“Mind him? of course I do—a coward that blew hot and cold, and led the boys on to mischief only to betray them. Yes; I mind Maurice Gorman.”
This invective seemed greatly to encourage the men present, who had evidently feared Tim might for some reason have harboured a regard for their victim.
“It was him was to be settled with on the Black Hill Road a year ago; and settled he would have been but for Barry.”
Tim’s anger, I could see, was rising.
“Settled?” he said; “do you mean murdered?”
“Shot, any way. He got off that time; and a purty use he made of his chance, hanging boys by the dozen, and giving us no peace at all, at all. But since the young lady was lost to him—”
“What?” exclaimed Tim again; “how lost?”
“Didn’t we have her over the seas to Holland for a hostage? And ever since he durstn’t do a hand’s turn against us. But he wouldn’t come in for all that, or pay the money. It was Barry as nearly spoilt that game for us too; for he spirited the girl away in Holland, and if it hadn’t been for some of the boys who got hold of her again in Dublin, she’d have been clane lost to Ireland for all our trouble.”
“You dogs!” cried Tim, starting forward with his hand on his sword. “You mean to say you carried away an innocent girl to spite her father? You’re a shame to your country!”
They looked at him in amazement. Then the speaker went on,—