"The coward! he has taken advantage of—"
"Ay, and it isn't only your little play-place he's turned you out of," said a familiar voice behind him in the bushes, "but my father and mother's to be turned out of the place they've held backwards and forwards this hundred years, because they can't pay the rent since it's riz upon them last Michaelmas."
Murtagh started and turned round to see Pat O'Toole standing in the full blaze of the firelight.
"Oh, Pat, Pat," he cried, springing towards him, "you've come back at last!"
"I couldn't stop away at all," he replied. "I was up in the mountains, and one and another of the boys gave me food, but I used to come down o' nights, an' one night my mother was out fetching the goat, and the tears were running down as she walked along, and so I couldn't help it at all, but I just up and told her I was there. And look here, Mr. Murtagh," he continued, dropping his voice and coming closer, "the boys say he isn't a bit o' good, and now he's riz the rents there's the Dalys'll have to go out, an' the Cannons; and there's many'll die o' distress with the winter coming on, and the bad potatoes an' all; an' I've been watchin' for you because I thought ye'd help me. And look here, Mr. Murtagh, if ye'll get me a gun some way, I'll shoot him and ha' done with it."
Pat's voice sank into a fierce, hoarse whisper as he ended, and his face was bent down close to Murtagh's. Murtagh did not answer at once; he could hardly believe that he was not dreaming, and Pat continued: "It's a benefactor you'll be to the country. There's many and many a one'll bless you far an' wide. There's Jim Cannon, brother to Cannon down beyant there, has his wife and children in the Union, and he's wanderin' about, daren't come home and do a bit o' decent work because Plunkett's informed against him for a Fenian.
"And there's Mike Coyle and his wife and children had to turn out and shift for themselves, because he wouldn't let the old man keep them with him at home in his own place. And there's my mother and father turned out of a place we've had from one to another this hundred year; and Johnny Worsted taken from his work, and his old father and mother dependin' upon him, and sent to prison, for nothing in the world but knocking over a couple o' little hares. And look now, Mr. Murtagh," he added, dropping his voice again to a cautious whisper, "if he was killed out o' the way it'd all come right, and I told the boys how we were bound together in a tribe like, and you'd never fail us in a pinch. There's many and many a heart'll be made glad through the country. Isn't he oppressin' every one of us, and changin' all the old ways that was good enough for them as was better than him? And look at yerselves; isn't it just the same way with yez? Isn't he tyrannizin' over yez, and doesn't mind a word anybody spakes to him, but only havin' everything his own way? He doesn't care for any one's feelin's! Just look at the way he massacrated Miss Winnie's beautiful dog this mornin', and she nearly cried her heart out over it. But he don't care, he'd do it again to-morrow; and only took advantage of ye bein' thinkin' o' that, to come and pull down your hut that was built before ever he came here."
Pat's words stirred up all the fierce passion of last night, and the feelings with which he had heard Nessa's story surged up again in his heart. As he listened the blood went coursing swiftly through his veins. Was not this a way to end it all? All the country round was suffering as they were. The people looked to him to help them; would not this be doing something indeed for freedom? He never in the least realized what it was; how could he, a child of eleven? But it presented itself vaguely to him as a grand and terrible action. Something in him spoke loudly against Pat's reasoning, but so thoroughly was his whole nature warped by the excitement of the last month that he mistook his true instinct for cowardice, asking himself if John of Procida would have hesitated so.
And while his decision was hanging thus in the balance, Pat brought before him the picture of Winnie's grief and Mr. Plunkett's indifference. The remembrance flashed through his mind of Hickey's words in the morning—"It would serve old Plunkett right to be shot with the very same gun," and with a sudden gust of passion he decided.
"Yes," he said, "I'll do it! You shall have the very gun he shot Royal with."