While the incidents of the foregoing chapters were taking place, the gentleman whose ownership shaped the destinies of many of the agitators of St. Kernan's Hill, was confronting almost as difficult a problem as O'Connell was facing on the mount.
Whilst O'Connell was pleading for the right of Ireland to govern herself, Mr. Nathaniel Kingsnorth was endeavouring to understand how to manage so unwieldy and so troublesome an estate.
The death of his father placed a somewhat extensive—and so far entirely unprofitable—portion of the village in his care. His late father had complained all his life of the depreciation of values; the growing reluctance to pay rents; and the general dying-out of the worth of an estate that had passed into the hands of a Kingsnorth many generations before in the ordinary course of business, for notes that had not been taken up, and mortgages that had been foreclosed.
It was the open boast of the old gentleman that he had never seen the village, and it was one of his dying gratifications that he would never have to.
He had all the racial antipathy of a certain type of Englishmen to anything IRISH. The word itself was unpleasant to his ears. He never heard it without a shudder, and his intimates, at his request, refrained from using it in his presence. The word represented to him all that was unsavoury, unpatriotic and unprincipled.
One phrase of his, in speaking of Ireland at a banquet, achieved the dignity of being printed in all the great London daily papers and was followed by a splenetic attack in the "Irish Nation." Both incidents pleased the old gentleman beyond measure. It was an unfailing source of gratification to him that he had coined the historical utterance. He quoted it with a grim chuckle on the few occasions when some guest, unfamiliar with his prejudice, would mention in his presence the hated word "Ireland."
It appears that one particularly hard winter, when, for some unnecessary and wholly unwarrantable reason, the potato crop had failed, and the little Irish village was in a condition of desperate distress, it was found impossible to collect more than a tithe of Mr. Kingsnorth's just dues. No persuasion could make the obstinate tenants pay their rents. Threats, law-proceedings, evictions—all were useless. They simply would not pay. His agent finally admitted himself beaten. Mr. Kingsnorth must wait for better times.
Furious at his diminished income and hating, with a bitter hatred, the disloyal and cheating tenantry, he rose at a Guildhall banquet to reply to the toast of "The Colonies."
He drew vivid pictures of the splendour of the British possessions: of India—that golden and loyal Empire; Australia with its hidden mines of wealth, whose soil had scarce been scratched, peopled by patriotic, zealous and toiling millions, honestly paying their way through life by the sweat of their God-and-Queen-fearing brows. What an example to the world! A country where the wage-earner hurried, with eager footsteps, to place the honestly earned tolls at the feet of generous and trusting landlords!
Then, on the other hand, he pointed to that small portion of the British Isles, where to pay rent was a crime: where landlords were but targets for insult and vituperation—yes, and indeed for BULLETS from the hidden assassin whenever they were indiscreet enough to visit a country where laws existed but that they might be broken, and crime stalked fearlessly through the land. Such a condition was a reproach to the English government.
"Why," he asked the astonished gathering of dignitaries, "why should such a condition exist when three hundred and sixty-five men sat in the House of Commons, sent there by electors to administer the just and wise laws of a just and wise country? Why?"
As he paused and glared around the table for the reply that was not forthcoming, the undying phrase sprang new-born from his lips:
"Oh," he cried; "oh! that for one brief hour Providence would immerse that island of discontent beneath the waters of the Atlantic and destroy a people who seemed bent on destroying themselves and on disintegrating the majesty and dignity and honour of our great Empire!"
Feeling that no words of his could follow so marvellous a climax, he sat down, amid a silence that seemed to him to be fraught with eloquence, so impressive and significant was—to him—its full meaning. Some speeches are cheered vulgarly. It was the outward sign of coarse approval. Others are enjoyed and sympathised with inwardly, and the outward tribute to which was silence—and that was the tribute of that particular Guildhall gathering on that great night.
It seemed to Wilberforce Kingsnorth, hardened after-dinner speaker though he was, that never had a body of men such as he confronted and who met his gaze by dropping their eyes modestly to their glasses, been so genuinely thrilled by so original, so comprehensive and so dramatic a conclusion to a powerful appeal.
Kingsnorth felt, as he sat down, that it was indeed a red-letter night for him—and for England.
The Times, in reviewing the speeches the following morning, significantly commented that:
"Mr. Kingsnorth had solved, in a moment of entreaty, to a hitherto indifferent Providence, the entire Irish difficulty."
When Nathaniel Kingsnorth found himself the fortunate possessor of this tract of land peopled by so lawless a race, he determined to see for himself what the conditions really were, so for the first time since they owned a portion of it, a Kingsnorth set foot on Irish soil.
Accompanied by his two sisters he arrived quietly some few weeks before and addressed himself at once to the task of understanding the people and the circumstances in which they lived.
On this particular afternoon he was occupied with his agent, going systematically through the details of the management of the estate.
It was indeed a discouraging prospect. Such a condition of pauperism seemed incredible in a village within a few hours of his own England. Except for a few moderately thriving tradesmen, the whole population seemed to live from hand to mouth. The entire village was in debt. They owed the landlords, the tradesmen, they even owed each other money and goods. It seemed to be a community cut off from the rest of the world, in which nothing from the outside ever entered. No money was ever put into the village. On the contrary there was a continuous withdrawal. By present standards a day would come when the last coin would depart and the favoured spot would be as independent of money as many of the poorer people were of clothing.
