On a summer evening, twenty years ago, a girl and a youth were strolling slowly along the strip of yellow sands which leads from the verge of the Atlantic to the steep line of rock dominated by Kilpatrick Castle.

The girl, who was not more than seventeen years of age, carried her hat and parasol in her hand: the first a serviceable article, little superior in form and material to that generally worn by the superior peasants of the district; the other a dainty trifle in pale blue silk, better in keeping with the tailor-made dress and dainty French shoes in which its owner was dressed. She had a delightfully fair and fresh complexion, a little freckled by a too free exposure to the sun, and her dark blue eyes shone from under the rather disorderly waves of her light golden hair with an expression of harmless audacity and frank gaiety eloquent of youth and health and innocence.

Her companion, who might have been three or four years her senior, was a long-limbed, supple youngster of the finest Western Irish type. His hair, long, black and curly, escaped in natural ripples from under a battered soft felt hat, and framed an olive-hued face of great strength and delicacy, lit by a pair of black eyes sparkling with honest, boyish impudence. The merest shade of callow down darkened his upper lip. He was clad in rough and rather ill-cut tweeds, stained in brown patches with salt water, and the collar of a flannel shirt, innocent of stud or necktie, left to view a sun-tanned, muscular throat. His long legs kept swinging pace with the tripping lightness of the girl’s walk, and he looked down at her from his superior height with a mingling of admiration and protection very pretty to witness, and of which she was perhaps a shade too obviously unconscious.

‘We shall be late for dinner,’ said the girl, breaking the first silence which had fallen upon them since the beginning of a long day’s ramble. ‘Uncle will be angry.’

‘Sorra a bit,’ replied the boy. ‘The old gentleman’s temper’s queer at times, but it has to be mighty bad before he’s angry with you. And as to being angry with me, sure I’m used to it. It’s not often he’s anything else.’

‘My uncle is very fond of you,’ said the girl, ‘and very kind to you—kinder than you deserve, most people think.’

‘Your uncle!’ repeated the boy. ‘Which of ’em?’

‘Lord Kilpatrick, of course!’

‘Indeed he is, then! He’s been as good as a father to me nearly all my life. I owe to him all I have and all I am.’

‘Tell me, Desmond,’ said the girl, after another short interval of silence, ‘why does Lord Kilpatrick take so great an interest in you, and yet let you run about like—like a young colt? Isn’t it time that you began to take life seriously, and to think of doing something?’

‘Faith, I suppose it is,’ said Desmond. ‘I’ve been trying for the last six months to find what kind o’ life I’m fit for. I’ll take to something by-and-by. As to why Lord Kilpatrick’s so good to me, you know just as much as I know myself, Lady Dulcie; Mr. Peebles, that knows more of his ways than anybody else, says ’tis to aise his conscience.’

‘To ease his conscience?’ the girl repeated.

‘Just that,’ said Desmond. ‘An old debt he owed and never paid till my parents were dead. ’Twas my mother asked him to pay it by looking after me. He promised, and he’s kept his word—more power to him.’

‘Do you remember your parents?’

‘No. Both died before I could run about. They were gentlefolk, I suppose, or I’d not be called the Squireen, and I’ve the true gentlemanly knack o’ getting into scrapes. But let’s talk of something else, Lady Dulcie; ’tis a subject that always makes me sad.’

‘Why?’ asked Dulcie.

‘Why,’ said Desmond, ‘there’s times when I feel like a boat on the sea, all alone. I’ve neither kith nor kin, only friends. You’ll laugh at me, I know, but there’s times, when I’m by myself, I feel the mist rising to my eyes and the lump in my throat, thinking I’ve never known a father’s care nor a mother’s love.’

The bright face had lost its merry impudence for the moment, and the quick, swinging step slackened.

‘Laugh at you!’ repeated Dulcie. ‘I’ll never laugh at you for that. And I care for you, Desmond.’

