don't talk about disagreeable subjects in such a beautiful spot," put
in Nancy.
Billie laughed.
"I believe you blame everything on the Duke of Kilkenty, Nancy. He's a
sort of evil genius who brings all the bad weather, and I haven't a
doubt he had the Blarney stone put up at the top of Blarney Castle with
iron spikes in front of it to keep you from kissing it----"
"I would never have permitted her to lean across that awful place and
kiss the stone, even if it hadn't been railed off," broke in Miss
Campbell. "But I am thankful it was," she added, remembering Nancy's
reckless spirit.
"Your Irish tongue is quite glib enough as it is, Miss," observed
Elinor.
"I'm not any Irisher than you are," cried Nancy.
"Are you Irish, Elinor?" asked Maria.
"Oh, yes," answered Elinor, blushing a little. "I have some cousins who
live here. I shall see them in a few days."
Elinor was still shy about those cousins. Sometimes she wished the mists
of uncertainty which shrouded them might never be lifted. Suppose, after
all, they would disappoint her in some way, and not be the charming
people she had pictured in her mind? She sighed.
"Why don't you write to them, dear?" asked Miss Campbell.
"I--I'm waiting," she hesitated.
"I know," broke in Nancy. "You want to see them first and look them
over."
"I do not," ejaculated Elinor indignantly and trying not to feel teased.
"You do. You're afraid they won't be princes of the blood royal, and you
just won't claim them if they are not."
It was impossible to keep from laughing at this assertion, and Elinor
was thankful for the diversion of a shower. Like the Irish temperament,
the Irish climate is a trifle uncertain, and clouds and sunshine follow
in quick succession. But it was only a passing rain cloud, and presently
the sun was out again shining on the wet leaves of the beech and elm
trees and the drooping larches.
Having feasted their eyes on the beauty of the scenery and visited by
boat the little island of Innisfallen, probably the most perfect spot in
all the British Isles, our motorists now descended on Muckross Abbey,
among the ancient ruins of which they proposed to eat their lunch.
"Do you think it would be disrespectful to eat in a cemetery where the
graves are centuries old?" asked Billie.
"If the dead could rise up, I am sure they would be greatly
entertained," answered Maria. "Think how diverting it would be, after
lying in the ground some hundreds of years, to have a beautiful young
lady sit on your chest and eat sandwiches."
Maria, as guest of honor, was not permitted to help, and Miss Campbell
never even offered her services. She never did.
"There are plenty of young feet to go pattering about," she said. "I am
much too old to turn housemaid and cook."
They spread a steamer rug on the ground, being old and seasoned
picnickers by this time, and presently they were nibbling sandwiches and
drinking tea among the ancient, toppling grave stones. There is
something ghastly and crude about a new-made grave, a naked mound of
earth that suggests the horror of death. But the old grass-grown
cemetery which had crept within the walls of the ruined abbey seemed to
have been there always, a part of the scene.
After they had finished and packed up the lunch things, Miss Campbell,
following a time-honored custom, pillowed her head on one of the motor
car cushions and took a nap.
Maria also was inclined to be silent. Leaning against one of the old
grave stones she closed her eyes and relaxed into a half-sleeping,
half-waking state that only those who lead very busy lives can really
enjoy. And Maria was a very busy woman indeed for ten months out of the
twelve.
The four young girls slipped away to explore the ancient ruins.
"I should think the ghosts of the departed who are buried here would
like to come back, if only to see the scenery again," remarked Mary.
"I should not be afraid of such a gentle ghost as that, who returned to
look at a view," said Billie. "But I shouldn't care to see a skeleton in
a monk's dress sitting in one of these cells. Isn't that what the
housemaid told us her grandfather had seen?"
"Yes, and the skeleton monk beckoned to him with a bony finger to
follow, and he believed it was to show him a place where treasure was
buried, and fell into a ditch and broke his leg and the monk crumbled
into nothing," finished Mary.
"Like most ghost stories," added skeptical Billie.
"I think I could believe in ghosts and fairies, too, if I lived here,"
continued Mary. "There is a fairy glen around here somewhere, and if you
find the place where the magic circle is,--it isn't everybody who can
see a magic circle; it takes a special kind of eye,--and then lie down
flat and peep through a little hole in a leaf from an oak tree,--if you
look long enough, you can see tiny processions of ancient peoples."
