It was November, and it had been raining for a week.
The sun had vanished, the hills had vanished, the land had all but
vanished--nothing remained but the wind and the rain, the rain and the
wind.
Effie's short lessons only consumed a couple of hours of each
rain-soaked, wind-blown day. No one ever came to Drumgool except, maybe,
a farmer now and then to see Mr. French; and the long-drawn "hoo-hoo" of
the wind through the Devil's Keyhole, the rattling of windows fighting
with the wind, and the tune of wastepipes emptying into over-full
waterbutts were beginning to prey upon Miss Grimshaw's nerves.
Even Mr. Giveen would have been a distraction these times; but Mr.
Giveen was now at open enmity with his kinsman, and spoiling with all
the bitterness of his petty nature to do him an injury.
And Giveen was not French's only enemy just now. The United Irish League
was against him. He had let farms on the eleven months' system, and he
had let farms for grazing, two high offences in the eyes of the league.
"The time has come to put an end to the big grazing ranches and to plant
the people on the soil," says the league, as though the people were seed
potatoes. "You mustn't take a farm on an eleven-month agreement," goes
on this Areopagus of plunderers and short-sighted patriots. "For,"
continues the league, "if you do, we'll drive the cattle off your land
with hazel sticks, and on you we will commit every dirty outrage that
the black heart of a low-down Irishman can invint, Begob!" And they do.
The law of the league is the law of the west of Ireland. King Edward
does not reign there in the least.
"Come down here," cried Mr. French one morning, standing in the hall and
calling up the stairs, where he had caught the flutter of Miss
Grimshaw's skirt. "Come down here till I show you something you've never
seen before. Come in here."
He led the way into a small room, where he received farmers and tenants,
and there, sitting on a chair, was an old man with a face furrowed like
a ploughed field. His battered old hat was on the floor, and he held in
his hand two cows' tails, and there he sat, purblind, and twisting the
tails in his hands, a living picture of age and poverty and affliction.
"Don't get up, Ryan. Sit you down where you are," said French, "and tell
the young lady what you have in your hands."
"Sure, they're me cows' tails," piped the old fellow, like a child
saying a lesson. "Me beautiful cows' tails, that the blackguards chopped
off wid a knife--divil mend them!--and I lyin' in bed in the grey of the
marnin'. 'Listen,' I says to me wife. 'What ails the crathurs and they
boohooin' like that?' 'Get up an' see,' she says. And up I gets, and
slips on me breeches and coat, and out I goes, and finds thim hangin'
over the rail, dhrippin' wid blood, and they cut off wid a knife. Oh,
the blackguards, to chop their knives into the poor innocent crathurs,
and lave me widout a cow, and the rint comin' due, and me wife sick in
her bed, and all. Sure, what way is that to be thratin' a man just
bekase I niver answered their divil's notice to quit?"
"Cut off his cows' tails?" cried the girl in horror. "Were they alive?"
"Yes," said French. "It's little those ruffians care for an animal--or a
man either."
"Oh, but what a cruel, sneaking thing to do! Why did they do it?"
"Because he would not give up his bit of a farm. And they call
themselves Irishmen; and the worst of the business is, they are. Well,
Ryan, keep your seat, and I'll send you in a drop of whisky. And don't
bother about the rent--I expect the next thing will be they'll visit me.
Faith, and they'll get a warm reception if they do!"
Mr. French left the room, followed by the girl. "That's the sort of
thing that's been the ruin of Ireland," said he, as he pulled the
sitting-room bell for Norah. "Talk of landlords! Good heavens! when was
there ever a landlord would cut a cow's tail off? When was there ever a
landlord would mutilate horses? Did ye ever hear of a landlord firing a
gun through the window of a house where a lonely old woman was and
nearly blow the roof off her skull, all because her son refused to
'strip his farm,' as they call it? And that was done ten miles from here
a month before you came. Norah, get the whisky and give old Ryan a
glassful and a bite to eat. He's sitting in there in the little study,
with his two cow's tails, those blackguards have cut off, in his hand.
Take him into the kitchen and dry him, and let him sit by the fire; and
tell Mrs. Driscoll to give him something for his old wife, for she's
sick in bed.
