“I would I were in Ballinderry,I would I were in Aghalee,I would I were in bonny Ram’s IslandSitting under an ivy tree.Ochone, ochone!”
“I know that song,” said Neal.
“Everybody knows that song. There isn’t a lass in Antrim or Down but sings it.”
“But I know the singer too. I heard Peg Macllrea sing it once, Matier’s Peg, and I’m not likely to forget her voice.”
“If you’re sure of that, Neal, I’ll let her know we’re here. Anyway it can do no harm. There isn’t a farm lass in the whole country would betray us to the soldiers. Wait now till she sings it again.”
By the firesides of Irish cottages when songs are sung during the long winter evenings the listeners often “croon” an accompaniment, droning in low voices over and over again a few simple notes which harmonise with the singer’s voice. When the girl began her tune again Hope sang with her, repeating “Ochone, ochone” down four notes from the octave of the keynote through the mediate to the keynote again. When she reached the end of the last line his voice rose suddenly to an unexpected seventh, which struck sharply on the ear. Prolonging the note after the girl’s voice died away, he rose to his feet and waved his arms. Soon Peg Macllrea was beside them.
“I tell’t the master where ye were,” she said, “and I tell’t Mr. Donald. They couldn’t come theirsells, and they were afeard to let me out my lone. But I knew finely I could find you. I knew Neal here would mind my song. I brought you a bite and a sup so as you wouldn’t be famished out here on the hillside.”
She took a basket from her arm and laid it at Neal’s feet.
“Sit down, Peg,” said Hope, “sit down and eat with us. You’re a good girl to think of bringing us the food, and you’ll be wanting some yourself after your walk.”
“I canna bide with you, and I ate my supper before I made out. I must be gettin’ back now. But I’ve a word to give you from your uncle, Neal. He bid me tell you that you’re trysted with him for Aeneas Moylin’s house the morrow night at eight o’clock.”
Early next morning Neal bade farewell to Hope and started on his walk to Donegore. For a while he kept along the side of the hill above the homesteads that clustered on the lower slopes. Nearing Carnmoney he descended and entered a small inn in order to obtain some breakfast. He found the master and his wife in a state of great excitement at the news which had just reached them that their son had been arrested in Belfast. It was some time before Neal could persuade the poor people to attend to his wants, and it was a wretched breakfast which he obtained in the end. Leaving the inn, he walked along the high road through Molusk. He felt tolerably safe, though bodies of troops and yeomen occasionally passed him. His appearance was known to very few, and the people of the district through which he was going were either United Irishmen or in strong sympathy with the society. It was unlikely that any small body of troops would venture to make an arrest unless the officer in command was perfectly certain of the identity of his prisoner. So bold and determined were the people that Neal, stopping opposite a forge, saw the smith fashioning pike heads openly, and apparently fearlessly. A number of men stood round the forge door talking earnestly together. Among them was Phelim, the blind piper, whom Neal had seen in the street of Antrim. They did not care to be silent or to lower their tones when Neal came within earshot.
“The place of the muster,” said the piper, “is the Roughfort. Mind you that now, and let them that has guns or pikes bring them.”
“And will M’Cracken be there?”
“Ay, he will. Did you no see the proclamation?”
“Will Kelso,” said some one to the smith, “are you working hard, man? We’ll be needing a hundred more of them pike heads by the morrow’s morn.”
The smith let his hammer fall with a clang on the anvil, and wiped his brow.
“If you do as good a day’s work the morrow with what I’m working on the day there’ll be no cause to complain of you.”
For the first time since he left Dunseveric Neal felt a glow of hope for the success of the movement. He knew what kind of men these farmers and weavers of Carnmoney and Templepatrick were—austere, cold men, difficult to stir to violent action; much more difficult to cow into submission when once roused. And it appeared to him that they were effectually roused now. He recalled his father’s fanciful application of the verse from the prophet Jeremiah. He felt, as he listened to the men round the forge, the hardness of “the northern iron and the steel.” Was there among the blustering yeomen and the disciplined troops of the King iron strong enough to break this iron?
He left the forge and passed on. His thoughts wandered from the enterprise to which he had pledged himself, and went back, as time after time during the last week they had gone back, to Una. He walked slowly, wrapped in a delicious day dream. Neglecting all fact, driving from his mind the pressing realities which separated him hopelessly from the girl he loved, he imagined himself walking with her hand-in-hand in some fair place far from strife and the oppression which engendered strife. A feeling of fierce anger succeeded his day dream. The sun shone around him, the fields were fair to see. Life ought to be like the sun and the fields—simple and good and beautiful. Instead it was difficult and cruel. He was being dragged into a vortex of hate and battle. He loathed the very thought of it. He wanted peace and love. And yet, what escape was there for him? Did he even want to escape if he could? The wrong and tyranny he was to resist were real, insistent, horrible. He would be less than a man, unworthy of the love and peace he longed for, if he failed to do his part in the struggle for freedom and right.
At midday he reached Templepatrick village, and found the inn occupied by a company of yeomen. He sought the house of the weaver with whom he had dined, in company with James Hope, on his way to Belfast. The door was closed, which struck Neal as strange, for the day was hot and bright. Coming near, he was surprised not to hear the rattle of the loom. Birnie was a diligent man; it was not like him to leave his loom idle. And the house was not empty; he could hear a woman’s voice within. He tapped at the door, intending to ask for a meal and for leave to rest awhile in the kitchen. There was no answer, and yet he heard the woman still speaking in low, even tones. He tapped again, and then, despairing of attracting attention, raised the latch, half opened the door, and looked in.
