“What,” cried Feargus, “that low villain? The meanest man in three kingdoms, who has turned against his own people, robbed the widows and orphans of their lands and trodden on the poor? Now, by all the saints in heaven, I’m glad I killed his beast, and if I had it to do ten times over, I should do the same thing.”
“Take this man and these women into custody,” said a cold, calm voice. “They are trespassers on my ground and I order them to be arrested.”
Billie sat up without assistance. Anger and amazement stirred her blood into action, and she no longer felt the throbbing in her head or the pain in her side.
Standing nearby was a very tall man with a cold, insolent face. Everything about him had a look of steel: his eyes were steel-gray, his clothes and hair, even his skin, had a touch of gray. His lips were thin and his nose like the beak of a bird of prey.
Now, when Miss Helen Campbell’s blood was up, she was a match for any foe, no matter how formidable. She drew herself to her full height of some five feet two inches; bright spots of red burned on her cheeks and her eyes turned almost black.
“May I ask who you are and by what right you give this unjust order?” she asked.
“I am the Duke of Kilkenty,” answered the man sternly.
“Duke or no duke,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, “you had better take back that order, or you will regret it to the last day of your life. We are not cringing peasantry and we are not cowards. We are Americans, thank God, and you’d better be careful how you deal with us. If this man killed a mad bull who was about to kill one of us, he did right, and there is not a court in England that would not uphold him in his action. Are you going to place the life of a human being in the balance with the life of a dangerous beast? Take it to court and see how such a thing would sound. A creditable action for the Duke of Kilkenty to arrest a man for saving five lives!”
Miss Campbell was growing more angry every moment.
“As trespassers on my private grounds, you are all subject to arrest,” said the Duke of Kilkenty, pointing to a signboard near the bars which they had not noticed before. It read: