Of late, the state of public feeling upon the subject of tithes had become so violent and agitated, that Mr. Purcel's immediate friends found it almost a matter involving their personal safety to dine with him. At all events, such of them as accepted his hospitality took care to leave his house very early, and to keep themselves well armed besides. On the evening in question, no one had been invited but M'Carthy and Fergus O'Driscol. The heroic magistrate, however, ever since the receipt of the threatening letter, would not suffer his son (who certainly participated in none of his father's cowardice), to dine abroad at all, lest his absence and well-known intrepidity might induce the Whiteboys, or other enemies of law, to attack the house when its principal defence was from home. The evening, therefore, hung heavy on their heads at Longshot Lodge, which was the name of Purcel's residence, especially upon that of the fair Julia, who felt not merely disappointed, but unusually depressed' by the unaccountable absence of her lover, knowing as she did, the turbulence which prevailed in the country. She scarcely ate any dinner, and in the course of a short time retired to her own room, which commanded a view of the way by which he should approach the house, where she watched, casement up, until she heard a foot in the avenue, which, however, her acute ear, well accustomed to McCarthy's, soon told her was not that of her lover. On looking more closely she perceived, however, that it was Mogue Moylan; and, unable to restrain her impatience, she raised the window still higher, and called down as Mogue passed under it, on his way round to the kitchen, but in a low, earnest voice, with, as Mogue thought, a good deal of confidential in it, “Is that Mogue?”
“Eh!” he exclaimed, struck almost on the instant into a state of ecstacy; “Is that Miss Julia?”
“Yes, Mogue,” she replied, in the same low voice, “I do not wish to run the risk of speaking to you from this; stay there, and I will go to one of the windows of the front parlor.”
“Well,” thought Mogue, “it is come to this at last? oh, thin, but I was a blackguard haythen an' nothing else ever to think of you, Letty Lenehan, or any low-born miscreant like you. The devil blow her aist, waist, north, and south, the flipen' blazes, and to think o' the freedoms she used to take wid me, as if she was my aquils; but sure, dam her cribs! whatever I intended to do, it wasn't to marry her, an' can I forget, moreover, the day she gave me the bloody nose, when I only went to take a small taste o' liberty wid the thief.”
In the course of a minute or two, Julia made her appearance at the window, with, in fact, a blushing face, if it could have only been seen with sufficient light. Now that she stood within a couple of yards of Moylan, she felt all the awkwardness and embarrassment of the task she had undertaken, which was to inquire, without seeming to feel any personal interest, as to the cause of her lover's absence. In addition to the prevailing agitation, and the outrages arising from if, she had heard of so many accidents with sportsmen, so many guns had burst, so many explosions had taken place, and so many lives had been lost, that her warm fancy pictured his death in almost every variety of way in which a gun could occasion it. Owing to all this, she experienced a proportionable share of confusion and diffidence in managing her inquiries with proper address, and without betraying any suspicion of her motives.
“Mogue,” said she, “I—hem—hem—I hope you don't feel fatigued after your sport'?”
“Ah, then, there it comes,” thought Mogue; “how the crature feels for me! an' even if I did, Miss Julia, sure one kind word when I come home is fit to cure it.”
“And you are sure to get that, Mogue,” replied Julia, who took it for granted that he referred to Letty Lenehan, “but whisper,” she proceeded, still speaking in a low voice, from an apprehension of being heard making the proposed inquiries by any of her family, “are you alone?”
“I am, indeed, Miss Julia,” he replied in a tone of such coaxing and significant confidence, as would have been irresistibly laughable had she understood why he used it, “I am alone, Miss Julia, and you needn't be either ashamed or daunted in sayin' whatever you like to me—maybe I could guess what you're goin' to say, but I declare to you, and that my bed may be in heaven, but, say what you will, you'll find me—honor bright—do you understand that, Miss Julia?”
“Well, I think I do, Mogue, and if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have watched your return to-night as I did, or been here to speak to you on the subject you say you—know.”