“But, father,” said Standish, after the trifling excitement occasioned by this episode had died away—“but, father, we are surely not going——”
“Hush, my son. The young Brian and his retinue went out one August day like this; and with him was the hundred harpers, the fifty pipers, and the thirteen noble chiefs of the Lakes, all mounted on the finest of steeds, and the morning sun glittering on their gems and jewels as if they had been drops of dew. And so they rode to the castle of Desmond, and when he shut the gates in the face of the noble retinue and sent out a haughty message that, because the young Prince Brian had slain The Desmond's two sons, he would not admit him as a suitor to his daughter, the noble young prince burnt The Desmond's tower to the ground and carried off the daughter, who, as the bards all agree, was the loveliest of her sex. Ah, that was a wooing worthy of The Mac-namaras. These are the degenerate days when a prince of The Macnamaras goes on a broken-down car to ask the hand of a daughter of the Geralds.” Here a low whistle escaped from Eugene, and he looked down at his boots just as The Macnamara delivered another rebuke to him of the same nature as the former.
“But we're not going to—to—Suanmara!” cried Standish in dismay.
“Then where are we going, maybe you'll tell me?” said his father.
“Not there—not there; you never said you were going there. Why should we go there?”
“Just for the same reason that your noble forefather Brian Macnamara went to the tower of The Desmond,” said the father, leaving it to Standish to determine which of the noble acts of the somewhat impetuous young prince their present excursion was designed to emulate.
“Do you mean to say, father, that—that—oh, no one could think of such a thing as——”
“My son,” said the hereditary monarch coolly, “you made a confession to me this morning that only leaves me one course. The honour of The Macnamaras is at stake, and as the representative of the family it's my duty to preserve it untarnished. When a son of mine confesses his affection for a lady, the only course he can pursue towards her is to marry her, let her even be a Gerald.”
“I won't go on such a fool's errand,” cried the young man. “She—her grandfather—they would laugh at such a proposal.”
“The Desmond laughed, and what came of it, my boy?” said the Macnamara sternly.