"I don't know," replied Miss Grimshaw. "Don't be gloomy. Ah!"
The door opened, and Mr. French entered the room--a gentleman that Bobby Dashwood had never seen in his life before.
The master of Drumgool, genial and cosey, and the very personification of welcome, had scarcely taken in with a glance the two pleasant-looking young people who had invaded his drawing-room when the explainer of situations rushed into the breach.
"I'm awfully sorry," said he, "but I've made a mistake. I met this young lady at the inn at Cloyne, and as she was coming here I came on the same car, for I thought you were a Mr. Michael French I'd met in London. I've been fishing down here."
"You expected me last night," said Miss Grimshaw. "My name is Grimshaw."
"Faith," said Mr. French, "this is a pleasant surprise. Sit down, sit down."
"I ought to say my name is Dashwood," put in the explainer.
"Sit down, sit down. I'm delighted to see you both. Staying at the inn, are you? And how do you like Mrs. Sheelan? And you met at the inn? Of course you did. Miss Grimshaw, I don't know how, in the name of wonder, I'm going to apologise to you for driving you all over the country. Is that chair easy? No, it's not--take this one. Look at it before you sit in it. Dan O'Connell took his seat in that chair when he was here for the elections, in my grandfather's time, and I have the bed upstairs he slept in. Which Michael French, I wonder, was it you met? Was it a man with a big, black beard?"
"That's him. He's my cousin, bad luck to him! No matter. I'll be even with him some day yet. He's the biggest black--I mean, we have never been friends; but that's always the way between relations. And that reminds me--I've never bid you welcome to Drumgool, Miss Grimshaw. Welcome you are to the house and all it holds, and make yourself at home! And here we are sitting in the old drawing-room that's only used for company once in a twelvemonth. Come down to the sitting-room, both of you. There's a fire there, and Effie will be in in a minute. She's out driving in the donkey-carriage. This isn't a bad bit of an old hall, is it?" continued he as they passed through the hall. "It's the oldest part of the house. Do you see that split in the panelling up there? That's where a bullet went in the duel between Counsellor Kinsella and Colonel White. 'Black White' was his nickname, and well he deserved it. They fought here, for it was snowing so thick outside you couldn't see a man at ten paces. Eighteen hundred and one, that was, and they in their graves all these years! No, no one was killed. Only a tenant that had come in to see the fun, and he got in the line of fire. He recovered, I believe, though they say he carried the bullet in his head to the end of his days. This is the sitting-room. It's the warmest room in winter. The old house is as full of holes as a colander, but you'll never get a draught here. Norah!"--putting his head out of the door.