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Updated: May 5, 2025
Soon Peg Macllrea was beside them. "I tell't the master where ye were," she said, "and I tell't Mr. Donald. They couldn't come theirsells, and they were afeard to let me out my lone. But I knew finely I could find you. I knew Neal here would mind my song. I brought you a bite and a sup so as you wouldn't be famished out here on the hillside."
I know a snug place on the side of the Cave Hill where we can lie for the night. To-morrow you can join your uncle at Donegore." There were no soldiers round the inn when they reached it. Felix Matier and Donald Ward were both out. Hope left his message with Peg Macllrea, who was sanding the parlour. "So you're going to sleep out the night on the Cave Hill?" she said to Neal.
Peg Macllrea returned with his breakfast on a wooden tray. She put it down in front of him and then set herself to entertain him while he ate. "Thon was a brave coup you gave the soger in the street," she said. "You gripped him fine, the ugly devil. But you did na hurt him much. He was up and off when they got us dragged from him, as hard as ever he could lift a foot. You'll be fond of fighting?"
Neal Ward was awakened next morning by the noise which Peg Macllrea made sweeping and tidying the room where he slept. He lay for a few minutes watching the girl. Her red hair was coiled up now in a neat roll at the back of her head. Her freckled face was clean, and had apparently escaped bruising in her conflict with the dragoon. She wore a short grey skirt of woollen homespun.
"There's not a room in the house with a whole pane of glass in the window," said Felix Matier, "except my own. It looks out on the back, and the villains never came at it. We'll take him there. I'll lift his shoulders, and go first." He approached Neal and was about to lift him when the girl pushed him aside and stooped over Neal herself. "Come now, what's the meaning of this, Peg Macllrea?
There isn't a lass in Antrim or Down but sings it." "But I know the singer too. I heard Peg Macllrea sing it once, Matier's Peg, and I'm not likely to forget her voice." "If you're sure of that, Neal, I'll let her know we're here. Anyway it can do no harm. There isn't a farm lass in the whole country would betray us to the soldiers. Wait now till she sings it again."
"Peg," said Neal, "Peg Macllrea, don't you be cross with me." "I would I were in Ballinderry," she began again. "Peg," said Neal, "I've finished my tea, and I wish you'd turn round. Please do, please." She turned to him at last with a broad smile on her face. "Is that the way you wheedled the poor lassie out of the kiss? But there now, I'll no say a word more about her if it makes you sore.
Twice he tried to speak, but each time Peg Macllrea, determined now that he was under her care to keep him quiet, put her hand over his mouth. At last he succeeded in asserting himself in spite of her. "I saw James Finlay," he said, "along with a party of the soldiers going up this street." The three men at the table turned to him. Donald seemed about to cross-question him when Peg Macllrea spoke.
He produced the man whom Peg Macllrea and Neal had mangled and set him before the public as an object of pity, his wrist tied up and his head elaborately bandaged. A great idea flashed on him. He allowed it to be understood that he was on the track of a most dangerous rebel a young man who had hanged a yeoman in Dunseveric and nearly murdered a dragoon in Belfast.
"No," said Neal, "I'm from Dunseveric, right away in the north of the county." "Ay, are you? Do you mind the old rhyme 'County Antrim, men and horses, County Down for bonny lasses. Maybe your lassie, the one that kissed you, was out of the County Down?" "She was not," said Neal, unguardedly. Peg Macllrea laughed with delight and clapped her hands.
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