"Why the devil did none of you stop the brute?" he stormed at the little group, now standing on the bank, looking down upon the prostrate mare, while he tried to steady his plunging horse in order to mount.

"It's no good for you, sir!" called John Kearney to him; "he's away back of the house, ye'll never get him!"

"Don't go, Larry," said Christian, who was kneeling by Nancy, caressing her and murmuring endearments. "I'm afraid she's badly hurt."

The mare was lying still. Michael Donovan, who had bred her, slipped his hand under her, and drew it out, red with blood.

"Go after him, if ye like, the b.l.o.o.d.y ruffian!" he said, furiously, "but the mare will never rise from this! Oh, my lovely little mare!"

"What do you mean?" Larry let his horse go, and flung himself on his knees beside Donovan. Christian, colourless continued to try and soothe Nancy, who lay without moving, though her frightened eye turned from one to another, and her ears twitched.

"Staked she is!" roared Donovan; "that's what I mean! Look at what's coming from her!"

He broke into a torrent of crude statements, made, if possible, more horrible by curses.

Larry struck him on the mouth with his open hand.

"Shut your mouth! Remember the lady!"

Michael Donovan took the blow as a dog might take it, and without more resentment.

Christian quickly put her hand on his shoulder.

"Don't mind, Michael. Let me see what has happened to her--"

Nancy's eye rolled back at Christian, as she stooped over her, leaning on Donovan. Already, a dark pool was forming beside her.

"You couldn't see where the branch bet her, Miss," said Donovan, quieted by Christian's touch, "but there's what done it!" He pointed to the sharp, jagged end of one of the branches, red with blood.

"The Vet--" said Christian, trying to think, speaking steadily.

"Couldn't someone fetch Mr. Ca.s.sidy?"

"No good, my dear," said old Kearney, wagging his head; "No good at all! There's no medicine for her now but what'll come out of a gun!"

Christian looked up into the faces of the little knot of men round her.

"Is that true?" she said, watching them.

And all the time a voice in her mind said to her that it was true.

"G.o.d knows I wouldn't wish it for the best money ever I handled," said one man, and looked aside from her eyes.

Another shook his head, and muttered something about the Will o' G.o.d.

A third said it was the sharp end of the branch that played hammock with her; he lost a cow once himself the same way. Old Kearney summed up for the group.

"There is no doubt in it, Miss Christian, my dear child--"

Christian leaned hard on Larry's shoulder as she rose to her feet.

"I'm going to get Carmody's gun," she said, beginning to walk away.

"He had one. I saw it. I don't suppose he'll mind lending it to me."

CHAPTER XXIV

There are illnesses that take possession of their victims slowly and quietly, with an imperceptible start, and a gradual crescendo of envelopment; others there are, that strike, sudden as a hawk, or a bullet. And this is true also of that other illness, the fever of the mind and heart that is called Love. An old song says, and says, for the most part, truly,

"I attempt from Love's sickness to fly in vain."

Larry Coppinger did not attempt to fly, even though he knew as precisely the moment when the fever struck him, as did Peter's wife's mother when her fever left her. Perhaps he might then have tried to escape; he knew it was too late now. That fatal rapturous moment had been when he saw Christian setting forth, a lonely, piteous figure, to fetch Carmody's gun. He had followed her, and his entreaties to her to let him deal with the matter had prevailed. She had turned back, and kneeling down again, kissed the white star on Nancy's forehead, murmuring something to her that Larry could not hear. He had put her saddle on his own horse; when he mounted her, she had stooped down from the tall horse's back, and had whispered: "'That thou hast to do, do quickly.'" He went over it all in his mind; that was all she had said, and he had not seen her since.

On that afternoon as he moved about the room he had chosen for his studio, and unpacked the monster cases he had brought from Paris, he remembered how, long ago, Mrs. Twomey had laughed at him when he told her he was never going to marry.

"Wait awhile!"' mocked Mrs. Twomey, "one day it'll sthrike ye all in the minute--the same as a pairson'd get a st.i.tch when they'd be leaning-over a churn!"

Well, it had so struck him, and struck him hard, and he was reeling from the blow.

