Tom paused for a few moments, if not in his thoughts, at least in the expression of them; for all the above had been uttered aloud. Then, as if they had received a sudden spur which made him start, he muttered with his usual scowl, "No, no; I'll follow it up to the death if necessary. That whelp shall never have it to say that Tom Murdock failed, and perhaps add, where he did not. I'll have her, by fair means if I can; but if not, by them five crosses," and he clasped his hands together, "she shall be mine by foul. Sure it is not possible they are going to meet that whelp this blessed moment!" And he dogged them at so long a distance behind that, even if their conversation had been less interesting, they would not have been aware of his stealthy espionage.

When they turned to return, he turned also, and was then so far before them that, with the bushes and the bends in the road, he could not be perceived. Thus he watched and watched, until, to his great satisfaction, he saw them part company at Kate's house. Winny Cavana, as we have seen, had still some distance to walk ere she reached the lane turning up to her father's; and Kate having gone in and shut the door, Tom strolled on, as if by mere accident, until he met Winny on the road.

Tom was determined to be as mild and as bland, as cordial and good-natured, as possible. He felt there had always been a sort of undefined snappish battle between him and Winny; and he had the honesty of mind, as well as the vanity, to blame his own harsh and abrupt manner for this. Perhaps it arose no less from a consciousness of his personal advantages than from a belief that in his position as an only son, and heir to his father's interest in a rich and profitable farm, he had no great need of those blandishments of expression so generally requisite in making way to a young and unhackneyed heart. He resolved, therefore, upon this occasion to give Winny no cause to accuse him of uncouthness of manner; neither was he inclined to be uncouth when he beheld the glowing beauty of her face, heightened, as he thought, solely by the exercise of her walk; but not a little increased, without his knowledge of the fact, by the new light which had just dawned upon the horizon of her hopes.

Her heart bounced in her bosom as she saw him approach.

"Good morning, Winny," he said, holding out his hand.

"Good morrow kindly, Tom," she replied, wishing to be civil, and taking it. She knew she was "in for it," as she expressed it to herself; but encouraged "by the hope within her springing," and softened by the antic.i.p.ation of its fulfilment, she was determined to be kind but firm.

"Have you been walking far, Winny? Upon my life, it seems to agree with you. It has improved your beauty, Winny, if that was possible."

"Tom, don't flatter me; you're always paying me compliments, and I often told you that I did not like it. Beside, you did not let me answer your question until you begin at your old work. I walked about a mile of the road with Kate Mulvey."

"Kate Mulvey is a complete nice girl. You are not tired, Winny, are you?"

"Ah, then, what would tire me? is it a mile of a walk, and the road under my feet? I could walk to _Boher-na-Milthiogue_ and back this minute."

By this time they had come to the end of the lane turning up to Rathcash House.

"I'm glad to find you are not tired, Winny. You may as well come on toward the cross; I have something to say to you."

"And welcome, Tom; what is it?"

Winny felt that the thing was coming, and she wished to appear as careless and unconscious as possible. When she recollected all Kate Mulvey had said to her, she was just in the humor to have it over.

Upon reflection, too, she was not sorry that it should so happen before the grand pa.s.sage between her and her father upon the same subject. She could the more easily dispose of the case with him, having already disposed of it with Tom himself. She therefore went on, past the end of her own lane; and Tom, taking this for an unequivocal token in his favor, was beginning to get really fond of her--at least he thought so.

"Well, Winny, I'm very glad I happened to meet you, and that you seem inclined to take a walk with me; for to tell you the truth, Winny, I can't help thinking of you."

"Perhaps you don't try, Tom."

"True for you, Winny dear; I wouldn't help thinking of you if I could, and I couldn't if I would."

"Is that the way with you, Tom?"

But Winny did not smile or look at him, as he had hoped she would have done.

"You know it is, Winny dear; but I can keep the truth, in plain English, from you no longer."

"See that now! Ah, then, Tom, I pity you."

And Tom could not tell from her manner, or from the tone of her voice, whether she was in earnest or only joking. He preferred the former.

"Well, Winny Cavana, if you knew how much I love you, you would surely take pity on me, my own _colleen dha.s.s_."

"Faith, Tom, I believe it's in earnest you are, sure enough."

"In earnest! Yes, Winny, by the bright sky over me--and it is not brighter than your own eyes--I am in earnest! It is a long day now since I first took to loving you, though it was only of late you might have picked it out of my looks. Ah, Winny dear, if you hadn't a penny-piece but yourself, I would have spoken to you long ago. But there was a great deal of talk among the neighbors about the joining of them two farms together, and I was afraid you might think--"

"I understand. You were afraid I might think it was my money and the farm you were after, and not myself. Was not that it, Tom?"

"Just so, Winny. But I am indeed in earnest, and for yourself alone, Winny dear; and I'm willing to prove my words by making you my wife, and mistress of all I have coming Shraftide, G.o.d willing." And he took her by the hand.

She withdrew it at once, after a slight struggle, and replied, "Tom Murdock, put such a thing totally out of your head, for it can never be--never, by the same oath you swore just now, and that is the blue heaven above me!" And she turned back toward the lane.

