"E'en must ye! So!" she cried, turning, with a sudden jerk of the rein, the head of one of the horses towards the direction in which they had come. "Ride, ride," she added, in a commanding but wild tone, "nor look behind till ye are safe within the gates, lest ye care to see the evil one astraddle of your crupper."
"The houly crass protict us!" they both ejaculated, crossing themselves.
"Good e'en to ye, mither. It's yourself is the crathur for knowing the world's thruth," added Jarvey, as if by flattery he would disarm any evil intention she might cherish in reference to himself.
"And it's to her we're indibted for not riding tree leagues for nothing at all at all, whin the lad's not to the fore! Faix, it's my thanks ye have, ould Elpsy, for't, an' its yer due, were ye the ould divil himself," returned Ennis, gathering up his rein. "Kape your head straight between yer shoulder, Jarvey."
"It's me, honey, will niver be afther looking behint," replied Jarvey, setting his face towards Castle More.
Thus taking leave of the wily woman, these two old simple-minded retainers rode back again; their obtuse minds probably scarce comprehending the nature of the loss Lady Lester had met with, the exchanged fortunes of their late young master, nor the important object of their mission.
She looked after them as they galloped away till they were lost in the gloom of the forest, when, clapping her hands, she broke into a peal of frantic merriment, which was more like the shriek of a fiend than like human laughter.
"Ah, ha! have I not done it well! I met them here just in time. Satan stands my friend yet! If he did make me lose the game, he has helped to keep another from winning it. No, Lester shall never have a lord at the expense of him who, but for my accursed tongue and his silly honour! would still have been its master. Ho, ho! have I not done it! Now it remains for me, ere he can learn the secret of his birth, to send him where low and highborn are all on a level! This! and, if this fail, this," she said, grasping first the vial and then the dagger, "shall do my will! It's a wicked act—I know it!—'tis a deed of hell! I would not harm the poor lad—no; for he is like an own child to me—but, then, he is not my child—and shall I see him in the seat from which he has been cast out? No, no, this steel shall drink—this poison shall dry up, his noble blood first!"
"Of whom do you speak in such fearful words, mother?"
She started with mingled terror and astonishment, and beheld standing at her side the unconscious object of her thoughts. Her surprise at his sudden, and, as she at first believed, supernatural appearance, for the moment deprived her of her speech; she dropped the hand that held the vial, which was dashed in pieces against a stone, and gazed on him for several seconds with a disturbed and remorseful countenance.