“No, no, Kenn! I promise you there shall be no compulsion,” cried the old Lord. Then to O’Sullivan in a stern whisper, “Let be, you blundering Irish man! You’re setting him against us.”
Balmerino was right. Every moment I grew colder and stiffer. If they wanted me for a recruit they were going about it the wrong way. I would not be frightened into joining them.
“Like the rest of us y’ are a ruined man. Come, better your fortune. Duty and pleasure jump together. James Montagu’s son is not afraid to take a chance,” urged the Scotch Lord.
Donald Roy’s eyes had fastened on me from the first like the grip-of steel. He had neither moved nor spoken, but I knew that he was weighing me in the balance.
“I suppose you will not be exactly in love with the wamey Dutchmen, Mr. Montagu?” he asked now.
I smiled. “If you put it that way I don’t care one jack straw for the whole clamjamfry of them.”
“I was thinking so. They are a different race from the Stuarts.”
“They are indeed,” I acquiesced dryly. Then the devil of mischief stirred in me to plague him. “There’s all the difference of bad and a vast deal worse between them. It’s a matter of comparisons,” I concluded easily.
“You are pleased to be facetious,” returned O’Sullivan sourly. “But I would ask you to remember that you are not yet out of the woods, Mr. Montagu. My Lord seems satisfied, but here are some more of us waiting a plain answer to this riddle.”
“And what may the riddle be?” I asked.