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Once he stopped when he was opposite to the church, set high above the road upon his right hand, and wondered whether Ethne was still at Ramelton whether old Dermod was alive, and what kind of welcome he would receive. But he waked in a moment to the knowledge that he was sitting upon his horse in the empty road and in the quiet of an August morning.
"A black-throated coward," Dermod had called Harry Feversham, and Ethne had said enough to assure him that something graver than any dispute, something which had destroyed all her faith in the man, had put an end to their betrothal.
When they were all safely lodged in the county gaol, he sent for Brian O'Neill and his father; and after thanking them for the service they had done him, he counted out ten bright guineas upon a table, and pushed them towards Brian, saying, "I suppose you know that a reward of ten guineas was offered some weeks ago for the discovery of John Mac Dermod, one of the eight men whom we have just taken up?"
At the bottom of the drawer there lay hidden a photograph, and at this she looked for a long while and very wistfully. Durrance meanwhile walked down to the trap which was waiting for him at the gates of the house, and saw that Dermod Eustace stood in the road with his hat upon his head. "I will walk a few yards with you, Colonel Durrance," said Dermod. "I have a word for your ear."
"Indeed, my dear heart and my son, we are not scolding you, but you must try not to look so terribly thoughtful when you think. It is part of the art of a ruler." "I shall never master that hard art," lamented his fosterling. "We must all master it," Dermod replied. "We may think with our minds and with our tongues, but we should never think with our noses and with our eyebrows."
Richard accepted, but thought it prudent to obtain the King's special permission; and in the meantime, Dermod, by his promises, further engaged in his cause a small band of other knights Robert Fitzstephen, Maurice Fitzgerald, Milo Fitzhenry, Herve de Montmarais, and some others.
There are two points to be added. He was rather afraid of his daughter, who wisely kept him doubtful whether she was displeased with him or not, and he had conceived a great liking for Harry Feversham. Harry saw little of him that day, however. Dermod retired into the room which he was pleased to call his office, while Feversham and Ethne spent the afternoon fishing for salmon in the Lennon River.
"It is truly not an hour for engagements," Dermod insisted, "for not a bird of the birds has left his tree; and," he continued maliciously, "the light is such that you could not see an engagement even if you met one." "I," Becfola gasped. "A Sunday journey," he went on, "is a notorious bad journey. No good can come from it. You can get your smocks and diadems to-morrow.
Mabel Larken is a very pretty girl. But wait till I tell you what Kit Monaghan said to me yesterday. I'm going to be married, sir, says he to me. Ay, so you mintioned to me a fortnight ago, Kit, says I to Rose Dermod, isn't it? says I. Not at all, sir, says he it is to Peggy McGrath, this time.
They held their heads a trifle more proudly perhaps. Ethne might have become a little more gentle, Dermod a little more irascible, but these were the only changes. So gossip had the field to itself. But Harry Feversham was in London, as Lieutenant Sutch discovered on the night of the 30th.
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