CHAPTER VIII
AN AFTER-DINNER GAME
Easiness, the failing of the old-world Irishman, had been Uncle Ulick's bane through life. It was easiness which had induced him to condone a baseness in his nephew which he would have been the first to condemn in a stranger. And again it was easiness which had beguiled him into standing idle while the brother's influence was creeping like strangling ivy over the girl's generous nature; while her best instincts were being withered by ridicule, her generosity abused by meanness, and her sense of right blunted by such acts of lawlessness as the seizure of the smuggling vessel. He feared, if he did not know, that things were going ill. He saw the blighting shadow of Asgill begin to darken the scene. He believed that The McMurrough, unable to raise money on the estate—since he had no title—was passing under Asgill's control. And still he had not raised his voice.
But, above all, it was easiness which had induced Uncle Ulick to countenance in Flavia those romantic notions, now fast developing into full-blown plans, which he, who had seen the world in his youth, should have blasted; which he, who could recall the humiliation of Boyne Water and the horrors of '90, he, who knew somewhat, if only a little, of the strength of England and the weakness of Ireland, should have been the first to nip in the bud.
He had not nipped them. Instead, he had allowed the reckless patriotism of the young O'Beirnes, the predatory instincts of O'Sullivan Og, the simulated enthusiasm—for simulated he knew it to be—of the young McMurrough to guide the politics of the house and to bring it to the verge of a crisis. The younger generation and their kin, the Sullivans, the Mahoneys, the O'Beirnes, bred in this remote corner, leading a wild and almost barbarous life, deriving such sparks of culture as reached them from foreign sources and through channels wilder than their life, were no judges of their own weakness or of the power opposed to them. But he was. He knew, and had known, that it became him, as the Nestor of the party, to point out the folly of their plans. Instead, he had bowed to the prevailing feeling. For—be it his excuse—he, too, was Irish! He, too, felt his heart too large for his bosom when he dwelt on his country's wrongs. On him, too, though he knew that successful rebellion was out of the question, Flavia's generous indignation, her youth, her enthusiasm, wrought powerfully. And at times, in moments of irritation, he, too, saw red, and dreamed of a last struggle for freedom.
At this point, at a moment when the crisis, grown visible, could no longer be masked, had arrived John Sullivan, a man of experience. His very aspect sobered Uncle Ulick's mind. The latter saw that only a blacker and more hopeless night could follow the day of vengeance of which he dreamt; and he sat this evening—while Asgill talked on the hill with The McMurrough—he sat this evening by the light of the peat-fire, and was sore troubled. Was it, or was it not, too late? He occupied the great chair in which Sir Michael had so often conned his Scudery of winter evenings; but though he filled the chair, he knew that he had neither the will nor the mastery of its old owner. If it had not passed already, the thing might easily pass beyond his staying. Meanwhile, Flavia sat on a stool on the farther side of the blaze—until supper was on the board they used no other light—brooding bitterly over the loss of her mare; and he knew that that incident would not make things more easy. For here was tyranny brought to an every-day level; oppression that pricked to the quick! The Saxons, who had risen for a mere poundage against their anointed king, did not scruple to make slaves, ay, real slaves, of a sister and a more ancient people! But the cup was full and running over, and they should rue it! A short day and they would find opposed to them the wrath, the fury, the despair of a united people and an ancient faith. Something like this Flavia had been saying to him.
Then silence had fallen. And now he made answer.
"I'm low at heart about it, none the less," he said. "War, my girl, is a very dreadful thing." He had in his mind the words Colonel John had used to him on that subject.
"And what is slavery?" she replied. There were red spots in her cheeks, and her eyes shone.
"But if the yoke be made heavier, my jewel, and not lighter?"
"Then let us die!" she answered. "Let there be an end! For it is time. But let us die free! As it is, do we not blush to own that we are Irish? Is not our race the handmaid among nations? Then let us die! What have we to live for? Our souls they will not leave us, our bodies they enslave, they take our goods! What is left, Uncle Ulick?" she continued passionately.
"Just to endure," he said sadly, "till better times. Or what if we make things worse? Believe me, Flavvy, the last rising——"
"Rising!" she cried. "Rising! Why do you call it that? It was no rising! It was the English who rose, and we who remained faithful to our king. It was they who betrayed, and we who paid the penalty for treason! Rising!"
"Call it what you like, my dear," he answered patiently, "'tis not forgotten."
