"That is my affair," Asgill answered. And he hummed:
They tried put the comether on Judy McBain:
One, two, three, one, two, three!
Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea;
For who but she's owner of Ballymacshane?
He made his meaning so clear, and pointed it so audaciously before them all, that Payton, after scowling at him for some seconds with his hand on a glass as if he meant to throw it, dropped his eyes and his hand and fell into a gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of the other's argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the heiress's hand—and Payton did not doubt this—the last thought in his mind would be to divest her of her property.
Asgill read his thoughts, and presently, "I hope the wound is not serious?" he said.
"He is not wounded," the Major answered curtly. A few minutes before he would have flown out at the other; now he took the thrust quietly. He was thinking. Meanwhile the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned their open-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concluding the fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men were left together.
They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on the table, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to time glancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each saw the other in the way and wondered how he could best brush him from it. Payton cared for the girl herself, only as a toy that had caught his fancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for her possessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for the inheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live to possess the woman. "It is a pity," Payton meditated, "for, with his aid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She'd not be the first Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!" While Asgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night it would not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers would find him! But it must not be at Morristown.
Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill was Irish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. But Payton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the better born, and, in his braggart fashion, the better bred. Both were Protestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer and a gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, he would win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could he have looked into Asgill's heart, he would have trembled, perhaps he would have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogs were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth one week's purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, his love was of no common kind, even as the man was no common man.