The Parson lay for a week after that at death's door, and it needed all Dr. Townley's skill and Rose's nursing to keep him out of the grave. Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond's messenger arrived from Corunna, and kicked his heels on the boulevard until Mr. Kelly recovered his senses and summoned Mr. Philabe to his aid. Mr. Philabe the next morning took Kelly's place on the bench, and that day the money changed hands and the messenger started back post-haste to Corunna. At Corunna he told the story of the Parson's misfortune in more than one café, and so it came shortly to Wogan's ears, who put in with his ship at that port in order to give up his command.
The reason for this change in Wogan's condition was simple enough. Sufficient arms and ammunition had now been collected at Bilboa, and it was become urgent that the plans for the rising of the soldiers in England, and the capture of the Tower of London, should be taken earnestly in hand. The Duke of Ormond, who was to land in the West, was supposed a great favourite with the English troops, but it was none the less necessary that their favour should be properly directed. To that end Mr. Talbot, Tyrell, and Nicholas Wogan, amongst others, were deputed to travel into England, ready for the moment of striking. Nick was to have the rank of a colonel, and was bidden to repair to Paris by a certain date, where he was to take his instructions from General Dillon and the Earl of Mar. Now that date gave him half a week or so of leisure, and he knew of no better use to which he could put it than in stopping at Avignon, which lay directly in his path to Paris.
But before he reached the olives of Provence Mr. Kelly was convalescent and much had happened. How it had happened Mr. Wogan only discovered by hints which the Parson let slip unconsciously. For George had a complete distaste for the sensibilities, and, after all, a true man, even in the company of his closest friend, never does more than touch lightly upon the fringe of what he holds most sacred. He said that he was recovered of two fevers at one and the same time, and by the same ministering hands, and so was come forth into a sweet, cool life and a quiet air. His affairs, whether of stocks in the Mississippi scheme or of the Great Business, went clean out of his mind. His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable, and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringing with her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith, cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love--qualities no better nor no fairer than herself.
How did it begin? Why, at the first there would be a smiling face at the doorway to wish him a good morning, or if he had slept ill a sweet look of anxious fear which would make up for a dozen sleepless nights. When he could get up from his bed and come into the parlour, the dog Harlequin, and Rose, and he became children and playfellows together, for the brute had been taught a hundred pretty tricks that would make a dying man laugh; until at length the girl grew familiar, and was seated at the very hearth and centre of his affections, where her memory remains enshrined.
Mr. Kelly spoke frankly of the matter only once in Mr. Wogan's hearing, and that was many years afterwards, and then he was not speaking of the matter at all. It was Lady Mary Wortley who set him on to it one night.
For she quoted a saying of some sage or another. 'In a man,' said she, 'desire begets love, and in a woman love begets desire.'
'And that is true,' said Kelly. 'I do think the steadfast and honourable passions between our sex and women are apt to have their beginnings on the woman's side, and then, being perceived and most gratefully welcomed, light up as pure a flame in the heart of a man. For otherwise, if a man sees a woman that she is fair, as King David saw Bathsheba, and so covets her, his appetite may in the end turn to love or may not. But if his eyes are first opened to an innocent woman's love, he being at best a sinful creature, he is then stirred with a wonderful amazement of grateful tenderness which never can pass away, but must endure, as I hold, even after death.' Which was all very modish and philosophical, and meant--well, just what anyone who had visited Avignon in February of the year '22 might have seen with half an eye. Rose was in love with the Parson and the Parson knew it, and so fell in love with Rose.
Mr. Wogan reached Avignon in the afternoon. The Doctor's house stood a stone's throw from the Palace of the Emperor Constantine, with a little garden at the back which ran down to the city wall. The top of the wall was laid out as a walk with a chair or two, and there Wogan found the Parson and Rose Townley. It was five years and more since Wogan had seen Rose Townley, and she was grown from a child to a woman. He paid her a foolish compliment, and then the three of them fell into an awkward silence. Mr. Wogan asked Kelly for a history of his wound, and then:
'So 'twas Scrope. Lady Mary was right when she warned me we had not seen the last of him. 'Faith, George, it was my fault. For, d'ye see, if I had not been so fond of my poetry I should have made my account with the gentleman at the gates of Brampton Bryan Manor, and you would never have been troubled with him at all.'
"Brampton Bryan?" asked Rose. "Where is that?"