When Dyck Calhoun waked, he was in the hands of the king’s constables, arrested for the murder of Erris Boyne. It was hard to protest his innocence, for the landlord was ready to swear concerning a quarrel he had seen when he opened the door for a moment. Dyck, with sudden caution, only said he would make all clear at the trial.
Dublin and Ireland were shocked and thrilled; England imagined she had come upon one of the most violent episodes of Irish history. One journal protested that it was not possible to believe in Dyck Calhoun’s guilt; that his outward habits were known to all, and were above suspicion, although he had collogued—though never secretly, so far as the world knew—with some of the advanced revolutionary spirits. None of the loyal papers seemed aware of Erris Boyne’s treachery; and while none spoke of him with approval, all condemned his ugly death.
Driven through the streets of Dublin in a jaunting-car between two of the king’s police, Dyck was a mark for abuse by tongue, but was here and there cheered by partizans of the ultra-loyal group to which his father adhered. The effect of his potations was still upon him, and his mind was bemused. He remembered the quarrel, Boyne’s explanation, and the subsequent drinking, but he could recall nothing further. He was sure the wine had been drugged, but he realized that Swinton, the landlord, would have made away with any signs of foul play, as he was himself an agent of active disloyalty and a friend of Erris Boyne. Dyck could not believe he had killed Boyne; yet Boyne had been found with a wound in his heart, and his own naked sword lying beside him on the table. The trouble was he could not absolutely swear innocence of the crime.
The situation was not eased by his stay in jail. It began with a revelation terribly repugnant to him. He had not long been lodged in the cell when there came a visit from Michael Clones, who stretched out his hands in an agony of humiliation.
“Ah, you didn’t do it—you didn’t do it, sir!” he cried. “I’m sure you never killed him. It wasn’t your way. He was for doing you harm if he could. An evil man he was, as all the world knows. But there’s one thing that’ll be worse than anything else to you. You never knew it, and I never knew it till an hour ago. Did you know who Erris Boyne was? Well, I’ll tell you. He was the father of Miss Sheila Llyn. He was divorced by Mrs. Llyn many years ago, for having to do with other women. She took to her maiden name, and he married again.
“Good God! Good God!” Dyck Calhoun made a gesture of horror. “He Sheila Llyn’s father! Good God!”
Suddenly a passion of remorse roused him out of his semi-stupefaction.
“Michael, Michael!” he said, his voice hoarse, broken. “Don’t say such a thing! Are you sure?” Michael nodded.
“I’m sure. I got it from one that’s known Erris Boyne and his first wife and girl—one that was a servant to them both in past days. He’s been down to Limerick to see Mrs. Llyn and the beautiful daughter. I met him an hour ago, and he told me. He told me more. He told me Mrs. Llyn spoke to him of your friendship with Erris Boyne, and how she meant to tell you who and what he was. She said her daughter didn’t even know her father’s name. She had been kept in ignorance.”
Dyck seated himself on the rough bed of the cell, and stared at Michael, his hands between his knees, his eyes perturbed.
“Michael,” he said at last, “if it’s true—what you’ve told me—I don’t see my way. Every step in front of me is black. To tell the whole truth is to bring fresh shame upon Mrs. Llyn and her daughter, and not to tell the whole truth is to take away my one chance of getting out of this trouble. I see that!”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir, but I’ll tell you this—none that knows you would believe you’d murder Erris Boyne or anny other man.”
Dyck wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“I suppose you speak the truth, Michael, but it isn’t people who’ve known me that’ll try me; and I can’t tell all.”
“Why not, if it’ll help you?”
“I can’t—of course I can’t. It would be disgrace eternal.”
“Why? Tell me why, sir!”
Dyck looked closely, firmly, at the old servant and friend. Should he tell the truth—that Boyne had tried to induce him to sell himself to the French, to invoke his aid against the English government, to share in treason? If he could have told it to anybody, he would have done so to Michael; but if it was true that in his drunken blindness he had killed Boyne, he would not seek to escape by proving Boyne a traitor.
He believed Boyne was a servant of the French; but unless the facts came out in the trial, they should not have sure origin in himself. He would not add to his crime in killing the father of the only girl who had ever touched his heart, the shame of proving that father to be one who should have been shot as a traitor.
