Part 15 (1/2)

”Not with this salmon,” James McMurrough struck in contemptuously. ”Eat your supper and leave those tales to the women!”

Uncle Ulick made no reply, and a moment later Darby entered, slid round the table to Uncle Ulick's side, and touched his shoulder. Whether he whispered a word or not Colonel John did not observe, but forthwith the big man rose and went out.

This time it was James McMurrough who laid down his knife. ”What in the name of the Evil One is it?” he cried, in a temper. ”Can't a man eat his meat in peace, but all the world must be tramping the floor?”

”Oh, whisht! whisht!” Darby muttered, in a peculiar tone.

James leapt up. He was too angry to take a hint. ”You old fool!” he cried, heedless of Asgill's hand, which was plucking at his skirts.

”What is it? What do you mean with your 'whishts' and your nods?

What----”

But the old butler had turned his back on his master, and gone out in a panic. Fortunately at this moment Flavia showed at the door. ”The fault's mine, James,” she said, in a clear, loud tone. And the Colonel saw that her colour was high and her eyes were dancing. ”I couldn't bear to leave her at once, the darling! That was it; and besides, I took a fear----”

”The pastern's right enough,” Uncle Ulick struck in, entering behind her and closing the door with the air of a big man who does not mean to be trifled with. ”Sound as your own light foot, my jewel, and sounder than James's head! Be easy, be easy, lad,” he continued, with a trifle of sternness. ”Sure, you're spoiling other men's meat, and forgetting the Colonel's present, not to speak of Mr. Asgill, that, being a Justice, is not used to our Kerry tantrums!”

Possibly this last was a hint, cunningly veiled. At any rate, The McMurrough took his seat again with a better grace than usual, and Asgill made haste to take up the talk. The Colonel reflected; nor did he find it the least odd thing that Flavia, who had been so full of distress at the loss of her mare, said little of the rescuer's adventures, nor much of the mare herself. Yet the girl's eyes sparkled, and her whole aspect was changed in the last hour. She seemed, as far as he could judge, to be in a state of the utmost excitement; she had shaken off the timidity which her brother's temper too often imposed on her, and with it her reticence and her shyness before strangers. All the Irish humour in her fluttered to the surface, and her tongue ran with an incredible gaiety. Uncle Ulick, the O'Beirnes, the buckeens, laughed frank admiration--sometimes at remarks which the Colonel could not understand, sometimes at more obvious witticisms. Asgill was her slave. Darby, with the familiarity of the old servant, chuckled openly and rubbed his hands at her sallies; the footboys guffawed in corners, and more than one dish rolled on the floor without drawing down a rebuke. Even her brother regarded her with unwilling amus.e.m.e.nt, and did not always refrain from applause.

Could all this, could the change in her spring from the recovery of the mare, of which she said scarce a word? Colonel John could hardly believe it; and, indeed, if such were the case, she was ungrateful.

For, for the recoverer of her favourite she had no words, and scarce a look. Rather, it seemed to him that there must be two Flavias: the one shy, modest, and, where her country was not a.s.sailed, of a reserve beyond reproach; the other Flavia, a shoot of the old tree, a hoyden, a castback to Sir Michael's wild youth and the gay days of the Restoration Court.

He listened to her drollery, her ringing laugh, her arch sayings with some blame, but more admiration. After all, what had he a right to expect in this remote corner of the land, cut off by twenty leagues of bog and mountain from modern refinement, culture, thought, in this old tribal house, the last refuge of a proscribed faith and a hated race?

Surely, no more than he found--nay, not a t.i.the of that he found. For, listening with a kindlier heart--even he, hurt by her neglect, had judged her for a while too harshly--he discerned that at her wildest and loudest, in the act of bandying cryptic jests with the buckeens, and uttering much that was thoughtless--Flavia did not suffer one light or unmaidenly word to pa.s.s her lips.

He gave her credit for that; and in the act he learned, with a reflection on his stupidity, that there was method in her madness; ay, and meaning--but he had not hitherto held the key to it--in her jests.

On a sudden--he saw now that this was the climax to which she had been leading up--she sprang to her feet, carried away by her excitement.

Erect, defiant--nay, triumphant--she flung her handkerchief into the middle of the table, strewn as it was with a medley of gla.s.ses and flasks and disordered dishes.

”Who loves me, follows me!” she cried, a queer exultation in her tone--”across the water!”

They pounced on the kerchief, like dogs let loose from the leash--every man but the astonished Colonel. For an instant the place was a pandemonium, a Babel. In a twinkling the kerchief was torn, amid cries of the wildest enthusiasm, into as many fragments as there were men round the table.

”All!--all!” she cried, still standing erect, and hounding them on with the magic of her voice, while her beautiful face blazed with excitement. ”All--but you?”--with which, for the briefest s.p.a.ce, she turned to Colonel John. Her eyes met his. They asked him a defiant question: they challenged the answer.

”I do not understand,” he replied, taken by surprise. But indeed he did understand only too well. ”Is it a game?”

The men were pinning the white shreds on their coats above their hearts--even her brother, obedient for once. But at that word they turned as one man to him, turned flushed, frowning faces and pa.s.sionate eyes on him. But Flavia was before them; excitement had carried her farther than she had meant to go, yet prudence had not quite left her.

”Yes, a game!” she cried, laughing, a note too high. ”Don't you know the Lady's Kerchief?”

”No,” he said soberly; he was even a little out of countenance.

”Then no more of it,” Uncle Ulick cried, interposing, with a ring of authority in his voice. ”For my part, I'm for bed. Bed! We're all children, bedad, and as fond of a frolic! And I'm thinking I'm the worst. The lights, Darby, the lights, and pleasant dreams to you! After all--

The spoke that is to-day on top, To-morrow's on the ground.

Sure, and I'll swear that's true!”

”And no treason!” The McMurrough answered him, with a grin. ”Eh, Asgill?”