There was scarcely time allowed for an answer, when the thundering clang of the iron hoofs resounded beside the conveyance in which the fugitives were lying, and the horsemen both, with a sudden and violent exertion, brought their beasts to a halt, and so abruptly, that although thrown back upon their haunches, the horses slid on for several yards upon the hard road, by the mere impetus of their former speed, knocking showers of fire flakes from the stones.
"I say," repeated Blarden, "did two girls pass you on the road—did you see them?"
"Divil a sign of a girl I see," replied the man, carelessly; and to their infinite relief, the two fugitives heard their pursuer, with a muttered curse, plunge forward upon his way. This relief, however, was but momentary, for checking his horse again, Blarden returned.
"I say, my good chap, I passed you before to-night, not ten minutes since, on my way out of town, not half-a-mile from this spot—the girls were running this way, and if they're between this and the gate—they must have passed you."
"Devil a girl I seen this—— Oh, begorra! you're right, sure enough," said the driver, "what the devil was I thinkin' about—two girls—one of them tall and slim, with rings on her fingers—and the other a short, active bit of a colleen?"
"Ay—ay—ay," cried Blarden.
"Sure enough they did overtake me," said the man, "shortly after I passed two gentlemen—I suppose you are one of them—and the little one axed me the direction of Harold's-cross—and when I showed it to them, bedad they both made no more bones about it, but across the ditch with them, an' away over the fields—they're half-way there by this time—it was jist down there by the broken bridge—they were quare-looking girls."
"It would be d——d odd if they were not—they're both mad," replied Blarden; "thank you for your hint."
And so saying, as he turned his horse's head in the direction indicated, he chucked a crown piece into the cart. As the conveyance proceeded, they heard the driver soliloquizing with evident satisfaction—
"Bedad, they'll have a plisint serenade through the fields, the two of them," observed he, standing upon the shafts, and watching the progress of the two horsemen—"there they go, begorra—over the ditch with them. Oh, by the hokey, the sarvint boy's down—the heart's blood iv a toss—an' oh, bloody wars! see the skelp iv the whip the big chap gives him—there they go again down the slope—now for it—over the gripe with them—well done, bedad, and into the green lane—devil take the bushes, I can't see another sight iv them. Young women," he continued, again assuming his sitting position, and replacing his pipe in the corner of his mouth—"all's safe now—they're clean out of sight—you may get up, miss."