CHAPTER XIX. THE QUARREL
While I stood gazing at the uncouth and ragged figure before me, she pushed rudely past, and shutting the door behind her, asked, in a low whisper, “Are ye alone?”—and then, without waiting for a reply, threw back the tattered bonnet that covered her head, and removing a wig of long black hair, stared steadfastly at me.
“Do you know me, now?” said the hag, in a voice of almost menacing eagerness.
“What!” cried I, in amazement; “it surely cannot be—Darby, is this really you?”
“Ye may well say it,” replied he, bitterly.—“Ye had time enough to forget me since we met last; and 'tis thinking twice your grand friends the officers would be, before they 'd put their necks where mine is now to see you. Read that,”—as he spoke, he threw a ragged and torn piece of printed paper on the table,—“read that, and you 'll see there 's five hundred pounds of blood money to the man that takes me. Ay, and here I stand this minit in the King's barrack, and walked fifty-four miles this blessed day just to see you and speak to you once more. Well, well!” He turned away his head while he said this, and wiping a starting tear from his red eyeball, he added, “Master Tom, 'tis myself would never b'lieve ye done it.”
“Did what?” said I, eagerly. “What have I ever done that you should charge me thus?”
But Darby heard me not; his eyes were fixed on vacancy, and his lips moved rapidly as though he were speaking to himself.
“Ay,” said he, half aloud, “true enough; 'tis the gentlemen that betrayed us always,—never came good of the cause where they took a part. But you,”—here he turned full round, and grasping my arm, spoke directly to me, “you that I loved better than my own kith and kin, that I thought would one day be a pride and glory to us all; you that I brought over myself to the cause—”
“And when have I deserted,—when have I betrayed it?”
“When did you desert it?” repeated he, in a tone of mocking irony. “Tell me the day and hour ye came here, tell me the first time ye sat down among the red butchers of King George, and I 'll answer ye that. Is it here you ought to be? Is this the home for him that has a heart for Ireland? I never said you betrayed us. Others said it; but I stood to it, ye never did that. But what does it signify? 'Tis no wonder ye left us; we were poor and humble people; we had nothing at heart but the good cause—”