CHAPTER V.

ARDKILL COTTAGE.


The cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare, on the western coast of Ireland, are
not as well known to tourists as they should be. It may be doubted
whether Lady Mary Quin was right when she called them the highest cliffs
in the world, but they are undoubtedly very respectable cliffs, and run
up some six hundred feet from the sea as nearly perpendicular as cliffs
should be. They are beautifully coloured, streaked with yellow veins,
and with great masses of dark red rock; and beneath them lies the broad
and blue Atlantic. Lady Mary's exaggeration as to the comparative
height is here acknowledged, but had she said that below them rolls
the brightest bluest clearest water in the world she would not have
been far wrong. To the south of these cliffs there runs inland a broad
bay,--Liscannor bay, on the sides of which are two little villages,
Liscannor and Lahinch. At the latter, Fred Neville, since he had been
quartered at Ennis, had kept a boat for the sake of shooting seals
and exploring the coast,--and generally carrying out his spirit of
adventure. Not far from Liscannor was Castle Quin, the seat of the Earl
of Kilfenora; and some way up from Liscannor towards the cliffs, about
two miles from the village, there is a cottage called Ardkill. Here
lived Mrs. and Miss O'Hara.

It was the nearest house to the rocks, from which it was distant less
than half a mile. The cottage, so called, was a low rambling long house,