In the centre of the room, before the table, a young woman knelt motionless, her hands stretched out before her. Neal heard her words distinctly. She was praying aloud, steadily, quietly, but with intense earnestness, repeating petition after petition for her husband’s safety. Very softly Neal withdrew, and closed the door. He might go dinner-less, but he would not interrupt the woman’s prayer. He turned, to find a little girl gazing at him. He recognised her as the Birnies’ child.
“Were you wanting my da?”
“Yes, little girl, but I see he’s gone away.”
“Ay, but if any stranger come for him I was to tell my mammy.”
“Never mind,” said Neal, “you mustn’t disturb her now.”
“Will I no, then, when I was bid? Mammy I Mammy!”
In answer to the child’s cry, the mother opened the door.
“What ails you, Jinny? I beg pardon, sir, were you waiting long on me?”
“You don’t know me, Mrs. Birnie. You don’t remember me, but I came here one day before with James Hope.”
“I mind you rightly, now,” she said. “Come in and welcome, but if it’s my Johnny you’re wanting to see, he’s abroad the day.”
“I won’t disturb you,” said Neal.
“You’ll come in. You’ll no be disturbing me. There’s time enough for me to do what I was doing when the wean called me.”
Neal entered the house and sat down.
“You’ll be wanting a bite to eat,” said Mrs. Birnie. “It’s little I have to set for you. The wee bit of meat we had I cooked for him to take with him. It’s no much Jinny and I will be wanting while he’s awa from us. Ay, and it’s no much Jinny and I will get if he doesna come back to us.”
“Where has he gone?” said Neal.
“He’s gone to the turn-out,” she said, “to the turn-out that’s to be the morrow. It’s more goes to the like, I’m thinking, than comes back again. He’s taken the pike with him that lay in the thatch over our bed this year and more. But the will of the Lord be done.”
“May God bring him safe home to you,” said Neal.
“Ay, for God can do it, God can do it. I take no shame to tell you, young as you are, that I was just beseeching the Lord to do that very thing the now while you were standing at the door with Jinny. But the Lord’s ways are not our ways.”
She set a plate of oatcake and a jug of buttermilk on the table before Neal, and bade him eat. When he had finished, he sat and talked with her awhile, trying to cheer her. But she was not a woman to whom it was easy to speak comfortable platitudes. She knew the risks her husband ran—the risk of battle, and the worse risks which would follow defeat. Neal rose at last and bid her farewell.
“When you are saying a prayer for your husband,” he said, “say one for me; I’ll be along with him. I’m going to fight, too.”
“And will you be for the turn-out, then, with the rest of them? Ay, I’ll say a prayer for you, And—and, young man, will you mind this? When you’re killing with your pike and your gun, even if it’s a yeo that’s forninst you, gie a thought to the woman that’s waiting at home for him, and, maybe, praying. What would hinder her to pray for her husband even if he’s a yeoman itself?”
It was seven o’clock when Neal reached Aeneas Moylin’s house, after climbing the steep lane that led to Donegore Hill. He found six men seated in the kitchen—Donald Ward, Felix Matier, James Bigger, Moylin, and two others whom he did not know.
“It’s Neal Ward,” said Donald. “It’s my nephew. Sit you down, Neal.”
No one else spoke, though all nodded a welcome to Neal, and room was made for him at the table round which they sat. Aeneas Moylin rose and fetched another chair from the next room. Neal noticed that all six men were armed with swords and pistols. Donald Ward sat at the head of the table, and had the air of presiding over the assembly. There was dead silence in the room, save for the ticking of a clock which stood in a dark corner out of reach of the rays of the lamp. No man looked at any of his fellows. They stared fixedly at the ceil-ing, the table, or the walls of the room. After about ten minutes, Felix Marier rose, crossed the room, and peered at the face of the clock. He went to the door and looked down the lane. Then, with a sharp in drawing of the breath, he took his seat again. The movement roused Donald Ward. He fumbled in his pocket and took out his tobacco box and pipe. He held up the box—a round metal one—between his finger and thumb. Neal, watching, noticed with surprise that his uncle’s hand trembled. Donald held the box without opening it for perhaps two minutes. Then, when he was satisfied that his hand had become quite steady, he filled his pipe. He rose, took a red peat from the hearth, and pressed it into the bowl of the pipe. He did not sit down again, but stood with his back to the fire, smoking slowly.
Aeneas Moylin spoke in a harsh, constrained voice.
“Would you like to drink while you wait? I have whisky in the house.”
“No,” said Donald.
No one else spoke. Several of the men passed their tongues over their dry lips. They would have liked to drink. Their mouths craved for moisture, their nerves for stimulant, but they did not dispute Donald Ward’s emphatic refusal of the offer.
THE NORTHERN IRON. 175
Felix Matier rose again. Again he peered at the clock, again he opened the door and looked down the lane. This time he turned almost immediately, and said in a whisper—
“There’s a man coming up the lane, a single rider. I hear the tramp of his horse.”
He hurried back to his seat, as if he were afraid of being found apart from his comrades, as if he expected to discover safety in being just as they were. Donald Ward took his seat at the head of the table. His pipe was still between his teeth, but he ceased to puff at it. It went out. The noise of the approaching horse was plainly audible in the room. Felix Matier suddenly laughed aloud, and then, half chanting the words in a cracked falsetto, quoted—
“What is right and what is wrang by the law?What is right and what is wrang?A short sword and a lang,A stout arm and a Strang,For to draw.”
