“It's good enough for Glenflesk, anyhow,” said the fellow, boldly; for he saw that in Hemsworth's present nervous condition, audacity might succeed where subserviency would not.
“By which you mean that we have the case in our own hands, Wylie; well, you're not far wrong in that; still, I cannot break open a letter.
“Well, then, I'm not so scrupulous when my master's interests are concerned;” and so saying, he tore open each in turn, and threw them on the bed. “There, sir, you can transport me for the offence whenever you like.”
“You are a strange fellow, Sam,” said Hemsworth, whose nerves were too much shaken by illness, to enable him to act with his ordinary decision, and he took up one of the letters, and perused it slowly. “This is merely an announcement of his arrival in Dublin; he has waited upon, but not seen the Secretary—-finds it difficult to obtain an audience—press of parliamentary business for the new session—no excitement about the United party. What tidings has the other? Ha!—. what's this?”—-and his thin and haggard face flushed scarlet. “Leave me, Sam; I must have a little time to consider this. Come back to me in an hour.”
Wylie said not a word, but moved towards the door; while in his sallow features a savage smile of malicious triumph shone.
As Hemsworth flattened out the letter before him on the bed, his eyes glistened and sparkled with the fire of aroused intelligence: the faculties which, during his long illness, had lain in abeyance, as if refreshed and invigorated by rest, were once more excited to their accustomed exercise; and over that face, pale and haggard by sickness, a flush of conscious power stole, lighting up every lineament and feature, and displaying the ascendancy of mental effort over mere bodily infirmity.
“And so this Scotchman dares to enter the list with me,” said he, with a smile of contemptuous meaning; “let him try it.”
CHAPTER XLIV. THE MOUNTAIN AT SUNRISE.
A little lower down the valley than the post occupied by Terry as his look-out, was a small stream, passable by stepping-stones; this was the usual parting place of the two brothers, whenever Herbert returned home for a day or so, and this limit Mark rarely or never transgressed, regarding it as the frontier of his little dominion. Beside this rivulet, as night was falling, Mark sat, awaiting with some impatience his brother's coming, for already the third evening had passed in which Herbert promised to be back, and yet he had not come.