Part 34 (1/2)
Terence accordingly related the history of his adventures since he had left England. The girl asked a great many questions, and specially insisted upon hearing his own adventures very fully.
”It is no use your keeping on saying that it is all luck,” she said when he had finished. ”Your colonel could not have thought that it was luck when he wrote the report about that adventure at sea, and your general could not have thought so, either, or he would not have praised you in his despatch. Then, you know, General Fane must have thought that it was quite out of the way or he would not have chosen you to be on his staff. Then afterwards the other general must have been pleased with you, or he would not have put you on his staff and sent you off on a mission to General Romana. It is quite certain that these things could not have been all luck, Terence. And anyhow, you cannot pretend that it was luck that this regiment of yours fought so well against the French, while none of the others seem to have fought at all. I suppose that you will say next that it was all luck that you got me out of the convent.”
”There was a great deal of luck in it, Mary. If that cowardly bishop hadn't left Oporto secretly, after declaring that he would defend it until the last, I could never have got his ring.”
”You would have got me out some other way if he hadn't,” the girl said, with confidence. ”No, Terence, you can say what you like, but I shall always consider that you have been wonderfully brave and clever.”
”Then you will always think quite wrong,” Terence said, bluntly.
”I shall begin to think that you are a tyrant, like the Bishop of Oporto, if you speak in that positive way. How old are you, sir?”
”I was sixteen six months ago.”
”And I was sixteen three days ago,” she said. ”Fancy your commanding two thousand soldiers and only six months older than I am.”
”It is not I, it is the uniform,” Terence said. ”They obey me when they won't obey their own officers, because I am on the English general's staff. They know that we have thrashed the French, and that their own officers know nothing at all about fighting, and they have no respect whatever for them. More than that, they despise them because they know that they are always intriguing, and that really, although they may be called generals, they are but politicians. You will see, when they get English officers to discipline them, they will turn out capital soldiers; but they think so little of their own, that if anything goes wrong their first idea is that their officers must be traitors, and so fall upon them and murder them.
”You look older than I do, Mary. You seem to me quite a woman, while, in spite of my uniform and my command, and all that, I am really only a boy.”
”I suppose I am almost a woman, Terence, but I don't feel so. You see out here girls often marry at sixteen. I know father said once that he hoped I shouldn't marry until I was eighteen, and that he wanted to keep me young. I never thought about getting almost a woman until the bishop told me one day that if I chose to marry a senor that he would choose for me, he would get me absolution from my vows, and that I need not then resign my property.”
”The old blackguard!” Terence exclaimed, angrily. ”And what did you say to him?”
”I said that, in the first place, I had never thought of marrying; that in the second place, I had not taken any vows; and in the third place that when I did marry I would choose for myself. He got into a terrible rage, and said that I was an obstinate heretic, and that some day when I was tired of my prison I would think better of it.”
”I would have hit the bishop hard if I had known about that,” Terence grumbled. ”If ever I fall in with him again I will pay him out for it. Well, anyhow, I may as well take off his ring; it might lead to awkward questions if anyone noticed it.”
”I think that you had certainly better do so, Terence; it might cost you your life. The bishop is a bad man, and he is a very dangerous enemy. If he heard that an English officer was wearing an episcopal ring, and upon inquiring found that that officer had been in Oporto at its capture, he would know at once that it was you who a.s.saulted him, and he would never rest until he had your life. You had better throw it away.”
”All right, here goes!” Terence said, carelessly, and he threw the ring into a clump of bushes. ”Now, Mary, it is getting dark, and I should think supper must be waiting for us.”
”Yes, it is late; we have been a long while, indeed,” the girl said, getting up hastily. ”I forgot all about time.”
”We are in plenty of time,” Terence said, looking at his watch. ”As we all had some cold meat for lunch as soon as we arrived, I ordered dinner at six o'clock, and it wants twenty minutes of that time now.”
”It is shocking, according to our Portuguese ideas,” she said, demurely, ”for a young lady and gentleman to be talking together for nearly three hours without anyone to look after them.”
”It is not at all shocking, according to Irish ideas,” Terence said, laughing, ”especially when the young lady and gentleman happen to be cousins.”
They walked a short time in silence, then she said:
”I have obeyed you, Terence, and haven't uttered a word of thanks for what you have done for me.”
”That shows that you are a good girl,” Terence laughed.
”Good girls always do as they are told; at least they are supposed to, though as to the fact I never had any experience, for I have no sisters, and there were no girls in barracks; still, I am glad that you kept your promise, and hope that you will always do so. Being a cousin, of course it was natural that I should try to rescue you.”
”And you would not if I hadn't been a cousin?”
”No, I don't say that. I dare say I should have tried the same if I had heard that any English or Irish girl was shut up here. I am sure I should if I had seen you beforehand.”