It came as a shock to Nathaniel Kingsnorth. For the first time it began to dawn on him that, after all, the agitators might really have some cause to agitate: that their attitude was not one of merely fighting for the sake of the fight. Yet a lingering suspicion, borne of his early training, and his father's doctrines about Ireland, that Pat was really a scheming, dishonest fellow, obtruded itself on his mind, even as he became more than half convinced of the little village's desperate plight.
Nathaniel loathed injustice. As the magistrate of his county he punished dishonesty. Was the condition he saw due to English injustice or Irish dishonesty? That was the problem that he was endeavouring to solve.
"There doesn't seem to be a sixpence circulating through the whole place," he remarked to the agent when that gentleman had concluded his statement of the position of matters.
"And there never will be, until some one puts money into the village instead of taking it out of it," said the agent.
"You refer to the land-owners?"
"I do. And it's many's the time I wrote your father them same words."
"It is surely not unnatural for owners to expect to be paid for the use of houses and land, is it? We expect it in England," said Kingsnorth drily.
"In England the landlord usually lives on his estate and takes some pride in it."
"Small pride anyone could take in such an estate as this," Kingsnorth laughed bitterly. Then he went on: "And as for living on it—," and he shrugged his shoulders in disgust. "Before the Kingsnorths came into possession the MacMahons lived on it, and proud the people were of them and they of the people, sir."
"I wish to God they'd continued to," said Kingsnorth wrathfully.
"They beggared themselves for the people—that's what they did, sir. Improvements here—a road there. A quarry cut to give men work and a breakwater built to keep the sea from washing away the poor fishermen's homes. And when famine came not a penny rent asked—and their women-kind feedin' and nursin' the starvin' and the sick. An' all the time raisin' money to do it. A mortgage on this and a note of hand for that—until the whole place was plastered with debt. Then out they were turned."
The agent moved away and looked out across the well-trimmed lawn to conceal his emotion.
"Ill-timed charity and business principles scarcely go together, my good Burke," said Kingsnorth, with ill-concealed impatience. He did not like this man's tone. It suggested a glorification of the former BANKRUPT landlord and a lack of appreciation of the present SOLVENT one.
"So the English think," Burke answered.
Kingsnorth went on: "If we knew the whole truth we would probably find the very methods these people used were the cause of the sorry condition this village is in now. No landlord has the right to pauperise his tenantry by giving them money and their homes rent-free. It is a man's duty and privilege to WORK. INDEPENDENCE—that is what a man should aim at. The Irish are always CRYING for it. They never seem to PRACTISE it."
"Ye can't draw the water out of a kettle and expect it to boil, sir, and by the same token independence is a fine thing to tache to men who are dependent on all."
"Your sympathies appear to be entirely with the people," said Kingsnorth, looking shrewdly and suspiciously at the agent.
"No one could live here man and boy and not give it to them," answered Burke.
"You're frank, anyway."
"Pity there are not more like me, sir."
"I'll see what it is possible to do in the matter of improving conditions. Mind—I promise nothing. I put my tenants on probation. It seems hopeless. I'll start works for the really needy. If they show a desire to take advantage of my interest in them I'll extend my operations. If they do NOT I'll stop everything and put the estate on the market."
Burke looked at him and smiled a dry, cracked smile.
He was a thin, active, grizzled man, well past fifty, with keen, shrewd eyes that twinkled with humour, or sparkled with ferocity, or melted with sorrow as the mood seized him. As he answered Kingsnorth the eyes twinkled.
"I'm sure it's grateful the poor people 'ull be when they hear the good news of yer honour's interest in them."
"I hope so. Although history teaches us that gratitude is not a common quality in Ireland. 'If an Irishman is being roasted you will always find another Irishman to turn the spit,' a statesman quoted in the House of Commons a few nights ago."
"That must be why the same statesman puts them in prison for standin' by each other, I suppose," said Burke, with a faint smile.
"You are now speaking of the curses of this country—the agitators. They are the real cause of this deplorable misery. Who will put money into a country that is ridden by these scoundrels? Rid Ireland of agitators and you advance her prosperity a hundred years. They are the clogs on the wheel of a nation's progress." He picked up a copy of the local newspaper and read a headline from one of the columns:
"I see you have agitators even here?"
"We have, sir."
"Drive them out of the town. Let the people live their own lives without such disturbing elements in them. Tell them distinctly that from the moment they begin to work for me I'll have no 'meetings' on my property. Any of my tenants or workmen found attending them elsewhere will be evicted and discharged."
"I'll tell them, sir."
"I mean to put that kind of lawlessness down with a firm hand."
"If ye DO ye'll be the first, Mr. Kingsnorth."
"There is one I see to-day," glancing again at the paper.
"There is, sir."
"Who is this man O'Connell?"
"A native of the village, sir."
"What is he—a paid agitator?"
"Faith there's little pay he gets, I'm thinkin'."
"Why don't the police arrest him?"
"Mebbe they will, sir."
"I'll see that they do."
Burke smiled.
"And what do you find so amusing, Mr. Burke?"
"It's a wondher the English government doesn't get tired of arrestin' them. As fast as they DO others take their place. It's the persecution brings fresh converts to the 'Cause.' Put one man in jail and there'll be a hundred new followers the next day."
"We'll see," said Kingsnorth firmly. "Here is one district where the law will be enforced. These meetings and their frequent bloodshed are a disgrace to a civilised people."
