At a spot where the stream was fordable for a horse, the page Larry had already stationed himself, and now walked into the river, which rose over his knees, to show the road to his mistress.
‘The bailiffs is on them to-day,’ said he, with a gleeful look in his eye; for any excitement, no matter at what cost to others, was intensely pleasurable to him.
‘What is he saying?’ asked Nina.
‘They are executing some process of law against these people,’ muttered Donogan. ‘It’s an old story in Ireland; but I had as soon you had been spared the sight.’
‘Is it quite safe for yourself?’ whispered she. ‘Is there not some danger in being seen here?’
‘Oh, if I could but think that you cared—I mean ever so slightly,’ cried he, with fervour, ‘I’d call this moment of my danger the proudest of my life!’
Though declarations of this sort—more or less sincere as chance might make them—were things Nina was well used to, she could not help marking the impassioned manner of him who now spoke, and bent her eyes steadily on him.
‘It is true,’ said he, as if answering the interrogation in her gaze. ‘A poor outcast as I am—a rebel—a felon—anything you like to call me—the slightest show of your interest in me gives my life a value, and my hope a purpose I never knew till now.’
‘Such interest would be but ill-bestowed if it only served to heighten your danger. Are you known here?’
‘He who has stood in the dock, as I have, is sure to be known by some one. Not that the people would betray me. There is poverty and misery enough in that wretched village, and yet there’s not one so hungry or so ragged that he would hand me over to the law to make himself rich for life.’