‘And that might come to be the bitterest of all,’ said Desmond. ‘You’re like a star in the sky above me, Lady Dulcie. You’re a rich young lady, and I’m only a poor boy dependent on strangers. But come, now,’ he continued after a short pause, ‘I’ve answered your question, will you answer mine? Is it true what I hear all about the place, that you’re to marry Richard Conseltine?’

‘Nonsense!’ said Dulcie, flushing redly. ‘I’m not going to marry anybody!’

‘Ah!’ said Desmond dryly, ‘that’s what all the girls say, but they never mean it.’

‘I mean it. I think marriage is absurd. Don’t you?’

‘Sure I do,’ responded Desmond. ‘But the priest says it’s convenient, if the world is to continue. Tell me, now, what d’ye think of Master Richard?’

‘Think of him?’ said Dulcie slowly. ‘Oh, I think—I think he’s my cousin, and as stupid as girls’ cousins always are.’

‘That’s mighty hard on boys in general,’ said Desmond laughingly, ‘for they’re mostly some girl’s cousin. I may be myself, for all I know. But Richard’s as fond of you as a fox of a goose—a duck, I mean. And that’s why he hates me.’

‘For shame, Desmond! How has he ever shown that he hates you?’

‘Shown it? Faith, he doesn’t need to show it. It just comes out of him like steam from boiling water. Much I care for the hate or the love of the likes o’ him! I can run him out of breath, fight him out of time, gallop him out of hearing, swim him out of seeing, chaff him out of temper—and as for loving, sure if he loves you, I’ll just adore you, and so beat him at that as well!’

The girl smiled, with her face concealed by the brim of her sun-bonnet, and turned a little away from this brisk wooer, whose bursts of affectionate impudence were generally followed by long intervals of silence.

‘You adore too many, Desmond,’

‘Sorra one but yourself.’

‘Nonsense!’ cried Dulcie. ‘What were you doing with Rosie this morning in the stable-yard?’

‘I mistook her for her mistress,’ said Desmond. ‘No, sure,’ he added, as the girl flushed a little angrily, ‘I don’t mane that.’

‘I should think you didn’t “mane that!”’ said the young lady. ‘I should like to catch you kissing me.’

‘I’m agreeable to be caught,’ returned the unabashable.

‘Oh, you Irish boys!’ cried Dulcie, with a transparent simulation of contempt. ‘You kiss anybody, so it’s no compliment.’

‘That depends,’ said Desmond. ‘There’s kissing for duty, and kissing for interest, and kissing for love. There’s a mighty difference between kissing a rose and kissing a thorn. But, after all, what’s a kiss but a salutation?’

‘You’re a great deal too forward,’ said Dulcie, with an almost matronly air of reproof.

‘Then get behind me,’ responded Desmond, ‘and I’ll go backward.’

The battle of wit was interrupted at this point by the sudden appearance of a man at the end of the ascent leading to the Castle. As he approached, the young couple fell apart a little, and advanced to meet him with a proper and respectful distance between them.

‘It’s Blake of Blake’s Hall,’ said Desmond, as he neared them.

‘In his usual condition of an afternoon,’ said Dulcie.

The man, tall and strongly built, with a mane of black hair and whiskers streaked heavily with gray, and a flushed face, was reeling and tacking along the narrow path. His hat reposed at a dangerous angle at the back of his head, and his waistcoat was open to catch the cooling breeze. There was an air of jolly ferocity about him; but in spite of that and of the disorder of his dress and the other signs of dissipation he carried about with him, the least observant person in the world would hardly have taken him for anything but a gentleman. As he came level with the young people he stopped in his walk and in the scrap of Irish song he was chanting, and saluted the young lady with a wide and unsteady sweep of the hat.

‘Good morning, Lady Dulcie.’ The voice, though husky, and at that moment a little thick with liquor, was sound and full and sweet, and the brogue simply defied phonetics to render it. ‘Ye’re a cure for sore eyes. Desmond, ye divil, give us your fin.’

‘You have been dining with my uncle, Mr. Blake?’ asked Lady Dulcie.