He had courage and daring, but not sufficient to carry him through that dark chapter. He would not try to save himself by turning public opinion against Erris Boyne. The man had been killed by some one, perhaps—and the thing ached in his heart—by himself; but that was no reason why the man’s death should not be full punishment for all the wrong he had done.
Dyck had a foolish strain in him, after all. Romance was his deadly foe; it made him do a stupid, if chivalrous, thing. Meanwhile he would warn the government at once about the projected French naval raid.
“Michael,” said Dyck, rising again, “see my father, but you’re not to say I didn’t kill Boyne, for, to tell the truth, I don’t know. My head”—he put his hand to it with a gesture of despair—“my head’s a mass of contradictions. It seems a thousand years since I entered that tavern! I can’t get myself level with all that’s happened. That Erris Boyne should be the father of the sweet girl at Limerick shakes me. Don’t you see what it means? If I killed him, it spoils everything—everything. If I didn’t kill him, I can only help myself by blackening still more the life of one who gave being to—”
“Aye, to a young queen!” interrupted Michael.
“God knows, there’s none like her in Ireland, or in any other country at all!”
Suddenly Dyck regained his composure; and it was the composure of one who had opened the door of hell and had realized that in time—perhaps not far off—he also would dwell in the infernal place.
“Michael, I have no money, but I’m my father’s heir. My father will not see me starve in prison, nor want for defence, though my attitude shall be ‘no defence.’ So bring me decent food and some clothes, and send to me here Will McCormick, the lawyer. He’s as able a man as there is in Dublin. Listen, Michael, you’re not to speak of Mrs. Llyn and Miss Llyn as related to Erris Boyne. What will come of what you and I know and don’t know, Heaven only has knowledge; but I’ll see it through. I’ve spoiled as good chances as ever a young man had that wants to make his way; but drink and cards, Michael, and the flare of this damned life at the centre—it got hold of me. It muddled, drowned the best that was in me. It’s the witch’s kitchen, is Dublin. Ireland’s the only place in the world where they make saints of criminals and pray to them; where they lose track of time and think they’re in eternity; where emotion is saturnine logic and death is the touchstone of life. Michael, I don’t see any way to safety. Those fellows down at the tavern were friends of Erris Boyne. They’re against me. They’ll hang me if they can!”
“I don’t believe they can do it, master. Dublin and Ireland think more of you than they did of Erris Boyne. There’s nothing behind you except the wildness of youth—nothing at all. If anny one had said to me at Playmore that you’d do the things you’ve done with drink and cards since you come to Dublin, I’d have swore they were liars. Yet when all’s said and done, I’d give my last drop of blood as guarantee you didn’t kill Erris Boyne!”
Dyck smiled. “You’ve a lot of faith in me, Michael—but I’ll tell you this—I never was so thirsty in my life. My mouth’s like a red-hot iron. Send me some water. Give the warder sixpence, if you’ve got it, and send me some water. Then go to Will McCormick, and after that to my father.”
Michael shook his head dolefully.
“Mr. McCormick’s aisy—oh, aisy enough,” he said. “He’ll lep up at the idea of defendin’ you, but I’m not takin’ pleasure in goin’ to Miles Calhoun, for he’s a hard man these days. Aw, Mr. Dyck, he’s had a lot of trouble. Things has been goin’ wrong with Playmore. ‘Pon honour, I don’t know whether anny of it’ll last as long as Miles Calhoun lasts. There’ll be little left for you, Mr. Dyck. That’s what troubles me. I tell you it’d break my heart if that place should be lost to your father and you. I was born on it. I’d give the best years of the life that’s left me to make sure the old house could stay in the hands of the Calhouns. I say to you that while I live all I am is yours, fair and foul, good and bad.” He touched his breast with his right hand. “In here is the soul of Ireland that leps up for the things that matter. There’s a song—but never mind about a song; this is no place for songs. It’s a prison-house, and you’re a prisoner charged—”
“Not charged yet, not charged,” interrupted Dyck; “but suspected of and arrested for a crime. I’ll fight—before God, I’ll fight to the last! Good-bye, Michael; bring me food and clothes, and send me cold water at once.”
When the door closed softly behind Michael Clones, Dyck sat down on the bed where many a criminal patriot had lain. He looked round the small room, bare, unfurnished, severe-terribly severe; he looked at the blank walls and the barred window, high up; he looked at the floor—it was discoloured and damp. He reached out and touched it with his hand. He looked at the solitary chair, the basin and pail, and he shuddered.
