The day at Rathcullen House was the first of many. Sir John was so frankly eager to have them there, and his welcome was so spontaneous and heart-felt, that the Australians suddenly felt themselves “belong,” and the beautiful old house became to them an Irish version of their own Billabong. Ireland, always many-sided, showed them a new and fascinating face. They had loved the lanes and bogs and moors where they had been free to wander. But now they found themselves free of a wide demesne where wealth and art had done all that was possible to aid Nature, with a perfect understanding of where it was best to leave Nature alone. The park, with its splendid old trees, and the well-kept fields around it, gave opportunities for trying Sir John’s horses; and Norah and the boys were soon under the spell of jumping the big banks that the hunters took so cleverly,—although, at first, to see them jump on to a bank, change feet with lightning rapidity, and leap down the far side, seemed to Antipodean eyes more like a circus performance than ordinary riding! Beyond the park stretched miles of deer-forest, unlike an ordinary forest in that it had no trees,—being a great expanse of heathery hills and moor, seamed and studded with rocks, streams babbling here and there, half-hidden in deep channels fringed with long grass and heather and ling. As land, it Was worthless; nothing would grow in the stony barren soil save the moorland plants; but it formed a glorious ground for long rambles. O’Neill was fast recovering his normal strength, and his energy was always like a devouring fire; he could not, however, walk far, and he and David Linton would find rocky seats on the moor while Norah and the boys rambled far over the deer-forest, often stalking patiently for an hour, armed with field-glasses, to catch a glimpse of the shy red-deer. “A don’t know why people want to shoot them,” Norah said, after a long crawl through the rough heather, which had resulted in a splendid view of a magnificent stag. “They’re so beautiful; and it’s just as much fun to stalk them like this!” To which Jim and Wally returned non-committal grunts, and exchanged, privately, glances of amazement at the strangeness of the feminine outlook.