Asgill drew rein, and by a gesture bade his groom ride on. "No?" he said. "Well, I'll be telling you. He's an obstinate dog; faith, and I'll be saying it, as obstinate a dog as ever walked on two legs! And left to himself, he'd, maybe, take more time and trouble to come to where we want him than we can spare. But, I'm thinking, James McMurrough, that he's sweet on your sister!"
The McMurrough stared. The notion had never crossed his mind. "It's jesting you are?" he said.
"It's the last thing I'd jest about," Asgill answered sombrely. "It is so; whether she knows it or not, I know it! And so d'you see, my lad, if she's in this, 'twill do more—take my word for it that know—to break him down and draw the heart out of him, so that he'll care little one way or the other, than anything you can do yourself!"
James McMurrough's face, turned upwards to the rider, reflected his admiration. "If you're in the right," he said, "I'll say it for you, Asgill, you're the match of the old one for cleverness. But do you think she'll come to it, the jewel?"
"She will."
James shook his head. "I'm not thinking it," he said.
"Are you not?" Asgill answered, and his face fell and his voice was anxious. "And why?"
"Sure and why? I'll tell you. It was but a day or two ago I'd a plan of my own. It was just to swear the plot upon him; swear he'd come off the Spanish ship, and the rest, d' you see, and get him clapped in Tralee gaol in my place. More by token, I was coming to you to help in it. But I thought I'd need the girl to swear to it, and when I up and told her she was like a hen you'd take the chickens from!"
Asgill was silent for a moment. Then, "You asked her to do that?" he said, in an odd tone.
"Just so."