"Come with me," says Mona to Rodney; and with an air of settled determination, and a hard look on her usually mobile lips, she moves deliberately towards the hawthorn-bush, that is about a quarter of a mile distant.
"Mona," says Rodney, divining her intent, "stay you here while I go and expostulate with these men. It is late, darling, and their blood is up, and they may not listen to you. Let me speak to them."
"You do not understand them," returns she, sadly. "And I do. Besides, they will not harm me. There is no fear of that. I am not at all afraid of them. And—I must speak to them."
He knows her sufficiently well to refrain from further expostulation, and just accompanies her silently along the lonely road.
"It is I,—Mona Scully," she calls aloud, when she is within a hundred yards of the hiding-place. "Tim Ryan, come here: I want you."
It is a mere guess on her part,—supported certainly by many tales she has heard of this Ryan of late, but a guess nevertheless. It proves, however, to be a correct one. A man, indistinct, but unmistakable, shows himself on the top of the wall, and pulls his forelock through force of habit.
"What are you doing here, Tim?" says Mona, bravely, calmly, "at this hour, and with—yes, do not seek to hide it from me—a gun! And you too, Carthy," peering into the darkness to where another man, less plucky than Ryan lies concealed. "Ah! you may well wish to shade your face, since it is evil you have in your heart this night."
"Do ye mane to inform on us?" says Ryan, slowly, who is "a man of a villanous countenance," laying his hand impulsively upon his gun, and glancing at her and Rodney alternately with murder in his eyes. It is a critical moment. Rodney, putting out his hand, tries to draw her behind him.
"No, I am not afraid," says the girl, resisting his effort to put himself before her; and when he would have spoken she puts up her hands, and warns him to keep silence.
"You should know better than to apply the word 'informer' to one of my blood," she says, coldly, speaking to Ryan, without a tremor in her voice.