my boys," said Luttrell, loudly enough for all who chose to hear. But though Sarsfield, who had now returned from the window, heard the threat as distinctly as any one, he took no notice. He calmly announced that the business of the assemblage was concluded, and ordered the prisoner to be removed, inviting the officers to remain in the town and dine with him, but with the express addition, that he expected none of them would leave it until the sentence was put in execution! At the same time he gave them all their congé until the hour named for the repast. So many were anxious to avoid the General's scrutiny, that this latter permission was eagerly accepted, and in a few moments the council chamber was almost deserted. Mahony was about to retire with the rest, but Sarsfield made him a sign to remain. "I want to speak with you, Major Mahony !" he said. CHAPTER V. MOLLY MAGUIRE. "Captain MAHONY, if you please, my lord!" corrected that worthy. But Sarsfield quietly reiterated, "No, Major Mahony! I raise you to that rank, in which I have no doubt his Majesty will confirm you, in consideration of your inestimable services in this affair!" And he began pacing up and down the apartment, evidently awaiting, with impatience, the departure of General d'Usson, who lingered as if for some farther explanation. This proved to be the case, for meeting Sarsfield suddenly on one of his turns, "And what do you propose yourself, Milor Lucan, to do with the accomplices in the garrison of this traitre?" he inquired. "Why, who are they, Monsieur d'Usson?" Sarsfield returned, with a startled expression. "There is one woman, certainly," replied the Frenchman; "and I demand of you, Milor Lucan, to leave her to me for her punition, which I undertake shall be of the most exemplary kind." "Why-what-would you hang her! Monsieur d'Usson ?" said Sars field. "Leave all to me! I shall make her repent, I assure you, her infatuation towards this man." "You had much better take her to France with you, Monsieur d'Usson, and set out for it as soon as you think proper," said Sarsfield, with a burst of irrepressible disgust. "I am in a good mind to that purpose, believe me, Milor, only the English ships are come up the river at this moment, I learn, and it is impossible!" said d'Usson. "But am I correct in understanding that you give me my dismission from the town, and refuse me the authority your king and mine confer upon me, both one?" "I refuse to suffer you to meddle with my prisoners, either in love or hate, Monsieur d'Usson," said Sarsfield. "And now draw your own inferences from the circumstance." "I do I will! You shall hear again from me, Milor Lucan!" and the Frenchman flew out of the apartment, evidently in an ecstasy of indignation. Mahony looked rather serious at this quarrel between the generals, but Sarsfield only laughed. "I want him to be angry, and to take himself off of his own accord," he observed, quietly; "and this Briseis of ours would not be a bad occasion for a dispute, as it would not be a very creditable one for him. I'll warrant you, now, he thinks Miss Maguire is cheap enough of hanging for not preferring a monkey to a tiger! But for my part, I deem she has richly deserved the recompense she shall receive, though on other scores. If the trimming she shall get makes Monsieur mad, so much the better; he spoils all we set about with his coxcombry." "What do you propose to do with Miss Mary Maguire, sir?" said Mahony, with evident anxiety. "Not quite hang her, Major, but order her to be drummed out of the town with every circumstance of disgrace and ignominy her conduct merits," replied Sarsfield. Mahony was silent, but his countenance worked ruefully-a circumstance not noticed by the general, who was engaged in another series of ideas. Ginkell's letter remained on the table, and he had now snatched up, and was reperusing the contents with absorbed attention. Mahony, recovering his equilibrium, awaited the result with true military rigidity of expectation. it "Major Mahony," Sarsfield observed at last, "what should you say if in reality all the names put down in this schedule are here with the full traitorous knowledge and consent of their owners?" 66 Faith, sir," the honest soldier replied, "I should say then that our game is as nearly lost as it can be played, without being so quite. But, with your Lordship's permission, I will win my grades by some soldierly service in the field, and not by bringing a rascal whom I hate to punishment. No man shall say I sold the blood of Henry Luttrell ; and though I will part with my own freely as water to merit your Excellency's approbation, now I understand you are a true and faithful Irishman, I shall not prick my ears to the title of major until I have acquired it in a manner more to my taste than making carrion of a rogue like that. Meanwhile," he continued, in a voice that grew broken as he proceeded, "if I have in reality deserved some thanks of your Excellency in this affair, let me beg of you, General, as the only recompense I will accept, to release Miss-Miss-that woman, without public exposure or maltreatment of any sort !" Mahony, you are indeed a generous