"I cross, Winny. Don't say that. I know that your father and mine would both be willing for the match. As to what your father would do for you, Winny _mavourneen_, I don't care a _boughalawn lui_; for I'm rich enough without a cross of his money or his land. My own father will make over to me by lawful deed, the day you become my wife, his house and furniture, together with the whole of his land and cattle.

Your father, I know, Winny, would do the same for you, for he has but yourself belonging to him; and although your fortune or your land has nothing to say to my love, yet, Winny, dear, between us, if you will consent to my prayer, for it is nothing less, there's few grandees in the country could compare to you,--I'll say nothing for myself, Winny dear, only say the word."

"No, Tom, I'll say no word but what I'm after saying; and you are only making matters worse, talking of grandeur and riches that way. You would only be striving at what you would not be able for, nor allowed to keep up, Tom, and as for myself, I'd look well, wouldn't I? stuck up on a new sidecar, and a drawn bonnet and feathers, coming down the lane of a Sunday, and the neighbors thronging to ma.s.s,--aping my betters, and getting myself and yourself laughed at. Devil a one, Tom, but they'd call you Lord _Boher-na-Milthiogue_. No, Tom; put it out of your head; that is my first and last word to you." And she hastened her step.

"No, Winny, you won't leave me that way, will you? By all the books that were ever shut and opened, you may make what you please of me.

I'll never ask to put yourself or myself a pin's-point beyond what we always were, either in grandeur or anything else. But wouldn't it be a fine thing, Winny dear, to have our children able to hold up their heads with the best in the county, in a manner?"

"Ay, in a manner, indeed. No, Tom; they would never be anything but the Murdocks of Rathcashmore--grandchildren of ould Mick Murdock and ould Ned Cavana, the common farmers."

"And what have you to say against old Mick Murdock?" exclaimed Tom, beginning to feel that his suit was hopeless, and flaming up inwardly in the spirit which was most natural to him.

"Nothing indeed, Tom; you need not be so angry, I meant no offence; I said as much against my own father as against yours, if there was anything against either. But we must soon part now, Tom, and let us part friends at all events, living as we do within a stone's-throw of each other." She held out her hand, but he took it coldly and loosely. He felt that his game was up.

"Take my advice, Tom Murdock"--this was the second time she had found it necessary to overcome her antipathy to p.r.o.nounce the name--"take my advice, and never speak to me again upon the subject. Sure, there's many a fine handsome girl would be glad to listen to you; and I'll now ask you one question before we part. Wouldn't it be better and fitter for you to bestow yourself and your land upon some handsome young girl who has nothing of her own, and was, maybe, well inclined for you, and to rise her up to be independent, than to be striving to force yourself and it upon them that doesn't want your land, and cannot care for yourself? Why don't you look about you? There's many a girl in the parish as handsome, and handsomer, than I am, that would just jump at you."

Winny had no sooner uttered these latter words than she regretted them. She did not wish Tom Murdock to know that she had overheard him.

She was glad however to perceive that, in his anger, he had not recognized them as a quotation from his conversation with his father at the gate.

There was a silence now for a minute or two. Tom's blood was 'up; his hopes of success were over, and he was determined to speak his mind in an opposite direction.

"Have I set you thinking, Tom?" said Winny, half timidly.

"I'm d--d but you have, Winny Cavana; and I'll answer your question with one much like it. And would not it be better and fitter for _you_--of course it would--to bestow yourself and your fortune and your land upon some handsome young fellow that has nothing but his day's wages, and was well inclined for you, and to rise him up out of poverty, than to spoil a good chance for a friend by joining yours to them that has enough without it? Why didn't you follow up your first question with that, Winny Cavana?" And he stopped short, enjoying the evident confusion he had caused.

Winny thought, too, for a few moments in silence. She was considering the probability of Tom Murdock's having overheard her conversation with Kate Mulvey from behind some hedge. But the result of her calculations was that it was impossible.

She was right. It was a mere paraphrase of her own question to him, and only shows how two clever people may hit upon the same idea, and express it in nearly the same language. And the question was prompted by his suspicions in the quarter already intimated.

"Yes, I see how it is," he exclaimed, breaking the silence, and giving way to his ungovernable temper. "But, by the hatred I bear to that whelp, that shall never be, at all events. I'll go to your father this moment, and let him know what's going on--"

"And who do you dare to call 'a whelp,' Tom Murdock? If it be Edward Lennon, let me tell you that his little finger is worth your whole head and heart--body and bones together."

"There, there--she acknowledges it. But I'll put a spoke in that whelp's wheel,--for it was him I called a whelp, since you must know,--see if I don't; so let him look out, that's all."

"I have acknowledged nothing, Tom Murdock. A word beyond common civility never pa.s.sed between Edward Lennon and myself; and take care how you venture to interfere between my father and me. You have got your answer, and I have sworn to it. You have no right to interfere further."

By this time they had reached the end of the lane again; and Winny, with her heart on fire, and her face in a flame, hurried to the house.

Fortunately, her father had not returned from the fields, and rushing to her own room, she locked the door, took off her bonnet and cloak, and "threw herself" (I believe that is the proper expression) upon the bed. Perhaps a sensation novelist would add that she "burst into an agony of tears."