Only an Irish Girl, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford [early reader chapter books txt] 📗

away she hears Power's voice speaking, as it seems to her dizzy brain, out of great darkness.

"There is a car waiting to take us to Boyne. Once there we are with friends, and you can make all needful preparations for our journey."

She does not answer him; she could not. Her lips are dry and quivering with the terror that has come upon her.

At this moment some one glides from behind a pillar and touches Power on the arm. With an impatient gesture he moves back a little way to listen to the man's message; and in this one second Honor sees her only chance of escape.

With a slow gliding motion she gains the end of the wall, and sees the open square of the old court before her.

Some one may be watching from behind those broken buttresses, she knows; but she is desperate, and has no time to count the chances. With a rapid step she crosses the square, and is almost at the open gateway when a man steps forward and holds her back by the arm.

"Not so fast, miss! Shure ye'd not be for forgetting the masther!"

With a sharp cry of fear she struggles to get free; but she might as well try to fly as to loose her arm from the grip of those grimy fingers.

Surely the steps she heard a little while ago are coming back again--more slowly this time, but still coming! Yes, and it is Brian--she knows it; she cannot be mistaken, and, yielding to a sudden impulse, she calls his name aloud, calls it again and again, in her utter helplessness and misery.

She does not think that he will hear and come to her. She has no hope of help from any quarter, as she looks round upon the dark menacing faces of the men who have gathered so noiselessly and rapidly about her. She is in their power--she realizes that; and, as a Blake of Donaghmore, she expects but little mercy, unless it be granted her for Power Magill's sake.

He has come up to her now, and the men fall back a little at a sign from him.

"Are you mad, Honor?" he asks hoarsely. "Is it your own death or is it mine that you seek this night?"

"Oh, let me go home!" she moaned, looking at him piteously. "If ever you loved me, Power, let me go home!"

But a threatening murmur rises from the men about them.

"If I would trust you to carry our secret back to Donaghmore they would not," he said curtly. "No, no, Honor--there is no turning back for either of us!"

The steps--the slow, heavy tread, as of a man in deep thought--are close at hand now. She can hear them plainly; so does Power, for he pauses and seems almost to hold his breath in the deep stillness that has fallen upon the place.

Through this quiet Honor's despairing cry--"Brian--oh, Brian, come to me!"--rings sharply out.

She hears a shout as if in answer; and the hoarse murmur of threatening voices fills her heart with fear. She has twisted her ankle on the rough stones, and now, when she tries to move, she cannot, so she crouches back against the wall and waits for the help that she is sure is coming in an agony that is fast merging into unconsciousness.

"Honor, where are you? Speak!"

She tries to answer: but her voice has failed her; she can only moan faintly in her great pain.

And clearly, above all the sounds of this terrible night, she hears a man's voice saying sternly:

"Back, Magill! Would yez risk the lives of your friends for the sake of a woman?"

Then comes silence--a great silence--and darkness; and the terror and the pain and the longing for Brian all fade away together.

* * * * *


Fortunately Honor's swoon does not last long. The cold night air revives her, and she opens her eyes to see Brian Beresford kneeling beside her. He had almost stumbled over her in his eager search for her, and at the first glance he thought that she was dead.

Everything is intensely quiet as the girl raises her head from his shoulder and looks round her with terrified eyes. There is not a sound to tell that the place has so lately been filled with armed men.

"Where are they?" she whispers, trembling. "Oh, Brian, if they come back they will kill us both!"

The same thought is in his own mind; but not for worlds would he put it into words. The men fled in a panic, thinking he was not alone; but let them discover that they have only one man to face, and they will soon return and make short work of him.

He knows it well; but what can he do? He cannot leave Honor, and, with his wounded arm, it would be impossible for him to carry her so far as the house. And as he holds her there, her cheeks against his shoulder, her little cold hands in his, he thinks that death itself with her might not be so very terrible after all.

"They will not come back," he tells her--"at least not yet. They will be afraid."

But even as he speaks a stealthy footfall breaks the quiet, and a man's voice says low and guardedly, yet distinct enough for them to hear:

"Have they had time to get to the house, Neil?"

