“I don't care for that,” said Mark. “I want no such allies as these. I say, if we deserve our liberty, we ought to be strong enough to take it.”
“There's many think the same way as yourself,” said Lanty, quietly. “I heard the very words you said from one of the delegates last week. But I don't see any harm in getting help from a friend when the odds is against you.”
“But I do; and great harm too. What's the price of the assistance?—tell me that.”
“Oh, make your mind easy on that score. The French hate the English, whether they love us or no.”
“And why wouldn't they love us,” said Mary, half angry at such a supposition, “and we all Catholics? Don't we both belong to the ould ancient church? and didn't we swear to destroy the heretics wherever we'd find them? Ay, and we will, too!”
“I'm with you, whatever come of it,” said Mark, after a few seconds of thought. “I'm with you; and if the rest have as little to live for, trust me, they'll not be pleasant adversaries.”
Overjoyed at this bold avowal, which consummated the success they desired, they led Mark back into the cabin, and pledged, in a bumper, the “raal O'Donoghue.”
CHAPTER XXI. THE RETURN OF THE ENVOY.
Sir Marmaduke Travers and his daughter had passed a morning of great uneasiness at the delay in Frederic's return. Noon came, and yet no appearance of him. They wandered along the road, hoping to meet him, and at last turned homeward with the intention of despatching a servant towards Carrig-na-curra, fearing lest he should have missed his way. This determination, however, they abandoned, on being told by a countryman, that he had seen the horse young Travers rode still standing at the gate of the “castle.”