Part 6 (1/2)
As for me, I lazed against the table with a strange odd contraction of the heart, a sudden standing still and then a fierce pounding of the blood.
Yet I was quite master of myself. Indeed I smiled at them, carelessly, as one that deprecated so much ado about nothing. And while I smiled, the wonder was pa.s.sing through my mind whether the smile would still be there after they had carved the life out of me. I looked death in the face, and I found myself copying unconsciously the smirking manners of the Macaronis. Faith, 't was a leaf from Volney's life I was rehearsing for them.
This but while one might blink an eye, then Lord Balmerino interrupted.
”G.o.d's my life! Here's a feery-farry about nothing. Put up your toasting fork, De Vallery! The lad will not bite.”
”Warranted to be of gentle manners,” I murmured, brus.h.i.+ng again at the Mechlin lace of my coat.
”Gentlemen are requested not to tease the animals,” laughed Creagh. He was as full of heat as a pepper castor, but he had the redeeming humour of his race.
Macdonald beat down the swords. ”Are you a' daft, gentlemen? The lad came with Balmerino. He is no spy. Put up, put up, Chevalier! Don't glower at me like that, man! Hap-weel rap-weel, the lad shall have his chance to explain. I will see no man's cattle hurried.”
”Peste! Let him explain then, and not summer and winter over the story,”
retorted O'Sullivan sourly.
Lord Balmerino slipped an arm through mine. ”If you are quite through with your play acting, gentlemen, we will back to reason and common sense again. Mr. Montagu may not be precisely a p.r.o.nounced Jack, but then he doesn't give a pinch of snuff for the Whigs either. I think we shall find him open to argument.”
”He'd better be--if he knows what's good for him,” growled O'Sullivan.
At once I grew obstinate. ”I do not take my politics under compulsion, Mr.
O'Sullivan,” I flung out.
”Then you shouldn't have come here. You've drawn the wine, and by G.o.d! you shall drink it.”
”Shall I? We'll see.”
”No, no, Kenn! I promise you there shall be no compulsion,” cried the old Lord. Then to O'Sullivan in a stern whisper, ”Let be, you blundering Irish man! You're setting him against us.”
Balmerino was right. Every moment I grew colder and stiffer. If they wanted me for a recruit they were going about it the wrong way. I would not be frightened into joining them.
”Like the rest of us y' are a ruined man. Come, better your fortune. Duty and pleasure jump together. James Montagu's son is not afraid to take a chance,” urged the Scotch Lord.
Donald Roy's eyes had fastened on me from the first like the grip-of steel. He had neither moved nor spoken, but I knew that he was weighing me in the balance.
”I suppose you will not be exactly in love with the wamey Dutchmen, Mr.
Montagu?” he asked now.
I smiled. ”If you put it that way I don't care one jack straw for the whole clamjamfry of them.”
”I was thinking so. They are a different race from the Stuarts.”
”They are indeed,” I acquiesced dryly. Then the devil of mischief stirred in me to plague him. ”There's all the difference of bad and a vast deal worse between them. It's a matter of comparisons,” I concluded easily.
”You are pleased to be facetious,” returned O'Sullivan sourly. ”But I would ask you to remember that you are not yet out of the woods, Mr.
Montagu. My Lord seems satisfied, but here are some more of us waiting a plain answer to this riddle.”
”And what may the riddle be?” I asked.
”Just this. What are you doing here?”