"Ye may well say that, yer honour," replied Burke.
"Before I invest one penny to better the condition of the people I must have their pledge to abandon such disgraceful methods of trying to enlist sympathy. I'll begin with this man O'Connell. Have him brought to me to-morrow. I'll manage this estate my own way or I'll wash my hands of it. My father was often tempted to."
"He resisted the temptation though, sir."
"I'm sorry he did. That will do for to-day. Leave these statements. I'll go over them again. It's hard to make head or tail of the whole business. Be here tomorrow at ten. Bring that fellow O'Connell with you. Also give me a list of some of the more intelligent and trustworthy of the people and I'll sound them as to the prospects of opening up work here. Drop them a hint that my interest is solely on the understanding that this senseless agitation stops."
"I will, sir. To-morrow morning at ten," and Burke started for the door.
"Oh, and—Burke—I hope you are more discreet with my tenants than you have been with me?"
"In what way, Mr. Kingsnorth?"
"I trust that you confine your sympathy with them to your FEELINGS and not give expression to them in words."
"I can't say that I do, Mr. Kingsnorth."
"It would be wiser to in future, Mr. Burke."
"Well, ye see, sir, I'm a MAN first and an AGENT afterwards."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, sir. It's many's the ugly thing I've had to do for your father, and if a kind word of mine hadn't gone with it, it's precious little of the estate would be fit to look at to-day, Mr. Kingsnorth."
"And why not?"
"Do ye remember when Kilkee's Scotch steward evicted two hundred in one day, sir?"
"I do not."
"Rade about it. It's very enlightenin'."
"What happened?"
"The poor wretched, evicted people burnt down every dwellin' and tree on the place, sir."
"I would know how to handle such ruffians."
"That's what Kilkee thought. 'Tache them a lesson,' said he. 'Turn them into the ditches!' And he DID. HE thought he KNEW how to handle them. He woke up with a jump one mornin' when he found a letter from the under-steward tellin' him his Scotch master was in the hospital with a bullet in his spleen, and the beautiful house and grounds were just so much blackened ashes."
"It seems to me, my good man, there is a note of agreement with such methods, in your tone."
"Manin' the evictin' or the burnin', yer honour?"
"You know what I mean," and Kingsnorth's voice rose angrily.
"I think I do," answered Burke quietly.
"I want an agent who is devoted to my interests and to whom the people are secondary."
"Then ye'd betther send to England for one, sir. The men devoted to landlords and against the people are precious few in this part of Ireland, sir."
"Do you intend that I should act on that?"
"If ye wish. Ye can have my TIME at a price, but ye won't have my INDEPENDENCE for any sum ye like to offer."
"Very well. Send me your resignation, to take effect one month from to-day."
"It's grateful I am, Mr. Kingsnorth," and he went out.
In through the open window came the sound of the tramping of many feet and the whisper of subdued voices.
Kingsnorth hurried out on to the path and saw a number of men and women walking slowly down the drive, in the centre of which the soldiers were carrying a body on some branches. Riding beside them was his sister Angela with her groom.
"What new horror is this?" he thought, as he hurried down the path to meet the procession.
Wilberforce Kingsnorth left three children: Nathaniel—whose acquaintance we have already made, and who in a large measure inherited much of his father's dominant will and hardheadedness—Monica, the elder daughter, and Angela the younger.
Nathaniel was the old man's favourite.
While still a youth he inculcated into the boy all the tenets of business, morality and politics that had made Wilberforce prosperous.
Pride in his name: a sturdy grasp of life: an unbending attitude toward those beneath him, and an abiding reverence for law and order and fealty to the throne—these were the foundations on which the father built Nathaniel's character.
Next in point of regard came the elder daughter Monica. Patrician of feature, haughty in manner, exclusive by nature she had the true Kingsnorth air. She had no disturbing "ideas": no yearning for things not of her station. She was contented with the world as it had been made for her and seemed duly proud and grateful to have been born a Kingsnorth.
She was an excellent musician: rode fairly to hounds: bestowed prizes at the local charities with grace and distinction—as became a Kingsnorth—and looked coldly out at the world from behind the impenetrable barriers of an old name.
When she married Frederick Chichester, the rising barrister, connected with six county families, it was a proud day for old Kingsnorth.
His family had originally made their money in trade. The Chichesters had accumulated a fortune by professions. The distinction in England is marked.
One hesitates to acknowledge the salutation of the man who provides one with the necessities of life: a hearty handshake is occasionally extended to those who minister to one's luxuries.
In England the law is one of the most expensive of luxuries and its devotees command the highest regard.
Frederick Chichester came of a long line of illustrious lawyers—one had even reached the distinction of being made a judge. He belonged to an honourable profession.
Chichesters had made the laws of the country in the House of Commons as well as administered them in the Courts.
The old man was overjoyed.
He made a handsome settlement on his eldest daughter on her marriage and felt he had done well by her, even as she had by him.
His son and elder daughter were distinctly a credit to him.
Five years after Monica's birth Angela unexpectedly was born to the Kingsnorths.
A delicate, sickly infant, it seemed as if the splendid blood of the family had expended its vigour on the elder children.
Angela needed constant attention to keep her alive. From tremulous infancy she grew into delicate youth. None of the strict standards Kingsnorth had used so effectually with his other children applied to her. She seemed a child apart.