‘Faith, I have, then,’ returned Mr. Blake; ‘and if the company had only been as good as the dinner and the wine—and the whisky—’tis not yet I’d been after leaving it.’

‘And what was the matter with the company?’ asked Desmond.

‘It appears to me, Mr. Desmond Macartney,’ said Blake, with portentous, drunken dignity—‘it appears to me, sor, that a gentleman of the long descent and the high breedin’ of Lord Kilpatrick might have thought twice before inviting a man o’ my blood to sit at the same table with a low, dirty, six-an-eight-scrapin’ thief of an attorney. The back o’ my hand and the sole of my foot to ’m! the filthy reptile! I’ve left my mark on ’m, an’ I’ve spoke my mind of him, and ’twill be a long day ere he forgets Patrick Blake, of Blake’s Hall.’

‘My uncle?’ cried Lady Dulcie in a tone of half amaze, half question.

‘Your uncle, Lady Dulcie!’ answered Blake. ‘’Tis not in that fashion that a gentleman of my figure behaves to a gentleman of his. ’Tis not at the head of a nobleman that I throw bottles, nor, sor,’ he continued to Desmond, as if the interruption had come from him, ‘’tis not him I’d call a dirty thief nor a filthy reptile, and that I’d have ye to know, sor.’

‘You’ve been quarrelling with somebody at his lordship’s table?’ said Desmond.

‘I have, then! And if Dick Conseltine and that white-livered boy of his, and old Peebles—may the devil fly away with the whole boodle of ’m—if they hadn’t interfered and spoilt the sport, I’d have had the ruffian’s blood. By the lud, I’d have smashed him like an egg!’ He drove one powerful fist into the palm of the other with such force as to overbalance himself, and was only prevented by Desmond’s restraining hand from coming to the ground. ‘’Tis an insult before Heaven; ’tis an insult to ask a gentleman to put his legs under the mahogany with such a snake as that!’

‘You had your legs under the mahogany a pretty long time before you found ’twas an insult, from the looks of you,’ said Desmond dryly. ‘Now, look here, Mr. Blake, ’tis not for a boy of my years to be after offering lessons in politeness to a gentleman of yours, but I’ll just ask you to remember that the host whose hospitality you’re insulting is this lady’s uncle.’

Blake’s ferocity vanished with ludicrous suddenness. He began to stammer apologies to Lady Dulcie.

‘And then, too, Mr. Blake,’ continued Desmond, ‘you’d claim the right to choose the guests at your own table—if you had one,’ he interpolated sotto voce; ‘and Lord Kilpatrick, or any gentleman, has the same right.’

‘And that’s true, if the devil spoke it,’ cried Blake. ‘Desmond Macartney, ye’re a gentleman. Ye can carry a gentleman’s apology to a gentleman without demeaning yourself. Present my apologies to his lordship, and tell him that I’ll honour myself by presenting them personally when I hear that he’s got rid of his present company.’

‘’Tis Mr. Feagus, of Ballymote, that you’ve had the row with?’

‘Faith then, it is, and ye can tell him that if he has the spunk to stand up at twenty paces I’ll do sufficient violence to my feelings as a gentleman to honour him by lettin’ daylight into him.’

‘Nonsense, Mr. Blake,’ said Desmond. ‘Men don’t fight duels nowadays.’

‘No, by the saints!’ cried Blake; ‘they stab each other with inky pens, and suck each other dry with lawsuits, by the help of such parchmint-scrapin’ vermin as Jack Feagus. ’Tis a dirty world we live in, Desmond, my boy, but sure that’s all the more reason that the few decent men should stick together. I’m goin’ on to Widdy Daly’s shebeen, and if ye’re inclined for a drink at the stone cow, I’ll be proud of your company.’

‘Later, perhaps,’ said Desmond. ‘I’ve Lady Dulcie to take care of now, you see.’

‘Ah!’ said Blake, with a vinous smile at the girl, ‘’tis the best end of the stick that ye’ve got hold of, Desmond Macartney. Whisky’s a good familiar craythur, but ’tis a mighty poor substitute for the colleens.

