“About what?’ said Dick, who was being bored.

“About your Honour!” returned Mrs. Twomey, in a sort of roar.

“And what the devil are they saying about me?”

“God forbid that I’d put down any dirty stain before your Honour,” sobbed Mrs. Twomey, recurring to her earlier metaphor; “it’s that big horse that ye’re afther buyin’ from Docthor Mangan; they say that he gave him to ye too cheap on the head of it—­”

“On the head of what, woman?” shouted Dick, now passing, by the well-worn channel of anxiety, from boredom to anger.

“On the head of the Dispinsary!  Sure they says ’twas your Honour gave it to Danny Aherne!”

It is unnecessary to record Major Talbot-Lowry’s indignation on hearing this charge.  The dairy, with its low ceiling and paven floor, echoed, submissively, his well-justified strictures on the lies and evil speaking of his humbler neighbours, and Mrs. Twomey dried her eyes (much as she would scrub out one of her milk-pans) and hearkened.

Who shall say if she believed him?  There is a standard of honour, rigid and stern, for gentlemen, just as there is quite another standard for those who do not, in the opinion of a people, Austrian in their definition of what is or is not gentle birth, merit that title.  Dick Talbot-Lowry was a gentleman, and, in her own words, no “dirty stain” would ever be attributed to him by Mary Twomey, but even she knew that the ethics of buying and selling a horse apply to no other transaction, and she knew also that in the disposal of a “place,” more may occur than meets the eye.  She resented the slur on her chieftain, but, in spite of her wrath, she could not feel quite certain that the accusation was entirely unfounded.

CHAPTER XV

The town of Cluhir had more features than those that have already been enumerated, to entitle it to respect.  There was, primarily, the great river, that moved majestically in its midst, bearing a church, impartially, on its either bank, and hiding and nourishing in its depths the salmon that gave the town its reason for existence.  There was the tall and noble bridge that spanned the river, and joined the rival churches together (a feat of which it is safe to say no other power in Ireland was capable).  It was made of that blue-grey limestone that builds bridges, and churches, and houses, with an equal success, and it was the equivalent of a profession for many of the inhabitants of the town, who were accustomed to spend long, meditative hours upon it, criticising the fishermen on the bank below, watching the fish, talking of fish, thinking of fish, without haste, and with a good deal of rest.  There was also Hallinan’s Hotel, that was very far from being a mere country hotel.  The stately bow-windows of its coffee-room have already been mentioned, but its wide verandah must not be forgotten, stone-paven, glass-roofed, umbrageous with tropic vegetation,