“It’s nothing, Mary,” he said. “It’s nothing at all!”
But she was more disquieted at his words, for he turned his face away from her when he spoke.
“What is, it?” she whispered again. “Tell me, Denis!”
“It’s a gentleman down from Dublin that’s to talk to the boys to-night,” he said, “and the members of the club must be there to listen to him. It will be about learning Irish that he’ll talk, maybe, or not enlisting in the English Army.”
“Is that all, Denis? Are you sure now that’s all? Will he not want you to do anything?”
That part of the country was quiet enough. But elsewhere there were raidings of houses, attacks on police barracks, shootings, woundings, murders; and afterwards arrests, imprisonments, and swift, wild vengeance taken. Mary was afraid of what the man from Dublin might want. Denis turned to her, and she could see that he was frightened too.
“Mary, Mary!” he said. “Whatever comes or goes, there’ll be no harm done to you or yours!”
She loosed her hold on his arm and turned from him with a sigh.
“I must be going from you now, Denis,” she said, “Mother will be looking for me, and the dear God knows what she’d say if she knew I’d been here talking to you.”
Mrs. Drennan knew very well where her daughter had been. She spoke her mind plainly when Mary entered the farm kitchen.