"Nor forgiven!" she cried fiercely.
"True! But the spirit is broken in us. If it were not, we should have risen three years back, when the Scotch rose. There was a chance then. But for us by ourselves there is no chance and no hope. And in this little corner what do we know or hear? God forgive us, 'tis only what comes from France and Spain by the free-traders that we'll be hearing."
"Uncle Ulick!" she answered, looking fixedly at him, "I know where you get that from! I know who has been talking to you, and who"—her voice trembled with anger—"has upset the house! It's meet that one who has left the faith of his fathers, and turned his back on his country in her trouble—it is well that he should try to make others act as he has acted, and be false as he has been false! Caring for nothing himself, cold, and heartless——"
He was about to interrupt her, but on the word the door opened and her brother and Asgill entered, shaking the moisture from their coats. It had begun to rain as they returned along the edge of the lake. She dashed the tears from her eyes and was silent.
"Sure, and you've got a fine colour, my girl," The McMurrough said. "Any news of the mare?" he continued, as he took the middle of the hearth and spread his skirts to the blaze, Asgill remaining in the background. Then, as she shook her head despondently—the presence of Asgill had driven her into herself—"Bet you a hundred crowns to one, Asgill," he said, with a grin, "cousin Sullivan don't recover her!"
"I couldn't afford to take it," Asgill answered, smiling. "But if Miss Flavia had chosen me for her ambassador in place of him that's gone——"
"She might have had a better, and couldn't have had a worse!" James said, with a loud laugh. "It's supper-time," he continued, after he had turned to the fire, and kicked the turfs together, "and late, too! Where's Darby? There's never anything but waiting in this house. I suppose you are not waiting for the mare? If you are, it's empty insides we'll all be having for a week of weeks."
"I'm much afraid of that," Uncle Ulick answered, as the girl rose. Uncle Ulick could never do anything but fall in with the prevailing humour.
Flavia paused half-way across the floor and listened. "What's that?" she asked, raising her hand for silence. "Didn't you hear something? I thought I heard a horse."
"You didn't hear a mare," her brother retorted, grinning. "In the meantime, miss, I'd be having you know we're hungry. And——"
He stopped, startled by a knock on the door. The girl hesitated, then she stepped to it, and threw it wide. Confronting her across the threshold, looking ghostly against the dark background of the night, a grey horse threw up its head and, dazzled by the light, started back a pace—then blithered gently. In a twinkling, before the men had grasped the truth, Flavia had sprung across the threshold, her arms were round her favourite's neck, she was covering its soft muzzle with kisses.
"The saints defend us!" Uncle Ulick cried. "It is the mare!"
In his surprise The McMurrough forgot himself, his rôle, the company. "D—n!" he said. Fortunately Uncle Ulick was engrossed in the scene at the door, and the girl was outside. Neither heard.
Asgill's mortification, as may be believed, was a hundred times deeper. But his quicker brain had taken in the thing and its consequences on the instant. And he stood silent.
"She's found her way back!" The McMurrough exclaimed, recovering himself.
"Ay, lad, that must be it," Uncle Ulick replied. "She's got loose and found her way back to her stable, heaven be her bed! And them that took her are worse by the loss of five pounds!"
"Broken necks to them!" The McMurrough cried viciously.
But at that moment the door, which led to the back of the house and the offices, opened, and Colonel John stepped in, a smile on his face. He laid his damp cloak on a bench, hung up his hat and whip, and nodded to Ulick.
"The Lord save us! is it you've brought her back?" the big man exclaimed.
The Colonel nodded. "I thought"—he looked towards the open door—"it would please her to find the creature so!"
The McMurrough stood speechless with mortification. It was Asgill who stepped forward and spoke. "I give you joy, Colonel Sullivan," he said. "It is small chance I thought you had."
"I can believe you," the Colonel answered quietly. If he did not know much he suspected a good deal.
Before more could be said Flavia McMurrough turned herself about and came in and saw Colonel Sullivan. Her face flamed hotly, as the words which she had just used about him recurred to her; she could almost have wished the mare away again, if the obligation went with her. To owe the mare to him! Yes, she would have preferred to lose the mare!
But the thing was done, and she found words at last; but cold words. "I am very much obliged to you," she said, "if it was really you who brought her back."
"It was I who brought her back," he answered quietly, hurt by her words and manner, but hiding the hurt. "You need not thank me, however; I did it very willingly."
