"I don't quite know," said Winnie, taking hold of Murtagh's hand and looking up at her uncle; "but I think what he means is he wants you to help Pat O'Toole. He's been in hiding ever since the fire, you know, and I suppose—" here Winnie hesitated a little—"I suppose he has tried to do this, and that's why Murtagh doesn't want the others to know; and his mother knows where he is. And I expect Murtagh means if you could help him regularly, get him some work or something, and make him come back."
"Yes," said Murtagh, opening his eyes suddenly, and looking feverish and excited again; "only quick, quick, or he'll do it again. He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand, and it's all my fault. Nessa said it was; didn't she, Winnie?" His voice was loud, and he evidently did not quite know what he was saying.
"Hush, hush, my boy," said his uncle. "It shall be all right; I promise you I will go myself to Mrs. O'Toole to-morrow." Murtagh seemed to hear what his uncle said, for he looked content, and dropped back on the pillow from which he had been attempting to rise; but then he fainted again, and though proper remedies soon revived him, the coming of the doctor was anxiously watched for.
He came and examined first the wound in Murtagh's arm. Mr. Plunkett's bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the arm, and though the loss of blood had been considerable, the wound was not important. But the exposure and excitement of the last three days had brought more serious effects in their train, and the doctor looked very grave, when, after examining the boy, he began to give careful directions to Nessa.
He would come early next day, he said, and all might be well, but he feared it was his duty to warn them that the case might be a very serious one.
His fears were but too well founded, and not many days later a telegram went from Mr. Blair to his brother Launcelot telling him that Murtagh was dangerously stricken with brain fever.
But he was not to die. November, December, and January passed away, and one mild day early in February he was well enough to sit in the big arm-chair by the open schoolroom window, while Winnie sat on the window-sill, swinging her legs outside, and fed her ducks once more with a merry heart. It had been a sad winter for her and Rosie and Bobbo, but their independent ways had proved of some use, and they had given real help in the long time of anxious nursing. Mr. Plunkett had taken his turn of sitting up at night, and had shown himself a valuable nurse. And all smaller sorrows had been merged in the one great trouble.
With Murtagh ill the children could think of little else; but Mr. Blair had been roused by the events preceding the boy's illness to act for once with energy. He had kept his promise of going without delay to Mrs. O'Toole, and he had known how to draw from her the information she had refused to Murtagh. Pat had been produced, and Mr. Blair, knowing Mr. Plunkett well, had trusted him with the whole story.
Mr. Plunkett justified the trust. Honor would have forbidden any attempt to punish the boy, and Mr. Blair saw that in this instance the ends of policy also would be better served by generous treatment; but it was neither policy nor the strict requirements of honor alone which moved Mr. Plunkett to take the tone he did when he talked with Mr. Blair, and to listen with unwonted gentleness even to Nessa when she suggested that one of the best ways of saving Pat from further mischief would be to find work for him elsewhere.