“They were good when Theobald was here,” I said.  “He made enough noise, Maureen; didn’t he?  You used to scold then because he made so much.”

“I always thought more of a boy than a girl,” she answered.  “You’re bonny enough, Miss Bawn, but you’re not to be compared with Master Theobald, let alone them I nursed at my breast—­Master Luke and your mother and your Aunt Eleanor.”

“Mary Cashel thinks the world of me,” I said, with enjoyment.  Mary Cashel is my foster-mother, and lives at the head of the Glen.

“She’s a poor, foolish, talkative creature,” Maureen said.  “If her Ladyship had listened to me she’d never have had Mary Cashel in the house.”

Just then the setting sun glinted on the windows of Brosna, the great house that neighbours ours, which belongs to the Cardews, and has been empty, as its owner, Anthony Cardew, has been away from it many years.  The sun was going down in a great glory, and window after window in the long house-front took fire and flamed like a torch.

“You would think,” said I, “that they were lighting fires over there against Captain Cardew’s return.”

Maureen rose from her place and peered curiously in the direction of my gaze.

“I wonder he doesn’t be selling it,” she said, “and not be letting it go to rack and ruin and him never comin’ home.  ’Tis an unlucky country so it is where the houses of the gentry must be all stannin’ empty or tumblin’ to ruins, or bein’ turned into asylums or the like.”

“I should like to see the inside of Brosna,” I said.  “Is it as fine as they say?”

“It is the finest house in this country, Miss Bawn—­finer even than the Abbey.  But all goin’ to rack and ruin for want of an owner to look after it.  But as for seein’ it, I wouldn’t be talkin’ about such a thing.  It is a long time since his Lordship and her Ladyship could bear to hear the name of Cardew.”

“I have heard you say, Maureen,” I went on, “that Anthony Cardew was the handsomest young man ever seen in this country, that he had a leg and foot as elegant even as Uncle Luke’s, and that to see him dance was the finest sight you could wish for, and that all the ladies were in love with him.”

“I never put him before Master Luke.  No, no, Miss Bawn, I never put him before my own boy.  There, don’t be talkin’ about the Cardews, child.  What are they to you?”

I got up and went out; and while my thoughts were busy with my visit to Dublin there would flash through them like warp and woof the thought of Anthony Cardew, who had gone away before I was born and of whom so many romantic stories were told.  I felt that I must hear some of them, even though the name of Cardew was not to be mentioned in our hearing.

CHAPTER VII

OLD, UNHAPPY, FAR-OFF THINGS

I found my godmother watering her rose trees on the eastward side of the house from which the sun had now departed.  The grassy terraces before the house smelt deliciously, for a water-sprinkler in the grass sent out fine spray like a fountain.  It was very hot weather, and I had walked across; it had been cool enough in the shelter of the wood but the roads had been blinding hot.