"Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have
three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster.
Clontarf, some Hock?"
The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The
coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks--rosy
and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures.
A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us
uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was
crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed
face with the sweat of mortal fear.
It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and
spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him--
"We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their Tinchell cows the game:
They come as fleet as forest deer;
We'll drive them back as tame."
Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of
Ralph quoting poetry--of that grim Saul among the prophets.
I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child,
and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an
enormous extent, and in Mohun still more.
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