Her courage, oh G.o.d! her courage! How she had ridden that little mad devil of a mare! There wasn't a man out who would have got her over that big country as she had! And then, when that cur had done his dirty work and bolted, was there a whimper or a cry from her? She had faced the music; she had started off to get the gun herself. He knew, just a little, just dimly, he told himself humbly, what the sight of suffering was to her, and she had stood up to it. She, with her pa.s.sion for animals; she, with her tender, tender heart! Larry, who believed himself to be profoundly introspective, did not know that it was his own flawless physical courage, finding and recognising its fellow in Christian, that had first lit the flame. He thought it was her face, with its delicate charm, its faint, elusive loveliness, that had felled him, laid him low, devastated him. He pleased himself in reiterating his overthrow, in enumerating its causes, while he banged bundles of canvases on to the floor, and pitched clattering sketching-easels and stools into corners, and covered tables and chairs with the myriad colour-boxes, sketch-books, palettes of every shape and variety, brushes, bottles, all the snares that the ingenious _marchand a couleurs_ spreads in the sight of the bird, and into which the bird, especially if he be, like Larry, a rich amateur, cheerfully hops. He hardly was aware of what he was doing, his hot thoughts raced in his brain. It seemed to him now to have been years ago that he saw her, in the grey light, riding towards him on Nancy.

She had said that he might paint her; that was all that he had thought of then. Much had happened since then; the supreme thing had happened since then! Nothing else really mattered, he thought, sitting down on the edge of a half-empty packing case, and lighting a cigarette, not even the shooting of Nancy. He would give her a dozen Nancys if she wanted them! The first and most important thing in the world was to see her again; and he had to arrange how, and when, and where he should paint her. Obviously he must at once proceed to Mount Music.

There is a saying among Larry's countrymen: "If a man want a thing he _mus'_ have it!" Fortune had, so far, been kind to Larry, and those things that he had wanted sufficiently, he had had. It now remained to be proved if the rule were to have an exception.

"I'm going over to Mount Music just now," he said to Frederica at tea time. "I want to see them all. Will you come, Aunt Freddy?"

Aunt Freddy looked perturbed.

"You haven't seen Cousin d.i.c.k yet, have you?"

"No. How could I? He wasn't out. I've seen no one yet but Christian."

His voice lingered on the beloved name, beloved, consciously, since so few hours.

But Aunt Freddy was not apt to perceive fine shades, and she was, moreover, occupied with the framing of a warning.

"You know that Cousin d.i.c.k is a good deal changed since you saw him?"

she began. "He had a sort of heart attack about a year ago--Dr. Mangan was with him, luckily. They have to try and keep him very quiet, and the worst of it is that so little puts him out."

"Well, I shan't put him out, shall I?" said Larry, confidently, beginning on a third slice of cake, love not having, so far, impaired his appet.i.te.

"He was fearfully put out about your selling to the tenants. He said young Mangan had no right to advise you to sell so low. He told me that even Dr. Mangan was quite against his doing so."

Miss Coppinger regarded her nephew with anxiety. After four years of absence, one never knew exactly how much a young man might not have changed. That little, upturned, golden moustache might not by any means be the whole of it. The ice barrier had been forgotten in the excitement of his return, but even though she understood--and tried not to feel that the fact had its mitigations--that all young men in France were atheists, that other fact remained, that next Sunday, when she started for Knock Ceoil church, Larry, if he went anywhere, would go to the white chapel on the hill. Aunt Freddy was afraid of no one where she believed herself to be right (and the Spirit of the Nation had long since a.s.sured her of this in matters of religion); least of all was she afraid of "a brat of a boy," whom, as she boasted, she had often whipped soundly when he deserved it. But, unfortunately, the brat had her heart in his hands, and her heart was softer than Aunt Freddy knew; and this gave the brat an unfair advantage.

"Then you know, Larry," she continued, her eyes showing what her firm mouth did not admit; "you know, my dear boy, it was rather--well, rather a shock to us to see in the papers your name proposed as the Nationalist candidate here. It upset d.i.c.k very much, and, I must say,"

she added, unflinchingly, "me too!"