"Where are you lodging?"
"At the Eagle, hard by the Abbey."
"Remain there, until you hear from me. Do not be impatient. I must choose my time, when either the queen is in a good temper, or is in such a hurry to get rid of me, in order to plot and gossip with Mistress Harley, who is now her prime favourite, that she is ready to sign any document I may lay before her."
Feeling that his cause was as good as won, Gerald returned in high spirits to his inn, where he delighted Mike by relating how the great minister had promised to forward his suit.
"Ah, your honour, it will be a grand day when you take possession of Kilkargan--bonfires and rejoicing of all sorts, and lashings of drink. Won't all the boys in the barony be glad to be free from the traitor, and to have the true heir come to be their master. None the less glad will be my sister."
"You must fetch her from Cork, Mike. It is owing to her that I am alive, and it will be owing to her if I recover the estate. She shall have the place of honour on the occasion, though all the gentry in the neighbourhood are there. When I tell them what she has done for me, they will say that she well deserves the honour!"
"And you will go no more to the wars, Captain O'Carroll?"
"No, Mike. I have been but three years in the French army, but I have seen enough of fighting, and, worse still, of fighting against men of our own nation. Besides, if the queen grants me the estates of my father, I shall consider myself bound in honour not to draw my sword against her, or to mix myself up in any plot or conspiracy, but to remain strictly neutral whatever may be going on. Indeed, the more I think of it, the more I doubt whether it would be for the good of Ireland did the Stuarts return to the throne. It could only be done at a further cost of blood and misery. The old religious quarrels would break out more fiercely than ever, there would be risings and civil wars, confiscations and massacres, whichever side happened to get the upper hand. That James the Third is the lawful sovereign of the three kingdoms, I shall always uphold, but there are cases when it is to the benefit of the country, at large, that there should be a change in the succession."
"Sure that may be so, your honour; and yet, it is hard that a man should be kept out of his own."
"No doubt it is hard; but it is far harder that thousands of people should be killed, and tens of thousands ruined, for the sake of one man."