United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The two men before her who knew, alas! who knew! she was sure that they would have taken up the glove, unwillingly and perforce, perhaps, but they would have fought! While her brother, The McMurrough But even while she thought of it, she saw through the open door the figure of a man saunter slowly past the courtyard gates, his sword under his arm. It was the Englishman. She felt the added sting.
They looked to him to clear up the situation and put the interloper in his right place. At any rate, the burden was now lifted from their shoulders. "I'm fearing I'm late," Asgill said, as he took his seat. "Where'll The McMurrough be, I wonder?" "Gone to meet your friend, I should think," Payton replied with a sneer. Asgill maintained a steady face. "My friend?" he repeated.
"Oh, but " Asgill began, perplexed but not surprised by her attitude "But here's your brother," he continued, relieved. "He will tell you he'll tell you, I'm sure, that nothing can be so harmful as to change now. Your sister," he went on, addressing The McMurrough, who had just descended the stairs, "she's wishing some one will go to the Colonel, and see if he's down a peg. But I'm telling her "
Asgill had only known the Colonel a few minutes, and, aware that he was one of the family, he did not see how to take it. It was as if treason lifted its head in the camp. He coughed. "I'd not be denying it," he said. "But until The McMurrough returns " "Such a matter is doubtless within Mr. Sullivan's authority," the Colonel said, turning from him to Uncle Ulick.
A very few, strokes of the oars brought the passengers within misty view of the land; in less than two minutes after leaving the Cormorant the boat grated on the rocks, and the Colonel, James McMurrough, and Bale landed. The young man made out that they were some half-mile eastward of Skull Harbour.
The McMurrough took the hand, though he took it sullenly; and the Colonel sat down again. His action, to say nothing of his words, left Phelim and Morty in a state of amazement so profound that the two sat staring as if carved out of the same block of wood. If Colonel John noticed their surprise he seemed in no way put out by it.
In either case, to hasten the man's departure, and to induce Flavia to remain in the background in the meantime, became Asgill's chief aim. James McMurrough, on the other hand, saw in the unwelcome intruder an English officer; and, troubled by his guilty conscience, he dreaded above all things what he might discover. True, the past was past, the plot spent, the Spanish ship gone.
"But by the Holy," Uncle Ulick flamed up, "I'd have hung on their heels and raised the country! By G d, I would!" "Ay, ay! The thieves of the world!" "They took the big road by Tralee," James McMurrough explained sulkily. "What was the use?" "Were there no men working in the bogs?" "There were none near by, to be sure," Morty said.
"If I must," she said slowly, "I will if I must." "Then what's the good of talking, I'm thinking?" The McMurrough answered. And he was going on being in a bullying mood to say more in the same strain, when the opportunity was taken from him. One of the O'Beirnes, who happened to avert his eyes from the girl, discovered Payton standing at the foot of the stairs.
Without a word the four men formed up round their prisoners, and at once O'Sullivan Og led the way at a brisk pace towards the gate. Colonel John was following, but he had not taken three steps before a thought struck him, and he halted. "Are we leaving the house at once?" he asked. "We are. And why not, I'm asking." "Only that I've a message for the McMurrough it will be well for him to have."
Word Of The Day