I should have no right to it when I was Richard
Dawson's wife.
A shout somewhere near at hand alarmed me. I slipped my letter under the
glove on the writing-table and fled out precipitately. Only in time, as
it proved, for Terence Murphy came round the house chasing a refractory
hen, which, as luck would have it, flew through the door I had left open
behind me.
"I could have sworn I shut that door," I heard Terence shout at the top
of his voice. "Bad luck to ye, ye divil"--to the hen--"God forgive me
for swearing. Will nothin' contint ye but the master's own room?"
While he dived within the room I got out through the little gate and
back into the avenue, where the briars and undergrowth had made hedges
behind which one could easily find cover.
Once in safety I stopped to gaze back at the long front of Brosna,
looking so sad. It is one of the white stuccoed houses so common in
Ireland in the eighteenth century, although much finer and more
magnificent than most. At the roof there was a balustrading, and below
were long lines of windows of a uniform oblong shape, each with an
architrave above it. The rains of our moist climate had wept upon it and
there were long green streaks extending down the walls.
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