“Silence,” said Donald.
“It is the man,” said Aeneas Moylin, “I hear him putting his horse into the shed. It must be he, for no stranger would know the ways of the place.”
James Bigger drew a pistol from his pocket, looked carefully at the priming, cocked it, and laid it on the table before him. He sat at the end of the table opposite Donald Ward, and was nearest to the door.
The latch was lifted from without, and James Finlay entered the room.
“You are welcome,” said Donald, and every man at the table repeated the words.
Something in the tone of the greeting, some sense of the feeling of those who sat in the room, startled Finlay. He glanced quickly at the faces before him, became deadly white, took a step forward, and then turned to the door. It was shut, and James Bigger, pistol in hand, stood with his back against it. Finlay stood stock still. Neal, looking at him, saw in his eyes an expression of wild terror—an agonised appeal against the horror of death. In a single instant the man had understood that he was to die. Neal felt suddenly sick. Then a faintness overcame him. He leaned back in his chair unable to move or speak. He heard, as if from a great distance, as if out of some other world, his uncle’s voice—
“The men you expected are not here, friend Finlay. M’Cracken is busy elsewhere, Munro has an engagement this evening, Hope, whom you let slip through your fingers yesterday, is not here to meet you.”
“I wear to you,” said Finlay, “that I tried to save Hope yesterday.”
Donald took no notice of the words. He went on in a cool, not unfriendly voice—
“We are here instead, and I think we are quite competent to conduct the business for which we have met; but you will agree with us that this house will not be a suitable place for our meeting. We think it possible that Aeneas Moylin’s house may be honoured to-night by a visit from some dragoons or yeomen. They will probably be here in half an hour or so. In the meanwhile, we shall adjourn. There is near at hand a building in which we may do our business with perfect safety. You have heard, no doubt, of the custom of body-snatching. Certain men—resurrectioners, I think, they are called—have of late been robbing the graves of the dead and selling the bodies to the medical schools for the use of students. The good people of Donegore have built in their churchyard a very strong vault with an iron door, of which Aeneas Moylin keeps the key. Here they lock up the bodies of their dead for some time before burying them—until, in fact, the natural process of decay renders them unsuitable for dissection. This is their plan for defeating the resurrectioners. There is no corpse in the vault to-night. We shall adjourn to it for our meeting. The walls are so thick, I am told, that remarks made even in a loud tone inside will be perfectly inaudible to eavesdroppers. The door is very small, and we can hang a cloak over it, so that our light will not be visible. It will be quite safe, I think; besides, it will be very comforting to think that if one of us should die suddenly his body will not become a prey to the ghoulish people of whom we have been speaking.”
He paused. Then, changing his tone, gave a series of orders sharply—
“Bind his hands; gag him; bring a lantern and means of lighting it; bring the key of the vault; leave the light burning in this room. Come.”
The orders were quickly obeyed. It was evident that every man had his part assigned to him beforehand, and was ready to perform it. There was no confusion, and no talking.
Aeneas Moylin led the way. Two others followed, holding Finlay, gagged and bound, by the arms. Donald Ward, his sword drawn, brought up the rear. They moved like shadows, silent as the prowling body-snatchers of whom Donald had spoken. In front of them, a dark mass in the June twilight, stood the church, and round it rows and rows of gravestones. Moylin crossed the stile. Finlay sank helplessly in a heap in front of it. He could not, or would not, put his feet on the stone steps. Without a word his two guards lifted him over and set him down among the graves. Donald crossed last. Moylin, skirting the north side and east end of the church, led the way to a corner of the cemetery where as yet there were no graves. Here, barely visible among the tangle of brambles, nettles, and high grass which surrounded it, was the vault. Kneeling down, Moylin fumbled with the lock, turned the key with a harsh, grating sound, and swung open the iron door. It was so low that he had to crawl through. Once inside, he lit the lantern which he carried, and set it on a projecting ledge of the rough masonry. Finlay was dragged in. The others followed, until only Neal and his uncle stood outside.
“Go next, Neal.”
“I cannot, uncle, I cannot. I am not able to bear this. Let me go away.”
“No. Go in, Neal. I want you. I shall let you go before the end.”
The vault was very small inside. It was hardly possible to stand upright, and there was little room for moving. James Finlay, still bound and gagged, lay at full length on the floor. Round him, their backs against the walls, crouched the other men. Moylin’s lantern cast a feeble, smoky light. The air was heavy and close. It was the air of a charnel house.
“Take from the prisoner the arms he has about him,” said Donald. “Search his pockets, and hand me any papers you find. Now unbind his hands and free his mouth.
“James Finlay, we are here to do strict justice. You shall have every opportunity of making any defence you can when you hear the charges against you. If you clear yourself you shall go free. If you fail to clear yourself you must abide the sentence we shall pronounce on you.”
“You mean to murder me,” said Finlay.
“We do not mean to murder you. We mean to try you fairly, to acquit or condemn you in strict justice. The first charge against you is this. Having been sworn a member of the United Irishmen’s society in Dunseveric, having been elected a member of the committee, you did in Belfast betray the fact that there were cannons hidden in Dunseveric meeting-house, and gave the names of your fellow-members to the military authorities.”
“I deny it,” said James Finlay. “You have no proof of what you assert. Will you murder a man on suspicion?”
“Neal Ward,” said Donald, “is this the James Finlay who was sworn into the society by your father?”
“Yes,” said Neal.
“Tell us what you know about the visit of the yeomen to Dunseveric.”