fellow! Well, I have promised her her life, and for the rest do exactly what you please with her; I make her over to you in full property. But I propose to give you a very speedy opportunity of meriting your new rank, and a much higher one; and with this view, I shall require you to return at once with all speed to your detachment at Quin Abbey, and "Mille tonnerre! Pardon me, my lord; but have I deserved no better than to be sent out of the way of the only stirring business likely to be toward all the rest of the campaign?" exclaimed Mahony, in intense surprise and disappointment. "You are mistaken," Sarsfield replied, with a slight smile; "the true inference to be drawn is, that you are the officer whom I can most trust for the execution of a design I have in view to counteract all these traitorous machinations. For you must learn, my brave comrade, not one of the conspirators whose names are inscribed in this letter, deny it as they may, but has in truth entered into the agreement! Molly, who has very little of the heroine about her, no sooner learned the plot was discovered than she confessed everything, and furnished me with proofs, which I cannot doubt, of the complicity of all these persons." "But if you send me to a distance, sir-to Quin Abbey murmured the staggered Mahony "You will only remain there until I can furnish you privately with a sufficient number of picked and trustworthy men, with whom to return and assist me in placing under arrest, at the head of their corps even, these mutinous and disaffected officers-Clifford at the fords in particular. Then if the French coxcomb will take dudgeon and leave us to ourselves, I doubt not to give as good an account of the second siege of Limerick as, with the help of God and a number of true Irishmen, I was enabled to give of the first." Mahony's eyes sparkled with joy at the announcement of this perilous enterprise, which suited so well the daring activity of his character and ideas. "Ma foi, General, I thank you for the choice you make from the bottom of my heart! There is nothing like a service of difficulty and danger to bring out a man's qualities; and I would as soon be at this work, as sit down to a good dinner when I am hungry!" "It is a service of very delicate management, as well as of courage and enterprise; but I am satisfied, Major Mahony possesses discretion equal to his valour," said Sarsfield, smilingly; and he proceeded to open his plan of counteraction to the intrigues surrounding him, at much greater length and minuteness than it is all necessary for us to follow him in. Such Sarsfield declared, and probably believed, to be his only object; and he is little to be blamed if impatience of the trammels and obstacles long placed on the free exercise of his military talents prompted him to measures which would certainly have resulted in placing a military dictatorship in his hands. Mahony fell into all his notions with the most cordial zeal, and the resolution and capacity he had already displayed gave assurance that he would yield a most efficient support in the project. At the conclusion of a very lengthened interview, altogether devoted to this subject, it was arranged that Major Mahony (so we shall now style him in spite of his own modest renunciation) should set off at once to his quarters at Quin Abbey. And he was taking his departure with some lingering, as if he had yet something on his mind; which, however, was not the suggestion that occurred to Sarsfield-who added an instruction that as soon as young O'Neil arrived, he was to be forwarded at once to Limerick to his care. "I shall have him conveyed to France out of danger's way as speedily as possible," he said; "but be particular, Mahony, that you do not suffer any of his wild horde to accompany him hither. We of the town are already on shortened rations, and both soldiers and citizens abominate these raw-boned marauders too much to behold any increase of their numbers with satisfaction Let me see the boy, then, as speedily as may be, but not a ragamuffin of his following." Mahony promised attention to this request, and was about to leave VOL. III. 2 H the General's presence, when, making an effort to seem accidentally reminded, he stammered out "And your Excellency promises me-Miss Maguire shall go scotfree out of the affair?" "You may guarantee it yourself, Major Mahony," said Sarsfield, laughingly producing a key. "Miss Maguire is in captivity in her own apartment-the late Duke's, you are aware. Go yourself and set her free. I shall be glad to be rid of her; for, upon my honour, I had no sooner promised not to hang her than she began to coquet me!" "I-I had rather anyone else took the commission!" said Mahony, with a feverish flush breaking on his brows. "You do not mean to say you still dread the power of Miss Molly's beaux yeux, as the French caperer would call them, after the manner in which she has behaved to you, and for which you take a revenge that, if she had a touch of womanhood in her, ought to give her a lifelong remorse?" returned Sarsfield; and the satirical sparkle that lighted up in his eye expressed so much, that Mahony was considerably