Not needing her, Kingsnorth did not love her. He gave her a form of tolerant affection. Too fragile to mix with others, she was brought up at home. Tutors furnished her education. The winters she passed abroad with her mother. When her mother died she spent them with relations or friends. The grim dampness of the English climate was too rigorous for a life that needed sunshine.
Angela had nothing in common with either her brother or her sister. She avoided them and they her. They did not understand her: she understood them only too well!
A nature that craved for sympathy and affection—as the frail so often do—was repulsed by those to whom affection was but a form, and sympathy a term of reproach.
She loved all that was beautiful, and, as so frequently happens in such natures as Angela's, she had an overwhelming pity for all that were unhappy. To her God made the world beautiful: man was responsible for its hideousness. From her heart she pitied mankind for abusing the gifts God had showered on them.
It was on her first home-coming since her mother's death that her attention was really drawn to her father's Irish possessions.
By a curious coincidence she returned home the clay following Wilberforce Kingsnorth's electrical speech, invoking Providence to interpose in the settlement of the Irish difficulty. It was the one topic of conversation throughout dinner. And it was during that dinner that Angela for the first time really angered her father and raised a barrier between them that lasted until the day of his death.
The old man had laughed coarsely at the remembrance of his speech on the previous night, and licked his lips at the thought of it.
Monica, who was visiting her father for a few days smiled in agreeable sympathy.
Nathaniel nodded cheerfully.
From her father's side Angela asked quietly:
"Have you ever been in Ireland, father?"
"No, I have not," answered the old man sharply: "And, what is more, I never intend to go there."
"Do you know anything about, the Irish?" persisted Angela.
"Do I? More than the English government does. Don't I own land there?"
"I mean do you know anything about the people?" insisted Angela.
"I know them to be a lot of thieving, rascally scoundrels, too lazy to work, and too dishonest to pay their way, even when they have the money."
"Is that all you know?"
"All!" He stopped eating to look angrily at his daughter. The cross-examination was not to his liking.
Angela went on
"Yes, father; is that all you know about the Irish?"
"Isn't it enough?" His voice rose shrilly. It was the first time for years anyone had dared use those two hated words "Ireland" and "Irish" at his table. Angela must be checked and at once.
Before he could begin to check her, however, Angela answered his question:
"It wouldn't be enough for me if I had the responsibilities and duties of a landlord. To be the owner of an estate should be to act as the people's friend, their father, their adviser in times of plenty and their comrade in times of sorrow."
"Indeed? And pray where did you learn all that, Miss?" asked the astonished parent.
Without noticing the interruption or the question, Angela went on:
"Why deny a country its own government when England is practically governed by its countrymen? Is there any position of prominence today in England that isn't filled by Irishmen? Think. Our Commander-in-Chief is Irish: our Lord High Admiral is Irish: there are the defences of the English in the hands of two Irishmen and yet you call them thieving and rascally scoundrels."
Kingsnorth tried to speak; Angela raised her voice:
"Turn to your judges—the Lord Chief is an Irishman. Look at the House of Commons. Our laws are passed or defeated by the Irish vote, and yet so blindly ignorant and obstinate is our insular prejudice that we refuse them the favours they do us—governing THEMSELVES as well as England."
Kingsnorth looked at his daughter aghast. Treason in his own house! His child speaking the two most hated of all words at his own dinner table and in laudatory terms. He could scarcely believe it. He looked at her a moment and then thundered:
"How dare you! How dare you!"
Angela smiled a little amusedly-tolerant smile as she looked frankly at her father and answered:
"This is exactly the old-fashioned tone we English take to anything we don't understand. And that is why other countries are leaving us in the race. There is a nation living within a few hours' journey from our doors, yet millions of English people are as ignorant of them as if they lived in Senegambia." She paused, looked once more straight into her father's eyes and said: "And you, father, seem to be as ignorant as the worst of them!"
"Angela!" cried her sister in horror.
Nathaniel laughed good-naturedly, leaned across to Angela and said:
"I see our little sister has been reading the sensational magazines. Yes?"
"I've done more than that," replied Angela. "In Nice a month ago were two English members of Parliament who had taken the trouble to visit the country they were supposed to assist in governing. They told me that a condition of misery existed throughout the whole of Ireland that was incredible under a civilised government."
"Radicals, eh?" snapped her father.
"No. Conservatives. One of them had once held the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland and was Ireland's most bitter persecutor, until he visited the country. When he saw the wretchedness of her people he stopped his stringent methods and began casting about for some ways of lessening the poor people's torment."
"The more shame to him to talk like that to a girl. And what's more you had no right to listen to him. A Conservative indeed! A fine one he must be!"
"He is. I don't see why the Liberal party should have all the enlightenment and the Conservative party all the bigotry."
"Don't anger your father," pleaded Monica.
"Why, little Angela has come back to us quite a revolutionary," said Nathaniel.
"Leave the table," shouted her father.
Without a word Angela got up quietly and left the room. Her manner was entirely unmoved. She had spoken from her inmost convictions. The fact that they were opposed to her father was immaterial. She loathed tyranny and his method of shutting the mouths of those who disagreed with him was particularly obnoxious to her. It was also most ineffectual with her. From childhood she had always spoken as she felt. No discipline checked her. Freedom of speech as well as freedom of thought were as natural and essential to her as breathing was.