She felt the meanness of her attitude, and "I do thank you!" she said, straining at warmth, but with poor success. "I am very grateful to you, Colonel Sullivan, for the service you have done me."
"And wish another had done it!" he answered, with the faintest tinge of reproach in his voice. It was a slip from his usual platform, but he could not deny himself.
"No! But that you would serve another as effectively," she responded.
He did not see her drift. And "What other?" he asked.
"Your country," she replied. And, turning to the door again, she went out into the night, to see that the mare was safely disposed.
The four men looked at one another, and Uncle Ulick shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, "We all know what women are!" Then feeling a storm in the air, he spoke for the sake of speaking. "Well, James," he said, "she's got her mare, and you've lost your wager. It's good-bye to the brandy, anyway. And, faith, it'll be good news for the little French captain. For you, John Sullivan, I give you joy. You'll amend us all at this rate, and make Kerry as peaceable as the Four Courts out of term time! Sure, and I begin to think you're one of the Little People!" As he spoke he slapped Colonel John on the shoulders.
"About the brandy," The McMurrough said curtly. "Things are by way of being changed, I'd have you know. And I'm not going to forgo a good ship——"
"No, no, a bet's a bet," Uncle Ulick interposed hurriedly. "Mr. Asgill was here, and——"
"I'm with you," Asgill said. "Colonel Sullivan's won the right to have his way, and it's better so too, and safer. Faith and I'm glad," he continued cordially, "for there might have been trouble, and now there'll be none!"
"Well, it's not I'll tell O'Sullivan Og," James McMurrough retorted. "It's little he'll like to give up the stuff, and, in my opinion," he added sullenly, "there's more than us will have a word to say to it before it's given up. But you can judge of that for yourselves."
"Mr. Crosby, of Castlemaine——"
"Oh, d—n! It's little he'll count in a week from this!"
"Still, I've no doubt Colonel Sullivan will arrange it," Asgill answered smoothly. It was evident that he thought The McMurrough was saying too much. "Sure he's managed a harder thing."
There was a gleam in his eye and a something sinister in the tone as he said it; but the words were hearty, and Colonel John made no demur. And Darby, entering at that moment with a pair of lights in tall candlesticks—which were silver, but might have been copper—caused a welcome interruption. A couple of footboys, with slipshod feet and bare ankles, bore in the meats after him and slapped them down on the table; at the same moment the O'Beirnes and two or three more of the "family" entered from the back. Their coming lightened the air. They had to hear the news, and pass their opinion upon it. Questions were asked: Where'd the Colonel light on the cratur, and how'd he persuaded the Protestant rogues—ah, be jabbers, begging his honour's pardon entirely!—how'd he persuaded the rogues to give her up? Colonel John refused to say, but laughingly. The O'Beirnes and the others were in a good humour, pleased that the young mistress had recovered her favourite, and inclined to look more leniently on the Colonel. "Faith, and it's clear that you're a Sullivan!" quoth one. "There's none like them to put the comether on man and beast!"
This was not much to the taste of The McMurrough or of Asgill, who, inwardly raging, saw the interloper founding a reputation on the ruse which they had devised for another end. It was abruptly and with an ill grace that the master of the house cut short the scene and bade all sit down if they wanted their meat.
"What are we waiting for?" he continued querulously. "Where's the girl? Stop your jabbering, Martin! And Phelim——"
"Sure, I believe the mare's got from her," Uncle Ulick cried. "I heard a horse, no farther back than this moment."
"I'm wishing all horses in Purgatory," The McMurrough replied angrily. "And fools too! Where's the wench gone? Anyway, I'm beginning. You can bide her time if you like!"
And begin he did. The others, after looking expectantly at the door—for none dared treat Flavia as her brother treated her—and after Asgill had said something about waiting for her, fell to also, one by one. Presently the younger of the slipshod footboys let fall a dish—fortunately the whole service was of pewter, so no harm was done—and was cursed for awkwardness. Where was Darby? He also had vanished.