Neal repeated the story, telling how he knew that his own name was on the list of persons to be arrested. There was a short silence when he had finished. Then James Bigger said—
“You have not proved that charge. The circumstances are suspicious, but you have proved nothing.”
Donald Ward bowed. Finlay raised his eyes for the first time since he had been dragged into the vault, and looked round him. There had risen in him a faint gleam of hope.
“You are charged,” said Donald again, “with having provided the dragoons who rioted in Belfast last week with information which led them to attack and wreck the houses of those who are in sympathy with the society.”
“I deny it. I was not in Belfast that day. I was here in Donegore with Aeneas Moylin.”
“You were here the day before,” said Moylin. “You left me that day early. You might have been in Belfast.”
“I was not,” said Finlay.
Donald Ward produced the scrap of paper which Peg Macllrea had taken from the dragoon.
“Is that your handwriting?” he asked.
James Finlay looked at it.
“No,” he said.
“James Bigger, give me the last letter you had from Finlay. Now put the lantern down on the floor.”
He looked steadily at the two papers, and then said—
“In my opinion these two are written in the same hand.”
He passed them to the man next him. They went from one to another, and the lantern followed them on their round. Each man examined them, and each nodded assent to Donald’s judgment.
“Let me see them,” said Finlay.
They were handed to him.
“I wrote neither of them,” he said.
“Your name is signed to one,” said Donald.
“I did not write it. I had hurt my hand on the day that note was written. I employed another man to write for me. The writing is his, not mine.”
“Name the man you employed.”
“Kelso, James Kelso.”
“Kelso was flogged yesterday,” said Donald, “and is in prison now. Do you expect us to believe that he is an informer? Is flogging the wages the Government pays to spies?”
“I tried to save Hope yesterday,” said Finlay. “Neal Ward, you have borne witness against me, tell the truth in my favour now.”
“I believe,” said Neal, “that he did his best to save Hope and me yesterday. I believe that he wanted to save us.”
He told his story, and he told of the conversation on the Cave Hill afterwards. Again the flicker of hope crossed Finlay’s face.
“You hear,” he said. “Would I have done that if I had been a spy? Could I not have handed them over to Major Barber if I had wished?”
“I shall give you credit for wishing to save Hope,” said Donald. “Now I shall pass on to examine the papers found on your person to-night.”
Finlay protested eagerly.
“I beg that you do not examine the papers you have taken from me. They are of a very private nature.”
“I can believe,” said Donald, “that they are of such a kind that you would willingly keep them private.”
“I protest against your reading them. You have no right to read them. They concern others besides myself. I give you my word.” Donald smiled slightly. “I swear to you, I will take any oath you like that there is no paper there concerned with politics. You will be sorry if you read them. I assure you that you will repent it afterwards. You will be doing a base action. You will pry into a woman’s secrets. You will bring dishonour on the name of a lady, a noble lady.”
“Do you expect us to believe,” said Donald, “that any lady, noble or other—that any woman, that any soldier’s drab even—has written love letters to you?”
He opened the first which came to hand of the pile of papers which lay at his feet on the ground. Finlay suddenly collapsed. His impudence, his ready tongue, deserted him. He had fought hard for his life, had lied—though he lied clumsily in his terror—had twisted, doubled, fought point after point. Whatever the papers were that had been found on him, he recognised that they condemned him utterly and hopelessly. The game was up for him. He saw death near at hand, as he had seen it earlier when he first realised that he was trapped in Moylin’s kitchen. Donald read paper after paper silently. Some he laid aside, some he passed to the man next him to read. Finlay rallied again. He made another effort to save himself.
“Listen,” he said, “I have influence with the Government. I don’t deny it. Call me an informer, a spy, any name you like, but admit that I have served my masters well. I can claim my reward from them. Let me go, and I swear to obtain pardons for you. I can save you, and I will. I offer you your lives as a ransom for mine.”
“Would you make us what you are?” said Donald, sternly. “Would you buy our honour, you that have sold your own?”
Finlay, who had knelt during his last appeal, fell forward. He grasped Neal with his hands. It was impossible in the dim light to see the faces of the men around him, but some instinct told him that Neal alone felt any pity for him, that from Neal alone he could look for mercy.
“Save me, Neal Ward,” he cried. “For God’s sake, save me. Plead for me. They will listen to you. I am not fit to die. Grant me one day, only one day. I will do anything you wish. I will—— Oh God, Oh Christ, Oh save me, save me now.”
Neal felt drops fall on his hands, sweat from Finlay’s brow or tears from his eyes. He spoke—
“Spare him,” he said. “Who are we to judge and to slay? James Hope said to me last night that we should refrain from taking vengeance. I ask you to respect what he said. Think of it. This man’s case to-day may be your’s to-morrow. Remember you may take life, but you cannot give it back again. Oh, this is too horrible—to kill him now, like this.”
He felt, while he spoke, Finlay’s clasp tighten on him. He felt the wretched man cover his hands with kisses, mumble, and slobber over them. There was silence for a while when Neal ceased speaking. Then Donald Ward said—
“Neal, you had better go outside. This is no work for a boy. It is, as you say, horrible. To inflict death is horrible, but it is sometimes just. If ever it is just for man to shed the blood of his brother man it is just to shed James Finlay’s. He has broken oaths, has brought death on men, has made women widows and children fatherless; has wrecked the happiness of homes. He has done these things for the sake of gain, for money counted out to him as the priests counted money out to Judas.”
