“I think,” she said smiling, “we will change the subject. It seems to me that you are far too romantic to conduct a young and unprotected damsel on a dangerous journey like this. Your grim Captain Macpherson were a far fitter and more becoming companion--he would not breathe out his aspirations in rhyme, or relieve his love-laden soul in a ballad. Heigho! I shall never understand you men. But now tell me about your journey from Londonderry, and how it came about that you were wounded?”
And thereupon Gervase proceeded to relate the story of his ride by night and the skirmish on the road, passing lightly over such incidents as might be unfitting for a woman´s ear to listen to.
But when he mentioned the name of De Laprade she stopped him. “And you have met my cousin Victor, for it can be no other? I had not heard that he had come to Ireland.”
“I mean the Vicomte de Laprade. He is not much older than myself, with a slight lisp, and very fair for a Frenchman.”
“Yes, that is he. You do not know that he is in some sort my cousin, my mother having been of his family. He was in London when I was a girl living with my aunt, and he would come to visit us whenever he could tear himself away from the cards and the festivities of Whitehall. Poor Victor! he was a sad rake in those days, and I fear he would never have come to Ireland had he not run through his fortune.”
“He hinted, indeed, at something of that sort,” said Gervase, “but he is a gallant fellow, and one cannot but like him. He hath done a great deal for me.”
“It would be strange should we meet here, yet who can tell? For it is as likely we shall find ourselves within the Irish camp as within the walls of Londonderry. I wonder in what manner we should be treated there?”
“Camps are ever lawless places,” Gervase answered, “and offer little entertainment for a lady. I trust that you will not be called upon to make the trial. But Macpherson is calling upon us to stop; we have already travelled too far in advance.”
The road now ran through a wooded and undulating country, and they were coming close to the ford by which they hoped to cross. At times they had been able to catch a distant glimpse of the river bright with the fading sunset, but so far as Gervase was able to see, there was no sign of the enemy, and he had begun to hope that they might pass unmolested.