"Yes, that's what Ireland has come to. A lot of poor, ignorant people
like Ryan, ruled by a syndicate of ruffians, that make their own laws
and don't care a button for the law of God or the law of the land. It's
unbelievable, but there it is. And now they'll be going for me. I've had
several anonymous letters in the last month, threatening boycotting or
worse, if I don't amend my ways. Much I care for them! Look, the rain's
cleared off. I'm going to the meet of the hounds at Drumboyne. Would you
care to drive with me? If you had a riding habit, we might have ridden."
"But I have a riding habit. It's pretty old, but----"
"Up with you and put it on, then," said Mr. French; "and I'll tell
Moriarty to saddle the grey mare for you. She'll be round at the door in
ten minutes."
Twenty minutes later, Miss Grimshaw, in a riding habit and covert coat,
relic of her money-making days with Hardmuth, was accompanying Mr.
French down the drive, she on the grey mare, he on a raw-boned hunter
with a head which had suggestions about it of a fiddle and the devil.
She was a good horsewoman. In London, her only extravagance had been an
early morning canter in the Park on a hired hack. It was for this she
had bought the habit.
They struck the road. It was twenty minutes past nine, and as the meet
was at half-past ten, they had plenty of time.
The clouds had ceased raining, had risen to an immense height, and
there, under the influence of some wind of the upper atmosphere, had
become mackerelled--a grey, peaceful sky, showing here and there through
a rift the faintest tinge of blue.
The air smelt of the rain and the rain-wet earth, and the hills lay
distinct, grey, peaceful, wonderfully clear.
Nowhere else in the world but in Ireland do you get such weather as
this.
Hennessy, the master of the hounds, lived at a place called Barrington
Court, seven miles south of Drumboyne. He was a young man, a bachelor,
and a pretty fast liver; he owned a good bit of land, and, like every
other landowner in the county, was pretty much under the thumb of the
league. But he was, unlike French, a diplomat.
"That's Hennessy," said Mr. French, when the turning of the road
suddenly showed them the long, straggling street of Drumboyne, the
market cross, the hounds, the master and the whips, and about two dozen
horsemen, mounted on all sorts and conditions of nags, all congregated
about the cross. "We're just in time. The first meet of the season, too,
and a grand day for the scent."
Violet Grimshaw, who had never until this seen a meet of the hounds
except in the illustrated papers, looked before her with interest not
unmixed with amusement at the crowd surrounding the cross.
All sorts of rabble had gathered from north, south, east, and west.
Gossoons without a shoe to their feet; chaps from "over beyant the big
bog," in knee-breeches and armed with shillelaghs; dirty little girls
dragging younger sisters by the hand to have a look at the "houn's";
Father Roche, from Cloyne, who had stopped to say a cheery word to
Hennessy; Long Doolan, the rat catcher, in an old red waistcoat; Billy
Sheelan, of the Station Inn, the same who had directed Mr. Dashwood on
his fishing expedition, and who, by popular report, was ruining his
mother and "drinking the inn dry"--all these and a lot more were
chattering and laughing, shouting one to the other, and giving advice to
the whips, when French and his companion, rounding the turn of the road,
made their appearance.
The effect was magical. The talking and the laughing ceased. Men fell
away from one another, and as French rode up to the master, three
farmers who had been talking to him turned their horses so that their
backs were presented to the newcomers.
By the inn door, which was directly opposite the cross, French perceived
Mr. Giveen. Mr. Giveen vanished into the inn, but a moment later his
face appeared at the barroom window, and remained there during all that
followed.
"Well, Hennessy," said the master of Drumgool, appearing to take no
notice of the coldness of his reception, "you've a fine day for the
first meet. Allow me to introduce you to a young lady who is staying
with me. Mr. Hennessy--Miss Grimshaw. And where are you going to draw?"
"Barrington Scrub, I believe," replied Hennessy, saluting the girl.
"Yes, it's not a bad day. Do you intend to follow?"
"No. We'll go to see you draw the scrub, that's all. Why, there's Father
Roche! And how are you to-day? Faith, it's younger you're looking every
time I meet you. And why haven't I seen you at Drumgool these months?"
As he turned to talk to the priest several of the hunt drew close to
Hennessy and spoke to him in a low tone, but so vehemently that Violet,
observing everything, overheard several of their remarks.
"Not a fut does he follow the houn's. What do I care about him? Sure,
Giveen said he swore he'd fling the whole of the Castle French property
into grazing land to spite the league. Listen now, and it's the last
time I'll say it. If he goes, we stay."