It was impossible to plead his cause any more. Moylin pushed open the iron door of the vault. Neal dragged his hands from Finlay’s grasp, and crawled out. He heard the door clang behind him, shut fast again upon the broken, terrified wretch and his judges—relentless men of iron, the northern iron.
No sound reached him from the vault. Save for the occasional belated cawing of some rooks in the trees which shadowed the graveyard, no sound reached him at all. He sat down among the nettles, the brambles, and the rank grass and burst into tears.
The paroxysm of tears swept Neal as the Atlantic waves sweep foaming and furious over Rackle Roy. Then it passed and left him panting, shaking with recurrent sobs, and a prey to an hysterical dread of hearing some sound from the vault beside him. He sat absolutely motionless. He hardly dared to breathe. He waited in horrible expectation of hearing something. He listened intent, agonised, feeling that if a sound reached him he would cry aloud and on the instant become a raving madman. The scene inside the vault rose to his imagination. Far more really than he saw the dim church and the trees, he saw Finlay grovelling on the ground and the stern men crouching over him. He saw a knife gleam in the lantern’s light. He shut his eyes, as if by shutting them he could blot out the pictures of his imagination. He waited to hear a shriek, a smothered cry, a groan, the laboured breath of struggling men, the splash of blood. The suspense became an agony. He rose to his feet and fled.
He stumbled over a grave, and fell headlong, bruising his outstretched hands against a tombstone. He rose instantly and fled again. Stumbling again, he struck his head against the wall of the church. Dizzy and bewildered, he hastened on, driven forward by the terror of hearing some death noise from the vault. Tripping, staggering, rushing blindly, he reached the stile at last, and stood beyond it on the road. Before him was Moylin’s house. The window was lighted up, the door was open. He saw men seated within, and heard them laugh aloud. They seemed to him not men, but fiends making merry over murder, and the winning for their hell of a new damned soul. He fled from them as he had fled from the sound he dreaded. He rushed down the steep lane. Loose stones rolled under his feet. Sparks started into sudden brightness where the nails in his boot soles struck flints. The hedges rose high on each side of him, making the lane, even in the pale June night, intolerably dark. He fled on, blind, reckless, for the moment mad.
Suddenly he was stopped short. Strong arms were round him. He was flung to the ground. A man knelt on his chest. Rough hands grasped his throat.
“Who have you there, Tarn?”
“A damned fool for certain, whoever he is. What brings him down a hill like this in the dark, as if the devil was after him?”
“Loose his throat; do you want to choke him. Let him speak. Now, then, man, tell us who you are, and what you’re doing here.”
Neal’s powers of reasoning and thought returned to him. With the presence of real danger his fear vanished. He saw the forms of the men above him, discerned against the dull grey of the sky that they were armed and in uniform. He understood at once that he had fallen into the hands of soldiers, perhaps of yeomen.
“Who are you?” said the voice again.
Then the man who knelt on him added a word of warning—
“If you won’t speak, we’re the boys who know how to loose your tongue. We’ve made many a damned croppy glad to speak when we’d dealt with him.”
Neal remained silent.
“Get him on his feet, Tam, and we’ll take him to the Captain. If he’s not a rebel himself he’ll know where the rebels are hid.”
Neal was pulled up by the arms and marched along the lane again to Moylin’s house. He was led into the kitchen. Two men sat at the table drinking. They were in uniform. Neal recognised it as that of the Kilulta yeomen, the men who had raided his father’s meeting-house. He recognised one of the officers—Captain Twinely. The sergeant made his report. He and his men had been patrolling the lane as they had been ordered. They had heard a man running fast towards them, had stopped him, and arrested him.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” asked Captain Twinely.
Neal made no answer. The sergeant peered closely at his face.
“I think I know the man, sir. He’s the young fellow that was with the women at the meetinghouse in the north. The man the old lord made us loose when we had him. What do you say, Tarn?”
“You’re right as hell,” said the trooper who stood by Neal. “I’d know the young cub in a thousand.”
Captain Twinely rose, tools the lamp from the hook where it hung, held it close to Neat’s face, and looked at him.
“I believe you’re right,” he said. “Now, young man, we know who you are; You’re Neal Ward.” He drew a paper from his pocket and looked it over. “Yes, that’s the name, ‘Neal Ward, son of the Reverend Micah Ward, Presbyterian minister of Dunseveric. A young man, about six foot high, well built, fair hair, grey eyes, active, strong.’ Yes, the description fits all right. Now, Mr. Neal Ward, since I’ve answered my first question myself, perhaps you’ll be so good as to answer my second for me. Where are your fellow-rebels?”
Neal was silent.
“Come now, that won’t do. We know there’s a meeting of United Irishmen here to-night. We know that the leaders, M’Cracken, Monro, Hope, and the rest are somewhere about. Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” said Neal, “and if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”
The sergeant struck him sharply across the mouth with the back of his hand.
“Take that for your insolence. I’ll learn ye to say ‘sir’ when ye speak to a gentleman.”
“Answer my question,” said Captain Twinely, “or, by God, I’ll make you.”
“Try him with half hanging,” said the other officer, speaking for the first time. “I’ve known a tongue wag freely enough after it’s been sticking black out of a man’s mouth for a couple of minutes.”
“Too risky, Jack. The last fellow you half hanged wouldn’t come to life again; turned out to be whole hanged, by gad.” He laughed. “There’s fifty pounds on the head of this young cock, and it’s ten to one but the rascally Government would back out of their promise if we brought them nothing but a damned corpse. Besides, I want the information. The vermin’s nest must be somewhere round. I want to get the lot of them. No, no; there’s more ways of making a croppy speak than half hanging him. We’ll try the strap first, any way. Now, Mr. Neal Ward, will you speak or will you not?”
