“Is the 'Lodge' burned down?” said Lanty, whose interest in the inhabitants had a somewhat selfish origin.
“No, they got the fire tinder. I saw a wild-looking devil mount one of the ricks, with a great canvas sail all wetted, and drag it over the burning stack--and before I left the place, the Lodge was quite safe.”
“I'm sorry for it,” said Mary, with a savage determination. “I'm sorry to the heart's core. Luck nor grace never was in the glen, since the first stone of it was laid--nor will be again, till it is a ruin! Why didn't they lay it in ashes, when they were about it?”
“Faith, it seemed to me,” said Talbot, in a low soft voice, “they would have asked nothing better. I never saw such bull-dogs in my life. It was all you could do, Flahault, to call them off.”
“True enough,” replied Jacques, laughing. “They enjoy a _brisée_ like that with all their hearts.”
“The English won't stay long here, after this night,” was Lanty's sage reflection, but one which he did not utter aloud in the present company. And then, in accordance with Jacques' request, he proceeded to explain by what different tenants the Lodge became occupied since his last visit; and that an English baronet and his daughter, with a household of many servants, had replaced Hemsworth and his few domestics. At every stage of the recital, Flahault stopped the narrative, to give him time to laugh. To him the adventure was full of drollery. Even the recollection of his wounded comrade little damped his enjoyment of a scene, which might have been attended by the saddest results; and he chuckled a hundred times over what he suspected the Englishman must feel, on this, his first visit to Ireland. “I could rob the mail to-morrow, for the mere fun of reading his letters to his friends,” said he. “_Mort bleu!_ what a description of Irish rapparrees, five hundred in number, armed with pikes.”
“I wish ye'd gave him the cause to do it,” said Mary, bitterly--“what brings them here? who wants them? or looks for them?”
“You are right, Mary,” said Talbot, mildly. “Ireland for the Irish!”
“Ay, Ireland for the Irish!” repeated Mary and Lanty; and the sentiment was drank with all the honours of a favoured toast.
For some time the party continued to discuss Flahault's story, and calculate on every possible turn the affair might give rise to. All agreeing, finally, on one point, that Sir Marmaduke would scarcely venture to protract his stay in a country, where his visit had been signalized by such a reception. The tone of the conversation seemed little to accord with Captain Jacques' humour, whose convivial temperament found slight pleasure in protracted or argumentative discussions of any kind.