"French!" said the master, detaching himself from the group.
"Hullo!" replied Mr. French.
"Just a word with you."
He drew him aside.
"There's a lot of bad blood here. It's not my fault, but you know these
chaps, and they have a down on you, every one of them, and they say if
you follow to the scrub, they'll all stay behind. Now, don't get waxy.
You know it's not my fault, but there it is."
French's eyes blazed.
"Follow you to the scrub!" said he in a loud, ringing voice. "Thank you
for the hint, Dick Hennessy. Follow you with that pack of half-mounted
rat-catchers! I was going to ride to the scrub to see if there was ever
a fox white-livered enough to turn its tail on them, and, sure, if he
did, he couldn't run for laughing. And, talking of tails," said Mr.
French, turning from the master and addressing the market-place, "if the
gentleman who cut off the tails of old Ryan's cows will only step
forward, I'll accommodate him with my opinion of him here and now. And
it's not the whip-end of my hunting-crop I'll do it with, either."
No gentleman present was at all desirous of being accommodated, for
French turned the scale at fourteen stone, all muscle, and he was a
match for any two men present.
He waited a moment. Then he took off his hat to Miss Grimshaw.
"I must apologise to you," he said, "for losing my temper. Let us on to
Cloyne, for this is no place for a lady to be, at all."
He touched the fiddle-headed devil he was riding with the spur, making
him plunge and scatter the ragamuffins who were hanging on the scene
with open mouths, and, cannoning against and nearly unseating one of the
"half-mounted rat-catchers," he took the road to Cloyne, followed by the
girl.
It was the first time he had come in clash with his countrymen; the
storm had been brewing a long time, but it had burst at last. To think
that he, Michael French, in his own county, had been ordered not to
follow the hounds by a herd of dirty-fisted petty farmers was a thought
to make his blood boil. Petty spite, needle-sharp--that was the weapon
the league were using against Michael French by day. In their own
disgusting language, he was a "first offender." Even yet, if he chose to
give in and eat humble pie out of the grimy hands of the men who would
be his masters, he might find forgiveness. If not, boycotting would
follow, and who knows what else?
He knew this, and he knew that he had no hope of help from the law. The
police might arrest his tormenters if they were caught trying to do him
an injury; but the jury, if they were tried, would be pretty sure to let
the offenders slip. And it was a hundred to one they would never be
caught, for these people are trained sneaks; no area sneak is more
soft-footed or cunning than the gentleman with the black cloth mask and
the knife, who comes like a thief in the night to work brutal mutilation
on cattle.
Garryowen was the only thing he was afraid of; but in Moriarty he had a
rock of strength to depend upon.
"Did you see Dick Giveen?" said he, as the girl ranged alongside of him.
"He's had a finger in this pie. Did you see him at the inn window with
his nose to the pane? He knew I'd come to the meet, and he came to see
those chaps get the better of me."
"They didn't get that," said Violet. "They looked like whipped puppies
when you were talking to them. Yes, I'm sure that man has been doing you
injury. I heard one of the farmers say to Mr. Hennessy that Giveen had
said you would do your best to spite the league. I wish I hadn't gone
with him in the boat that day. If I hadn't, this would not have
occurred."
"I don't care for those chaps so much as for Dick Giveen," said he.
"He's a bad man to vex. These fools always are. He'll be on my tracks
now like a stoat trying to do me some dirty trick. He'll watch and wait.
I know him. But if he comes within five miles of Drumgool, I'll put a
bullet in him, or my name's not Michael French."
They rode on through the grey, still day. Now and again a whiff of turf
smoke from a cabin by the way made the air delicious. Over the black bog
pitches and wild, broken land a soft wind had risen, blowing from the
south, and bringing with it the scent of the earth, and far ahead of
them a trace of smoke from the chimneys of Cloyne went up against the
background of hills.
Mr. French and Miss Grimshaw stopped at the Station Inn at Cloyne, and
put the horses up. French ordered some bread and cheese. "And now," said
he, "while they're getting it ready, would you like to see a real old
Irish cabin? I'll take you to see old Mrs. Moriarty down the road, and
you can amuse yourself talking to her for a minute, while I run in and
see Janes, my agent. Mrs. Moriarty is a witch, so they say, but she's
true to the Frenches. She was a kitchen-maid at Drumgool in my
grandfather's time. She believes in fairies and leprechauns, and all
that nonsense. Here we are."
