There had been a time when a barefooted serving-girl had suffered under Miss Duffy’s rule; but for the last few years the times had been bad, the price of grazing had fallen, and the mistress’s temper and the diet having fallen in a corresponding ratio, the bondwoman had returned to her own people and her father’s house, and no successor had been found to take her place. That is to say, no recognised successor. But, as fate would have it, on the very day that “Moireen Rhu” had wrapped her shawl about her head, and stumped, with cursings, out of the house of bondage, the vague stirrings that regulate the perambulations of beggars had caused Billy Grainy to resolve upon Gurthnamuckla as the place where he would, after the manner of his kind, ask for a walletful of potatoes and a night’s shelter. A week afterwards he was still there, drawing water, bringing in turf, feeding the cow, and receiving, in return for these offices, his board and lodging and the daily dressing of a sore shin which had often coerced the most uncharitable to hasty and nauseated alms-giving. The arrangement glided into permanency, and Billy fell into a life of lazy routine that was preserved from stagnation by a daily expedition to Lismoyle to sell milk for Miss Duffy, and to do a little begging on his own account.
Gurthnamuckla had still about it some air of the older days when Julia Duffy’s grandfather was all but a gentleman, and her drunken father and dairymaid mother were in their cradles. The tall sycamores that bordered the cart track were witnesses to the time when it had been an avenue, and the lawn-like field was yellow in spring with the daffodils of a former civilisation. The tops of the trees were thick with nests, and the grave cawing of rooks made a background of mellow, serious respectability that had its effect even upon Francie. She said something to this intent as she and Lambert jogged along the grass by the track.
“Nice!” returned her companion with enthusiasm, “I should think it was! I’d make that one of the sweetest little places in the country if I had it. There’s no better grass for young horses anywhere, and there’s first-class stabling. I can tell you you’re not the only one that thinks it’s a nice place,” he continued, “but this old devil that has it won’t give it up; she’d rather let the house rot to pieces over her head than go out of it.”