“How awful—how awful!” he murmured. “But if it was her father, and if I killed him”—his head sank low—“if I killed her father!”
“Water, sir.”
He looked up. It was the guard with a tin of water and a dipper.
The girl’s fine eyes shone with feeling—with protest, indignation, anguish. As she spoke, she thrust her head forward with the vigour of a passionate counsel. Sheila Llyn was a champion who would fight to the last gasp for any cause she loved.
A few moments before, she had found her mother, horror-stricken, gazing at a newspaper paragraph sent from Dublin.
Sheila at once thought this to be the cause of her mother’s agitation, and she reached out a hand for it. Her mother hesitated, then handed the clipping to her. Fortunately it contained no statement save the bare facts connected with the killing of Erris Boyne, and no reference to the earlier life of the dead man. It said no more than that Dyck Calhoun must take his trial at the sessions.
It also stated that Dyck, though he pleaded “not guilty,” declared frankly, through Will McCormick, the lawyer, that he had no memory of aught that happened after he had drunk wine given him by Erris Boyne. He said that he and Boyne had quarrelled, but had become reconciled again, and that the drink was a pledge of their understanding. From the time he had taken the drink until he waked in the hands of the king’s constables, he had no memory; but he was sure he had not killed Boyne. The fact that there was no blood on his sword was evidence. Nevertheless, he had been committed for trial.
Mrs. Llyn was sorely troubled. She knew of her daughter’s interest in Dyck Calhoun, and of Dyck’s regard for Sheila. She had even looked forward to marriage, and she wished for Sheila no better fate, because nearly all she knew of Dyck was to his credit. She was unaware that his life in Dublin had been dissipated.
If Dyck was guilty—though she could not believe it—there would be an end of romance between him and Sheila, and their friendship must be severed for ever. Her daughter did not know that Erris Boyne was her father, and she must not know—in any case not yet; but if Dyck was condemned, it was almost sure he would be hanged.
She wondered about Boyne’s widow, whose name did not appear in the paragraph she had seen. She knew that Noreen was beautiful, but that he had married far beneath him socially. She had imagined Erris Boyne living in suburban quiet, not drawing his wife into his social scheme.
That is what had happened. The woman had lived apart from the daily experiences of her husband’s life in Dublin; and it had deepened her bitterness against him. When she had learned that Erris Boyne was no more faithful to her than he had been to his previous wife, she had gone mad; and Dyck Calhoun was paying the price of her madness.
Mrs. Llyn did not know this. She was a woman of distinguished bearing, though small, with a wan, sad look in her eyes always, but with a cheerful smile. She was not poor, but well-to-do, and it was not necessary to deny herself or her daughter ordinary comforts, and even many of the luxuries of life.
Her hair was darker than her daughter’s, black and wavy, with here and there streaks of grey. These, however, only added dignity to a head beautifully balanced, finely moulded, and, in the language of the day, most genteelly hung. She was slender, buoyant in movement yet composed, and her voice was like her daughter’s, clear, gentle, thrilling.
Her mind and heart were given up to Sheila and Sheila’s future. That was why a knowledge of the tragedy that had come to Dyck Calhoun troubled her as she had not been troubled since the day she first learned of Erris Boyne’s infidelity to herself.
“Let us go to Dublin, mother,” said Sheila with a determined air, after reading the clipping.
“Why, my dear?”
The woman’s eyes, with their long lashes, looked searchingly into her daughter’s face. She felt, as the years went on, that Sheila had gifts granted to few. She realized that the girl had resources which would make her a governing influence in whatever sphere of life she should be set. Quietly, Sheila was taking control of their movements, and indeed of her own daily life. The girl had a dominating skill which came in part from herself, and also to a degree from her father; but her disposition was not her father’s-it was her mother’s.
Mrs. Llyn had never known Sheila to lie or twist the truth in all her days. No one was more obedient to wise argument; and her mother had a feeling that now, perhaps, the time had come when they two must have a struggle for mastery. There was every reason why they should not go to Dublin. There Sheila might discover that Erris Boyne was her father, and might learn the story of her mother’s life.
Sheila had been told by her mother that her father had passed away abroad when she was a little child. She had never seen her father’s picture, and her mother had given her the impression that their last days together had not been happy. She had always felt that it was better not to inquire too closely into her father’s life.