He stopped at the door of a cabin a hundred yards away from the inn and
knocked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he lifted the latch and
opened the door.
"Are you there, Kate?" cried he into the dark interior of the place.
"Sure, and where else would I be?" replied a wheezy voice. "Who are you,
lettin' the draught in on me? Oh! glory be to Heaven! it's Mr. Michael
himself."
"Come in," said French, and the girl followed him into the one room
where Mrs. Moriarty kept herself and her hens--two of them were roosting
on the rafters--and where she was sitting now over a bit of fire, with
her bonnet on to keep the "cowld" from her head, and a short black pipe
between her teeth. It was an appalling place considered as a human
dwelling. The floor was of clay, the window had only one practicable
pane, the rest were broken and stuffed with rags. A heap of rags in the
corner did duty for a bed. By the fire and beside the old lady, who was
sitting on a stool, a bantam hen brooding in the warmth cocked one
bloodshot eye up at the visitors.
"I've brought a young lady to see you, Kate," said Mr. French. "Talk to
her and tell her of the fairies, for I'm going down the road to see Mr.
Janes, and I won't be a minute, and I'll send you a drop of whisky from
the inn to warm your gizzard when I get back."
"Sure, it's welcome she is," said the old woman. "But it isn't a seat I
have to ask her to sit on, and I stuck to this ould stool wid the
rheumatiz in me legs. Get out wid you, Norah," making a dive with a bit
of stick at the bantam, which, taking the hint, fluttered into a corner,
"and make way for the young lady. You'll excuse her, miss; she's the
only one of siven I brought up wid me own hand. Sure, it's not from
anywhere in these parts you've come from?"
She was peering up from under her bonnet at the girl's face, and Violet,
fascinated by that terrible purblind gaze, thought that she had never
seen tragedy written on a human countenance so plainly as on the
stone-like mask which the red glimmer of the turf fire showed up to her
beneath the bonnet of the old woman.
"No," said she; "I come from America."
"Ochone!" cried Mrs. Moriarty. "Sure, it's there me boy Mike went forty
years ago--forty years ago!--and niver a word or a letther from him for
twenty long years. Maybe you never chanced to hear of him, miss? He was
in the bricklayin'. Six-fut-six he stood widout his brogues, and the
lovely red hair on the head of him was curly as a rethraver's back. And,
sure, what am I talkin' about? It's grey he'd be now. Ochone! afther all
thim years!"
"No," said the girl, "I never heard of him; but America is a big place.
Cheer up. You may hear of him yet, and here's something that may bring
you luck!"
She took a shilling from the pocket of her covert coat and put it in the
hand of the old woman, who took it and blessed her, and wrapped it in a
scrap of paper.
"The blessin's of God on you, and may the divil bile his pot wid the
man that desaves you! Oh! sure, it's the face of a shillin' I haven't
seen for more than a twel'month, and I afeared to say a word, for the
guardians do be strugglin' to get me into the House. Half-a-crown a week
and a bandage for me poor leg is all I've had out of the blackgyards,
and they sittin' on the poor wid one hand and fillin' their bellies wid
the other. Atin' and dhrinkin' and havin' the hoight of fine times they
do be wid the money of the parish. May it stick in their livers till the
divil chokes their black mouths with burnin' turves an' bastes them wid
the bilin' tears of the poor they do be defraudin'! And they're all up
against Mr. Michael. Whisht! now, and I'll tell you somethin'. Shusey
Gallagher, she's servant beyant over there at Blood, the farrier's; she
tould me to kape it saycret they was going to play their tricks on Mr.
Michael's horses if he went on lettin' his land to the graziers. She
said they was going to----"
At this moment the cabin door was flung open and a ragged urchin popped
his head in, shouted, "Boo!" and clapped the door to again. It was a
favourite pastime with the Cloyne children to shout through old Mrs.
Moriarty's door, and then watch her raging through the window.
"Away wid yiz!" yelled Mrs. Moriarty, forgetting Violet, Mr. French's
enemies, and everything else in her excitement, turning to the window,
where she knew her tormenter would be, and shaking her fist at the
grinning face peeping in at her. "Away wid yiz, or I'll cut your lights
out, comin' shoutin' through me dure, you divil's baboon, wid your ugly
gob stuck at me window there! Gr-r-r! Out wid you, you baste, you, or
I'll lay you flat so your mother won't know you wid a sod of turf! Off
wid you and ax your father what he meant gettin' such a monkey-faced
parrit and lettin' it loose on the parish widout a chain to it, you
cross-eyed son of a blackgyard, you!"
