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AN CABRACH MOR till he had to be dived for. Rob on his part was
determined he should not come out until he gave his word that he
would not swear.
"Come! Come!" gasped Sercombe at length, after many attempts to get
out which, the bystanders easily foiled--" you don't mean to drown
me, do you?"
"We mean to drown your bad language. Promise to use no more on this
peat-moss," returned Rob.
"Damn the promise you get from me!" he gasped.
"Men must have patience with a suffering brother!" remarked Bob, and
seated himself, with a few words in Gaelic which drew a hearty laugh
from the men about him, on a heap of turf to watch the unyielding
flounder in the peat-hole, where there was no room to swim. He had
begun to think the man would drown in his contumacy, when his ears
welcomed the despairing words--
"Take me out, and I will promise anything."
He was scarcely able to move till one of the keepers gave him
whisky, but in a few minutes he was crawling homeward after his
host, who, parent of little streams, was doing his best to walk over
rocks and through bogs with the help of Valentine's arm, chattering
rather than muttering something about "proper legal fashion."
In the mean time the chief lay shot in the right arm and chest, but
not dangerously wounded by the scattering lead.
He had lost a good deal of blood, and was faint--a sensation new to
him. The women had done what they could, but that was only binding
his arm, laying him in a dry place, and giving him water. He would
not let them recall the men till the enemy was gone.
When they knew what had happened they were in sad trouble--Rob of
the Angels especially that he had not been quick enough to prevent
the firing of the gun. The chief would have him get the shot out of
his arm with his knife; but Rob, instead, started off at full speed,
running as no man else in the county could run, to fetch the doctor
to the castle.
At the chief's desire, they made a hurried meal, and then resumed
the loading of the carts, preparing one of them for his transport.
When it was half full, they covered the peats with a layer of dry
elastic turf, then made on that a bed of heather, tops uppermost;
and more to please them than that he could not walk, Alister
consented to be laid on this luxurious invalid-carriage, and borne
home over the rough roads like a disabled warrior.
They arrived some time before the doctor.
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