“I will not.”
“Hell to your soul! but I’m glad to hear it. I owe you something, young man, and I like to pay my debts. If you’d spoken without flogging I might have had to bring you into Belfast with a whole skin. Now I’ll have you flogged, and you’ll speak afterwards. Tam, give the sergeant your belt. Sergeant, there’s a tree outside. Tie the prisoner up and flog him till he speaks, but don’t kill him. Leave enough life in him to last till we get him to Belfast, unless he speaks at once.”
“Yes, sir, but if your orders are so particular I’d rather you’d be present yourself to see how much he can stand.”
“I’m not going to leave my bottle,” said Captain Twinely, “to stand sentry over croppy carrion. Flog him till you lay his liver bare, sergeant, but don’t cut it out of him.”
The sergeant saluted, and marched Neal out of the house. His coat was dragged off him, his shirt stripped from his back, his hands tied to the tree which stood before Moylin’s house. He set his teeth and waited. The predominating feeling in his mind at first was not fear but furious anger. He had shrunk in terror from the near prospect of seeing Finlay die. He felt nothing now except a passionate desire for revenge.
The sergeant swung the trooper’s belt round his head, making it whistle through the air. Neal shivered and shrank, but the blow did not fall. The sergeant was in no hurry.
“You hear that,” he said, swinging the belt again. “Will you speak before I lay it on you? You shall have time to consider. Nobody shall say I hurried a prisoner. We’ll sing you a psalm, my dearly beloved, a sweet psalm to a most comfortable tune. At the end of the first verse I’ll give you another chance. If you don’t speak then——. Now Tarn, now lads all, tune up to the Ould Hunderd,
“‘There was a Presbyterian catWho loved her neighbour’s cream to sup;She sanctified her theft with prayerBefore she went to drink it up.’”
The troopers, who appeared to have learned both tune and words since the night when the sergeant sang them in Dunseveric meeting-house, shouted lustily. Following their sergeant, they drawled the last line until it seemed to Neal as if they would never reach the end of it.
“Now, Mr. Neal Ward,” said the sergeant, “you’ve had a most comfortable and cheering psalm for the hour of your affliction. Will you speak, or——. Damn your soul, Tam, what are you at?”
The man next him lurched suddenly forward, clutching at the sergeant. In another instant there was a dull thud, and Donald Ward stood over the sergeant with a pistol, grasped by its barrel, in his hand. He had brought the butt of it down on the man’s skull. Two more of the yeomen fell almost at the same instant. The rest, three of them with wounds, fled, yelling, down the lane.
“The croppies are on us! Hell and murder! We’re dead men!”
There were about twenty of them, all well armed, but a night surprise has a tendency to shake the firmest nerves. Captain Twinely and his fellow-officer played no very heroic part. At the first sound of the shouting and the footsteps of the flying troopers they rushed into the inner room and crawled under the bed, fighting desperately with each other for the place nearest the wall, but Donald Ward had no time to go after them.
“Cut the boy down,” he said.
It was Felix Matier who set Neal free.
“Oh, whistle and I will come to you, my lad,” he quoted, as he hustled the shirt over Neal’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you whistle, Neal, or shout, or something? Only for that devil’s song we’d never have found you. I guessed he was at some mischief when I heard him begin it.”
“Silence,” said Donald, “and let us get out of this. The place must be swarming with troops, and those yelling cowards will arouse every soldier within a mite of us. It may not be so easy to chase the next lot. Over into the churchyard again, and then, Moylin, we must trust to you. You know the country, or you ought to, and I don’t.”
Aeneas Moylin led the way into the churchyard again, and across the wall at the lower end of it. The noise of many horsemen riding fast reached them from the lane they had left. The frightened yeomen had gathered troops to aid them, dragoons who had been posted on the main road down below. From the top of the rath, which rose dark above even the tower of the church, there came shouts. Men had been placed there, too, and were gathering to their comrades opposite Moylin’s house. The hunt would begin in earnest soon. Donald called a halt and, cowering under the shadow of a thick hedge, the little party of fugitives held a consultation.
“We might go back to the vault,” said James Bigger. “They would find it hard to get at us there, even if they discovered us. They couldn’t burn us out, for the walls are solid stone and four foot thick at least.”
“I’m not going to spend the night with—— with what’s there,” said Felix Matier. “I’m not a coward, but I won’t sit in the dark all night with my knees up against—ugh!”
“James Finlay?” said Bigger. “He won’t hurt you now.”
“I’m for getting away if possible,” said Donald. “I’m not frightened of dead men, but I want to be at the fight tomorrow. If we stay here all night we’ll miss it.”
“Hark!” said Moylin, “they’re in the churchyard. I hear them stumbling about among the graves. We can’t get back now, even if we want to. Follow me.”
Creeping along the side of the hedge, they crossed the field they were in, another, and another after that. They came upon a by-road.
“We must cross this,” said Moylin, “and I think there are soldiers nigh at hand.”
Suddenly the sky behind them grew strangely bright. A flame, which cast black shadows from hedge and tree and wall, which lit up every open space of ground, shot up.
“Down,” said Donald, “down for your lives, lie flat. Where the devil have they got the fire?”
“It’s my house,” said Moylin, quietly, “the roof is thatched. It burns well, but it won’t burn for long.”
The shouts of the soldiers round the burning homestead reached them plainly. A body of horsemen cantered along the lane in front of them.