From that time she saw but little of her father. When he died he left her to her brother's care. Kingsnorth made no absolute provision for her. She was to be dependent on Nathaniel. When the time came that she seemed to wish to marry, if her brother approved of the match, he should make a handsome settlement on her.
In response to her request Nathaniel allowed her to go with him to Ireland on his tour of inspection.
Mr. Chichester was actively engaged at the Old Bailey on an important criminal case, so Monica also joined them.
Everything Angela saw in Ireland appealed to her quick sympathy and gentle heart. It was just as she had thought and read and listened to. On every side she saw a kindly people borne down by the weight of poverty. Lives ruined by sickness and the lack of nourishment. A splendid race perishing through misgovernment and intolerant ignorance.
Angela went about amongst the people and made friends with them. They were chary at first of taking her to their hearts. She was of the hated Saxon race. What was she doing there, she, the sister of their, till now, absentee landlord? She soon won them over by her appealing voice and kindly interest.
All this Angela did in direct opposition to her brother's wishes and her sister's exhortations.
The morning of the meeting she had ridden some mile to visit a poor. family. Out of five three were in bed with low fever. She got a doctor for them, gave them money to buy necessities and, with a promise to return the next day, she rode away. When within some little distance of her brother's house she saw a steady, irregular stream of people climbing a great hill. She rode toward it, and, screened by a clump of trees, saw and heard the meeting.
When O'Connell first spoke his voice thrilled her. Gradually the excitement of the people under the mastery of his power, communicated itself to her. It pulsed in her blood, and throbbed in her brain. For the first time she realised what a marvellous force was the Call of the Patriot. To listen and watch a man risking life and liberty in the cause of his country. Her heart, and her mind and her soul went out to him.
When the soldiers marched on to the scene she was paralysed with fear. When the order to fire was gives she wanted to ride into their midst and cry out to them to stop. But she was unable to move hand or foot.
When the smoke had thinned and she saw the bodies lying motionless on the ground of men who a moment before had been full of life and strength: when was added to that the horror of the wounded crying out with pain, her first impulse was to fly from the sight of the carnage.
She mastered that moment of fear and plunged forward, calling to the groom to follow her.
What immediately followed has already been told.
The long, slow, tortuous journey home: the men slowly following with the ghastly mute-body on the rude litter, became a living memory to her for all the remainder of her life.
She glanced down every little while at the stone-white face and shuddered as she found herself wondering if eke would ever hear his voice again or see those great blue-grey eyes flash with his fierce courage and devotion.
Once only did the lips of the wounded man move. In a moment Angela had dismounted and halted the soldiers. As she bent down over him O'Connell swooned again from pain.
The procession went on.
As they neared her brother's house, stragglers began to follow curiously. Sad looking men and weary women joined the procession wonderingly. All guessed it was some fresh outrage of the soldiers.
Little, ragged, old-young children peered down at the body on the litter and either ran away crying or joined in listlessly with the others.
It was an old story carrying back mutilated men to the village. None was surprised. It seemed to Angela that an infinity of time had passed before they entered the grounds attached to the Kingsnorth house.
She sent a man on ahead to order a room to be prepared and a doctor sent for.
As she saw her brother coming forward to meet her with knit brows and stern eyes she nerved herself to greet him.
"What is this, Angela?" he asked, looking in amazement at the strange procession.
"Another martyr to our ignorant government, Nathaniel," and she pressed on through the drive to the house.
Nathaniel's indignation at his sister's conduct was beyond bounds when he learnt who the wounded man was. He ordered the soldiers to take the man and themselves away.
The magistrate interposed and begged him to at least let O'Connell rest there until a doctor could patch him up. It might be dangerous to take him back without medical treatment. He assured Nathaniel that the moment they could move him he would be lodged in the county-jail.
Nathaniel went back to his study as the sorry procession passed on to the front door.
He sent immediately for his sister.
The reply came back that she would see him at dinner.
He commanded her to come to him at once.
In a few minutes Angela came into the room. She was deathly pale. Her voice trembled as she spoke:
"What do you want?"
"Why did you bring that man here?"
"Because he is wounded."
"Such scoundrels are better dead."
"I don't think so. Nor do I think him a scoundrel."
"He came here to attack landlords—to attack ME. ME! And YOU bring him to MY house and with that RABBLE. It's outrageous! Monstrous!"
"I couldn't leave him with those heartless wretches to die in their hands."
"He leaves here the moment a doctor has attended him."
"Very well. Is that all?"
"No, it isn't!" Kingsnorth tried to control his anger. After a pause he continued:
"I want no more of these foolhardy, quixotic actions of yours. I've heard of your visiting these wretched people—going into fever dens. Is that conduct becoming your name? Think a little of your station in life and what it demands."
"I wish YOU did a little more."
"What?" he shouted, all his anger returned.
"There's no need to raise your voice," Angela answered quietly. "I am only a few feet away. I repeat that I wish you thought a little more of your obligations. If you did and others like you in the same position you are in, there would be no such horrible scenes as I saw to-day; a man shot down amongst his own people for speaking the truth."
"You SAW it?" Nathaniel asked in dismay.
"I did. I not only SAW, but I HEARD. I wish you had, too. I heard a man lay bare his heart and his brain and his soul that others might knew the light in them. I saw and heard a man offer up his life that others might know some gleam of happiness in THEIR lives. It was wonderful! It was heroic! It was God-like!"
"If I ever hear of you doing such a thing again, you shall go back to London the next day."