Good luck to ye. Lady Dulcie, your obedient servant.’

He swaggered off, his recent anger quite forgotten, and a moment later the quiet evening air rang tunably with a scrap of Irish song:

‘And thin he’d reply, with a wink of his eye,

Arrah! Paddy, now can’t ye be aisy’

‘’Tis a beautiful voice,’ said Desmond, standing still to listen. ‘’Twould have been better for poor Blake, maybe, if it hadn’t been so fine; it’s just been the ruin of him.’

‘The horrid old man!’ said Dulcie.

‘I wonder uncle admits him to his table.’

‘Oh, sure, there’s no harm in poor Blake!’ said Desmond. ‘He’s nobody’s enemy but his own, and there’s no better company in Ireland, till he gets too much of the whisky inside him, or sees an attorney.’

‘What makes him hate lawyers so?’ asked Dulcie.

‘Sure he has reason,’ returned the boy, who had all an Irishman’s apparently innate detestation of law and its exponents. ‘He lost one half of his acres in trying to keep the other half, years ago, before you and I were born, and Feagus, who acted for him, played him false. That’s the story, at least, and I don’t find it hard to believe, for he’s an ugly customer, that same Feagus.’

They passed together through the ruined arch, which had been in former times the main point of ingress, through the outer wall of the Castle, the rough and ponderous stones of which had, in these later years of peace, gone to the building of stables, offices, and peasants’ cottages. The main building, a huge castellated mansion with an aspect of great age and rugged strength, contrasted strongly in its air of well-kept prosperity with most proprietorial residences in that part of Ireland. Skirting the side of the Castle, they came upon a garden and pleasaunce, bright with flowering plants and emerald turf, commanding a view of the sea, now shining with the glaring tints of sunset, which were reflected too by the bay-windows of the Castle faÇade.

A heavy-faced, sullen-looking young man, dressed in an ultra-fashionable dress suit, and strangling in a four-inch collar, was sprawling ungracefully on a garden seat with a newspaper on his knees and a cup of coffee on the rustic table at his elbow. He turned at the sound of footsteps on the garden gravel, and seeing Dulcie, rose clumsily to his feet.

‘His lordship has been asking for you, Lady Dulcie.’

‘Dinner is over, I suppose?’ said Dulcie.

‘Yes, dinner is over,’ said the young man, scowling, ‘and so is the fight.’

‘We’ve heard all about the fight from Blake. We met him on the rocks,’ said Desmond.

The young man took no heed of the remark, and did not even look at the speaker.

‘I’m getting pretty tired of living down here among these savages,’ he continued to Lady Dulcie, with an attempt at the accent of a certain type of London men, a drawl which struggled vainly against a pronounced Dublin brogue. ‘Bottles flying at people’s heads—it isn’t my style, you know.’

‘Sure,’ said Desmond, ‘if we’re so savage as all that, ’twould be a charity to stop here among us and civilize us. We’re willing to learn, Mr. Richard Conseltine, and willing to teach the little we know.’

The young dandy looked at him with a heavy insolence, in which there was a lurking touch of fear, but did not deign to address him.

‘His lordship’s awf’ly upset. My father’s with him, and the doctor’s been sent for.’

‘I’ll go and see him,’ said Dulcie.

‘Desmond, you might go and ask Mrs. O’Flaherty for some dinner for both of us. I’m as hungry as a hunter.’

‘I’ll follow you directly,’ said Desmond.

‘You’ll come at once, if you please,’ she said, with a pretty imperiousness.

‘Come!’

They went away together, young Conseltine following them with a deepening of his usual ill-bred, angry scowl.

‘The supercilious brute!’ said Desmond under his breath.

‘One fight a day is quite enough, Desmond,’ whispered Lady Dulcie.

‘Fight!’ said Desmond. ‘Much of a fight ’twould be. I’d——-’

‘Quite so,’ Dulcie interrupted him quietly. ‘I know you’d—and as I don’t want you to, you’ll just go quietly, and ask to have some dinner laid for us, and keep out of his way for the rest of the evening.’