“The queen is not very likely to ask the nature of the service.  Unless it be something that concerns herself, she asks but few questions, and signs readily enough the documents laid before her.  If she asks what are the offences for which she grants her pardon, I shall say, when but a boy you were maliciously sent abroad to join the Irish Brigade by your uncle, who wished thus to rid himself of you altogether, and who had foully wronged you by withholding your name, from you and all others.  I shall also add that you have distinguished yourself much, and have gained the friendship of her half brother, the Duke of Berwick; and you know that the queen, in her heart of hearts, would rather that her brother, whom you Jacobites call James the Third, should succeed her than the Elector of Hanover, for whom she has no love.”

“I thank you greatly, indeed, my lord.  Never was a man so amply rewarded for merely holding his tongue.”

“It was not only that, sir.  It was your conduct in general to me.  You might have left me tied up in that house, to be found in the morning, and to be made the jest of the town; instead of which, you yourself conducted and guarded me hither, and so contrived it that no whisper spread abroad that I had been carried off between Saint James’s and my own house.  You trusted to my honour, in not causing a pursuit of you to be set on foot, and behaved in all ways as a gallant young gentleman, and certainly gained my high esteem, both for the daring and ingenuity with which you carried out your plans for obtaining a passage to France, and for your personal conduct towards myself.

“Where are you lodging?”

“At the Eagle, hard by the Abbey.”

“Remain there, until you hear from me.  Do not be impatient.  I must choose my time, when either the queen is in a good temper, or is in such a hurry to get rid of me, in order to plot and gossip with Mistress Harley, who is now her prime favourite, that she is ready to sign any document I may lay before her.”

Feeling that his cause was as good as won, Gerald returned in high spirits to his inn, where he delighted Mike by relating how the great minister had promised to forward his suit.

“Ah, your honour, it will be a grand day when you take possession of Kilkargan—­bonfires and rejoicing of all sorts, and lashings of drink.  Won’t all the boys in the barony be glad to be free from the traitor, and to have the true heir come to be their master.  None the less glad will be my sister.”

“You must fetch her from Cork, Mike.  It is owing to her that I am alive, and it will be owing to her if I recover the estate.  She shall have the place of honour on the occasion, though all the gentry in the neighbourhood are there.  When I tell them what she has done for me, they will say that she well deserves the honour!”

“And you will go no more to the wars, Captain O’Carroll?”