‘There are some who would give this another name than courage,’ said she thoughtfully.
‘Let them call it what they will, Nina. Is it not to the unbounded trust of a nature that is above all others that I, poor, unknown, ignoble as I am, appeal when I ask, Will you be mine? One word—only one—or, better still—’
He clasped her in his arms as he spoke, and drawing her head towards his, kissed her cheek rapturously.
With wild and fervent words, he now told her rapidly that he had come prepared to make her the declaration, and had provided everything, in the event of her compliance, for their flight. By an unused path through the bog they could gain the main road to Maryborough, where a priest, well known in the Fenian interest, would join them in marriage. The officials of the railroad were largely imbued with the Nationalist sentiment, and Donogan could be sure of safe crossing to Kilkenny, where the members of the party were in great force.
In a very few words he told her how, by the mere utterance of his name, he could secure the faithful services and the devotion of the people in every town or village of the kingdom. ‘The English have done this for us,’ cried he, ‘and we thank them for it. They have popularised rebellion in a way that all our attempts could never have accomplished. How could I, for instance, gain access to those little gatherings at fair or market, in the yard before the chapel, or the square before the court-house—how could I be able to explain to those groups of country-people what we mean by a rising in Ireland? what we purpose by a revolt against England? how it is to be carried on, or for whose benefit? what the prizes of success, what the cost of failure? Yet the English have contrived to embody all these in one word, and that word my name!’
There was a certain artifice, there is no doubt, in the way in which this poorly-clad and not distinguished-looking man contrived to surround himself with attributes of power and influence; and his self-reliance imparted to his voice as he spoke a tone of confidence that was actually dignified. And besides this, there was personal daring—for his life was on the hazard, and it was the very contingency of which he seemed to take the least heed.
Not less adroit, too, was the way in which he showed what a shock and amazement her conduct would occasion in that world of her acquaintances—that world which had hitherto regarded her as essentially a pleasure-seeker, self-indulgent and capricious. ‘“Which of us all,” will they say, “could have done what that girl has done? Which of us, having the world at her feet, her destiny at her very bidding, would go off and brave the storms of life out of the heroism of her own nature? How we all misread her nature! how wrongfully and unfairly we judged her! In what utter ignorance of her real character was every interpretation we made! How scornfully has she, by one act, replied to all our misconstruction of her! What a sarcasm on all our worldliness is her devotion!”’
He was eloquent, after a fashion, and he had, above most men, the charm of a voice of singular sweetness and melody. It was clear as a bell, and he could modulate its tones till, like the drip, drip of water on a rock, they fell one by one upon the ear. Masses had often been moved by the power of his words, and the mesmeric influence of persuasiveness was a gift to do him good service now.
There was much in the man that she liked. She liked his rugged boldness and determination; she liked his contempt for danger and his self-reliance; and, essentially, she liked how totally different he was to all other men. He had not their objects, their hopes, their fears, and their ways. To share the destiny of such a man was to ensure a life that could not pass unrecorded. There might be storm, and even shipwreck, but there was notoriety—perhaps even fame!
And how mean and vulgar did all the others she had known seem by comparison with him—how contemptible the polished insipidity of Walpole, how artificial the neatly-turned epigrams of Atlee. How would either of these have behaved in such a moment of danger as this man’s? Every minute he passed there was another peril to his life, and yet he had no thought for himself—his whole anxiety was to gain time to appeal to her. He told her she was more to him than his ambition—she saw herself she was more to him than life. The whirlwind rapidity of his eloquence also moved her, and the varied arguments he addressed—now to her heroism, now to her self-sacrifice, now to the power of her beauty, now to the contempt she felt for the inglorious lives of commonplace people—the ignoble herd who passed unnoticed. All these swayed her; and after a long interval, in which she heard him without a word, she said, in a low murmur to herself, ‘I will do it.’