The girls laughed softly. It was a joy to draw Mary out on her favorite
subjects.
"And then," she went on, "there is the Queen of the Salmon. She is a
fairy and not a fish, and all the salmon are her subjects."
"Are there any bad fairies?" asked Nancy.
"Oh, yes, and unless people are careful they will steal young babies
from the cradles and leave changeling elves in their places."
"Dear me," exclaimed Billie. "How does one know whether one is one's
self or a changeling elf? Am I a changeling elf, do you think?"
There was a gay rollicking laugh from somewhere after this remark of
Billie's; just one uncontrollable guffaw and then perfect silence.
The girls, who had climbed in among the ruins to have a peep at the
cells once occupied by the monks of the abbey, paused and exchanged
embarrassed glances.
"I'm glad our remarks have given amusement to somebody," observed Mary
stiffly.
"Please forgive me," said a familiar voice. "I haven't laughed for a
fortnight and I couldn't keep it in."
There was a noise of rolling stones, some one leaped down from a recess
in the old wall, and Feargus O'Connor presently appeared, covered with
dust and cobwebs and looking so much like a tramp they hardly knew him.
"Feargus!" they exclaimed.
"Don't speak so loud," he said. "I may as well tell you at once that I'm
hiding over in the glen for a few days. An old man from the village
brings me food here at the abbey early every morning before the tourists
come, but he didn't put in an appearance to-day, and I've been here ever
since, hoping he would show up."
"You poor soul, you must be starving," cried Billie sympathetically,
remembering Feargus' appetite.
"I am," he answered. "I'm fairly caving in. I haven't eaten a bite since
yesterday at noon, because I was greedy and ate everything that was
brought to me at one meal."
"But what are you hiding from?" demanded Nancy, unable to sympathize
with Feargus' hunger until her own curiosity was satisfied.
"Never mind that now," said Billie. "We'll bring him some food first and
he can explain later."
The four girls immediately dashed off to the motor car, and presently
returned with the remains of their luncheon and supplies enough in tins
to last him for several days.
"I feel like Elijah being fed by the ravens," remarked Feargus,
demolishing a sandwich in two bites and drinking half a bottle of ginger
ale at a gulp.
"You are much more like the giant who bolted a pig at a mouthful," said
Nancy.
Feargus smiled at her blandly.
"A giant or a prophet," he said. "It's all one when you're starving.
Another foodless day and you'd have been eating sandwiches off my little
mound of earth."
"But what is the reason of all this business, Feargus?" asked Billie.
"Have you been getting into mischief?"
"It's the Duke of Kilkenty," he said. "I should think you might have
guessed that much right away. Because I have a grudge against him, and
good reason for it, too, I'm suspected of having helped kidnap the
little boy. So I just concluded I'd lie low for a while and keep out of
the clutches of the law."
"But you are entirely innocent!" exclaimed Billie.
"Yes, but they think I know something."
She looked at him searchingly, recalling the night when they had seen
the campers in the glen.
"You don't want to answer questions?" suggested Elinor.
"Exactly."
"Then you do know something?" they demanded in whispers.
"What I know I am not ashamed to know. There is nothing wrong in what
has been done----"
Billie sat on a stone fallen from the ruined walls and rested her chin
in her hand. She was thinking and thinking.
"Feargus," she said at last, "we don't want to help you do anything
dishonest and wicked----"
Feargus flushed. But the honest light in his blue eyes never wavered.
"I believe that what has been done is right," he said, "but I can't say
anything more----"
"Come, Billie," called Miss Campbell's voice from the other side of the
wall.
The four friends shook hands with the Irish boy. It was impossible to
connect anything criminal and wicked with his honest, good-natured face.
"It's a shame," whispered Billie to Nancy, as she guided the "Comet"
through the wild scenery along the third lake, some time later in the
day. "The Duke of Kilkenty is like a wicked magician who turns
everything wrong and crooked that could just as easily be straight and
right."
But of course she had no way in the world to know that the Duke of
Kilkenty was at that moment engaged in dictating a number of letters to
his secretary, which so surprised that young man, that it was with
difficulty he grasped his pencil. The police were to give up all search
for young O'Connor; detectives were to be withdrawn from the case. The
Duke had other means of finding his son. A firm of architects were to
send men down to discuss building model cottages; Father O'Toole was to
call and see him at once. And still the list was not nearly attended to.