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L. T. Meade
The Daughter of a Soldier: A Colleen of South Ireland
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4066338081117
Table of Contents
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CHAPTER I. PERIWINKLES.
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It was a glorious midsummer day in the south of Ireland; it seemed as though the birds wanted to sing their little hearts out. The trees were in full leaf, and every flower bloomed with extra charm and extra perfume. The old Rectory, situated in the well-known county of Cork, was in a very lonely part. On one side it was five miles away from the charming little town of Kingsala, and on the other quite ten miles from the thriving and more mercantile town of Bradley. The Rectory stood by itself, its thirty acres of grounds surrounding it. It had a back avenue and a winding front avenue, but its special charm was its great fruit garden. This was generally kept locked, for the Rector was most particular with regard to his fruit. It had in addition a great lawn, studded over with flower-beds filled mostly with roses. Just below this lawn was an apiary full of bees. Then there were fields, cultivated sometimes with grass for hay, sometimes with potatoes, sometimes again with other vegetables; but beyond the lawn and the fields were great pasture lands full of sheep, which formed a constant source of income to the Rector, who was not too well off. His income from his living was exactly one pound a day, but his wife, a haughty dame, with fiery blue eyes and red hair, had large private means; therefore Templemore was always kept in a certain kind of order. There were the necessary number of gardeners; the old-fashioned and queer-looking house had a great many servants, who did their work in the Irish fashion, which was slovenly and untidy enough; but nevertheless, they always managed to have a good dinner for "Herself," as they called Mrs. O'Brien, being very much afraid, "so to spake, of the wummen's tongue." That tongue could scathe them, and they did not want to be scathed.