"I know," said the other, "we're gone men; still we must manage it somehow, so as to save the girl; G.o.d! if it was only on Connor O'Donovan's account, that's far away this night, I'd do it. Dandy you wor only a boy when Blannarha.s.set prosecuted you, and people pitied you at the time, and now they don't think much the worse of you for it; an'

you know it was proved since, that what you sed then was thrue, that other rogues made you do it, an' thin lift you in the lurch. But d--n it, where's the use of all this? give me your hand, it's life or death--can I thrust you?"

"You may," said the other, "you may, Ned; do whatever you wish with me."

"Then," continued Ned, "I'll go into the house, and do you keep near to them without bein' seen; watch their motions; but above all things, if they take her off--folly on till you see where they'll bring her; after that they can get back enough--the sogers, if they're a wantin'."

"Depind an me, Ned; to the core depind an me."

They had now reached the Bodagh's house, upon which, as upon every other object around them, the deep shadows of night rested heavily. The Dandy took up his position behind one of the porches of the gate that divided the little gra.s.s--plot before the hall--door and the farmyard, as being the most central spot, and from which he could with more ease hear, or as far as might be observe, the plan and nature of their proceedings.

It was at least fifteen minutes before they reached the little avenue that led up to the Bodagh's residence; for we ought to have told our readers, that M'Cormick and Duffy, having taken a short path, left the others--who, being ignorant of it, were forced to keep to the road--considerable behind them. Ned was consequently from ten to fifteen minutes in the house previous to their arrival. At length they approached silently, and with that creeping pace which betokens either fear or caution, as the case may be, and stood outside the gate which led to the gra.s.s-plot before the hall-door, not more than three or four yards from the porch of the farm-yard gate where the Dandy stood concealed. And here he had an opportunity of witnessing the extreme skill with which Flanagan conducted this nefarious exploit. After listening for about a minute, he found that their worthy leader was not present, but he almost immediately discovered that he was engaged in placing guards upon all the back windows of the dwelling-house and kitchen. During his absence the following short consultation took place among those whom he left behind him, for the purpose of taking a personal part in the enterprise:

"It was too thrue what Rousin Redhead said to-night," observed one of them, "he always takes care to throw the post of danger on some one else. Nowit's not that I'm afeared, but as he's to have the girl himself, it's but fair that his own neck should run the first danger, an' not mine."

They all a.s.sented to this.

"Well, then, boys," he proceeded, "if yez support me, well make him head this business himself. It's his own consarn, not ours; an' besides, as he houlds the Articles, it's his duty to lead us in everything. So I for wan, won't take away his girl, an' himself keepin' back. If there's any one here that'll take my place for his, let him now say so."

They were all silent as to that point; but most of them said, they wished, at all events, to give "the dirty Bodagh," for so they usually called him, something to remember them by, in consequence of his having, on all occasions, stood out against the system.

"Still it's fair," said several of them, "that in takin' away the colleen, Bartle should go foremost, as she's for himself an' 'not for huz."

"Well, then, you'll all agree to this?"

"We do, but whist--here he is."

Deeply mortified was their leader on finding that they had come unanimously to this determination. It was too late now, however, to reason with them, and the crime, to the perpetration of which he brought them, too dangerous in its consequences, to render a quarrel with them safe or prudent. He felt himself, therefore, in a position which, of all others, he did not wish. Still his address was too perfect to allow any symptoms of chagrin or disappointment to be perceptible in his voice or manner, although, the truth is, he cursed them in his heart at the moment, and vowed in some shape or other to visit their insubordination with vengeance.

Such, indeed, is the nature of these secret confederacies that are opposed to the laws of the land, and the spirit of religion. It matters little how open and apparently honest the conduct of such men may be among each other; there is, notwithstanding this, a distrust, a fear, a suspicion, lurking at every heart, that renders personal security unsafe, and life miserable. But how, indeed, can they repose confidence in each other, when they know that in consequence of their connection with such systems, many of the civil duties of life cannot be performed without perjury on the one hand, or risk of life on the other, and that the whole principle of the combination is founded upon hatred, revenge, and a violation of all moral obligation?

"Well, then," said their leader, "as your minds is made up, boys, follow me as quickly as you can, an' don't spake a word in your own voices."

They approached the hall-door, with the exception of six, who stood guarding the front windows of the dwelling-house and kitchen; and, to the Dandy's astonishment, the whole party, amounting to about eighteen, entered the house without either noise or obstruction of any kind.

"By j.a.purs," thought he to himself, "there's thraichery there, any how."

This now to the Dandy was a moment of intense interest. Though by no means a coward, or a young fellow of delicate nerves, yet his heart beat furiously against his ribs, and his whole frame shook with excitement.

