‘No, I don’t think they do; at least so far as I have seen. They speak of a night attack on Kilgobbin Castle, made by an armed party of six or seven men with faces blackened, and their complete repulse through the heroic conduct of a young lady.’
‘The main facts, then, include no mention of poor Walpole and his misfortune?’
‘I don’t think that we mere Irish attach any great importance to a broken arm, whether it came of a cricket-ball or gun; but we do interest ourselves deeply when an Irish girl displays feats of heroism and courage that men find it hard to rival.’
‘It was very fine,’ said Lockwood gravely.
‘Fine! I should think it was fine!’ burst out Atlee. ‘It was so fine that, had the deed been done on the other side of this narrow sea, the nation would not have been satisfied till your Poet Laureate had commemorated it in verse.’
‘Have they discovered any traces of the fellows?’ said Lockwood, who declined to follow the discussion into this channel.
‘My father has gone over to Moate to-day,’ said Kearney, now speaking for the first time, ‘to hear the examination of two fellows who have been taken up on suspicion.’
‘You have plenty of this sort of thing in your country,’ said Atlee to Nina.
‘Where do you mean when you say my country?’
‘I mean Greece.’