The Motor Maids by Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Part 35

"I'm afraid I haven't met him," answered Elinor apologetically.

"An' is it me second cousin, Edward, ye be after knowin'?"

"Edward Butler is my uncle," answered Elinor steadily.

"Well, may the howly Saint Pathrick and all his sainted brith'rin stand witness to this," cried Thomas in the throes of paralyzing astonishment.

"An' you his niece, beghorra! His saloon must have prospered surely to be sindin' his niece to Oirland in such grand stoile."

"My uncle isn't in that business," began Elinor, blinking back her tears. "He's a lawyer, and has a factory besides for manufacturing automobile supplies."

The other girls mercifully endeavored to engage Eileen and her mother in conversation until they saw Elinor stand up and heard her say:

"You haven't two sons and another daughter? Oh, then there's some mistake. My cousins have quite a family of children."

The man gave her a bland and innocent stare. It was impossible to ruffle his equable disposition.

"'Tis a mistake, surely, then, Miss, and you are not me cousin at all, at all, but the kin of the owld Squire who lives five miles the other side of the village. I'm sorry, but the matin' was a plisint break in the day's wor-rk, an' I'm not begrudgin' you of the toime I spent; an'

missin' the sicond thrain with the most pa.s.sengers. But I'm thinkin'

ye'll have to git somebody else to drive ye to the owld Squire's. It's only last St. Michaelmas he called me a lazy blackguard, and me a hard wur-rkin' man, beghorra!"

"That will be all right, Mr. Butler," put in Billie. "If you'll take us back to the village, we'll go in the motor car to Squire Butler's."

"And we'll gladly pay you for the time we've kept your vehicle," said Elinor in tones of majestic relief.

Half an hour later they were informed by the man at the inn who had been giving the "Comet" a good dusting down, that Tom Butler was a lazy fellow who never did a lick of work except drive his old jaunting car,-an inheritance from his wife's father,-back and forth from the station to the inn or to houses thereabouts.

"It's his owld woman as runs the fam'ly, Miss, an' his dowter as looks after the powltry."

Armed with specific directions, they now sped in the "Comet" out of the inn yard, along the slovenly little street and into the country.

And, oh, the burst of hysterical laughter, long pent up, and the joy of being back in the smooth-running motor car after that jolting two-wheeled vehicle; but best of all, the supreme relief of not being related to Thomas the carter; his cousin Michael, the conductor, from Saint Loose, and his cousin Edward, keeper of a saloon, heaven knows where.

How they laughed and joked and teased Elinor, who was quite willing to be teased, you may be sure, being on the safe side now. With feelings very different from their recent emotions they finally stopped at a pretty little lodge built into a high stone wall. A barefooted girl opened the gate and up a neat gravel drive they sped. Presently they arrived at the front door of a charming old house covered with ivy, with windows opening right onto the lawn. It was not a large or pretentious dwelling, the home of Squire Butler, just a rambling, comfortable, pretty old place set in the midst of shrubbery and shade trees. Through the open cas.e.m.e.nts of the drawing-room came the sweet fairy notes of a harp and a girl's voice singing:

"Kathleen Mavourneen, the gray dawn is breaking, The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill."

In a moment they were ushered into that same drawing-room, and the singer, slender and graceful, with soft blue eyes and dark hair, came forward.

"Is this Kathleen?" began Elinor. "I am your cousin, Elinor Butler, from America."

Pretty soon all the Butlers were a.s.sembled in the drawing-room: Squire Butler, jovial and handsome; Mrs. Butler, still young and fresh-looking, although she was past fifty; Richard, home from Cambridge, and another Elinor, older than her sister and even prettier.

It seemed to the Motor Maids that never before had they met such charming people. Back of the house was an old-fashioned flower garden, separated from the kitchen garden by a tall hedge of fuchsias in full bloom. The rich color of the pendent blossoms made a splendid background for a group of wicker chairs and a table; hither the entire company now repaired for tea. An old lady drove up in a pony carriage and joined them, and two ruddy-faced girls wearing short skirts and stout walking boots made their appearance. They had taken the short ten-mile cut, they said, and timed themselves to arrive at four-thirty. One of them later joined Billie, Nancy and Richard Butler in a set of tennis, and played so well that Billie felt ashamed, and resolved secretly to get into practice before she played tennis again with Irish and English girls.

Mary Price and Kathleen wandered off to see the garden where roses clambered against the old walls and honeysuckle filled the air with its perfume. Along the paths, growing in profusion, were wall flowers, stock, marigolds, old-fashioned pinks, fragrant clumps of rosemary and many other flowers and herbs.

