Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/262

242 an eye that was cheerful too. “To dhrop that sov’rin to the very bottom of their well; an’ it’s we will dhrop it, too, if you plase.”

Tom held out his hand.

“I’ve offended you, Peggy. God knows I didn’t mean to; but I’m capable of all that’s brutal to-night; you see what they’ve made of me already! Forgive me, Peggy. I’ll never forgive them. I’ll be even with every one of them, curse them! curse them! and then I’ll swing as I should have done a year ago. I’m sorry I didn’t keep that pound—to give it him back for his coffin!”

It was terrible to hear him; his voice was very low, and full of fresh tears that made it all sound worse. Peggy asked him what he meant to do.

He meant to die, but not of the lash—the rope; he meant to hang as he should have hung the year before. If only he had! If only he had! But at last he recognised the fate reserved for him by a Providence he blasphemed, so now he would meet it half-way. He was sorry he had not done so long ago. He was sorry he had not driven a knife through Nat in the very beginning; but it was never too late to kill and die; it was only too late to die with a whole skin; and again his sobs and blasphemies were horrible to hear. Yet Peggy listened patiently, and gradually soothed him with a tender, tolerant, womanly word here and there; so that at last he looked at her through his tears (for he was utterly unmanned) and asked her, out of pure curiosity, what he had done to make such an enemy of Mr. Nat.

Peggy resumed her cheerful manner.

“An’ don’t ye know?” said she, masking a trembling lip with a smile. “Is it no notion ye have at all?”