“I wish I could deny that I don’t like this conversation,” said Vyner. “My friend and I never came here to discuss questions of politics or polemics. And now about dinner. Could you let us have it at three o’clock; it is just eleven now?” “Yes, it will be ready by three,” said O’Rorke, gravely. “The place is clean enough inside,” whispered Grenfell, as he came from within, “but miserably poor. The fellow seems to have expended all his spare cash in rebellious pictures and disloyal engravings.” “He is an insupportable bore,” muttered Vyner; “but let us avoid discussion with him, and keep him at a distance.” “I like his rabid Irishism, I own,” said Grenfell, “and I intend to post myself up, as the Yankees say, in rebellious matters before we leave this.” “Is that Lough Anare, that sheet of water I see yonder?” “Yes,” said O’Rorke. “There’s a ruined tower and the remains of seven churches, I think, on an island there?” “You’d like to draw it, perhaps?” asked O’Rorke, with a cunning curiosity in his eye. “For the present, I’d rather have a bathe, if I could find a suitable spot.” “Keep round to the westward there. It is all rock along that side, and deep water close to the edge. You’ll find the water cold, if you mind that.” “I like it all the better. Of course, George, you’ll not come? You’ll lie down on the sward here, and doze or dream till I come back.” “Too happy, if I can make sleep do duty for books or newspapers,” yawned out Grenfell. “Do you want a book?” asked O’Rorke. “Yes, of all things. What can you give me?” He returned to the house, and brought out about a dozen books. There were odd volumes of the press, O’Callaghan’s “Celts and Saxons,” and the Milesian Magazine, profusely illustrated with wood-cuts of English cruelty in every imaginable shape that human ingenuity could impart to torture. “That will show you how we were civilised, and why it takes so long to do it,” said O’Rorke, pointing to an infamous print, where a celebrated drummer named Hempenstall, a man of gigantic stature, was represented in the act of hanging another over his shoulder, the artist having given to the suffering wretch an expression of such agony as no mere words would convey. “This fellow is intolerable,” muttered Vyner, as he turned away, and descended the rocky path. Grenfell, too, appeared to have had enough of his patriotic host, for he stretched himself out on the green sward, drawing his hat over his eyes, and giving it to be seen that he would not be disturbed. O’Rorke now retreated to the kitchen to prepare for his guest’s entertainment, but he started with astonishment as he entered. “What, Kitty, is this you?” cried he; “when did you come?”