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Art McMurrough, at the head of his own men, aided by some wild levies of O'Tooles and O'Nolans, completely defeated the royal army, and after the battle the heir of the English Crown was found amongst the slain.
"The saints be between us and harm!" Asgill responded. "Are you hearing this, Miss Flavia? It's no less than felony that you're accused of, and I'm thinking, by rights, I must arrest you and carry you to Batterstown." "I do not understand," she answered stiffly. "And The McMurrough is not at home." "Gone out of the way, eh?" Asgill replied with a deprecatory grin.
With James McMurrough, who was still a furlong away, were the two O'Beirnes. They came slowly, and something in their bearing, even at that distance, awoke anxiety. "They're early from the cocking," Uncle Ulick muttered doubtfully, "and sober as pigs! What's the meaning of that? There's something amiss, I'm fearing." A cry from Flavia proved the keenness of her eyes.
His very aspect sobered Uncle Ulick's mind. The latter saw that only a blacker and more hopeless night could follow the day of vengeance of which he dreamt; and he sat this evening while Asgill talked on the hill with The McMurrough he sat this evening by the light of the peat-fire, and was sore troubled. Was it, or was it not, too late?
As a matter of fact, Dermot McMurrough, we may be sure, was not the person to do anything of the sort. He was simply hungry as a wild beast or a savage is hungry for revenge, and would have plunged into any number of perjuries, or have bound himself to give away any amount of property he had no right to dispose of in order to get it.
And he sat down on his side of the table, while James McMurrough, with a sullen look but a beating heart, took his seat on the other.
"Are you looking for your brother?" he asked suavely. "I am not," Morty answered, with a gloomy look. "Nor for The McMurrough?" "I am not. I am thinking," he added, with a grin, "that he has his hands full with the young lady." Colonel John was somewhat startled. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Oh, two minds in a house. Sorrow a bit more than that. It's no very new thing in a family," Morty added.
She was very pale. "We'll be wanting one or two to swear to it," he continued, "and the rest to be silent. Sorra a bit of difficulty will there be about it!" "But if," she said slowly, "he gets the first word? And tells the truth?" "The truth?" James McMurrough replied scornfully. "The truth is what we'll make it! I'll see to that, my jewel." She shivered.
And left to himself, he'd, maybe, take more time and trouble to come to where we want him than we can spare. But, I'm thinking, James McMurrough, that he's sweet on your sister!" The McMurrough stared. The notion had never crossed his mind. "It's jesting you are?" he said. "It's the last thing I'd jest about," Asgill answered sombrely. "It is so; whether she knows it or not, I know it!
But this reputation alone, seeing that reckless spirits were not wanting, nor in the recesses of the hills those whose lives were forfeit, would have availed him little if the protection of The McMurrough had not been cast over him. Why it was cast over him, so that he went to and fro in safety men scarcely dared to guess; it was a dark thing into which it were ill to peer too closely.
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