The Motor Maids by Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Part 33

"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," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 a.s.sertion, 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 pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s-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 embarra.s.sed glances.

"I'm glad our remarks have given amus.e.m.e.nt 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' appet.i.te.

"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."