Willie Thornton, much to his relief, was ordered to allow the Earl’s car to proceed, un-searched. The chauffeur, who was accustomed to be dry and warm, caught a nasty chill, and was in a bad temper for a week. He wrote to the Secretary of his Union complaining of the brutal way in which the military tyrannised over the representatives of skilled labour. The people of Dunedin felt that they had enjoyed a novel and agreeable show. Lady Ramelton made a large quantity of rhubarb jam, thirty pots of marmalade, and had some sugar over for the green gooseberries when they grew large enough to preserve.
VIII. A SOUL FOR A LIFE
Denis Ryan and Mary Drennan stood together at the corner of the wood where the road turns off and runs straight for a mile into the town. They were young, little more than boy and girl, but they were lovers and they stood together, as lovers do. His left arm was round her. His right hand held her hand. Her head rested on his shoulder.
“Mary, darling,” he whispered, “what’s to hinder us being married soon?”
She raised her head from his shoulder and looked tenderly into his eyes.
“If it wasn’t for my mother and my father, we might,” she said; “but they don’t like you, Denis, and they’ll never consent.”
Money comes between lovers sometimes; but it was not money, nor the want of it, which kept Mary and Denis apart. She was the daughter of a prosperous farmer—a rich man, as riches are reckoned in Ireland. He was a clerk in a lawyer’s office, and poorly paid. But he might have earned more. She would gladly have given up anything. And the objections of parents in such cases are not insuperable. But between these two there was something more. Denis Ryan was a revolutionary patriot. Mary Drennan’s parents were proud of another loyalty. They hated what Denis loved. The two loyalties were strong and irreconcilable, like the loyalties of the South and the North when the South and the North were at war in America.
“What does it matter about your father and mother?” he said. “If you love me, Mary, isn’t that enough?”
She hid her face on his shoulder again. He could barely hear the murmur of her answer.