"No," replied Miss Lecky,—the girls did not trust themselves to speak,—"the driver asked us to walk up; the hill, he said, was so very steep for the horses."
"You don't mean to say that you came up by yourselves! Shure thin I don't know how you'll iver git down again! Why this hill is so lonely and dangerous a place after nightfall that one of the lay-brothers would not go out alone, and you three ladies are going to walk down alone as late as this! No, that can't be!"
The spirit of mischief must have taken possession of the two girls, for, as they saw poor Miss Lecky grow pale with terror, and heard her exclaim, "Oh! Father Osmond, what shall we do?" they laughed outright.
Father Osmond looked at them with a half-amused, half-impatient expression, and said, "It is all very well to laugh, young ladies, but may be it's the wrong side of your mouth you'd laugh if you walked down that hill alone to-night. But that you'll not do. Shure I couldn't sleep aisy in me bed for thinking of what might happen to you. I'll go and get somebody to go down with you." So saying he left the room. Poor Miss Lecky expressed the most ardent wishes that they had never left the carriage, and that they were safe back in it again, and the young ladies tried to regain a little gravity.
In a few minutes Father Osmond came back and said that the man who took care of the garden would take a lantern and see them safe to the carriage. They thanked Father Osmond warmly for all his kindness, and as Mina shook hands with him she begged him in a low voice to excuse this wild freak of theirs, and forgive all their laughing.
"You're young, me children, you're young, and shure it's not meself that would find fault with you for being merry; long may you remain so;—and now, good-night, and may God bless you both."
They followed Miss Lecky, who was impatiently waiting for them at the door, and trying to make out something of what the man with the lantern was saying, which, as she knew very little Italian, seemed rather a hopeless task; and she looked as much afraid of him as of anything else. In truth, he was rather a formidable-looking personage, with his tall, gaunt figure wrapped up in a long dark cloak, a large slouched hat covering his brows so that nothing of his face could be seen but two fierce black eyes, and a profusion of dark hair. He did indeed look rather bandit-like.
As the girls came out he said, "Andiamo presto, Signorine," and started off at a brisk pace with the lantern. Mina could not resist the temptation of drawing out poor old Lecky's fear of their protector, and giving Flora a sign to follow the lead, she said, "Don't you think, Miss Lecky, that the man looks to be a very suspicious character? Suppose he was to be an accomplice of those dangerous people we hear of, and that, when we are half way down the hill, they should dart out from some dark corner! He might pretend that he was frightened by their number, and run away, leaving us in their hands."
"But surely you don't think the fathers would employ such a person, do you?"
"Of course not, if they knew it," said Flora, gravely; "but you know Italians are so cunning that they easily deceive poor monks, and that man certainly is like the descriptions which we read of bandits."