The servants all relaxed under the change of master. When Baird the keeper came every Saturday morning to present the weekly accounts of the outdoor staff he would find "Master John" sitting at his ease in an arm-chair with his feet on the mantelpiece, instead of writing at the desk briskly as Copper John was wont to do. Master John would greet Baird with a cheerful smile, and, barely glancing at the list given him, reach for a key to the desk and take out the money given in the total, at which Baird would make a mental note to increase the sum by half the following week. And if "Mrs. John" did wander up to the vinery and take the best grapes before they were fit to pick, and finger all the apples so that they were bruised, which would have distressed Miss Barbara greatly, why, what did it matter when Miss Barbara was not there to see, and "Mrs. John" had such enjoyment from the fruit?
Thomas was proud of his livery too, and he would rather wear a tight coat and be told that the kitchen girl thought him handsome, and bring in the dinner an hour late, and finish up what was left in the decanter, than be dressed in his old sober black, and have the table laid by the stroke of five in the afternoon, and be obliged to ask Copper John for the key every time a bottle was needed to be brought up from the cellar.
Each day, during the early winter of 1830, John would say to himself, "Now this morning I positively must ride up to the mines and have a word or two with Captain Nicholson, if only to save my face," and every morning something would come to prevent it. He would rise late, perhaps, Fanny-Rosa taking breakfast in bed and demanding that he should give it to her, and by the time he was up and dressed the best part of the morning would be gone. Or else the day would be crisp and fine, a day for walking the Kileen bog for snipe, and, Kileen being in the opposite direction, why then the visit to the mine must be postponed. On a wet morning he would bethink him of the little brown trout rising in Glenbegh; surely it would be a pity to leave them there, and the mine could very well wait another day. There was always an excuse, and the same held good for business about the estate. Had there been another dispute about the divided ground between Jack Mahoney and the Widow Connor? Why, then, he would say to Ned Brodrick, settle it some way or other that you think best. I know nothing of such matters. Give them a sack of potatoes apiece from our own ground. And the driving to Slane for the coursing would be the only times that he and Fanny-Rosa would venture far from home.
It was a great pleasure to John to have his wife beside him and to see the looks of admiration bestowed upon her, and a pleasure, too, to watch her interest in the greyhounds.
"What has happened," he would smile, "to the wild one who rode her horse across Hungry Hill and would not let me catch her?"
"She has vanished," said Fanny-Rosa, "and a placid, humdrum creature has taken her place. You know, — John, I think I am very much like your greyhound Fancy, before she had her puppies. Maybe women are like dogs, after all, and that is why you understand us both so well."
"I think maybe they are," said John, laughing.
"They need petting and coaxing in much the same way before they will let themselves be handled. But don't forget that Fancy produced poor Hasty, who is my one failure, and has never won a prize yet."
"That was not Fancy's fault," said Fanny-Rosa; "she had a very dull dog for a husband… Now our son, dearest, will certainly grow up to be the most handsome and the most brilliant man in the country. I dare say he will become the Lord Lieutenant, and might even marry a princess of the blood royal."
"I think, on the contrary," said John, "that he will be even more incorrigibly idle than myself."
"I have great ambitions for him," said Fanny-Rosa seriously. "I tell you I think about him very often, lying in bed in the mornings, while you are downstairs having your breakfast. We will call him John Simon, after you and my father, and he will be the prop and mainstay of our old age. We shall have other children too, no doubt, but he will be the pick of the bunch. I hope the next few months will pass as pleasantly as the first have done. Having a baby is very little trouble, it seems to me."
"I want the months to pass slowly," said John, touching her hair. "Don't forget that at the end of March the family will be returning, and my father will be home."
"I can manage your father," said Fanny-Rosa, "I am not at all afraid of him."
"I am sure you can," laughed John, "but it will not be the same. We shall have to be punctual to our meals, and have no dogs inside the house, and I must feign an interest in the mines, and even go with him in the mornings when he rides to Hungry Hill."
"Yes, but I shall be waiting for you when you come back, which will make all the difference. And if you become exasperated we will creep up to our room and console ourselves. I shall not let him bully you, I promise you that. He will find there are two to fight against, and soon there will be three."
"Fighting is to be avoided at all costs," said her husband, "I would rather spend my days underground with the miners than have ten minutes above in disagreeable and exhausting argument with my father or anyone else."
So January and February passed, and March came in with soft winds and warm sunshine, melting the snow from the tip of Hungry Hill, and the young green shoots began to thrust themselves from the brown earth, and the tall trees in the woods behind the castle lost their dark nakedness. The gorse started to flower on the moors towards Kileen, and the bog itself lost the black sogginess of winter, while the honey scent of the gorse and the warm wind from the sea seemed to draw the full peaty flavour from the earth, and the blend of colour, and warmth, and smell made a richness upon the land. Sometimes John would take Fanny-Rosa in his boat, and pull gently about the creek and the waters of Doonhaven in search of the little killigs which the woman from the island would cook for their breakfast, but more often than not they would lie in idleness in the sunken garden that Jane had made at the head of the creek, John doing nothing, as was his happy custom, and Fanny-Rosa intent upon the rich embroidered gown she was making for John Simon Brodrick. The end of March came all too quickly, and on the 31st old Casey the coachman and Tim the groom set off for Mundy to bring the family back by road, as the steamer was not yet plying to Doonhaven, and John and Fanny-Rosa spent the morning in a desperate attempt to set the house to rights, to clear the dogs from the dining-room, where they had grown into the habit of feeding from the table, to remove fishing-tackle and an evil-smelling jar of bait from the drawing-room, and to hide away the innumerable lace caps of miniature size that might draw attention rather sooner than need be to Copper John's future as a grandfather, though, as Fanny-Rosa said, if the business was supposed to be concealed she would have to hide herself.