CHAPTER XVIII. The Toir, or Tory Hunt.
Harry Woodward now began to apprehend that, as the reader sees, either his star or that of Shawn-na-Middogue must be in the ascendant. He accordingly set to work with all his skill and craft to secure his person and offer him up as a victim to the outraged laws of his country, and to a government that had set a price upon his head, as the leader of the outlaws; or, what came nearer to his wish, either to shoot him down with his own hand, or have him shot by those who were on the alert for such persons. The first individual to whom he applied upon the subject was his benevolent step-father, who he knew was a magistrate, and whose duty was to have the wretched class of whom we write arrested or shot as best they might.
“Sir,” said he, “I think after what has befallen my dear brother Charles that this murdering villain, Shawn-na-Middogue, who is at the head of the tories and outlaws, ought to be shot, or taken up and handed over to government.”
“Why,” asked Mr. Lindsay, “what has happened in connection with Shawn-na-Middogue and your brother?”
“Why, that it was from his hand he received the wound that may be his death. That, I think, is sufficient to make you exert yourself; and indeed it is, in my opinion, both a shame and a scandal that the subject has not been taken up with more energy by the magistracy of the country.”
“But who can tell,” replied Lindsay, “whether it was Shawn-na-Middogue that stabbed Charles? Charles himself does not know the individual who stabbed him.”
“The language of the girl, I think,” replied Woodward, “might indicate it. He was once her lover—”
“But she named nobody,” replied the other; “and as for lovers, she had enough of them. If Shawn-na-Middogue is an outlaw now, I know who made him so. I remember when there wasn't a better conducted boy on your mother's property. He was a credit to his family and the neighborhood; but they were turned out in my absence by your unfeeling mother there, Harry; and the fine young fellow had nothing else for it but the life of an outlaw. Confound me if I can much blame him.”
“Thank you, Lindsay,” replied his wife; “as kind as ever to the woman who brought you that property. But you forget what the young scoundrel's mother said of me—do you? that I had the Evil Eye, and that there was a familiar or devil connected with me and my family?”
“Egad! and I'm much of her opinion,” replied her husband; “and if she said it, I give you my honor it is only what every one who knows you says, and what I, who know you best, say as well as they. Begone, madam—leave the room; it was your damned oppression made the boy a tory. Begone, I say—I will bear with your insolence no longer.”