The tone in which he said this, coming from a man who had paltered with treason for years, struck me as contemptible; but I had no time just then to let him see what I felt.
“I will take care of myself,” said I; “and your honour will do well to remember what I said about Tim. When the reckoning for all this business comes, it will stand you in good stead.” And not waiting to hear his reply, I went off to the stables.
Martin, whom the reader will remember, and who, despite his connection with the marauders and his bad odour with the police, continued to retain his place in his honour’s service, was nowhere to be found. He had been absent, said the boy, since the afternoon, when he had taken off Tara for exercise.
I was obliged, therefore, to put up with an inferior animal, and to saddle him myself. But I was too impatient to be off to allow of any further delay.
“At what hour is the tide full?” I asked of one of the servants.
“Half-an-hour after midnight,” was the reply.
As he spoke, the clock in the hall struck half-past nine.
“In three hours,” said I to myself, as I galloped down the avenue, “the Dutchman at Malin weighs anchor.”
It was well for me I was no stranger to the rough, mountainous road I had to travel, for the night was pitch dark, and scarcely a soul was afoot at that late hour. I did, indeed, encounter a patrol of troopers near the Black Hill, who ordered me to halt and dismount and give an account of myself. But his honour’s passport satisfied them, as it did the sentry who challenged me on entering the little town of Carndonagh. Thence to Malin it is but two leagues; but my wretched beast was so spent that, unless I wished to leave it on the road, I was compelled to take it most of the way at a foot’s pace; so that when at last I pulled up before the little inn at Malin, it was on the stroke of midnight.
“Faith, Mr Gorman’s fond of sending messengers,” said the landlord. “There was another of his here two hours since.”