Johnny Gafferty was rubbing down a tall bay mare when Mrs. MacDermott opened the stable door and entered the loose box. “Johnny,” she said, “you’ll put the cob in the governess cart this afternoon and have him round at three o’clock. I’m going up to the station to meet my nephew. I’ve had a letter from his father to say he’ll be here to-day.” Johnny Gafferty, though he had been eight years in Mrs. MacDermott’s service, had never before heard of her nephew. “It could be,” he said, cautiously, “that the captain will be bringing a horse with him, or maybe two.” He felt that a title of some sort was due to the nephew of a lady like Mrs. MacDennott. The assumption that he would have a horse or two with him was natural. All Mrs. MacDermott’s friends hunted. “He’s not a captain,” said Mrs. MacDennott, “and he’s bringing no horses and he doesn’t hunt. What’s more, Johnny, he doesn’t even ride, couldn’t sit on the back of a donkey. So his father says, anyway.” “Glory be to God!” said Johnny, “and what sort of a gentleman will he be at all?” “He’s a poet,” said Mrs. MacDennott. Johnny felt that he had perhaps gone beyond the limits of respectful criticism in expressing his first astonishment at the amazing news that Mrs. MacDermott’s nephew could not ride. “Well,” he said, “there’s worse things than poetry in the world.” “Very few sillier things,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “But that’s not the worse there is about him, Johnny. His health is completely broken down. That’s why he’s coming here. Nerve strain, they call it.” “That’s what they would call it,” said Johnny sympathetically, “when it’s a high-up gentleman like a nephew of your own. And it’s hard to blame him. There’s many a man does be a bit foolish without meaning any great harm by it.” “To be a bit foolish” is a kindly, West of Ireland phrase which means to drink heavily. “It’s not that,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “I don’t believe from what I’ve heard of him that the man has even that much in him. It’s just what his father says, poetry and nerves. And he’s coming here for the good of his health. It’s Mr. Bertram they call him, Mr. Bertram Connell.” Mrs. MacDermott walked up and down the platform waiting for the arrival of her nephew’s train. She was dressed in a very becoming pale blue tweed and had wrapped a silk muffler of a rather brighter blue round her neck. Her brown shoes, though strong, were very well made and neat. Between them and her skirt was a considerable stretch of knitted stocking, blue like the tweed. Her ankles were singularly well-formed and comely. The afternoon had turned out to be fine and she had taken some trouble about her dress before setting out to meet a strange nephew whom she had not seen since he was five years old. She might have taken more trouble still if the nephew had been anything more exciting than a nerve-shattered poet.