The years had gone on and then had come the happy visit to Loyland Towers, where she had met Dyck Calhoun. Her life at that moment had been free from troublesome emotions; but since the time she had met Dyck at the top of the hill, a new set of feelings worked in her.
She was as bonny a lass as ever the old world produced—lithe, with a body like that of a boy, strong and pleasant of face, with a haunting beauty in the eyes, a majesty of the neck and chin, and a carriage which had made Michael Clones call her a queen.
She saw Dyck only as, a happy, wild son of the hilltop. To her he was a man of mettle and worth, and irresponsible because he had been given no responsibility. He was a country gentleman of Ireland, with all the interest and peril of the life of a country gentleman.
“Yes, we ought to go to Dublin, mother. We could help him, perhaps,” Sheila insisted.
The mother shook her head mournfully.
“My child, we could do him no good at all—none whatever. Besides, I can’t afford to visit Dublin now. It’s an expensive journey, and the repairs we’ve been doing here have run me close.”
A look of indignation, almost of scorn, came into the girl’s face.
“Well, if I were being tried for my life, as Dyck Calhoun is going to be, and if I knew that friends of mine were standing off because of a few pounds, shillings, and pence, I think I’d be a real murderer!”
The mother took her daughter’s hand. She found it cold.
“My dear,” she said, clasping it gently, “you never saw him but three times, and I’ve never seen him but twice except in the distance; but I would do anything in my power to help him, if I could, for I like him. The thing for us to do—”
“Yes, I know—sit here, twist our thumbs, and do nothing!”
“What more could we do if we went to Dublin, except listen to gossip, read the papers and be jarred every moment? My dear, our best place is here. If the spending of money could be of any use to him, I’d spend it—indeed I would; but since it can’t be of any use, we must stay in our own home. Of one thing I’m sure—if Dyck Calhoun killed Erris Boyne, Boyne deserved it. Of one thing I’m certain beyond all else—it was no murder. Mr. Calhoun wasn’t a man to murder any one. I don’t believe”—her voice became passionate—“he murdered, and I don’t believe he will be hanged.”
The girl looked at her mother with surprise. “Oh, dearest, dearest!” she said. “I believe you do care for him. Is it because he has no mother, and you have no son.”
“It may be so, beloved.”
Sheila swept her arms around her mother’s neck and drew the fine head to her breast.
At that moment they heard the clatter of hoofs, and presently they saw a horse and rider pass the window.
“It’s a government messenger, mother,” Sheila said.
As Sheila said, it was a government messenger, bearing a packet to Mrs. Llyn—a letter from her brother in America, whom she had not seen for many years.
The brother, Bryan Llyn, had gone out there as a young man before the Revolutionary War. He had prospered, taking sides against England in the war, and become a man of importance in the schemes of the new republican government. Only occasionally had letters come from him to his sister, and for nearly eleven years she had not had a single word from him.
When she opened the packet now, she felt it would help to solve—she knew not how—the trouble between herself and her daughter. The letter had been sent to a firm in Dublin with which Bryan Llyn had done business, with instructions that it should be forwarded to his sister. It had reached the hands of a government official, who was a brother of a member of the firm, and he had used the government messenger, who was going upon other business to Limerick, to forward it with a friendly covering note, which ended with the words:
The recent tragedy you have no doubt seen in the papers must haveshocked you; but to those who know the inside the end wasinevitable, though there are many who do not think Calhoun isguilty. I am one of them. Nevertheless, it will go hard with him,as the evidence is strong against him. He comes from your part ofthe country, and you will be concerned, of course.
Sheila watched her mother reading, and saw that great emotion possessed her, though the girl could not know the cause. Presently, however, Mrs. Llyn, who had read the letter from her brother, made a joyful exclamation.
“What is it, mother dear?” Sheila asked eagerly. “Tell me!”
The mother made a passionate gesture of astonishment and joy; then she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, with the letter—which was closely written, in old-fashioned punctiliousness—in her hands.
“Oh, my dear, my dear!” she said. “How strange it all is! Your Uncle Bryan is immensely rich. He has no children and no family; his health is failing.”
She seemed able to get no further.
“Well, what is it, mother?” asked Sheila again.
For an instant Mrs. Llyn hesitated; then she put the letter into Sheila’s hands.
