"Yes, all things considered," he was saying, "it is strange, isn't it, little one, that that man should be risking his life every day for Murtagh's benefit?"
"How do you mean for Murtagh?" she asked.
"I thought I had told you how he constantly receives threatening letters in consequence of the improvements he is making in the estate. Many of these improvements will bear no fruit till long after my time, and now that poor little Frankie is gone, Murtagh is the person who will profit by them. I remarked that to Plunkett to-day, when he was talking to me about this ejectment business, and I asked him why he went on with it. He said, 'It is my duty, sir.'" Mr. Blair had spoken slowly, and he ended with a little sigh.
"But surely, Uncle Blair," asked Nessa, "they could never really shoot him?"
"I believe," replied Mr. Blair, "that if it were not well known that he always carries a loaded pistol, he would be shot at to-morrow. Now the risk is too great, for they know that if they miss him he is not likely to miss them. His perfect fearlessness is greatly in his favor."
"O dear, what a terrible, dreadful, place!" sighed Nessa.
On his side of the drawing-room door, Murtagh stood horror-stricken at the revelation that Mr. Plunkett was deliberately risking his life for his benefit at the time that he was consenting to a plot to kill Mr. Plunkett. He understood only in the vaguest manner how it came about that it was for his benefit; still the mere fact that Mr. Plunkett knew the danger and braved it deliberately, was in itself enough to arouse in that impulsive little heart something akin to sympathy. Every generous feeling in him was set at war with what Pat was going to do, but still he felt with an acuteness of suffering beyond his years that the cause of the people was just the same. If it had been right before that Mr. Plunkett should die, it was right now. It had become odious in him to have helped Pat, but Pat was just as right as ever, and in passionate defense of him he entered the hall, exclaiming:
"Nessa, you and Uncle Blair don't know how he does things. You don't know how he turns the people out of their houses, and sends them to prison for nothing, and sees them starving in the winter-time and doesn't care. No wonder they hate him. No wonder they want to kill him! Every one says if Uncle Blair would go about himself, things would be very different. He may make money, but oh! I wish it could never be for me. I would rather starve than have that money that's robbed from them."
"He is not robbing them!" exclaimed Nessa, opening her great gray eyes indignantly; "and even if he were, it's too dreadful hating like that and watching to kill people. I'd rather be oppressed all my life than be guilty of a cowardly murder."
"It's only what the Sicilians did," answered Murtagh. "It's not right that a tyrant should go on doing what he pleases."