“Diable! what did I want? Pour l'admirer, l'adorer—or, at least to make my respects, as becomes a stranger, and a Frenchman. Pursuivons. There was no entrée, without some noise—so I preferred the room she was in, to any other, and gently disengaging my dirk, I slipped it between the two sashes, to lift up the latch that fastened them. Mort bleu! the weapon slipped, and came slap through the pane, with a tremendous fracas. She started up, and screamed—there was no use in any more delay. I put my foot through the window, and pushed open the sash at once—but before I was well in the room, bells were ringing in every quarter of the house, and men's voices calling aloud, and shouting to each other—when, suddenly, the door opened, and whiz went a pistol-ball close by my head, and shattered the shutter behind me. My fellows, outside, hearing the shot, unslung their pieces, and before I could get down to them, poured in a volley—why, wherefore, or upon whom, the devil himself, that instigated them, can tell. The garrison mustered strong, however, and replied—that they did, by Jove, for one of ours, Emile de Louvois, is badly wounded. I sounded the retreat, but the scoundrels would not mind me—and before I was able to prevent it, tête bleu! they had got round to the farmyard, and set fire to the corn-stacks; in a second, the corn and hay blazed up, and enveloped house and all in smoke. I sounded the retreat once more, and off the villains scampered, with poor Emile, to the boat; and I, finding my worthy friend here an inactive spectator of the whole from a grove near the road, resolved not to give up my supper—and so, me voici!—but come, can none of you explain this affair? What is Hemsworth doing, with all this armed household, and this captive princess?”
“Is the 'Lodge' burned down?” said Lanty, whose interest in the inhabitants had a somewhat selfish origin.
“No, they got the fire tinder. I saw a wild-looking devil mount one of the ricks, with a great canvas sail all wetted, and drag it over the burning stack—and before I left the place, the Lodge was quite safe.”
“I'm sorry for it,” said Mary, with a savage determination. “I'm sorry to the heart's core. Luck nor grace never was in the glen, since the first stone of it was laid—nor will be again, till it is a ruin! Why didn't they lay it in ashes, when they were about it?”
“Faith, it seemed to me,” said Talbot, in a low soft voice, “they would have asked nothing better. I never saw such bull-dogs in my life. It was all you could do, Flahault, to call them off.”
“True enough,” replied Jacques, laughing. “They enjoy a brisée like that with all their hearts.”
“The English won't stay long here, after this night,” was Lanty's sage reflection, but one which he did not utter aloud in the present company. And then, in accordance with Jacques' request, he proceeded to explain by what different tenants the Lodge became occupied since his last visit; and that an English baronet and his daughter, with a household of many servants, had replaced Hemsworth and his few domestics. At every stage of the recital, Flahault stopped the narrative, to give him time to laugh. To him the adventure was full of drollery. Even the recollection of his wounded comrade little damped his enjoyment of a scene, which might have been attended by the saddest results; and he chuckled a hundred times over what he suspected the Englishman must feel, on this, his first visit to Ireland. “I could rob the mail to-morrow, for the mere fun of reading his letters to his friends,” said he. “Mort bleu! what a description of Irish rapparrees, five hundred in number, armed with pikes.”
“I wish ye'd gave him the cause to do it,” said Mary, bitterly—“what brings them here? who wants them? or looks for them?”
“You are right, Mary,” said Talbot, mildly. “Ireland for the Irish!”
“Ay, Ireland for the Irish!” repeated Mary and Lanty; and the sentiment was drank with all the honours of a favoured toast.