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Connolly, of Lisnahoe, could boast of a full quiver. There was a general chorus of laughter as Harold related his experience at the railway-station. The Connollys had rested for several days under the ban of the most rigid boycott, and had become used to small discomforts.
When he alighted at the station a small place in Tipperary the dusk of the early winter evening was closing in, and Harold recollected that his prompt departure from Dublin had prevented him from apprising Jack of his movements. Of course there would be no trap from Lisnahoe to meet this train, but that mattered little.
He must have been very much in love with her, for she succeeded, and he promised to give it all up after one day more. It seems that he could not get out of this last run. The meet was on the lawn; the hunt breakfast was to be at Lisnahoe House. In short, it was an affair that could neither be altered nor postponed. "This meet," continued Polly, "was on New-Year's Day.
All his ideas as to the Irish question had been changing insensibly during his visit to Lisnahoe. This night's work had revolutionised them. He saw the agrarian feud not as he had been wont to read of it, glozed over by the New York papers. He saw it as it was in all its naked, brutal horror.
"What do you mean?" cried the young man, indignantly. "I mane that ye'd betther come down out o' that afore I make ye." Harold was on the ground in a moment and approached the man with clinched fists and flashing eyes. "How dare you, you scoundrel! Will you drive me to Lisnahoe or will you not?" "The divil a fut," answered the fellow, sullenly. Hayes controlled his anger by an effort.
This is what Hayes read as he sipped his coffee: LISNAHOE, December 23d. MY DEAR HAROLD: Home I come from Ballinasloe yesterday, and find your letter, the best part of a week old, kicking about among the bills and notices of meets that make the biggest end of my correspondence.
Miss Connolly was often his companion. The importation from Belfast relieved her of some of the pressure of household cares, and since her brothers were fully occupied, it devolved upon her to play host as well as hostess, and point out to the stranger the various charms of Lisnahoe. This suited Harold exactly.
There were no family prayers at Lisnahoe; only the ladies were regular church-goers; but that it was a religious household no one could have doubted who knew the events of the night and saw the old man on his knees between his boys. They rose at the noise of Harold's entrance, and the American, who felt that there were no moments to be wasted on apologies, announced his errand.
For three days he had waited in vain, and it was partly, at least, on Jack's account that Mr. Hayes was in Ireland at all. When Jack sailed from New York he had bound Harold by a solemn promise to spend a few weeks at Lisnahoe on his next visit to Europe. Miss Connelly, who had accompanied her brother on his American tour, had echoed and indorsed the invitation.
It is traditional, I suppose, that every mistress of Lisnahoe should oppose hunting." "Indeed, why so?" inquired Harold. "Why, don't you know?" asked the girl. "Has nobody told you our family ghost-story?" "No one as yet," answered Hayes. "Then mine be the pleasing task; and there is a peculiar fitness in your hearing it just now, for to-morrow will be New-Year's Day."
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