Squire Butler desired mightily to send a trap into the village for Miss Campbell and Madame Cortinas and all the luggage, too. But the girls a.s.sured him that they were due at Castle Abbey, Lord Glenarm's place, in two days. Finally, Billie and young Richard Butler dashed back to the village in the motor car and returned with the two ladies for dinner.

As a matter of fact, this visit to Elinor's Irish cousins was the most enjoyable episode in their entire trip. And to make it more complete, the moon came out after dinner, flooding the lawn and garden with its golden light. Then Maria quite forgot that she had intended to keep her vocation as a singer a secret and enchanted them all by singing:

"'There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the gra.s.s Or night dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pa.s.s; Music that gentler on the spirit lies Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep, And through the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.'"

CHAPTER XXIII.-THE BANSHEE OF CASTLE ABBEY.

One may become accustomed to anything, even the notion of visiting a real lord in an ancient abbey.

"We owe this to you, Maria," cried Billie ecstatically, as the motor car climbed slowly up a wooded hill, on the summit of which stood Lord Glenarm's Irish home.

"Remember how much I owe to you, Billie," answered Maria. "I might never have been here now, but for you. It was the jewels you guarded so carefully for me that furnished the funds for my trip abroad and a year's study in Paris, before I finally began singing again in opera. I feel that there is nothing too good for the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell."

"That was just an act of friendship," protested Billie.

"There are not many acts of real friendship," said Maria, "and not many young girls who would have endured what the Motor Maids endured for my sake. Lord Glenarm has heard the whole story and I can a.s.sure you he is as proud to know you as I am."

There is no getting around a good, substantial, sincere compliment, and the four young girls could not conceal the pride they felt in Maria's praises.

"They are four sweet la.s.sies, as David Ramsay remarked," observed Miss Campbell, and everybody smiled; for Miss Campbell often quoted David Ramsay lately and had received two long letters from him since she had been in the land of the Shamrock.

As they neared the top of the hill, the landscape unfolded before them in a splendid panorama,-fields and meadows; dark splashes of green marking forests of oak and beech trees, and here and there a thin haze of smoke curling up from the chimney of a farm house. Toward the west was the soft blue expanse of the sea.

"They do say that the good Saint Patrick preached the gospel once on this hillside and converted a king and hundreds of his people to Christianity," Maria was saying, when they heard a voice calling excitedly:

"Billie, Elinor, Nancy, Mary!" and Beatrice Colchester dashed up. She was riding a fat gray pony which was puffing indignantly like an apoplectic old gentleman who had been made to climb a steep hill against his will.

Behind her rode Lord Glenarm on a hunting-horse, and barking and yelping at his heels were half a dozen dogs.

It was all very jolly and natural,-no pomp and ceremony about visiting a real lord who was as simple and unaffected as Billie's own father. At last they drew up at the gate of the Abbey, and for once in his useful life the "Comet" seemed decidedly out of place and inappropriate.

The left wing of Castle Abbey was a picturesque pile of crumbling ruins overhung with ivy and climbing rose bushes. Here had been the chapel of the monks and the cloistered walk wherein they had paced up and down telling their beads. In this quadrangle, also, had been the original garden of the monastery and a garden it still was, carefully tended by an aged Irish gardener and his a.s.sistants, and filled with bright ma.s.ses of old-fashioned flowers. The other wing of the Abbey, where had once been many of the cells and the monks' refectory or dining-hall, was now the dwelling place of Lord Glenarm for at least six weeks in the year.

"Uncle says that one wing is a 'reflectory' and the other is a 'refectory,'" Beatrice informed the four girls, while she conducted them on a flying trip over the entire place. "The old cloisters are the reflectory and the refectory is now our living-room, a sort of dining-room and drawing-room combined."

The ancient dining-hall, however, was quite large enough for all its present purposes and could have accommodated a good-sized household with ease. The old carved black oak dining-table was lost in the vastness of the apartment. Suits of armor were ranged along the walls at intervals, and Billie was amazed to find that one or two of them were not a whit taller than she was herself. From a gallery running around two sides of the hall hung several faded battle flags. There were a few portraits on the walls of dark-haired, rather fierce-looking knights and their beguiling ladies, also dark-haired with gentle blue eyes. The only modern object in the entire room was a grand piano at the far end under a stained gla.s.s window.

"Beatrice, do we sleep in cells?" demanded Mary Price.

"Yes," answered the English girl. "There are dozens of them opening on the galleries. They are just as they were centuries ago, rather small for sleeping-rooms, but, as Uncle says, it's quite like camping out to come up here for a visit; and the cells are much larger than tents."

"Are they haunted?" asked Mary.

Beatrice smiled mysteriously.

"People claim to have seen things," she said, "but I never did. Almost every castle in Ireland has its banshee, you know, but it only appears before a death in the family."