"That sounds exactly as though my dead father were speaking."
"I'll not be made a laughing-stock by you."
"You make yourself one as your father did before you. A Kingsnorth! What has your name meant? Because one of our forefathers cheated the world into giving him a fortune, by buying his goods for more than they were worth, we have tried to canonise him and put a halo around the name of Kingsnorth. To me it stands for all that is mean and selfish and vain and ignorant. The power of money over intellect. How did we become owners of this miserable piece of land? A Kingsnorth swindled its rightful owner. Lent him money on usury, bought up his bills and his mortgages and when he couldn't pay foreclosed on him. No wander there's a curse on the village and on us!"
Kingsnorth tried to speak, but she stopped him:
"Wait a moment. It was a good stroke of business taking this estate away. Oh yes, it was a good stroke of business. Our name has been built up on 'good strokes of business.' Well, I tell you it's a BAD stroke of business when human lives are put into the hands of such creatures as we Kingsnorths have proved ourselves!"
"Stop!" cried Nathaniel, outraged to the innermost sanctuary of his being. "Stop! You don't speak like one of our family. It is like listening to some heretic—some—"
"I don't feel like one of your family. YOU are a KINGSNORTH.Iam my MOTHER'S child. My poor, gentle, patient mother, who lived a life of unselfish resignation: who welcomed death, when it came to her, as a release from tyranny. Don't call ME a Kingsnorth. I know the family too well. I know all the name means to the people who have suffered through YOUR FAMILY."
"After this—the best thing—the only thing—is to separate," said Nathaniel.
"Whenever you wish."
"I'll make you an allowance."
"Don't let it be a burden."
"I've never been so shocked—so stunned—"
"I am glad. From my cradle I've been shocked and stunned—in my home. It's some compensation to know you are capable of the feeling, too. Frankly, I didn't think you were."
"We'll talk no more of this," and Nathaniel began to pace the room.
"I am finished," and Angela went to the door.
"It would be better we didn't meet again—in any event—not often," added Nathaniel.
"Thank you," said Angela, opening the door. He motioned her to close it, that he had something more to say.
"We'll find you some suitable chaperone. You can spend your winters abroad, as you have been doing. London for the season—until you're suitably married. I'll follow out my father's wishes to the letter. You shall be handsomely provided for the day you marry."
She closed the door with a snap and came back to him and looked him steadily in the eyes.
"The man I marry shall take nothing from you. Even in his 'last will and testament' my father proved himself a Kingsnorth. It was only a Kingsnorth could make his youngest daughter dependent on YOU!"
"My father knew I would respect his wishes."
"He was equally responsible for me, yet he leaves me to YOUR care. A Kingsnorth!"
"The men MASTERS and the women SLAVES!"
"That is the Kingsnorth doctrine."
"It is a pity our father didn't live a little longer. There are many changes coming into this old grey world of ours and one of them is the real, honourable position of woman. The day will come in England when we will wring from our fathers and our brothers as our right what is doled out to us now as though we were beggars."
"And they are trying to govern the country of Ireland in the same way. The reign of the despot. Well, THAT is nearly over too—even as woman's degrading position to-day is almost at an end."
"Have you finished?"
Once again Angela went to the door. Nathaniel said in a somewhat changed tone:
"As it is your wish this man should be cared for, I'll do it. When he is well enough to be moved, the magistrate will take him to jail. But, for the little while we shall be here, I beg you not to do anything so unseemly again."
A servant came in to tell Angela the doctor had come. Without a word. Angela went out to see to the wounded man.
The servant followed her.
Left alone, Nathaniel sat down, shocked and stunned, to review the interview he had just had with his youngest sister.
When Angela entered the sick-room she found Dr. McGinnis, a cheery, bright-eyed, rotund little man of fifty, talking freely to the patient and punctuating each speech with a hearty laugh. His good-humour was infectious.
The wounded agitator felt the effect of it and was trying to laugh feebly himself.
"Sure it's the fine target ye must have made with yer six feet and one inch. How could the poor soldiers help hittin' ye? Answer me that?" and the jovial doctor laughed again as he dexterously wound a bandage around O'Connell's arm.
"Aisy now while I tie the bandage, me fine fellow. Ye'll live to see the inside of an English jail yet."
He turned as he heard the door open and greeted Angela.
"Good afternoon to ye, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, it's a blessin' ye brought the boy here. There's no tellin' What the prison-surgeon would have done to him. It is saltpetre, they tell me, the English doctors rub into the Irish wounds, to kape them smartin'. And, by the like token, they do the same too in the English House of Commons. Saltpetre in Ireland's wounds is what they give us."
"Is he much hurt?" asked Angela.
"Well, they've broken nothin'. Just blackened his face and made a few holes in his skin. It's buckshot they used. Buckshot! Thank the merciful Mr. Forster for that same. 'Buckshot-Forster,' as the Irish reverently call him."
Angela flushed with indignation as she looked at the crippled man.
"What a dastardly thing to do," she cried.
"Ye may well say that, Miss Kingsnorth," said the merry little doctor. "But it's betther than a bullet from a Martini-Henry rifle, that's what it is. And there's many a poor English landlord's got one of 'em in the back for ridin' about at night on his own land. It's a fatherly government we have, Miss Kingsnorth. 'Hurt 'em, but don't quite kill 'em,' sez they; 'and then put 'em in jail and feed them on bread and wather. That'll take the fine talkin' and patriotism out of them,' sez they."