He would, in truth, much rather have been engaged in the outrage, than forced as he was, merely to look on without an opportunity of taking a part in it, one way or the other. Such, at least, were his own impressions, when the report of a gun was heard inside the house.

_Dhar an Iffrin_, thought he again, I'll bolt in an' see what's goin' an--oh _ma s.h.a.ght millia mattach orth_, Flanagan, if you spill blood--Jasus above! Well, any how, come or go what may, we can hang him for this--glory be to G.o.d!

These reflections were very near breaking-forth into words.

"I don't like that," said one of the guards to another; "he may take the girl away, but it's not the thing to murdher any one belongin' to a dacent family, an' of our own religion."

"If it's only the Bodagh got it," replied his comrade, who was no other than Micky Malvathra, "blaizes to the hair I care. When my brother Barney, that suffered for _Caam Beal_ (crooked mouth) Grime's business, was before his thrial, h.e.l.l resave the taisther the same Bodagh would give to defind him."

"d.a.m.n it," rejoined the other, "but to murdher a man in his bed! Why, now, if it was only comin' home from a fair or market, but at midnight, an' in his bed, begorra it is not the thing, Mickey."

There was now a pause in the conversation for some minutes; at length, screams were heard, and the noise of men's feet, as if engaged in a scuffle upon the stairs, for the hall-door lay open. A light, too, was seen, but it appeared to have been blown out; the same noise of feet tramping, as if still in a tumult, approached the door, and almost immediately afterwards Flanagan's party approached, bearing in their arms a female, who panted and struggled as if she had been too weak to shriek or call for a.s.sistance. The hall-door was then pulled to and locked by those who were outside.

The Dandy could see, by the pa.s.sing gleam of light which fell upon those who watched beside him, that their faces were blackened, and their clothes covered by a shirt, as was usual with the Whiteboys of old, and for the same object--that of preventing--themselves from being recognized by their apparel.

"So far so good," said Flanagan, who cared not now whether his voice was known or not; "the prize is mine, boys, an' how to bring ma colleen dhas dhun to a snug place, an' a friendly priest that I have to put the knot on us for life."

"By ---," thought Duffy, "I'll put a different kind of a knot on you for that, if I should swing myself for it."

They hurried onwards with as much speed as possible, bearing the fainting female in a seat formed by clasping their hands together. Duffy still stood in his place of concealment, waiting to let them get so far in advance as that he might dog them without danger of being heard.

Just then a man cautiously approached, and in a whisper asked, "Is that Dandy?"

"It is--Saver above, Ned, how is this? all's lost!"

"No, no--I hope not--but go an' watch them; we'll folly as soon as we get help. My curse on Alick Nulty, he disappointed me an' didn't come; if he had, some of the Bodagh's sarvant boys would be up wid us in the kitchen, an' we could bate them back aisy; for Flanagan, as I tould you, is a dam-coward."

"Well, thin, I'll trace them," replied the other; "but you know that in sich darkness as this you haven't a minute to lose, otherwise you'll miss them."

"Go an; but afore you go listen, be the light of day, not that we have much of it now any way--by the vestment, Biddy Nulty's worth her weight in Bank of Ireland notes; now pelt and afther them; I'll tell you again."

Flanagan's party were necessarily forced to retrace their steps along the sludgy boreen we have mentioned, and we need scarcely say, that, in consequence of the charge with which they were enc.u.mbered, their progress was proportionally slow; to cross the fields on such a night was out of the question.

The first thing Flanagan did, when he found his prize safe, was to tie a handkerchief about her mouth that she might not scream, and to secure her hands together by the wrists. Indeed, the first of these precautions seemed to be scarcely necessary, for what with the terror occasioned by such unexpected and frightful violence, and the extreme delicacy of her health, it was evident that she could not utter even a shriek. Yet, did she, on the other hand, lapse into fits of such spasmodic violence as, wrought up as she was by the horror of her situation, called forth all her physical energies, and literally give her the strength of three women.

"Well, well," observed one of the fellows, who had a.s.sisted in holding her down during these wild fits, "you may talk of jinteel people, but be the piper o' Moses, that same sick daughter of the Bodagh's is the hardiest sprout I've laid my hands on this month o' Sundays."

"May be you'd make as hard a battle yourself," replied he to whom he spoke, "if you wor forced to a thing you hate as much as she hates Bartle."

"May be so," rejoined the other, with an incredulous shrug, that seemed to say he was by no means satisfied by the reasoning of his companion.

Bartle now addressed his charge with a hope of reconciling her, if possible, to the fate of becoming united to him.

