Who shall say if she believed him? There is a standard of honour,
rigid and stern, for gentlemen, just as there is quite another
standard for those who do not, in the opinion of a people, Austrian in
their definition of what is or is not gentle birth, merit that title.
Dick Talbot-Lowry was a gentleman, and, in her own words, no "dirty
stain" would ever be attributed to him by Mary Twomey, but even she
knew that the ethics of buying and selling a horse apply to no other
transaction, and she knew also that in the disposal of a "place," more
may occur than meets the eye. She resented the slur on her chieftain,
but, in spite of her wrath, she could not feel quite certain that the
accusation was entirely unfounded.




CHAPTER XV


The town of Cluhir had more features than those that have already been
enumerated, to entitle it to respect. There was, primarily, the great
river, that moved majestically in its midst, bearing a church,
impartially, on its either bank, and hiding and nourishing in its
depths the salmon that gave the town its reason for existence. There
was the tall and noble bridge that spanned the river, and joined the
rival churches together (a feat of which it is safe to say no other
power in Ireland was capable). It was made of that blue-grey limestone
that builds bridges, and churches, and houses, with an equal success,
and it was the equivalent of a profession for many of the inhabitants
of the town, who were accustomed to spend long, meditative hours upon
it, criticising the fishermen on the bank below, watching the fish,