"They'll never take it out of me. They may kill me, perhaps, but until they do they'll never silence me," murmured O'Connell in a voice so low, yet so bitter, that it startled Angela.
"Ye'll do that all in good time, me fine boy," said the busy little doctor. "Here, take a pull at this," and he handed the patient a glass in which he had dropped a few crystals into some water.
As O'Connell drank the mixture Dr. McGinnis said in a whisper to Angela:
"Let him have that every three hours: oftener if he wants to talk. We've got to get his mind at rest. A good sleep'll make a new man of him."
"There's no danger?" asked Angela in the same tone.
"None in the wurrld. He's got a fine constitution and mebbe the buckshot was pretty clean. I've washed them out well."
"To think of men shot down like dogs for speaking of their country. It's horrible! It's wicked! It's monstrous."
"Faith, the English don't know what else to do with them, Miss. It's no use arguin' with the like of him. That man lyin' on that bed 'ud talk the hind-foot off a heifer. The only way to kape the likes of him quiet is to shoot him, and begob they have."
"I heard you, doctor," came from the bed. "If they'd killed me to-day there would be a thousand voices would rise all over Ireland to take the place of mine. One martyr makes countless converts."
"Faith, I'd rather kape me own life than to have a hundred thousand spakin' for me and me dead. Where's the good that would be doin' me? Now kape still there all through the beautiful night, and let the blessed medicine quiet ye, and the coolin' ointment aize yer pain. I'll come in by-and-by on the way back home. I'm goin' up beyant 'The Gap' to some poor people with the fever. But I'll be back."
"Thank you, Dr. McGinnis."
"Is it long yer stayin' here?" and the little man picked up his hat.
"I don't know," said Angela. "I hardly think so."
"Well, it's you they'll miss when ye're gone, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith if all the English were like you this sort of thing couldn't happen."
"We don't try to understand the people, doctor. We just govern them blindly and ignorantly."
"Faith it's small blame to the English. We're a mighty hard race to make head nor tail of. And that's a fact. Prayin' at Mass one minnit and maimin' cattle the next. Cryin' salt tears at the bedside of a sick child, and lavin' it to shoot a poor man in the ribs for darin' to ask for his rint."
"They're not IRISHMEN," came from the sick bed.
"Faith and they are NOW. And it's small wondher the men who sit in Whitehall in London trate them like savages."
"I've seen things since I've been here that would justify almost anything!" cried Angela. "I've seen suffering no one in England dreamt of. Misery, that London, with all its poverty and wretchedness, could not compare with. Were I born in Ireland I should be proud to stake my liberty and my life to protect my own people from such horrible brutality."
The wounded man opened his eyes and looked full at Angela. It was a look at once of gratitude and reverence and admiration.
Her heart leaped within her.
So far no man in the little walled-in zone she had lived in had ever stirred her to an even momentary enthusiasm. They were all so fatuously contented with their environment. Sheltered from birth, their anxiety was chiefly how to make life pass the pleasantest. They occasionally showed a spasmodic excitement over the progress of a cricket or polo match. Their achievements were largely those of the stay-at-home warriors who fought with the quill what others faced death with the sword for. Their inertia disgusted her. Their self-satisfaction spurred her to resentment.
Here was a man in the real heart of life. He was engaged in a struggle that makes existence worth while—the effort to bring a message to his people.
How all the conversations she was forced to listen to in her narrow world rose up before her in their carping meannesses! Her father's brutal diatribes against a people, unfortunate enough to be compelled, from force of circumstance, to live on a portion of land that belonged to him, yet in whose lives he took no interest whatsoever. His only anxiety was to be paid his rents. How, and through what misery, his tenants scraped the money together to do it with, mattered nothing to him. All that DID matter was that he MUST BE PAID.
Then arose a picture of her sister Monica, with her puny social pretensions. Recognition of those in a higher grade bread and meat and drink to her. Adulation and gross flattery the very breath of her nostrils.
Her brother's cheap, narrow platitudes about the rights of rank and wealth.
To Angela wealth had no rights except to bring happiness to the world. It seemed to bring only misery once people acquired it. Grim sorrow seemed to stalk in the trail of the rich.
She could not recall one moment of real, unfeigned happiness among her family. The only time she could remember her father smiling or chuckling was at some one else's misfortune, or over some cruel thing he had said himself.
Her sister's joy over some little social triumph—usually at the cost of the humiliation of another.
Her brother's cheeriness over some smart stroke of business in which another firm was involved to their cost.
Parasites all!
The memory of her mother was the only link that bound her to her childhood. The gentle, uncomplaining spirit of her: the unselfish abnegation of her: the soul's tragedy of her—giving up her life at the altar of duty, at the bidding of a hardened despot.
All Angela's childhood came back in a brief illuminating flash. The face of her one dear, dead companion—her mother—glowed before her. How her mother would have cared for and tended, and worshipped a man even as the one lying riddled on that bed of suffering! All the best in Angela was from her mother. All the resolute fighting quality was from her father. She would use both now in defence of the wounded man. She would tend him and care for him, and see that no harm came to him.
She was roused from her self-searching thoughts by the doctor's voice and the touch of his hand.
