Only an Irish Girl Part 9

"I'm sorry for that, Patsy."

He speaks kindly--it is his nature to speak kindly to a woman--but he is impatient to get home.

"Whist!" the girl whispers, pressing closer to him, till he can see her eyes raised eagerly to his. "Don't go for to cross the bog to-night, Misther Launce. Shure the longest way round is the shortest way home!

Don't press a poor girl to speak plainer, but turn back, as you vally your life, Misther Launce!"

"Tut, tut, my girl! I'm far too tired to walk round by Drum at this hour."

"Walk till yer drop, Misther Blake, but don't cross the bog this night."

"Then you must tell why."

But the girl only wrings her hands and moans. She had not expected to meet with opposition of this kind. She took it for granted that when he heard it would not be safe to cross the bog he would go back. She did not know the temper of the Blakes of Donaghmore.

"There, get home, Patsy," he says at last, out of patience; and he is feeling tired after his long day's sport too. "It's time all honest girls were at their own firesides."

"Sorra an inch will I stir till yez promise not to put yer foot on the bog this night! Shure the boys are out, not by twos nor threes, but by scores; yez would be shot down before yez could get half-way over!"

"Ah!" he says, and draws a deep breath. It is not a pleasant prospect, but the hot blood of a fighting race is running fiercely in his veins.

At this moment the sound of men marching in step comes through the stillness. Yielding to an impulse for which he could find no reason, Launce draws back a step--the girl has disappeared as if the earth had opened and swallowed her--and in another second a small party of men, walking two abreast, is close beside him--county police unmistakably; and a tall, upright man is a little in advance of the rest. He is speaking in a low voice as they come up, but Launce hears every word.

"Good idea to think of following young Blake. They are sure to a.s.sault him; they have been waiting for a chance like this for weeks past. Then we must just close in and catch as many of the rascals as we can. Look out for this Magill--a tall fellow in a soft felt hat. I would give fifty pounds to land that fellow safe and sound in Kilmainham."

As Launce listens a furious anger stirs within him--a rage so strong that it is as much as he can do to refrain from springing out upon the cowardly speaker. He knows the man now--he would recognize those smooth false tones among a thousand--it is Mr. Hunter, Mrs. Dundas's guest and friend, the man whom from the first he has disliked and distrusted. A horrible suspicion, a chill doubt, makes him shake from head to foot.

Did Kate know of this? Could it be that the woman he loved had seen him go out, a predestined victim, so that this spy might lodge one or two more rebels in Kilmainham jail? A bitter word breaks from his lips as he thinks of it. This poor girl--for now that the police have pa.s.sed Patsy has reappeared, like a phantom, out of the darkness--in her ignorance and helplessness has been more true to him than the woman he has loved so pa.s.sionately.

"You have saved my life, Patsy, and I'll not forget it; but I'm not sure that it would not have been better for me to have gone on in my ignorance and taken my chance!" he says grimly.

"The saints be thanked!" the girl answers solemnly. "I have done what I said I would do, and my heart is aisy this night!"

CHAPTER VII.

A chill gray dawn is breaking when Honor Blake opens her eyes. She is in bed in her own room, and her father is siting beside her, watchful and anxious. At first she wonders to see him there, then slowly a dim sense of pain and fear comes back to her.

"You are better?" he says cheerily. "That's right! I'll go away now, and you'll get a sleep; but Aileen shall stay in the room, in case you should feel faint again."

"Faint?" she repeats, with a smile. "Have I been faint then?"

"Faith and you have, my dear! I never knew any one stay so long in a swoon before. I half thought you were dead when I saw you first; but you are better now, and we'll talk no more about it."

As he rises, she sees that he carries his left arm in a sling and that he looks tired and pale. Then suddenly every detail of the past night comes back to her, and she feels for a few seconds as if she should sink back into unconsciousness again.

"It's nothing--a mere scratch; but they insisted on dressing it up like this!" her father cries hastily, seeing the change that has crept into her face. "No one is much hurt but that rascally groom of yours. He's got a skinful that will keep him quiet, or I'm mistaken!"

"Father," the girl whispers faintly, "some one was in it last night who--who must be saved at any price. It would kill me, I think"--pantingly--"if harm came to him."

Her father's face, as he listens, has grown as hard as a face cut out of granite; and she knows, before a word is spoken, that her plea has fallen upon deaf ears.

"They must take their chance," he says grimly; "I would not stir a finger to save the life of any one of them."

Honor knows that there is no more to be said; but as she sinks back among her pillows, a pa.s.sionate determination to save this man whom she loves rises in her heart. But does she love him? He has been very dear to her all her life; but now a great gulf has opened between them--they can never be to each other as they have been. The past is as dead as the love that made it so bright and so beautiful; but, for the sake of that dead past, she feels that she must save him from the consequence of this mad folly into which he has been led or driven.

The birds are singing, now, the sky has grown suddenly rosy, and the new day is as calm and bright as the night was wild and stormy. But to Honor Blake no peace comes, no brightness. It seems to her she shall never know peace again.

As she is turning into the morning-room, a heavy step on the tiled floor makes her look round; and Launce stands before her. With a glad cry the girl flies to him.

"Oh, Launce," she sobs, "we thought you were shot last night; and we----"

But he stops her almost impatiently.

"And what happened here last night? What is the meaning of that--and that?"--pointing at bullet-holes in the walls and the door.

"Why, Launce, have you not heard?"

"I have heard nothing," he says shortly, "about Donaghmore."

She looks at him wonderingly--at his soiled dress, his haggard face and fierce eyes, so unlike the face and eyes of her favorite brother.

"Where have you been all night, Launce? And what has happened to make you look so dreadfully ill and--and strange?"

He has followed her into the morning-room and closed the door behind them.

"I have been to Drum with the body of that fellow who was shot on the moss."

"Oh, Launce, who was he?"

He sinks down upon a chair before he answers her--a man tired in body and mind. Utterly worn out he looks now in the clear strong light.

"He was Mrs. Dundas's friend and guest--her lover, for all I can tell,"

he says scornfully. "I hope she is proud of him and of the end he has come to. He was shot down like a dog. I heard the cry he gave, I was so close behind him."

The tears are rolling down Honor's cheeks; she is trembling so that she can scarcely stand.

"Oh, Launce," she cries piteously, "and it might have been you!"

"It ought to have been," her brother says, with a low harsh laugh that echoes dismally through the quiet sunny room. "That is where the mistake comes in!" Honor looks at him in dismay. He is so unlike himself that he frightens her. "I was to have gone first--according to their program--so that the men might attack me and give the police the chance of coming down upon them unawares. She saw me go out of her house to what she thought would be certain death, and she never lifted a finger to keep me back. That was womanly, wasn't it?"

The girl cannot answer him. She has never liked this woman--she has shrunk from and distrusted her always; but she never dreamed she could be capable of treachery so base and cruel as this.

"And whom do you think they were after?" Launce says, after a pause.

"Power Magill! To think of a man like that being mixed up with the rabble rout that was out last night! But they missed him; and, though I hate the fellow, I was glad that they did."

The girl has crossed the room and is standing close beside him now, her hand on the arm of his chair, her white face bent toward him.

"No, Launce, they did not miss him--he was taken here!" He listens; but it is evident that he does not understand. "Yes, in this house," the girl goes on coldly, "where he has been a welcome guest and friend all his life! He came in with the rest to threaten and rob--and murder, too, if need be, I have no doubt! We have been fortunate in our friends and neighbors, Launce!"