“Read it, my child,” she said. “It’s for you as much as for me—indeed, more for you than for me.” Sheila took the letter. It ran as follows:
DEAREST SISTER:It is eleven years since I wrote to you, and yet, though it may seemstrange, there have not been eleven days in all that time in which Ihave not wished you and Sheila were here. Sheila—why, she is ayoung woman! She’s about the age you were when I left Ireland, andyou were one of the most beautiful and charming creatures God evergave life to. The last picture I have of you was a drawing madesoon after your marriage—sad, bad, unhappy incident. I have keptit by me always. It warms my heart in winter; it cools my eyes insummer.My estate is neither North nor South, but farther South than North.In a sense it is always summer, but winter on my place would be likesummer in Norway—just bitingly fresh, happily alert. I’m writingin the summer now. I look out of the window and see hundreds ofacres of cotton-fields, with hundreds upon hundreds of negroes atwork. I hear the songs they sing, faint echoes of them, even as Iwrite. Yes, my black folk do sing, because they are well treated.Not that we haven’t our troubles here. You can’t administerthousands of acres, control hundreds of slaves, and run an estatelike a piece of clockwork without creaks in the machinery. I’vebuilt it all up out of next to nothing. I landed in this countrywith my little fortune of two thousand pounds. This estate is worthat least a quarter of a million now. I’ve an estate in Jamaica,too. I took it for a debt. What it’ll be worth in another twentyyears I don’t know. I shan’t be here to see. I’m not the man I wasphysically, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing to youto-day. I’ve often wished to write and say what I’m going to saynow; but I’ve held back, because I wanted you to finish your girl’seducation before I said itWhat I say is this: I want you and Sheila to come here to me, tomake my home your home, to take control of my household, and to letme see faces I love about me as the shadows enfold me.Like your married life, mine was unsuccessful, but not for the samereason. The woman I married did not understand—probably could notunderstand. She gave me no children. We are born this way, orthat. To understand is pain and joy in one; to misconceive is toscatter broken glass for bare feet. Yet when I laid her away, a fewyears ago, I had terrible pangs of regret, which must come to theheart that has striven in vain. I did my best; I tried to make herunderstand, but she never did. I used at first to feel angry; thenI became patient. But I waked up again, and went smiling along,active, vigorous, getting pleasure out of the infinitely smallthings, and happy in perfecting my organization.This place, which I have called Moira, is to be yours—or, rather,Sheila’s. So, in any case, you will want to come and see the home Ihave made this old colonial mansion, with its Corinthian pillars andverandah, high steps, hard-wood floors polished like a pan, everyroom hung in dimity and chintz, and the smell of fruit and flowerseverywhere. You will want to see it all, and you’ll want to livehere.There’s little rain here, so it’s not like Ireland, and the green isnot so green; but the flowers are marvellously bright, and the birdssing almost as well as they sing in Ireland, though there’s no lark.Strange it is, but true, the only things that draw me back toIreland in my soul are you, and Sheila, whom I’ve never seen, andthe lark singing as he rises until he becomes a grey-blue speck, andthen vanishing in the sky.Well, you and the lark have sung in my heart these many days, andnow you must come to me, because I need you. I have placed to yourcredit in the Bank of Ireland a thousand pounds. That will be themeans of bringing you here—you and Sheila—to my door, to Moira.Let nothing save death prevent your coming. As far as Sheila’s eyecan see-north, south, east, and west—the land will be hers when I’mgone. Dearest sister, sell all things that are yours, and come tome. You’ll not forget Ireland here. Whoever has breathed her aircan never forget the hills and dells, the valleys and bogs, themountains, with their mists of rain, the wild girls, with their bareankles, their red petticoats, and their beautiful, reckless air.None who has ever breathed the air of Ireland can breathe in anotherland without memory of the ancient harp of Ireland. But it is as amemory-deep, wonderful, and abiding, yet a memory. I sometimesthink I have forgotten, and then I hear coming through this Virginiathe notes of some old Irish melody, the song of some wayfarer ofMayo or Connemara, and I know then that Ireland is persuasive andperpetual; but only as a memory, because it speaks in every pulseand beats in every nerve.Oh, believe me, I speak of what I know! I have been away fromIreland for a long time, and I’m never going back, but I’ll bringIreland to me. Come here, colleen, come to Virginia. Write to me,on the day you get this letter, that you’re coming soon. Let it besoon, because I feel the cords binding me to my beloved fieldsgrowing thinner. They’ll soon crack, but, please God, they won’tcrack before you come here.Now with my love to you and Sheila I stretch out my hand to you.Take it. All that it is has worked for is yours; all that it wantsis you.Your loving brother,BRYAN.
