“But mind, Walter, there is to be no fighting.  If they come tonight, I had rather that they took everything, than that you should risk your life in its defence.  The silver and valuables we took across before are all safe in Limerick.  As for the other things, they can go.  Now, mind, we shall not leave unless we have your promise that, if a band of these men come tonight to sack the place, you and your men will offer no resistance.”

“If they come in numbers which render successful resistance out of the question, I promise you that we will not draw a trigger, Mrs. Conyers.”

“In that case I am satisfied, Walter.  Against you and your men these peasants have no quarrel.”

Walter at once called Larry.

“Larry, get my horse saddled, and tell Browning to saddle his.  Place two pillions behind the saddles.  Mrs. Conyers and her daughter are going to ride into Limerick at once.”

“The Lord be praised!” Larry said piously.  “That’s the best news I have heard this many a day.”

“And, Larry,” Mrs. Conyers said, “tell the three boys in the stable to saddle the three best horses, and ride with us.  If we lose everything else, we may as well retain them, for it would not be easy to buy others now.”

In ten minutes, all was ready for a start.  Walter and the trooper took their places in the saddles, chairs were brought out, and Mrs. Conyers and Claire mounted behind them.  Walter had asked Mrs. Conyers to take her seat on the pillion on his horse, but she did not answer, and when Walter turned to see that she was comfortably placed behind him, he found that it was Claire who was seated there.

“Mamma told me to,” the girl said.  “I suppose she thought this was, perhaps, the last ride we should take together.”

“For the present, Claire—­you should say, for the present.  I hope it will not be long before we are together again.

“And for good,” he added, in a low voice.

Mrs. Conyers made no comment, when they dismounted and entered the house of a friend at Limerick, upon Claire’s swollen eyes and flushed cheeks, but said “goodbye” lightly to Walter, thanked him for his escort, and said that she hoped to see him, with her household goods, on the following afternoon.

On leaving them, Walter went straight to the house where an officer of his acquaintance was quartered.

“Hullo, Davenant!  I didn’t expect to see you here at this time of the evening.  I heard you were still laid up with your wound.”

“That is an old affair now,” Walter said.  “I am not quite strong again, but there is little the matter now.  I have come in to ask you if you will let me have five-and-twenty of your men.  I have strong reason to believe that it is likely one of the bands of rapparees will make an attack on Mrs. Conyers’ house tonight.  The tenants have been asked to send in their waggons, tomorrow, to remove some of the furniture in here, and I think it probable they will try to take what they fancy, before it starts.  I have brought Mrs. Conyers and her daughter into the town, but, as I have only four men, I cannot defend the house if it is attacked in any force.  I wish you would let me have five-and-twenty men, and a sergeant, just for tonight.  I will march them in with the baggage in the afternoon.”