"Troth an' they have, sor--twice over! I'd take my oath they didn't let the grass grow under their feet, once they got free!"--and the man laughs grimly, a low mocking laugh that echoes through the lonely place.

Honor clings more close to Brian, and shivers like one stricken with ague. So far they have not been seen; and the men--Power Magill and his servant--must have passed close to them. But any moment a stir, a heavy breath may betray them.

"If I thought there was a chance of overtaking them, I would follow them even now," Power Magill says fiercely. "To think a fellow like that should have baffled us at the last moment! If it were not for the men's cowardly fear that the police were with him, he couldn't have done it."

"Faith, and that's true for yer honor!"

Very slowly they come back again, talking earnestly. It is evident from what they way that Power Magill has offended his friends by to-night's rashness and, though his companion speaks respectfully there is a veiled threat in his words that Power cannot but feel.

"I would do it over again," Power answers sternly, "if it was my life that I was risking in place of my liberty."

"But the boys don't care to risk their liberty--why should they, the cratures?--even for a beautiful young lady like Miss Honor--Heaven bless her!" the other man says sturdily.

His master retorts angrily; but they are too far off now for their words to be heard; and again silence reigns.

It is long before Brian and Honor dare to move, though the girl is trembling with cold and the man's arm is paining him intensely--longer still before they venture out of their hiding-place.

Honor will never forget that walk up to the house in the chill damp night, the dread of pursuit making her heart throb wildly. Her companion is very silent; and, when he does speak, his voice sounds cold and harsh. More than once she tries to thank him for coming to her help so bravely; but the words die away on her lips. She finds it hard to believe that this man spoke tenderly to her only a little time ago. His very words ring in her ears and serve to make his grim silence more oppressive.

"He is sorry already for having spoken then," she says to herself; "but he need not be. I shall never remind him of them--never!"

They are within sight of the house before she can summon up courage to thank him for coming to her aid.

"It was so brave of you," she adds simply; "for of course you did not know how many you might have to face! I'm afraid I am very stupid--I don't know how to thank you as you deserve."

"No, no," he says hastily, almost impatiently. "Pray do not thank me at all; I deserve no thanks, I assure you! I would have done as much for any woman!"

There is something almost cruel in the way in which he says it, and tears well up in the girl's eyes.

"I know you would," she says, with cold gentleness; "but that does not make the act less brave."

Suddenly he turns on her with unexpected passion.

"I was not half so courageous as you were, Honor! I would not have met Power Magill at such an hour and in such a place for any consideration. You were--if you will let me say so--recklessly brave to do such a thing."

The light from the open door streams out, and she looks up at him as he speaks. His face is ghastly pale, and his tone is angry and scornful. She realizes for the first time how strange her rash act must appear in the eyes of this fastidious Englishman. The women of his world would never have done such a thing, she knows; but that does not trouble her--it is the scornful surprise on his face that cuts her so cruelly.

"Never mind," she says to herself, suppressing a sob as they go up the steps together. "I am not a fine London lady, and I don't wish to be; if the pater and the boys are content with me as I am that is enough. It is nothing to me what this man thinks."

Brian is almost past conscious thought just now; but he hides his pain bravely till they get into the house and he has seen the great doors fastened securely; then he sinks down exhausted, and Honor sees, by the blood on his sleeve, that he has been wounded.

Instantly the whole place is in confusion. A messenger is sent off at once to the chief constable at Drum and another fetches Doctor Symmonds, who when he arrives finds his patient very low indeed.

"It is not the wound," he explains to the squire, "it is the loss of blood that has done the mischief. A little longer, and the poor fellow would have bled to death; as it is, he will need the greatest care to pull him through."

* * * * *


"My dear Honor, I do wish you would try to like him!" Belle Delorme says, looking up at her friend with pretty pleading eyes. "I'm sure he's awfully fond of you--any one can see that."

"And he's rich--why don't you tell me that?" Honor returns scornfully. "Every one's head seems to be turned by the man's money--even the pater's."

"Your head is not turned," Belle observes dryly, "nor your heart either, unfortunately."

"Tell me one thing," says Honor, facing her friend suddenly--"do you think this George Cantrill