Part 32 (2/2)

Luke Asgill rode slowly from the gates, not without a backward glance that raked the house. The McMurrough walked by his stirrup, talking rapidly--he, too, with furtive backward glances. In five minutes he had explained the situation and the Colonel's vantage ground. At the end of those minutes, and when they were at some distance from the house, ”I see,” Asgill said thoughtfully. ”Easy to put him under the sod! But you're thinking him worse dead than alive.”

”Sorra a doubt of it!”

”Yet the bogs are deep,” Asgill returned, his tone smacking faintly of raillery. ”You might deal with him first, and his heir when the time came. Why not?”

”G.o.d knows!” James answered. ”And I've no taste to make the trial.” He did not name the oath he had taken to attempt nothing against Colonel John, nor to be a party to any attempt. He had slurred over that episode. He had dwelt in preference on the fact of the will and the dilemma in which it placed him.

Asgill looked for some moments between his horse's ears, flicking his foot the while with his switch. When he spoke he proved in three or four sentences that if his will was the stronger, his cunning was also the more subtle. ”A will is revocable,” he said. ”Eh?”

”It is.”

”And the man that's made one may make another?”

”Who's doubting it?”

”But you're doubting,” Asgill rejoined--and he laughed as he spoke--”that it would not be in your favour, my lad.”

”Devil a bit do I doubt it!” James said.

”No, but in a minute you will,” Asgill answered. And stooping from his saddle--after he had a.s.sured himself that his groom was out of earshot--he talked for some minutes in a low tone. When he raised his head again he clapped The McMurrough on the shoulder. ”There!” he said, ”now won't that be doing the trick for you?”

”It's clever,” James answered, with a cruel gleam in his eyes. ”It is d--d clever! The old devil himself couldn't be beating it by the length of his hoof! But----”

”What's amiss with it?”

”A will's revocable,” James said, with a cunning look. ”And what he can do once he can do twice.”

”Sorrow a doubt of that, too, if you're innocent enough to let him make one! But you're not, my lad. No; the will first, and then----” Luke Asgill did not finish the sentence, but he grinned. ”Anything else amiss with it?” he asked.

”No. But the devil a bit do I see why you bring Flavvy into it?”

”Don't you?”

”I do not.”

Asgill drew rein, and by a gesture bade his groom ride on. ”No?” he said. ”Well, I'll be telling you. He's an obstinate dog; faith, and I'll be saying it, as obstinate a dog as ever walked on two legs! And left to himself, he'd, maybe, take more time and trouble to come to where we want him than we can spare. But, I'm thinking, James McMurrough, that he's sweet on your sister!”

The McMurrough stared. The notion had never crossed his mind. ”It's jesting you are?” he said.

”It's the last thing I'd jest about,” Asgill answered sombrely. ”It is so; whether she knows it or not, I know it! And so d'you see, my lad, if she's in this, 'twill do more--take my word for it that know--to break him down and draw the heart out of him, so that he'll care little one way or the other, than anything you can do yourself!”

James McMurrough's face, turned upwards to the rider, reflected his admiration. ”If you're in the right,” he said, ”I'll say it for you, Asgill, you're the match of the old one for cleverness. But do you think she'll come to it, the jewel?”

”She will.”

James shook his head. ”I'm not thinking it,” he said.

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