"
After expressing their grateful thanks, Mrs. Conyers and her daughter
withdrew into the house. Captain Davenant then addressed a few words to
his men.
"The house will not hold you all, lads, and there are only ladies here,
and I am sure you would not wish to disturb and annoy them by crowding
their house. Therefore, I have arranged that you shall take up your
quarters in the outhouses, and that we shall occupy a little cottage on
the grounds. I hope, lads, that, for the honour of the country and the
cause, all will behave as peacefully and quietly as if in our own homes.
It would be a poor excuse that, because William's soldiers are behaving
like wild beasts, we should forget the respect due to lonely women."
A fortnight was spent here pleasantly for all. The first alarm past, Mrs.
Conyers felt safer than she had done for months. Ever since the troubles
had began, she had felt the loneliness of her position as a Protestant,
and she would have, long before, made her way with her daughter to
Dublin, had it not been that she thought that, so long as she continued
in the house, it might be respected by the Catholic peasantry, while,
were she to desert it, it would probably be plundered, perhaps burned to
the ground.
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