Her tone of asperity and wounded pride declined into a murmur of acquiescence as she hearkened to the apologies and deprecations of the youth, whose gallantry and feats had so often rung in her ears, though his person she had but casually seen, and his voice she had never before heard. The case stood similar with Connor. He had often listened to the praises of Norah’s beauty; he had occasionally caught distant glimpses of her graceful figure; and the present sight, or after recollection, often mitigated his feelings to her hostile clan, and, to his advantage, the rugged old chief was generally associated with the lovely dark-eyed girl who was his only child.
Such being their respective feelings, what could be the result of their romantic rencounter? They were both young, generous children of nature, with hearts fraught with the unhacknied feelings of youth and inexperience: they had drunk in sentiment with the sublimities of their mountain homes, and were fitted for higher things than the vulgar interchange of animosity and contempt. Of this they soon were conscious, and they did not separate until the stars began to burn above them, and not even then, before they had made arrangements for at least another—one more secret interview. The islet possessed a beautiful fitness for their trysting place, as being accessible from either side, and little obnoxious to observation; and many a moonlight meeting—for the one was inevitably multiplied—had these children of hostile fathers, perchance on the very spot on which my eyes now rested, and the unbroken stillness around had echoed to their gladsome greetings or their faltering farewells. Neither dared to divulge an intercourse that would have stirred to frenzy the treasured rancour of their respective parents, each of whom would doubtless have preferred a connexion with a blackamoor—if such were then in circulation—to their doing such grievous despite to that ancient feud which as an heirloom had been transmitted from ancestors whose very names they scarcely knew. M’Diarmod the Dark-faced was at best but a gentle tiger even to his only child; and though his stern cast-iron countenance would now and then relax beneath her artless blandishments, yet even with the lovely vision at his side, he would often grimly deplore that she had not been a son, to uphold the name and inherit the headship of the clan, which on his demise would probably pass from its lineal course; and when he heard of the bold bearing of the heir of O’Rourke, he thought he read therein the downfall of the M’Diarmods when he their chief was gone. With such ill-smothered feelings of discontent he could not but in some measure repulse the filial regards of Norah, and thus the confiding submission that would have sprung to meet the endearments of his love, was gradually refused to the inconsistencies of his caprice; and the maiden in her intercourse with her proscribed lover rarely thought of her father, except as one from whom it should be diligently concealed.
But unfortunately this was not to be. One of the night marauders of his clan chanced in an evil hour to see Connor O’Rourke guiding his coracle to the island, and at the same time a cloaked female push cautiously from the opposite shore for the same spot. Surprised, he crouched among the fern till their landing and joyous greeting put all doubt of their friendly understanding to flight; and then, thinking only of revenge or ransom, the unsentimental scoundrel hurried round the lake to M’Diarmod, and informed him that the son of his mortal foe was within his reach. The old man leaped from his couch of rushes at the thrilling news, and, standing on his threshold, uttered a low gathering-cry, which speedily brought a dozen of his more immediate retainers to his presence. As he passed his daughter’s apartment, he for the first time asked himself who can the woman be? and at the same moment almost casually glanced at Norah’s chamber, to see that all there was quiet for the night. A shudder of vague terror ran through his sturdy frame as his eye fell on the low open window. He thrust in his head, but no sleeper drew breath within; he re-entered the house and called aloud upon his daughter, but the echo of her name was the only answer. A kern coming up put an end to the search, by telling that he had seen his young mistress walking down to the water’s edge about an hour before, but that, as she had been in the habit of doing so by night for some time past, he had thought but little of it. The odious truth was now revealed, and, trembling with the sudden gust of fury, the old chief with difficulty rushed to the lake, and, filling a couple of boats with his men, told them to pull for the honour of their name and for the head of the O’Rourke’s first-born.
During this stormy prelude to a bloody drama, the doomed but unconscious Connor was sitting secure within the dilapidated chapel by the side of her whom he had won. Her quickened ear first caught the dip of an oar, and she told her lover; but he said it was the moaning of the night-breeze through the willows, or the ripple of the water among the stones, and went on with his gentle dalliance. A few minutes, however, and the shock of the keels upon the ground, the tread of many feet, and the no longer suppressed cries of the M’Diarmods, warned him to stand on his defence; and as he sprang from his seat to meet the call, the soft illumination of love was changed with fearful suddenness into the baleful fire of fierce hostility.
“My Norah, leave me; you may by chance be rudely handled in the scuffle.”
The terrified but faithful girl fell upon his breast.
“Connor, your fate is mine; hasten to your boat, if it be not yet too late.”
An iron-shod hunting pole was his only weapon; and using it with his right arm, while Norah hung upon his left, he sprang without further parley through an aperture in the wall, and made for the water. But his assailants were upon him, the M’Diarmod himself with upraised battle-axe at their head.
“Spare my father,” faltered Norah; and Connor, with a mercifully directed stroke, only dashed the weapon from the old man’s hand, and then, clearing a passage with a vigorous sweep, accompanied with the well-known charging cry, before which they had so often quailed, bounded through it to the water’s brink. An instant, and with her who was now more than his second self, he was once more in his little boat; but, alas! it was aground, and so quickly fell the blows against him, that he dare not adventure to shove it off. Letting Norah slip from his hold, she sank backwards to the bottom of the boat; and then, with both arms free, he redoubled his efforts, and after a short but furious struggle succeeded in getting the little skiff afloat. Maddened at the sight, the old chief rushed breast-deep into the water; but his right arm had been disabled by a casual blow, and his disheartened followers feared, under the circumstances, to come within range of that well-wielded club. But a crafty one among them had already seized on a safer and surer plan. He had clambered up an adjacent tree, armed with a heavy stone, and now stood on one of the branches above the devoted boat, and summoned him to yield, if he would not perish. The young chief’s renewed exertions were his only answer.
“Let him escape, and your head shall pay for it,” shouted the infuriated father.