All of which was better than pearls to the one at the window.
Horrified at the language, and fearing a stroke for Mrs. Moriarty, the
girl ran to the door and opened it, only to see a small gossoon,
bare-legged and bare-footed, vanishing round the corner.
Then she came back, anxious to get out of Mrs. Moriarty more information
concerning the plans against French, but the source had dried up. The
old lady declared herself to be moidhered, and her wits to be all
astray.
"Well, listen to me," said Violet. "If you hear any more of those men
going to harm Mr. French or his horses let me know, and I'll give you a
silver five-shilling piece for yourself."
Mrs. Moriarty understood that.
At this moment the door opened, and Mr. French appeared, and, leaving
the old lady to her pipe and the prospect of a glass of whisky, they
went back to the inn for luncheon.
The hideous, old-fashioned Irish custom of dinner at four o'clock had
been put aside on account of Miss Grimshaw. Seven o'clock was the dinner
hour at Drumgool now, and after dinner that night, Effie having
departed for bed in charge of Norah, Violet, with a ball of red wool and
two long knitting-needles, took her seat at a corner of the fireplace in
the sitting-room. The idea of a red knitted petticoat for old Mrs.
Moriarty had occurred to her on the way home, and she was putting it now
into practice.
French had been rather gloomy on the way home, and at dinner. It was
evident that the incident at the meet had hit him hard. Money worries
could not depress the light-hearted, easy-going gentleman, who had a
soul above money and the small affairs of life. It was the feeling of
enmity against himself that cast him out of spirits for the first time
in years. For the first time in life he felt the presence, and the
influence against him, of the thing we call Fate.
His whole soul, heart, and mind were centred on Garryowen. In Garryowen
he felt he had the instrument which would bring him name and fame and
fortune. It was no fanciful belief. He knew horses profoundly; here was
the thing he had been waiting for all his life, and everything was
conspiring to prevent him using it.
First, there was Lewis and his debt--that was bad enough. Second, was
the fact that he would have to complete the training of the horse in a
hostile country, and that country the Ireland of to-day, a place where
law is not and where petty ruffianism has been cultivated as a fine art.
With Giveen for a spy on his movements, with a hundred scoundrels ready
to do him an injury, and with Lewis only waiting to put out his hand
and seize the horse, he was, it must be admitted, in a pretty bad way to
the attainment of his desires.
But he had a friend, and as long as a man has a friend, however humble,
he is not altogether in the hands of Fate. The girl sitting by the fire,
knitting a red petticoat for old Mrs. Moriarty, had been exercising her
busy mind for the past few days on the seeming hopelessness of the
problem presented to her in French and his affairs. She had inherited a
good deal of her father's business sharpness. She was not the niece of
Simon Gretry for nothing, and a way out of the difficulty had presented
itself before her; at least, she fancied it was a way.
At nine o'clock, after a look round the stables, Mr. French came in,
and, sitting down in the arm-chair opposite the girl, opened the _Irish
Times_ and began to read it, listlessly skimming the columns without
finding anything of interest, moving restlessly in his chair, lighting
his pipe and letting it go out again. Miss Grimshaw, without pausing in
her rapid knitting or dropping a stitch, watched him.
Then she said, "Do you know I've been thinking?"
"What have you been thinking?"
"That I've found a way out of your difficulty about Garryowen."
"And what's that?" asked French, who, since the affair of Effie, had
conceived a deep respect for Miss Grimshaw's cleverness and perspicuity.
"Well, it's this way," said she. "That man Lewis is your
stumbling-block."
"Call him my halter," said the owner of Garryowen, "for if ever a man
had a blind horse in a halter, it's me and him."
"No, I will not call him any such thing. He's only a moneylender. You
owe him the money. Garryowen will belong to him after the third of
April. Well, let him have Garryowen."
"Faith, there's no letting about it."
"Let him have Garryowen, I say, but not until after the race."
"Why--what do you mean?"
"I mean this. Would it not be possible to take Garryowen away from here
secretly? He does not belong to Mr. Lewis yet. Take him away to some
lonely place, train him there, and run him for the race. If he wins, you
will make money, won't you? And if he loses, why, he will belong to Mr.
