"Why, Miss Vernon, you are in a moralising vein," cried her mate.
"I have no doubt, Kate, you would lead a forlorn hope gallantly," said her grandfather.
"Take me as your Lieutenant, Miss Vernon, and trust me I'll support my chief."
"When the occasion comes, you'll find strength," said Gilpin.
"Basta! in nome di Dio, leave off moralising, and give us a song." The Organist and Kate sang a duet, and even Winter joined in a catch; their notes floated sweetly on the air, and woke up the echoes of the deserted castle. Tom gathered up the fragments of the feast, and Mr. Winter hinted it was time for us to start for the farm.
We all accordingly rose, and Gilpin, who was a little of a botanist, climbed to get some wild plant that caught his eye, a little way up the remnant of a watchtower I have already mentioned. "I wonder," said Kate, "if this is the dangerous part of the ruins; I think that wall looks tottering;" and she remained standing beside me, watching the Organist. As she spoke, I fancied I heard something fall among the thick leafy boughs at the other side; then one of the stones by which Gilpin had ascended rolled slowly away. "Christo benedetto!" shouted Winter, "down, down all of you, it will fall." They rushed rapidly away; Kate paused for an instant to say, "poor Mr. Gilpin, help him, he is lame." I immediately flew to assist his descent, and almost lifted him to the ground; he turned quickly to the right, down a broken flight of steps, and I was following him, when there was a crash, a blinding dust, a scream of dismay from the lookers on; I felt a heavy blow, a sense of acute pain, and then all was darkness.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONVALESCENCE.
I will not dwell on the wearisome details of a sick room; my escape from death was almost miraculous, still the injuries I received were dangerous, and my recovery retarded by the fever consequent on my slow and painful transit from the scene of the accident to Winter's house, where he insisted on establishing me, on the plea that he was partly the cause of my sufferings. Here all that kindness and skill could accomplish, was done to alleviate them; poor Gilpin watching over me with the affection of a brother, and the tenderness of woman. Mrs. O'Toole, too, seemed a fixture by my bedside, and when in the delirium of fever, no voice had so much influence over me, I was told, as the rich tones of her mellifluous brogue.