piqued, and resolutely accepting the key "Indeed, no, my Lord Lucan," he said, manfully; "a woman may make a fool of any man once; but if he lets her do it twice, be sure he was ready made to her hand! I'll let any Miss Molly in the world see if Patrick Mahony is made of butter!" And he stalked very stately out of the apartment, endeavouring to convince himself and the General that he was indifferent to the encounter before him, by humming some verses of an old French chanson, as he groped his way down the dark staircases of the Castle "Campagnon marinier, Grande et pleine est la mer : Le flot bat au rivage. Il faut prendre ce bord, Car le vent est trop fort- But the worthy Major's harmonics broke into very unsteady vibrations, as he reached the hall of the Castle, at the farther end of which a sentinel paraded before a massive, iron-nailed oak door, which led, Mahony had been instructed, to a presence than which he would rather have faced the hottest English battery blazing at that moment against the town. But Mahony dared not hesitate under the eye of this witness. He dragged himself on, produced a written authority from Sarsfield, and applying the key to the door with an affectation of official unconcern, he entered the suite of rooms occupied by his frail and inconstant betrothed, during the period of her dishonourable union with the late Lord Deputy Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel. Luckily there was no one in this first chamber, and Mahony strove to compose himself before proceeding farther, wiping the dews from his hot face, and endeavouring to steady his resolution, by calling to mind all his injuries from the young Hibernian Cressida whom he was now to encounter. To his great vexation, however, this retrospect seemed only to add to his flurry, and he was almost ready to retreat and abandon the project altogether, in the dread that he should be betrayed into some exhibition of weakness, when a sound of a well-known, but now lamenting, sobbing voice, came to his hearing from beyond an arras curtain, which secluded the apartment in which he stood from the next. "They'll murder me, Nora dear; never talk, I know they will! The General has only promised not to hang me; but if the rabble get at me-and I don't think he'll do much to prevent them-where'll be the gain? And all for trying to get them out of jeopardy of life and limb, which they're in every hour of the siege-as if it mattered to them, poor wretched devils, whether a man in London is called William or James! But I deserve it all, I own, for cheating poor Mahony; though bad as I've behaved to him, if he knew how wretchedly I am off, he would have done before now all that that skrimmaging Frenchman pretended he would do for me, and hasn't and can't!" "Sure the inimy couldn't treat us worse, Miss Molly," said Nora ; "you don't suppose the English kill the women, too, when they take a town? Do they, Miss? Laste ways, not the good-looking ones?" said Nora, with unaffected earnestness. "I don't know, Nora, but I do know I haven't a friend left in the world, for I was obliged to tell the truth of the whole lot of them, Luttrell and all," sobbed Mistress Maguire. "Oh! if I was but once out of this, as sure as my name's what it is-and a disgrace I am to it, more's my shame, such a true, honest, Irish name as it is!-I'd go into a nunnery, and end my days digging my own grave as I dug my poor father's, the sutler-general's, before, when he took to the whiskey like a madman, all along of my goings on with the old Duke, that's dead too now, sorrow's my heart!" And Molly renewed her lamentations with a vigour which completely carried all poor Mahony's outward defences of wrongs and resentments. He had indeed much ado to restrain himself from joining in the manifestation, as he called out in tones which he meant to sound quite severe and perfunctory, "Hullo! you prisoners, where are you? Here, now, the General has sent you a relase! So put a stop to your babbling and squeaking, and be off with you wherever you like." "Gracious Lord of Mercy! that's Mahony. I told you so!" screamed forth in frantic female accents. The arras burst open, and before the poor Major could foresee, much less avoid the climax, Molly Maguire had rushed through the separating folds, and cast herself, with outstretched arms, upon his neck, shrieking hysterically, "It is, it is, my kind, my brave, my thrue, thrue Mahony !" As, after this ebullition, Molly took the additional precaution of fainting, it was not possible for Mahony to disembarrass himself at once of her perilous propinquity. But nothing could exceed the alarm depicted in the countenance of this tried soldier, on finding himself staggering across the chamber to a couch with the fair burden in his arms, while Nora wept and sobbed, and declared that her poor lady was fairly kilt at last with the grief," and that there was nothing more to do than to "see to get her put dacently under the turf!" 66 An ample allowance of sod would have been necessary for this purpose. Molly was by no means of the type which the degenerate refinement of modern ideas accepts as the standard of female beauty. She |