“It’s all right,” said Neal, feebly, “I’m only dizzy. I got a bang on the head. I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Matier,” said Donald, “come and help me with the boy. I must get him to bed. Where can I put him?”
“There’s not a room in the house with a whole pane of glass in the window,” said Felix Matier, “except my own. It looks out on the back, and the villains never came at it. We’ll take him there. I’ll lift his shoulders, and go first.”
He approached Neal and was about to lift him when the girl pushed him aside and stooped over Neal herself.
“Come now, what’s the meaning of this, Peg Macllrea? Are you so daft with your fighting that you hustle your master aside?”
“Master or no master,” said Peg, “you’ll not carry him. It was for me that he got hurted, and it’s me that’ll carry him.”
She put her arms under Neal and lifted him. He was a big man, but she carried him up a flight of stairs and laid him on her master’s bed. The long matted tresses of her red hair hung over his face, and an occasional drop of the blood which still dripped from her fell on him. Donald Ward and Matier followed her.
“Let’s have a look at him,” said Donald. “Ah! here’s a scalp wound and a cut on the head the length of my finger. This must be seen to. Run, Peg, get me linen and a basin of cold water. It must have been a boot did this. A kick from one of the rascally dragoons as they passed over him when we chased them. Now, Neal, are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I’m bruises from head to foot. Half the people in Belfast have trampled over me this night, and when they wear boots they wear mighty heavy ones.”
Donald, with wonderful gentleness, took Neal’ clothes off him, put on him a night shirt of Felix Matier’s, and laid him between cool sheets.