The claret began to go round in the old Spanish silver jug—for no house in the west lacked Bordeaux in those days; it was called in London coffee-houses Irish wine. Still, neither Flavia nor the butler returned, and many were the glances cast at the door. By-and-by the Colonel—who felt that a cloud hung over the board, as over his own spirits—saw, or fancied that he saw, an odd thing. The door—that which led to the back of the house—opened, as if the draught moved it; it remained open a space, then in a silent, ghostly fashion it fell-to again. The Colonel laid down his knife, and Uncle Ulick, whose eyes had followed his, crossed himself. "That's not lucky," the big man said, his face troubled. "The saints send it's not the white horse of the O'Donoghues has whisked her off!"
"Don't be for saying such unchancy things, Mr. Sullivan!" Phelim answered, with a shiver. And he, too, crossed himself. "What was it, at all, at all?"
"The door opened without a hand," Uncle Ulick explained. "I'm fearing there's something amiss."
"Not with this salmon," James McMurrough struck in contemptuously. "Eat your supper and leave those tales to the women!"
Uncle Ulick made no reply, and a moment later Darby entered, slid round the table to Uncle Ulick's side, and touched his shoulder. Whether he whispered a word or not Colonel John did not observe, but forthwith the big man rose and went out.
This time it was James McMurrough who laid down his knife. "What in the name of the Evil One is it?" he cried, in a temper. "Can't a man eat his meat in peace, but all the world must be tramping the floor?"
"Oh, whisht! whisht!" Darby muttered, in a peculiar tone.
James leapt up. He was too angry to take a hint. "You old fool!" he cried, heedless of Asgill's hand, which was plucking at his skirts. "What is it? What do you mean with your 'whishts' and your nods? What——"
But the old butler had turned his back on his master, and gone out in a panic. Fortunately at this moment Flavia showed at the door. "The fault's mine, James," she said, in a clear, loud tone. And the Colonel saw that her colour was high and her eyes were dancing. "I couldn't bear to leave her at once, the darling! That was it; and besides, I took a fear——"
"The pastern's right enough," Uncle Ulick struck in, entering behind her and closing the door with the air of a big man who does not mean to be trifled with. "Sound as your own light foot, my jewel, and sounder than James's head! Be easy, be easy, lad," he continued, with a trifle of sternness. "Sure, you're spoiling other men's meat, and forgetting the Colonel's present, not to speak of Mr. Asgill, that, being a Justice, is not used to our Kerry tantrums!"
Possibly this last was a hint, cunningly veiled. At any rate, The McMurrough took his seat again with a better grace than usual, and Asgill made haste to take up the talk. The Colonel reflected; nor did he find it the least odd thing that Flavia, who had been so full of distress at the loss of her mare, said little of the rescuer's adventures, nor much of the mare herself. Yet the girl's eyes sparkled, and her whole aspect was changed in the last hour. She seemed, as far as he could judge, to be in a state of the utmost excitement; she had shaken off the timidity which her brother's temper too often imposed on her, and with it her reticence and her shyness before strangers. All the Irish humour in her fluttered to the surface, and her tongue ran with an incredible gaiety. Uncle Ulick, the O'Beirnes, the buckeens, laughed frank admiration—sometimes at remarks which the Colonel could not understand, sometimes at more obvious witticisms. Asgill was her slave. Darby, with the familiarity of the old servant, chuckled openly and rubbed his hands at her sallies; the footboys guffawed in corners, and more than one dish rolled on the floor without drawing down a rebuke. Even her brother regarded her with unwilling amusement, and did not always refrain from applause.
Could all this, could the change in her spring from the recovery of the mare, of which she said scarce a word? Colonel John could hardly believe it; and, indeed, if such were the case, she was ungrateful. For, for the recoverer of her favourite she had no words, and scarce a look. Rather, it seemed to him that there must be two Flavias: the one shy, modest, and, where her country was not assailed, of a reserve beyond reproach; the other Flavia, a shoot of the old tree, a hoyden, a castback to Sir Michael's wild youth and the gay days of the Restoration Court.
He listened to her drollery, her ringing laugh, her arch sayings with some blame, but more admiration. After all, what had he a right to expect in this remote corner of the land, cut off by twenty leagues of bog and mountain from modern refinement, culture, thought, in this old tribal house, the last refuge of a proscribed faith and a hated race? Surely, no more than he found—nay, not a tithe of that he found. For, listening with a kindlier heart—even he, hurt by her neglect, had judged her for a while too harshly—he discerned that at her wildest and loudest, in the act of bandying cryptic jests with the buckeens, and uttering much that was thoughtless—Flavia did not suffer one light or unmaidenly word to pass her lips.
