“'Tis me, Owen Connor,” answered Owen, half sulkily, for he felt that indescribable annoyance a man will experience at any question, as to his approaching his own dwelling, even though in incognito.
“Stay back, then,” cried the other; “if you advance another step, I'll send a bullet through you.”
“Send a bullet through me!” cried Owen, scornfully, yet even more astonished than indignant. “Why, isn't a man to be let go to his own house, without being fired at?”
“I'll be as good as my word,” said the fellow; and as he spoke, Owen saw him lift the gun to his shoulder and steadily hold it there. “Move one step now, and you'll see if I'm not.”
Owen's first impulse was to rush forward at any hazard, and if not wounded, to grapple with his adversary; but he reflected for a second that some great change must have occurred in his absence, which, in all likelihood, no act of daring on his part could avert or alter. “I'll wait for morning, anyhow,” thought he; and without another word, or deigning any answer to the other, he slowly turned, and retraced his steps down the mountain.
There was a small mud hovel at the foot of the mountain, where Owen determined to pass the night. The old man who lived there, had been a herd formerly, but age and rheumatism had left him a cripple, and he now lived on the charity of the neighbours.
“Poor Larry! I don't half like disturbing ye,” said Owen, as he arrived at the miserable contrivance of wattles that served for a door; but the chill night air, and his weary feet decided the difficulty, and he called out, “Larry—Larry Daly! open the door for me—Owen Connor. 'Tis me!”
The old man slept with the light slumber of age, and despite the consequences of his malady, managed to hobble to the door in a few seconds. “Oh! wirra, wirra! Owen, my son!” cried he, in Irish; “I hoped I'd never see ye here again—my own darlin'.”
“That's a dhroll welcome, anyhow, Larry, for a man coming back among his own people.”
“''Tis a thrue one, as sure as I live in sin. The Lord help us, this is bad fortune.”