Lewis."
French rose up and paced the floor.
"That's not a bad idea," said he. "By George! it's good, if we could do
it. Only, could we keep it hid?"
"Does Mr. Lewis know you are running him for the race?"
"No. He doesn't know I've got him, and the debt's not due till a
fortnight before the event. And, by Jove! if he does see my name in the
racing lists, he'll put it down as my cousin, Michael French's--the one
Mr. Dashwood met--for Michael runs horses in England every day in the
week, and his name's as well known as the Monument. Faith! and it's a
bright idea, for I'd get rid of all this crew here at one sweep."
Mr. French went to the door, opened it, and called:
"Norah!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Bring the whisky!"
"But," continued Mr. French, "the only question is where could I take
the horse? Faith! and I have it. Todd Mead--he's a man you've never
heard of--has an old shanty down in Sligo. He uses it for breeding polo
ponies, and there's a hundred square mile of heath that you could train
a dromedary on and not a soul to see. He lives in Dublin, and keeps a
manager there, and he'd give me stabling there, maybe, for nothing, for
he has more room than he wants. It's a big streeling barn of a place."
"You say the debt to Mr. Lewis only comes due a few weeks before the
race?" asked Miss Grimshaw.
"Yes."
"Will he seize your things immediately the debt is due, or might he give
you a few weeks' grace?"
"Not an hour's. I borrowed the money, giving him the house and
live-stock as security, and the bit of land that's unmortgaged, and
he'll clap a man in ten minutes after the clock strikes on the day the
money is due."
"But if you have borrowed the money on the live stock, surely, since
Garryowen is part of the live stock, it would be unlawful to remove
him?"
"Listen to me," said Mr. French. "I borrowed the money before I owned
Garryowen. Sure, the main reason I borrowed it was to buy him. He's not
part of the security."
"Well, then, Mr. Lewis can't touch him."
"Yes, maybe, by law. But how long does it take to prove a thing by law?
Suppose he puts a man in. Well, the man will seize the colt with
everything else; then the lawyers will go to work to prove the colt's
not part of the security and they'll prove it, maybe, about next June
twelvemonth, and by that time two City and Suburbans will have been run,
and Garryowen will be good for nothing but to make glue of. Besides,
these blackguards here may do him an injury. No, the plan is to slip out
by the back door. Major Lawson, an old friend of mine, has a stable at
Epsom. We can bring the colt there two days before the race. I'm
beginning to see clear before me and, faith, it's through your eyes I'm
seeing."
"You are sure Mr. Lewis can't come down on you before April?"
"No. I paid him his half-year's interest last month. I paid him close on
two hundred pounds."
"Well, if you paid him his interest next April, wouldn't he be
satisfied?"
"Of course he'd be satisfied, but how am I to pay it? I tell you, it
will take me every penny I have for the expenses. There's no margin for
paying moneylenders.
"I've made my calculations. By scraping and screwing, with some money
I've hid away, I can just manage to run the colt, pay expenses, and back
him for a thousand--and that's all."
"But, see here. Why not back him for only eight hundred, and pay Mr.
Lewis his two hundred?"
"Now, there you are," said French. "And that shows you haven't grasped
the big thing I'm after. Suppose I pay Lewis his two hundred, and only
back the colt for eight hundred, do you know what that would make me
lose if he starts at, say, a hundred to one, and wins? I'd lose twenty
thousand pounds. It's on the cards that for every hundred pounds I lay
on Garryowen I'll win ten thousand."
"So that, if he wins, and you have the full thousand on him?"
"I'll win a hundred thousand."
"And if he loses?"
"Faith, I'll be stripped as naked as Bryan O'Lynn."
There was a fine sporting flavour in this deal with fortune that pleased
Miss Grimshaw somehow.
"There is one more thing," said she. "Please excuse me for asking you
the question, but if you lose the thousand, it will be all right, I
suppose? I mean, you will be able to meet your liabilities?"
"Sure, you do not take me for a blackleg? Of course, I'll be able to
pay. Isn't it a debt of honour?"
"Good. Then go in and win. Isn't that what the boys say when they are
fighting? I'll help as far as my power will allow me. Will you write to
Mr. Todd--what's his name?"
"No," said Mr. French. "I'll go to Dublin to-morrow and see him."