backed away from me, still holding the gardener's blunderbuss.
"O sir," she cried in a beautiful agitation, "I beg of you to leave at once. Oh, please!"
But here I saw it was necessary to treat the subject in a bold Irish way.
"I 'll not leave, Lady Mary," I answered. "I was brought here by force, and only force can make me withdraw."
A glimmer of a smile came to her face, and she raised the blunderbuss, pointing it full at my breast. The mouth was still the width of a water-jug, and in the fair inexperienced hands of Lady Mary it was like to go off at any moment and blow a hole in me as big as a platter.
"Charming mistress," said I, "shoot!"
For answer she suddenly flung the weapon to the grass, and, burying her face in her hands, began to weep. "I 'm afraid it 's l-l-loaded," she sobbed out.
In an instant I was upon my knees at her side and had taken her hand. Her fingers resisted little, but she turned away her head.
"Lady Mary," said I softly, "I 'm a poor devil of an Irish adventurer, but—I love you! I love you so that if I was dead you could bid me rise! I am a worthless fellow; I have no money, and my estate you can hardly see for the mortgages and trouble upon it; I am no fine suitor, but I love you more than them all; I do, upon my life!"
"Here approaches Strammers in quest of his blunderbuss," she answered calmly. "Perhaps we had better give it to him."