As Sheila read, the tears started from her eyes; and at last she could read no longer, so her mother took the letter and read the rest of it aloud. When she had finished, there was silence—a long warm silence; then, at last, Mrs. Llyn rose to her feet.
“Sheila, when shall we go?”
With frightened eyes Sheila sprang up.
“I said we must go to Dublin!” she murmured.
“Yes, we will go to Dublin, Sheila, but it will be on our way to Uncle Bryan’s home.”
Sheila caught her mother’s hands.
“Mother,” she said, after a moment of hesitation, “I must obey you.”
“It is the one way, my child-the one thing to do. Some one in prison calls—perhaps; some one far away who loves you, and needs us, calls—that we know. Tell me, am I not right? I ask you, where shall we go?”
“To Virginia, mother.”
The girl’s head dropped, and her eyes filled with tears.
In vain Dyck’s lawyer, Will McCormick, urged him to deny absolutely the killing of Erris Boyne. Dyck would not do so. He had, however, immediately on being jailed, written to the government, telling of the projected invasion of Ireland by the French fleet, and saying that it had come to him from a sure source. The government had at once taken action.
Regarding the death of Boyne, the only thing in his favour was that his own sword-point was free from stain. His lawyer made the utmost of this, but to no avail. The impression in the court was that both men had been drinking; that they had quarrelled, and that without a duel being fought Dyck had killed his enemy.
That there had been no duel was clear from the fact that Erris Boyne’s sword was undrawn. The charge, however, on the instigation of the Attorney-General, who was grateful for the information about France, had been changed from murder to manslaughter; though it seemed clear that Boyne had been ruthlessly killed by a man whom he had befriended.
On one of the days of the trial, Dyck’s father, bowed, morose, and obstinate, came to see him. That Dyck and Boyne had quarrelled had been stated in evidence by the landlord, Swinton, and Dyck had admitted it. Miles Calhoun was bent upon finding what the story of the quarrel was; for his own lawyer had told him that Dyck’s refusal to give the cause of the dispute would affect the jury adversely, and might bring him imprisonment for life. After the formalities of their meeting, Miles Calhoun said:
“My son, things are black, but they’re not so black they can’t be brightened. If you killed Erris Boyne, he deserved it. He was a bad man, as the world knows. That isn’t the point. Now, there’s only one kind of quarrel that warrants non-disclosure.”
“You mean about a woman?” remarked Dyck coldly.
The old man took a pinch of snuff nervously. “That’s what I mean. Boyne was older than you, and perhaps you cut him out with a woman.”
A wry smile wrinkled the corners of Dyck’s mouth. “You mean his wife?” he asked with irony. “Wife—no!” retorted the old man. “Damn it, no! He wasn’t the man to remain true to his wife.”
“So I understand,” remarked Dyck; “but I don’t know his wife. I never saw her, except at the trial, and I was so sorry for her I ceased to be sorry for my self. She had a beautiful, strange, isolated face.”
“But that wouldn’t influence Boyne,” was the reply. “His first wife had a beautiful and interesting face, but it didn’t hold him. He went marauding elsewhere, and she divorced him by act of parliament. I don’t think you knew it, but his first wife was one of your acquaintances—Mrs. Llyn, whose daughter you saw just before we left Playmore. He wasn’t particular where he made love—a barmaid or a housekeeper, it was all the same to him.”
“I hope the daughter doesn’t know that Erris Boyne was her father,” said Dyck.
“There’s plenty can tell her, and she’ll hear it sooner or later.”
Miles Calhoun looked at his son with dejection.
His eyes wandered over the grimly furnished cell. His nose smelled the damp of it, and suddenly the whole soul of him burst forth.
“You don’t give yourself a chance of escape, Dyck You know what Irish juries are. Why don’t you tell the truth about the quarrel? What’s the good of keeping your mouth shut, when there’s many that would profit by your telling it?”
“Who would profit?” asked Dyck.
“Who would profit!” snarled the old man. “Well, you would profit first, for it might break the dark chain of circumstantial evidence. Also, your father would profit. I’d be saved shame, perhaps; I’d get relief from this disgrace. Oh, man, think of others beside yourself!
“Think of others!” said Dyck, and a queer smile lighted his haggard face. “I’d save myself if I honourably could.”