He gave her credit for that; and in the act he learned, with a reflection on his stupidity, that there was method in her madness; ay, and meaning—but he had not hitherto held the key to it—in her jests. On a sudden—he saw now that this was the climax to which she had been leading up—she sprang to her feet, carried away by her excitement. Erect, defiant—nay, triumphant—she flung her handkerchief into the middle of the table, strewn as it was with a medley of glasses and flasks and disordered dishes.
"Who loves me, follows me!" she cried, a queer exultation in her tone—"across the water!"
They pounced on the kerchief, like dogs let loose from the leash—every man but the astonished Colonel. For an instant the place was a pandemonium, a Babel. In a twinkling the kerchief was torn, amid cries of the wildest enthusiasm, into as many fragments as there were men round the table.
"All!—all!" she cried, still standing erect, and hounding them on with the magic of her voice, while her beautiful face blazed with excitement. "All—but you?"—with which, for the briefest space, she turned to Colonel John. Her eyes met his. They asked him a defiant question: they challenged the answer.
"I do not understand," he replied, taken by surprise. But indeed he did understand only too well. "Is it a game?"
The men were pinning the white shreds on their coats above their hearts—even her brother, obedient for once. But at that word they turned as one man to him, turned flushed, frowning faces and passionate eyes on him. But Flavia was before them; excitement had carried her farther than she had meant to go, yet prudence had not quite left her. "Yes, a game!" she cried, laughing, a note too high. "Don't you know the Lady's Kerchief?"
"No," he said soberly; he was even a little out of countenance.
"Then no more of it," Uncle Ulick cried, interposing, with a ring of authority in his voice. "For my part, I'm for bed. Bed! We're all children, bedad, and as fond of a frolic! And I'm thinking I'm the worst. The lights, Darby, the lights, and pleasant dreams to you! After all—
The spoke that is to-day on top,To-morrow's on the ground.
The spoke that is to-day on top,To-morrow's on the ground.
The spoke that is to-day on top,
To-morrow's on the ground.
Sure, and I'll swear that's true!"
"And no treason!" The McMurrough answered him, with a grin. "Eh, Asgill?"
And so between them they removed Colonel John's last doubt—if he had one.
CHAPTER IX
EARLY RISERS
Colonel Sullivan had returned from Tralee in high spirits. He had succeeded beyond his hopes in the task he had set himself to perform, and he counted with confidence on gaining by that means a sound footing and a firm influence in the house. But as he sat in his room that evening, staring at the rushlight, with the night silent about him, he feared, nay, he almost knew, that his success came too late. Something had happened behind his back, some crisis, some event; and that which he had done was as if it were undone, and that which he had gained availed nothing.
It was plain—whatever was obscure—that the play of the Lady's Kerchief was a cover for matter more serious. Those who had taken part in it had scarcely deigned to pretend. Colonel John had been duller than the dullest if he had not seen in the white shreds for which the men had scrambled, and which they had affixed with passion to their coats, the white Cockade of the Pretender; or found in Uncle Ulick's couplet—uttered while in a careless fashion he affected disguise,
The spoke that is to-day on top,To-morrow's on the ground,
The spoke that is to-day on top,To-morrow's on the ground,
The spoke that is to-day on top,
To-morrow's on the ground,
one of those catchwords which suited the taste of the day, and served at once for a passport and a sentiment.
But Colonel John knew that many a word was said over the claret which meant less than nothing next morning; and that many a fair hand passed the wine across the water-bowl—the very movement did honour to a shapely arm—without its owner having the least intention of endangering those she loved for the sake of the King across the Water. He knew that a fallen cause has ever two sets of devotees—those who talk and those who act: the many, in other words, who sing the songs and drink the toasts, and delight in the badges of treason—in the sucked orange, the sprig of oak, the knot of white ribbon, the fir-planting; and the few who mean more than they say, who mean, and sternly, to be presently the Spoke on Top.
Consequently he knew that he might be wrong in dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the scene which he had witnessed. Such a scene might mean no more than a burst of high spirits: in nine cases out of ten it would not be followed by action, nor import more than that singing of "'Twas a' for our rightful King!" which had startled him on his arrival. In that house, in the wilds of Kerry, sheer loyalty could not be expected. The wrongs of the nation were too recent, the high seas were too near, the wild geese came and went too freely—wild geese of another feather than his. Such outbursts as he had witnessed were no more than the safety-valves of outraged pride. The ease with which England had put down the Scotch rising a few years before—to say nothing of the fate of those who had taken part in it—must deter all reasonable men, whatever their race or creed, from entering on an undertaking beyond doubt more hopeless.
