Emon had heard, as everybody else had heard, that Tom Murdock had left home, and he felt as if an incubus had been lifted off his heart. Not that he feared Tom in any one way; but he knew that his absence would be a relief to Winny, and, as such, a relief to himself.
Emon was now as happy as his position and his hopes permitted him to be; and there can be little doubt but this happiness arose from an understanding between himself and Winny; but how, when, or where that understanding had been confirmed, it would be hard to say.
Old Ned's remarks to his daughter respecting young Lennon were nuts and apples to her. She knew the day would come, and perhaps at no far distant time, when she must openly avow, not only a preference for Emon, but declare an absolute determination to cast her lot with his, and ask her father's blessing upon them. She was aware that this could not, that it ought not to, be hurried. She hoped--oh, how fervently she hoped!--that the report of Tom Murdock's marriage might be true: that of his absence from home she knew to be so. In the meantime it kept the happy smile for ever on her lips to know that Emon was daily creeping into the good opinion of her father. Oh! how could Emon, her own Emon, fail, not only to creep but to rush into the good opinion, the very heart, of all who knew him? Poor enthusiastic Winny! But she was right. With the solitary exception of Tom Murdock, there was not a human being who knew him who did not love Edward Lennon. But where is the man with Tom Murdock's heart, and in Tom Murdock's place, who would not have hated him as he did?
CHAPTER XXIX.
Tom Murdock, seeing that his hopes by fair means were completely at an end, and that matters were likely to progress in another quarter at a rate which made it advisable not to let the leading horse get too far ahead, [{108}] determined to make a rush to the front, no matter whether he went the wrong side of a post or not--let that be settled after.
He had left home, and left a report behind him, which he took care to have industriously circulated, that he had gone to Armagh, and was about to be married to "a young lady" with a large fortune, and that he would visit the metropolis, Fermanagh, and perhaps Sligo, before he returned. But he did not go further than an obscure public-house in a small village in the lower part of the county of Cavan. There he met the materials for carrying out his plan. The object of it was shortly this--to carry away Winny Cavana by force, and bring her to a friend's house in the mountains behind the village adverted to. Here he was to have an old buckle-beggar at hand to marry them the moment Winny's spirit was broken to consent. This man, a degraded clergyman, as the report went, wandered about the country in green spectacles and a short, black cloak, always ready and willing to perform such a job; doubly willing and ready for this particular one from the reward which Tom had promised him. If even the marriage ceremony should fail, either through Winny's obstinacy or the clergyman's want of spirit to go through with it in the face of opposition, still he would keep her for ten days or a fortnight at this friend's house, stopping there himself too; and at the end of that time, should he fail in obtaining her consent, he would quit the country for a while, and allow her to return home "so blasted in character" that even "that whelp" would disown her. There was a pretty specimen of a lover--a husband!
It was now the end of June. The weather had been dry for some time, and the nights were clear and mild; the stars shone brightly, and the early dawn would soon present a heavy dew hanging on the bushes and the grass. The moon was on the wane; but at a late hour of the night it was conspicuous in the heavens, adding a stronger light to that given by the clearness of the sky and the brilliancy of the stars.
Rathcash and Rathcashmore were sunk in still repose; and if silence could be echoed, it was echoed by the stillness of the mountains behind Shanvilla and beyond them. The inhabitants of the whole district had long since retired to rest, and now lay buried in sleep, some of them in confused dreams of pleasure and delight.
The angel of the dawn was scarcely yet awake, or he might have heard the sound of muffled horses' feet and muffled wheels creeping along the road toward the lane turning up to Rathcash house, about two hours before day; and he must have seen a man with a dark mask mounted on another muffled horse at a little distance from the cart.
Presently Tom Murdock--there is no use in simulating mystery where none exists--took charge of the horse and cart to prevent them from moving, while three men stole up toward the house. Ay, there is Bully-dhu's deep bark, and they are already at the door.