"That won't do any good," returned Winnie, disconsolately. "But I hope he will," she added with sudden anger. "It will serve him right. Oh, Murtagh, how could any one be so cowardly and so cruel to shoot at him when he was in the water like that?—so close to him he couldn't possibly miss. And then—then Royal looked as if he thought I'd sent him in on purpose, and he couldn't understand when I told him we didn't; and—and Frankie said he knew I'd never let any one hurt him; and now Frankie's dead, and I can't tell him about it, either; and oh, Myrrh, doesn't it seem as if everybody was dying?" The end of Winnie's sentence was almost lost in tears.
The two children spent the rest of the morning walking up and down together, their conversation a confused medley of grief, anger, and sad, loving recollections of the doings of their two dead.
Towards the end anger predominated. Murtagh repeated to Winnie all that Pat had told him of the sufferings of the people about. He told her, too, that Pat was in hiding at home; that he was going to be revenged on Mr. Plunkett, and that he (Murtagh) was going to help him. He did not tell her exactly what he was going to do, something within him prevented him from speaking of that. Winnie listened eagerly.
"I do hope he will succeed," she said; "and just fancy, Myrrh, if he does set all the people free, he will be just like John of Procida that Nessa was telling us about."
And for the moment Murtagh wished that he were himself the one who was to shoot Mr. Plunkett.
Theresa Curran, coming up to the Castle on a message, met them in the avenue, and courtesying deeply told them that "they down at the village was all very glad to think it was Mr. Murtagh now would be master over them some day."
Murtagh did not understand what she meant, and when she explained that "sure, after the master, it'll belong to you and yours now," he exclaimed in angry surprise:
"You mean that you're glad! Aren't you ashamed to be so cruel and unkind?"
Theresa saw that she had made a mistake, and replied in some confusion: "'Deed, an' we're all very sorry for him, poor little gentleman, but we'll be very glad to have you reign over us, Mr. Murtagh, dear. There'll be a stop put then, maybe, to some o' the doings goes on now. Every one hunted out o' their homes, and no more account made of it than if they was wild animals."
"There!" said Murtagh; "they all say just the same thing."