“Now,” said Donald, “now, while their backs are turned, get across.”
They crossed unseen, and gained the shelter of the ditch at the far side. They crept along it, seeking some boundary wall or hedge running at right angles which would cast a shadow over them. The horsemen passed again, but this time the risk of discovery was less. The thatch of Moylin’s house had almost burned itself out. Only a red glow remained, casting little shadow, lighting the land dimly. They crossed the field in safety and reached a grove of trees.
“We’re right now,” said Moylin. “We can take it easy from this on.”
“Neal Ward,” said Felix Matier, “next time you get yourself into a scrape I’ll leave you there. I haven’t been as nervous since I played ‘I spy’ twenty years ago among the whins round the Giant’s Ring. Fighting’s no test of courage. It’s running away that tries a man.”
“Phew!” said Donald, wiping his brow. Even he seemed to have felt the strain of the last half-hour. “I did some scouting work for General Greene in the Carolinas. I’ve lain low in sight of the watch-fires of Cornwallis’ cavalry, but I’m damned if I ever had as close a shave as that. I felt jumpy, and that’s a fact. I think it was the sight of your bare back, Neal, and that blackguard brandishing his belt over you that played up with my nerves.”
“Let’s be getting on,” said Moylin, “my house is ashes now, the house I built with my own hands, the room my wife died in, the bed my girl was born in. She’s safe out of this, thank God. I want to be getting on. I want to be in Antrim to-morrow with a pike in my hand and a regiment of dragoons in front of me.”
Under Moylin’s guidance they travelled across country through the night. About three in the morning, when the east was beginning to grow bright with the coming dawn, they reached a substantial farmhouse and climbed into the haggard.
“We’re within twenty yards of the main road now,” said Moylin, “about a mile and a half outside the town of Antrim. We can lie here till morning. It’s a safe place. The man that owns it won’t betray us if he does find us here.”
At six o’clock Donald Ward awoke. The rest of the party lay stretched around him, sleeping as men do after severe physical exertion and mental strain. He sat still for a while, and then crept out of the barn where they slept, and reconnoitered the farmhouse. He was surprised to find no sign of life about it. Doors and windows were fast shut. No dog barked at him. No cattle lowed. Not even a hen pecked or cackled in the yard. He returned to the barn and roused the rest of the party.
“I’ve been looking round,” he said, “to see what chance we have of getting breakfast. As far as I can make out the place is deserted.”
“I wouldn’t wonder,” said Moylin, “if the man that owns it has cleared out. He’s a bit of a coward, and he’s not much liked in the country because he tries to please both parties.”
“I thought you said last night,” said Donald, “that he wouldn’t betray us.”
“No more he would,” said Moylin, “he’d be afraid of what might happen him after, but I never said he’d help us. It’s my belief he’s gone off out of this in dread of what may happen in Antrim to-day. He’ll be at his brother’s farm away down the Six Mile Water.”
“Well,” said Donald, “it doesn’t matter about him. The question is, how are we to get something to eat?”
A long consultation followed. There were serious difficulties. The amount of food required for seven hungry men was considerable, and Donald Ward insisted strongly on the necessity of having a good meal. It was decided at last that two of the party should venture into Antrim to buy bread and wine. No one knew what troops there might be in the town. It would not be safe to count on the support of the inhabitants if they happened to have soldiers in their houses. The inns might be full of officers. The shops might be in the hands of the royal troops.
“It’s no use discussing the difficulties and dangers,” said Donald at last. “We’ve got to risk it. We can’t fight all day on empty stomachs. We’d fight badly if we did. I and Neal here will go into Antrim, we’re the least likely to be recognised. The rest of you are known men. We’ll bring you back something to eat.”
At eight o’clock they set out, and reached the town just as the people were beginning to open their doors. Donald Ward pressed some money into Neal’s hand.
“Go into the inn where we stopped,” he said. “Get a couple of bottles of wine and some cold meat if you can. I’ll go on to the baker’s. We’ll meet again opposite the church. If I’m not there in twenty minutes go back without me; I’ll wait that long for you. Walk in as if you owned the shanty. There’s nothing starts suspicion as quick as looking frightened. Bluster a bit if they look crooked at you, and answer no questions for anybody.”
Neal did his best to follow the advice. But it is not easy for a man who has slept two successive nights in the open, who has had no opportunity of shaving, and who has crawled in ditches for several miles, to assume the airs of an opulent and self-contented tourist. Neal was painfully conscious that he must look like a disreputable tramp. Nevertheless he squared his shoulders, held up his head, and jingled his money in his pocket as he passed through the door. He called valiantly for the master. A girl, tousle-headed and heavy-eyed, looking as if she, too, had slept on a hillside or slept very little in bed, came to him. He recognised her as the same who had waited on him and Donald when they spent the night in the inn. She was sharp-sighted in spite of her sleeplessness. She knew Neal.
“In there with you,” she said, pointing to a door, “I’ll get you what you’re after wanting. The dear knows there’s broken meat in plenty here the morn.”
Neal entered the room. The table was littered with the remains of breakfast. A large party had evidently been there and had gone. Neal guessed that at least a dozen people had sat at the table. With his back to the room, looking out of the window, stood a young man, booted and spurred for riding, well dressed, well groomed, a sword by his side. His figure struck Neal as being familiar. A second glance made him sure that this was Maurice St. Clair. For a moment he hesitated. Then he said—
“Maurice.”
“Neal,” said the other, turning quickly. “What brings you here? God, man, you mustn’t stay. My father is in the house and Lord O’Neill. Thank God the rest of them are gone.”