"Good-bye for the present, Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands I'm lavin' him. But for you he'd be lyin' in the black jail with old Doctor Costello glarin' down at him with his gimlet eyes, I wouldn't wish a dog that. Faith, I've known Costello to open a wound 'just to see if it was healthy,' sez he, an' the patient screamin' 'Holy murther!' all the while, and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one and see if that does, too,' and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye it's the Christian he is!" He stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what the disrespectful ones call me—I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll bleed him a little and give him something'll make him slape like a top till mornin'. Good-bye to yez, for the present," and the kindly, plump little man hurried out with the faint echo of a tune whistling through his lips.
Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched the wounded man. His face was drawn with pain. His eyes were closed. But he was not sleeping. His fingers locked and unlocked. His lips moved He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"You need not stay here," he said.
"Would you rather I didn't?" asked Angela, rising.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"To make sure your wounds were attended to."
"Your brother is a landlord—'Kingsnorth—the absentee landlord,' we used to call your father as children. And I'm in his son's house. I'd betther be in jail than here."
"You mustn't think that."
"You've brought me here to humiliate me—to humiliate me!"
"No. To care for you. To protect you."
"Protect me?"
"If I can."
"That's strange."
"I heard you speak to-day."
"You did?"
"I did."
"I'm glad of that."
"So am I."
"Pity your brother wasn't there too."
"It was—a great pity."
"Here's one that Dublin Castle and the English government can't frighten. I'll serve my time in prisons when I'm well enough—it's the first time they've caught me and they had to SHOOT me to do it—and when I come out I'll come straight back here and take up the work just where I'm leaving it."
"You mustn't go to prison."
"It's the lot of every Irishman to-day who says what he thinks."
"It mustn't be yours! It mustn't!" Angela's voice rose in her distress. She repeated: "It mustn't! I'll appeal to my brother to stop it."
"If he's anything like his father it's small heed he'll pay to your pleading. The poor wretches here appealed to old Kingsnorth in famine and sickness—not for HELP, mind ye, just for a little time to pay their rents—and the only answer they ever got from him was 'Pay or go'!"
"I know! I know!" Angela replied. "And many a time when I was a child my mother and I cried over it."
He looked at her curiously. "You and yer mother cried over US?"
"We did. Indeed we did."
"They say the heart of England is in its womenkind. But they have nothing to do with her laws."
"They will have some day."
"It'll be a long time comin', I'm thinkin'. If they take so long to free a whole country how long do ye suppose it'll take them to free a whole sex—and the female one at that?"
"It will come!" she said resolutely.
He looked at her strangely.
"And you cried over Ireland's sorrows?"
"As a child and as a woman," said Angela.
"And ye've gone about here tryin' to help them too, haven't ye?"
"I could do very little"
"Well, the spirit is there—and the heart is there. If they hadn't liked YOU it's the sorry time maybe your brother would have."
He paused again, looking at her intently, whilst his fingers clutched the coverlet convulsively as if to stifle a cry of pain.
"May I ask ye yer name?" he gasped.
"Angela," she said, almost in a whisper.
"Angela," he repeated. "Angela! It's well named ye are. It's the ministering angel ye've been down here—to the people—and—to me."
"Don't talk any more now. Rest"
"REST, is it? With all the throuble in the wurrld beatin' in me brain and throbbin' in me heart?"
"Try and sleep until the doctor comes to-night."
He lay back and closed his eyes.
Angela sat perfectly still.
In a few minutes he opened them again. There was a new light in his eyes and a smile on his lips.
"Ye heard me speak, did ye?"
"Yes."
"Where were ye?"
"Above you, behind a bank of trees."
A playful smile played around his lips as he said: "It was a GOOD speech, wasn't it?"
"I thought it wonderful," Angela answered.
"And what were yer feelings listenin' to a man urgin' the people against yer own country?"
"I felt I wanted to stand beside you and echo everything you said."
"DID you?" and his eyes blazed and his voice rose.
"You spoke as some prophet, speaking in a wilderness of sorrow, trying to bring them comfort."
He smiled whimsically, as he said, in a weary voice:
"I tried to bring them comfort and I got them broken heads and buck-shot."
"It's only through suffering every GREAT cause triumphs," said Angela.
"Then the Irish should triumph some day. They've suffered enough, God knows."
"They will," said Angela eagerly. "Oh, how I wish I'd been born a man to throw in my lot with the weak! to bring comfort to sorrow, freedom to the oppressed: joy to wretchedness. That is your mission. How I envy you. I glory in what the future has in store for you, Live for it! Live for it!"
"I will!" cried O'Connell. "Some day the yoke will be lifted from us. God grant that mine will be the hand to help do it. God grant I am alive to see it done. That day'll be worth living for—to wring recognition from our enemies—to—to—to" he sank back weakly on the pillow, his voice fainting to a whisper.
Angela brought him some water and helped him up while he drank it. She smoothed back the shining hair—red, shot through gold—from his forehead. He thanked her with a look. Suddenly he burst into tears. The strain of the day had snapped his self-control at last. The floodgates were opened. He sobbed and sobbed like some tired, hurt child. Angela tried to comfort him. In a moment she was crying, too. He took her hand and kissed it repeatedly, the tears falling on it as he did so.
"God bless ye! God bless ye!" he cried.
In that moment of self-revelation their hearts went out to each other. Neither had known happiness nor love, nor faith in mankind.
In that one enlightening moment of emotion their hearts were laid bare to each other. The great comedy of life between man and woman had begun.
From that moment their lives were linked together.