“The law must prove you guilty,” the old man went on. “It’s not for you to prove yourself innocent. They haven’t proved you guilty yet.”
The old man fumbled with a waistcoat button. His eyes blinked hard.
“You don’t see,” he continued, “the one thing that’s plain to my eyes, and it’s this—that your only chance of escape is to tell the truth about the quarrel. If the truth were told, whatever it is, I believe it would be to your credit—I’ll say that for you. If it was to your credit, even if they believe you guilty of killing Erris Boyne, they’d touch you lightly. Ah, in the name of the mother you loved, I ask you to tell the truth about that quarrel! Give it into the hands of the jury, and let them decide. Haven’t you got a heart in you? In the name of God—”
“Don’t speak to me like that,” interrupted Dyck, with emotion. “I’ve thought of all those things. I hold my peace because—because I hold my peace. To speak would be to hurt some one I love with all my soul.”
“And you won’t speak to save me—your father—because you don’t love me with all your soul! Is that it?” asked Miles Calhoun.
“It’s different—it’s different.”
“Ah, it’s a woman!”
“Never mind what it is. I will not tell. There are things more shameful than death.”
“Yes,” snarled the other. “Rather than save yourself, you bring dishonour upon him who gave you birth.”
Dyck’s face was submerged in colour.
“Father,” said he, “on my honour I wouldn’t hurt you if I could help it, but I’ll not tell the world of the quarrel between that man and myself. My silence may hurt you, but some one else would be hurt far more if I told.”
“By God, I think you’re some mad dreamer slipped out of the ancient fold! Do you know where you are? You’re in jail. If you’re found guilty, you’ll be sent to prison at least for the years that’ll spoil the making of your life; and you do it because you think you’ll spare somebody. Well, I ask you to spare me. I don’t want the man that’s going to inherit my name, when my time comes, to bring foulness on it. We’ve been a rough race, we Calhouns; we’ve done mad, bad things, perhaps, but none has shamed us before the world—none but you.”
“I have never shamed you, Miles Calhoun,” replied his son sharply. “As the ancients said, ‘alis volat propriis’—I will fly with my own wings. Come weal, come woe, come dark, come light, I have fixed my mind, and nothing shall change it. You loved my mother better than the rest of the world. You would have thought it no shame to have said so to your own father. Well, I say it to you—I’ll stand by what my conscience and my soul have dictated to me. You call me a dreamer. Let it be so. I’m Irish; I’m a Celt. I’ve drunk deep of all that Ireland means. All that’s behind me is my own, back to the shadowy kings of Ireland, who lost life and gave it because they believed in what they did. So will I. If I’m to walk the hills no more on the estate where you are master, let it be so. I have no fear; I want no favour. If it is to be prison, then it shall be prison. If it is to be shame, then let it be shame. These are days when men must suffer if they make mistakes. Well, I will suffer, fearlessly if helplessly, but I will not break the oath which I have taken. And so I will not do it—never—never—never!”
He picked up the cloak which the old man had dropped on the floor, and handed it to him.
“There is no good in staying longer. I must go into court again to-morrow. I have to think how my lawyer shall answer the evidence given.”
“But of one thing have you thought?” asked his father. “You will not tell the cause of the quarrel, for the reason that you might hurt somebody. If you don’t tell the cause, and you are condemned, won’t that hurt somebody even more?”
For a moment Dyck stood silent, absorbed. His face looked pinched, his whole appearance shrivelled. Then, with deliberation, he said:
“This is not a matter of expediency, but of principle. My heart tells me what to do, and my heart has always been right.”
There was silence for a long time. At last the old man drew the cloak about his shoulders and turned towards the door.
“Wait a minute, father,” said Dyck. “Don’t go like that. You’d better not come and see me again. If I’m condemned, go back to Playmore; if I’m set free, go back to Playmore. That’s the place for you to be. You’ve got your own troubles there.”
“And you—if you’re acquitted?”
“If I’m acquitted, I’ll take to the high seas—till I’m cured.”
A moment later, without further words, Dyck was alone. He heard the door clang.
He sat for some time on the edge of his bed, buried in dejection. Presently, however, the door opened. “A letter for you, sir,” said the jailer.