“What brings you and your father to Antrim, Maurice?”
“There was to have been a meeting of the magistrates of the county here to-day. My father rode in last night and brought me with him, but there came an orderly from Belfast this morning with news which fluttered our company. The rebels are to attack the town to-day. Oh, Neal, but it was fun to see the hurry the worshipful justices were in to get home this morning. There were a round dozen of them here last night drinking death and damnation to the croppies till the small hours. This morning it was who would get his breakfast and his horse first. You never saw such scrambling.”
“You and your father stayed,” said Neal.
“Yes. Is it likely my lord would ride away from danger? You know him, Neal.”
The girl entered with a basket on her arm. With a glance at Maurice St. Clair she came close to Neal and whispered—
“There’s for you. There’s plenty wine and cold meat for half a score. I’ll be tongued by the master after, it’s like, but I’ll give it for the sake of Jemmy Hope, who’s a better gentleman than them that wears finer coats, that never said a hard word or did an uncivil thing to a poor serving wench no more than if she’d been the first lady in the land.”
Neal took the basket and bade farewell to Maurice, but as he turned to leave the room Lord Dunseveric and another gentleman entered. Neal stood back, hoping to escape notice, but Lord Dunseveric saw and recognised him.
“O’Neill,” he said to his companion, “pardon me a moment. This is a young friend of mine to whom I would speak a word.”
He led Neal to the window.
“Are you on your way home, Neal?”
“No, my lord.”
“I suppose I must not ask where you are going or what you mean to do. I don’t ask, but I advise you strongly to go home. The game is up, Neal. The plans of your friends have been blown upon. Their secrets are known. See here.”
He held out a printed paper. Neal took it and read—
“To-morrow we march on Antrim. Drive the garrison of Randalstown before you, and haste to form a junction with the commander-in-chief.—Henry Joy M’Cracken. First year of Liberty, 6th June, 1798.”
“That paper was handed to General Clavering last night,” said Lord Dunseveric, “and half a dozen more copies were sent to other officers. Is it any use going on now?”
“My lord,” said Neal, “I have heard things—I have seen things. Last night I myself was stripped for flogging. They have set a price on my head. I put it to you as a gentleman, as a just man and a brave, would it be right to go back now?”
“It is no use going on.”
“But would you go back? Would you desert friends who did not desert you? Would you leave them?”
“A wise man does not struggle against the inevitable, Neal.”
“But a man of honour, my lord. What would a man of honour do?”
“A man of honour,” said Lord Dunseveric, “would act as you are going to do.”
“Farewell, my lord, I go with an easy mind now, if I go to my death, for I have your approval.”
“Neal Ward,” said Lord Dunseveric, “I have known you since you were a boy, and I’ve loved you next to my own children. I don’t say you are acting wrongly or dishonourably, but you and your friends are acting foolishly. You cannot win. You and hundreds of innocent people must suffer, and Ireland, Neal, Ireland will come to the worse, to the old subjection, to the old bondage, to the old misery, through your foolishness. I say this, not to dissuade you from going on, for I think that you must go on now, but in order that when you look back on it all afterwards you may remember that there were true friends of Ireland who were not on your side.”
Neal bent over Lord Dunseveric’s hand and kissed it solemnly.
“I have known two great and good men,” he said. “You, my lord, and one whose name you might count contemptible, James Hope, the weaver, of Templepatrick. I think myself happy that I have had the goodwill of both. And, my lord, I think Ireland the most unhappy country in the world because to-day these two men will be in arms against each other.”
He sobbed. Then, lest he should betray more emotion, went quickly from the inn.
He found his uncle waiting for him outside the church.
“Well, Neal,” he said, “how have you sped? You have a basket; I hope it is full. See here, I have four loaves of bread. The baker man would have denied me. He suspected me, but I had my answer for him. I told him I was groom to a great lord who was staying in the inn. I made free with the name of your friend, Lord Dunseveric. I told him that if he refused my lord the bread he wanted he would hang him for his insolence. I got the bread. For the first time and the last I have been a serving man. Now, back, back as fast as we can go to our hungry comrades.”
After they left the town Donald Ward grew grave again.
“My lad,” he said, “we shall have a fight to-day—a fight worth fighting. It won’t be the first time I’ve looked on bare steel or heard the bullets sing. I know what fighting means, and I know this, that many of us will lie low enough before the sun sets. It may be my luck to come through or it may not. I have a sort of feeling that I am to fire my last shots to-day. Don’t look at me like that, boy, I’m not frightened. I’ll fight none the worse. But I want to settle a little bit of business with you now that we are alone. I have a paper here, I wrote it last night while you slept; I signed it this morning, and I have it witnessed. I got a parson to witness it, a kind of curate man, a poor creature. I caught him going into the church to say prayers, and made him witness my signature. I had time enough, for you were longer at the inn than I was at the baker’s. Here it is for you, Neal. In case of my death it makes you owner of my share of a little business in the town of Boston. My partner is managing it now. We own a few ships, and were making money when I left. But it did not suit me. I got the fighting fever into my blood during the war. I couldn’t settle down to books and figures. Maybe you’ll take to the work. If you do you ought to stand a good chance of dying a rich man, and you’ll be comfortably off the day you hand that paper to my partner. Not a word now, not a word. I know what you want to say. Twist your lips into a smile again. Look as if you were happy whatever you feel, and when all’s said and done you ought to be happy. Whatever the end of it may be we’ll get our bellies full of fighting to-day, and what has life got to give a man better than that?”