Some time later a young man with glasses arrived and was similarly conveyed. He wore a long black overcoat and a woollen scarf in spite of the heat of the day, and having settled himself into the trap, wrapped a travelling rug around his knees. He told Haverty it had been very expensive for him to come to the wedding, since he’d been obliged to travel from well beyond Athlone, where he was at present staying with an uncle. Young men like that stayed a lot in relations’ houses, Haverty afterwards explained to Tom. The couple who’d arrived first were the Camiers from Unionhall, he said; before their marriage she might have been a Pollexfen, the better-off branch of that family, he wasn’t sure. The clergyman was the Protestant Bishop of Killaloe. The faded woman was Lady Rossboyne.

Two more traps, and the dog-cart and the governess-car, were to be drawn by the farm horses and a pony on the day of the wedding, so that all these visitors and the Rollestons themselves could be accommodated on the journey to the pier. Tom helped Haverty to wash down the governess-car and the dog-cart in the yard, and then Haverty pushed them about, steering them with their shafts, to make sure the wheels didn’t continue to squeak after he’d greased them. It had been arranged that Mr O’Hagan would drive the dog-cart on the day of the wedding, and Lionel and John James would take a trap each. He’d take the third trap himself. ‘Would you manage the governess-car?’ he suggested to Tom. ‘Come down on the avenue and I’ll show you.’

Tom, who had learnt the day before how to lead a horse by the bridle, now learnt how to hold the reins and control the pace of the governess-car pony, I’ll be in front of you,’ Haverty said. ‘Just keep her steady.’ When the instruction was over, the pony was allowed to graze on the verge of the avenue and Haverty lit a cigarette and told Tom about a regatta there had been, the last occasion when there’d been as much company at Carriglas as there would be on the wedding day. Yachts and sailing-boats had raced around the island; boats had come up from Dunmore East and Dungarvan; there’d been different coloured sails, and flags along the quaysides. In the evening some of the boats had come in at the old landing-stage and everyone had gone up to the house to make a night of it. Well before the war it would have been, maybe 1905.