For Ireland was not as Scotland. Scarcely a generation had passed since she had felt the full weight of the conqueror's hand; and if she possessed, in place of the Highland mountains, vast stretches of uncharted bog and lake, to say nothing of a thousand obscure inlets, she had neither the unbroken clan-feeling nor the unbroken national spirit of the sister country. Scotland was still homogeneous, she still counted for a kingdom, her soil was still owned by her own lords and worked by her own peasants. She had suffered no massacre of Drogheda or of Wexford; no Boyne, no Aghrim, no vast and repeated confiscations. Whereas Ireland, a partitioned and subject land, which had suffered during the last two centuries horrors unspeakable, still cowered like a whipped dog before its master, and was as little likely to rebel.
Colonel John leant upon such arguments; and, disappointed and alarmed as he was by Flavia's behaviour, he told himself that nothing was seriously meant, and that with the morning light things would look more cheerful.
But when he awoke, after a feverish and disturbed sleep, the faint grisly dawn that entered the room was not of a character to inspirit. He turned on his side to sleep again if he could; but in the act, he discovered that the curtain which he had drawn across the window was withdrawn. He could discern the dark mass of his clothes piled on a chair, of his hat clinging like some black bat to the whitewashed wall, of his valise and saddle-bags in the corner—finally of a stout figure bent, listening, at the door.
An old campaigner, Colonel John was not easily surprised. Repressing the exclamation on his lips, he rose to his elbow and waited until the figure at the door straightened itself, and, turning towards him, became recognisable as Uncle Ulick. The big man crossed the floor, saw that he was awake, and, finger on lip, enjoined silence. Then he pointed to the clothes on the chair, and brought his mouth near the Colonel's ear.
"The back-door!" he whispered. "Under the yews in the garden! Come!" And leaving the Colonel staring and mystified, he crept from the room with a stealth and lightness remarkable in one so big. The door closed, the latch fell, and made no sound.
Colonel John reflected that Uncle Ulick was no romantic young person to play at mystery for effect. There was a call for secrecy therefore. The O'Beirnes slept in a room divided from his only by a thin partition; and to gain the stairs he must pass the doors of other chambers, all inhabited. As softly as he could, and as quickly, he dressed himself. He took his boots in his hand; his sword, perhaps from old habit, under his other arm; in this guise he crept from the room and down the dusky staircase. Old Darby and an underling were snoring in the cub, which in the daytime passed for a pantry, and both by day and night gave forth a smell of sour corks and mice: but Colonel John slid by the open door as noiselessly as a shadow, found the back-door—which led to the fold-yard—on the latch, and stepped out into the cool, dark morning, into the sobering freshness and the clean, rain-washed air.
The grass was still grey-hued, the world still colourless and mysterious, the house a long black bulk against a slowly lightening sky. Only the earliest sparrows were twittering; in the trees only the most wakeful rooks were uttering tentative caws. The outburst of joy and life and music which would attend the sun's rising was not yet.
Colonel John paused on the doorstep to draw on his boots, then he picked his way delicately to the leather-hung wicket that broke the hedge which served for a fence to the garden. On the right of the wicket a row of tall Florence yews, set within the hedge, screened the pleasaunce, such as it was, from the house. Under the lee of these he found Uncle Ulick striding to and fro and biting his finger-nails in his impatience.
He wrung the Colonel's hand and looked into his face. "You'll do me the justice, John Sullivan," he said, with a touch of passion, "that never in my life have I been overhasty? Eh? Will you do me that?"
"Certainly, Ulick," Colonel John answered, wondering much what was coming.
"And that I'm no coward, where it's not a question of trouble?"
"I'll do you that justice, too," the Colonel answered. He smiled at the reservation.
The big man did not smile. "Then you'll take my word for it," he replied, "that I'm not speaking idly when I say you must go."
Colonel John lifted his eyebrows. "Go?" he answered. "Do you mean now?"
"Ay, now, or before noon!" Uncle Ulick retorted. "More by token," he continued with bitterness, "it's not that you might go on the instant that I've brought you out of our own house as if we were a couple of rapparees or horse-thieves, but that you might hear it from me who wish you well, and would warn you not to say nay—instead of from those who may be 'll not put it so kindly, nor be so wishful for you to be taking the warning they give."
