“Whisht!” said I, “that will do later. Just now I must know her name, and whither bound. The young lady at the Hall has been decoyed away in her, and must be found.”
His amazement convinced me that at least he had been no party to the abduction, which had probably, and wisely so, been confided to no one beyond Martin and the officials of the secret society.
“The young leddy, Mr Gorman’s daughter, carried off!” and he indulged in a long whistle. “I always said his honour would get into trouble with a kittle girl like that.”
“Hold your tongue, you scoundrel,” shouted I, “unless you want it crammed down your throat, and tell me the ship’s name and her port.”
“No offence, sir,” said the honest landlord, taken aback by my anger, and by the gleam of the pistol which I set down on the table—“no offence, sir. She was the brig Scheldt from Rotterdam, a well-found craft that’s been this way before with messages from the Irish in Holland to those at home.”
With this I made once more for the Hall, where I found the household up, and in a state of anxious expectation. When they heard my story, great was the distress of the lady of the house to discover how she, in whose charge Miss Kit had been left, had been imposed upon. She implored me to wait till Mr Shannon returned from Knockowen; but as it was doubtful when that would be, such delay seemed useless.
Before I left I wrote a letter to Mr Gorman giving him all the particulars I could. He would no doubt receive an official notice from the rebels, naming their conditions for restoring their hostage. But so cowardly and shambling a creature had this father become, that I doubted very much whether he would risk much even to recover his child.
I then returned once more to the inn, where already the news of the night’s adventure had attracted a group of gossips. The landlord seeing me, took me aside and handed me a paper.
“Here’s a song of another tune,” said he. “It was left by the Dutch skipper, and may be news to some of you.”
I read it. It was a proclamation to the people of Ireland, couched in bombastic language, and stating that the hour of deliverance was at hand. A foreign fleet was about to descend on our northern coasts. Any day now the signal might be given for Ireland to rise. All was ready, and trusty leaders would accompany the friendly fleet. A strong blow well struck would end Ireland’s ills for ever. And so on.