A Fair Emigrant, Chapter XXXII-XXXIV [pp. 359-384]

A FAIR EMIGRANT.
"That is a different thing, Peggy. That puts it in quite
another light. And oh! how glad I should be to go. But how
will you get me out of this, Peggy? O my God! Shall I really
go out into the sunshine again?"
"No doubt of it," said Bawn triumphantly, and she stood up
and looked at Peggy for a hint as to how to proceed, while the
weird invalid stretched out her lean arms towards them from
under cover of her hideous canopy.
"Go down now, miss," whispered Peggy; "away and hide
among the trees, and I'll get Mr. Edmund coaxed to come and
help me down wid her. You an' me couldn't be sure of not lettin' her fall. If he doesn't see you he'll do it. When we have
her in the car I'll call ye."
Bawn obeyed, having first helped to wrap Miss Adare up in
the comfortable clothing she had brought, and slipped away and
left Peggy to manage the rest.
She went across the sward, away under the great spreading
trees, and hid herself behind the trunk of one of the giant
beeches. "I shall be within earshot here," she thought, "and
shall neither see nor be seen." Scarcely had she taken up her
position, however, when she saw and was seen by one person
whom she had not expected-Rory Fingall, who was approaching
from the direction of the old garden.
"Miss Ingram!" he said, coming quickly near and standing
before her.
"Hush!" she said. "Stand well behind the tree, or you will
spoil everything."
"What do you mean? What are you doing here, if I may
venture to ask?"
"Kidnapping."
"Kidnapping what? Crows, owls, rats? Have you set snares
anywhere?" looking round.
"I am kidnapping Mave Adare. Hush! it is a deep-laid plot.
She thinks I am taking her for a drive only, but I mean to carry
her off to Shanganagh and keep her."
"You are a strange girl."
"Am I? So strange that I do not like waiting calmly to see
a broken roof drop down upon a fellow-creature. I ought to
have been born in a place like Ireland, in order to be able to take
such things philosophically. In America we have no such roofs
and no suffering humanity mouldering away under them unheeded. My'American audacity'-I think that is what I heard
a lady call it —has prompted me to make a riid upon this ruin
I887.]
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