"Don't be at all alarmed, Miss Oona, for indeed you may take my word for it, that I'll make as good and as lovin' a husband as ever had a purty wife. It's two or three years since I fell in consate wid you, an' I needn't tell you, darlin', how happy I'm now, that you're mine. I have two horses waitin' for us at the end of this vile road, an', plase Providence, we'll ride onwards a bit, to a friend's house o' mine, where I've a priest ready to tie the knot; an' to-morrow, if you're willin', we'll start for America; but if you don't like that, we'll live together till you'll be willin' enough, I hope, to go any where I wish. So take heart, darlin', take heart. As for the money I made free wid out o' your desk, it'll help to keep us comfortable; it was your own, you know, an'

who has a betther right to be at the spendin' of it?"

This, which was meant for consolation, utterly failed, or rather aggravated the sufferings of the affrighted girl they bore, who once more struggled with a power that resembled the intense muscular strength of epilepsy, more than anything else. It literally required four of them to hold her down, so dreadfully spasmodic were her efforts to be free.

The delay caused by those occasional workings of terror, at a moment when Flanagan expected every sound to be the noise of pursuit, wrought up his own bad pa.s.sions to a furious height. His own companions could actually hear him grinding his teeth with vexation and venom, whenever anything on her part occurred to r.e.t.a.r.d their flight. All this, however, he kept to himself, owing to the singular command he possessed over his pa.s.sions. Nay, he undertook, once more, the task of reconciling her to the agreeable prospect, as he termed it, that life presented her.

"We'll be as happy as the day's long," said he, "espichilly when heaven sends us a family; an' upon my troth a purty mother you'll make?

suppose, darlin' love, you wondher how I got in to-night, but I tell you I've my wits about me; you don't know that it was I encouraged Biddy Nulty to go to live wid you, but I know what I was about then; Biddy it was that left the door open for me, an' that tould me the room you lay in, an' the place you keep your hard goold an' notes; I mintion these things to show you how I have you hemmed in, and that your wisest way is to submit without makin' a rout about it. You know that if you wor taken from me this minit, there 'ud be a stain upon your name that 'ud never lave it, an' it wouldn't be my business, you know, to clear up your character, but the conthrary. As for Biddy, the poor fool, I did all in my power to prevint her bein' fond o' me, but ever since we two lived with the ould miser, somehow she couldn't."

For some time before he had proceeded thus far, there was felt, by those who carried their fair charge, a slight working of her whole body, especially of the arms, and in a moment Flanagan, who walked a little in advance of her, with his head bent down, that he might not be put to the necessity of speaking loud, suddenly received, right upon his nose, such an incredible facer as made the blood spin a yard out of it.

"May all the curses of heaven an' h.e.l.l blast you, for a cowardly, thraicherous, parjured stag! Why, you black-hearted informer, see now what you've made by your cunnin'. Well, we hope you'll keep your word--won't I make a purty mother, an' won't we be happy as the day's long, espichilly when Heaven sends us a family? Why, you rap of h.e.l.l, aren't you a laughing-stock this minute? An' to go to take my name too--an' to leave the guilt of some other body's thraichery on me, that you knew in your burnin' sowl to be innocent--me, a poor girl that has only my name an' good character to carry me through the world. Oh, you mane-sphirted, revengeful dog, for you're not a man, or you'd not go to take sich revenge upon a woman, an' all for sayin' an' puttin' it out on you, what I ever an' always will do, that struv to hang Connor O'Donovan, knowin' that it was yourself did the crime the poor boy is now sufferin' for. Ha! may the sweetest an' bitterest of bad luck both meet upon you, you villin! Amin I pray this night!"

The scene that followed this discovery, and the unexpected act which produced it, could not, we think, be properly described by either pen or pencil. Flanagan stood with his hands alternately kept to his nose, from which he flung away the blood, as it sprung out in a most copious stream. Two-thirds, indeed we might say three-fourths of his party, were convulsed with suppressed laughter, nor could they prevent an occasional cackle from being heard, when forcibly drawing in their breath, in an effort not to offend their leader. The discovery of the mistake was, in itself, extremely ludicrous, but when the home truths uttered by Biddy, and the indescribable bitterness'caused by the disappointment, joined to the home blow, were all put together, it might be said that the darkness of h.e.l.l itself was not so black as the rage, hatred, and thirst of vengeance, which at this moment consumed Bartle Flanagan's heart. He who had laid his plans so artfully that he thought failure in securing his prize impossible, now not only to feel that he was baffled by the superior cunning of a girl, and made the laughing-stock of his own party, who valued him princ.i.p.ally upon his ability in such matters; but, in addition to this, to have his heart and feelings torn, as it were, out of his body, and flung down before him and his confreres in all their monstrous deformity, and to be jeered at, moreover, and despised, and literally cuffed by the female who outreached him--this was too much; all the worst pa.s.sions within him were fired, and he swore in his own heart a deep and blasphemous oath, that Biddy Nulty never should part from him unless as a degraded girl.

The incident that we have just related happened so quickly that Flanagan' had not time to reply a single word, and Biddy followed up her imprecation by a powerful effort to release herself.