The light of the cell was dim, but Dyck managed to read the letter without great difficulty, for the writing was almost as precise as print. The sight of it caught his heart like a warm hand and pressed it. This was the substance of the letter:
MY DEAR FRIEND:I have wanted to visit you in prison, but my mother has forbiddenit, and so, even if I could be let to enter, I must not disobey her.I have not read the papers giving an account of your trial. I onlyknow you are charged with killing a bad man, notorious in Dublinlife, and that many think he got his just deserts in being killed.I saw Christopher Dogan only a week ago, before we came to Dublin.His eyes, as he talked of you, shone like the secret hill-fireswhere the peasants make illegal drink.“Look you,” he said to me, “I care not what a jury decides. I knowmy man; and I also know that if the fellow Boyne died by his hand,it was in fair fight. I have read Dyck Calhoun’s story in thestars; and I know what his end will be. It will be fair, not foul;good, not bad; great, not low. Tell him that from me, miss,” waswhat he said.I also will not believe that your fate is an evil one, that the lawwill grind you between the millstones of guilt and dishonour; but ifthe law should call you guilty, I still will not believe. Far awayI will think of you, and believe in you, dear, masterful, madmanfriend. Yes, you are a madman, for Michael Clones told me—faith,he loves you well!—that you’ve been living a gay life in Dublinsince you came here, and that the man you are accused of killingwas in great part the cause of it.I think I never saw my mother so troubled in spirit as she is atthis time. Of course, she could not feel as I do about you. Itisn’t that which makes her sad and haggard; it is that we areleaving Ireland behind.Yes, she and I are saying good-bye to Ireland. That’s why I thinkshe might have let me see you before we went; but since it must notbe, well, then, it must not. But we shall meet again. In my soulI know that on the hills somewhere far off, as on the first day wemet, we shall meet each other once more. Where are we going? Oh,very far! We are going to my Uncle Bryan—Bryan Llyn, in Virginia.A letter has come from him urging us to make our home with him. Yousee, my friend—
Then followed the story which Bryan Llyn had told her mother and herself, and she wrote of her mother’s decision to go out to the new, great home which her uncle had made among the cotton-fields of the South. When she had finished that part of the tale, she went on as follows:
We shall know your fate only through the letters that will followus, but I will not believe in your bad luck. Listen to me—whydon’t you come to America also? Oh, think it over! Don’t believethe worst will come. When they release you from prison, innocentand acquitted, cross the ocean and set up your tent under the Starsand Stripes. Think of it! Nearly all those men in America whofought under Washington and won were born in these islands. Theytook with them to that far land the memory and love of these oldhomes. You and I would have fought for England and with the Britishtroops, because we detest revolution. Here, in Ireland, we haveseen its evils; and yet if we had fought for the Union Jack beyondthe mountains of Maine and in the lonely woods, we should, Ibelieve, in the end have said that the freedom fought for by theAmerican States was well won.So keep this matter in your mind, for my mother and I will soon begone. She would not let me come to you,—I think I have never seenher so disturbed as when I asked her, and she forbade me to write toyou; but I disobey her. Well, this is a sad business. I know mymother has suffered. I know her married life was unhappy, and thather husband—my father-died many a year ago, leaving a dark trail ofregret behind him; but, you see, I never knew my father. That wasall long ago, and it is a hundred times best forgotten.Our ship sails for Virginia in three days, and I must go. I willkeep looking back to the prison where lies, charged with an evilcrime, of which he is not guilty, a young man for whom I shallalways carry the spirit of good friendship.Do not believe all will not go well. Let us keep the courage ofour hearts and the faith of our souls—and I hope I always shall!I believe in you, and, believing, I say good-bye. I say farewell inthe great hope that somehow, somewhere, we shall help each other onthe way of life. God be with you!I am your friend,SHEILA LLYN.P. S.—I beg you to remember that America is a good place for ayoung man to live in and succeed.
Dyck read the letter with a wonderful slowness. He realized that by happy accident—it could be nothing else—Mrs. Llyn had been able to keep from her daughter the fact that the man who had been killed in the tavern by the river was her father. It was clear that the girl was kept much to herself, read no newspapers, and saw few people, and that those whom she saw had been careful to hold their peace about her close relationship to Erris Boyne. None but the evil-minded would recall the fact to her.
Sheila’s ignorance must not be broken by himself. He had done the right thing—he had held his peace for the girl’s sake, and he would hold it to the end. Slowly he folded up the letter, pressed it to his lips, and put it in the pocket over his heart.