"Is it Flavia you're meaning?"
"No; and don't you be thinking it," Uncle Ulick replied with a touch of heat. "Nor the least bit of it, John Sullivan! The girl, God bless her, is as honest as the day, if——"
"If she's not very wise!" Colonel John said, smiling.
"You may put it that way if you please. For the matter of that, you'll be thinking she's not the only fool at Morristown, nor the oldest, nor the biggest. And you'll be right, more shame to me that I didn't use the prudent tongue to them always, and they young! But the blood must run slow, and the breast be cold, that sees the way the Saxons are mocking us, and locks the tongue in silence. And sure, there's no more to be said, but just this—that there's those here you'll be wise not to see! And you'll get a hint to that end before the sun's high."
"And you'd have me take it?"
"You'd be mad not to take it!" Uncle Ulick replied, frowning. "Isn't it for that I'm out of my warm bed, and the mist not off the lake?"
"You'd have me give way to them and go?"
"Faith, and I would!"
"Would you do that same yourself, Ulick?"
"For certain."
"And be sorry for it afterwards!"
"Not the least taste in life!" Uncle Ulick asseverated.
"And be sorry for it afterwards," Colonel John repeated quietly. "Kinsman, come here," he continued with unusual gravity. And taking Uncle Ulick by the arm he led him to the end of the garden, where the walk looked on the lake and bore some likeness to a roughly made terrace. Pausing where the black masses of the Florence yews, most funereal of trees, still sheltered their forms from the house, he stood silent. The mist moved slowly on the surface of the water and crawled about their feet. But the sky to eastward was growing red, the lower clouds were flushed with rose-colour, the higher hills were warm with the coming of the sun. Here and there on the slopes which faced them a cotter's hovel stood solitary in its potato patch or its plot of oats. In more than one place three or four cottages made up a tiny hamlet, from which the smoke would presently rise. To English eyes, to our eyes, the scene, these oases in the limitless brown of the bog, had been wild and rude; but to Colonel John, long familiar with the treeless plains of Poland and the frozen flats of Lithuania, it spoke of home, it spoke of peace and safety and comfort, and even of a narrow plenty. The soft Irish air lapped it, the distances were mellow, memories of boyhood rounded off all that was unsightly or cold.
He pointed here and there with his hand; and with seeming irrelevance. "You'd be sorry afterwards," he said, "for you'd think of this, Ulick. God forbid that I should say there are no things for which even this should be sacrificed. God forbid I should deny that even for this too high a price may be paid. But if you play this away in wantonness—if that which you are all planning come about, and you fail, as they failed in Scotland three years back, and as you will, as you must fail here—it is of this, it is of the women and the children under these roofs that will go up in smoke, that you'll be thinking, Ulick, at the last! Believe me or not, this is the last thing you'll see! It's to a burden as well as an honour you're born where men doff caps to you; and it's that burden will lie the black weight on your soul at the last. There's old Darby and O'Sullivan Og's wife—and Pat Mahony and Judy Mahony's four sons—and Mick Sullivan and Tim and Luke the Lamiter—and the three Sullivans at the landing, and Phil the crowder, and the seven tenants at Killabogue—it's of them, it's of them"—as he spoke his finger moved from hovel to hovel—"and their like I'm thinking. You cry them and they follow, for they're your folks born. But what do they know of England or England's strength, or what is against them, or the certain end? They think, poor souls, because they land their spirits and pay no dues, and the Justices look the other way, and a bailiffs life here, if he'd a writ, would be no more worth than a woodcock's, and the laws, bad and good, go for naught—they think the black Protestants are afraid of them! While you and I, you and I know, Ulick," he continued, dropping his voice, "'tis because we lie so poor and distant and small, they give no heed to us! We know! And that's our burden."
The big man's face worked. He threw out his arms. "God help us!" he cried.
"He will, in His day! I tell you again, as I told you the hour I came, I, who have followed the wars for twenty years, there is no deed that has not its reward when the time is ripe, nor a cold hearth that is not paid for a hundredfold!"
Uncle Ulick looked sombrely over the lake. "I shall never see it," he said. "Never, never! And that's hard. Notwithstanding, I'll do what I can to quiet them—if it be not too late."
"Too late?"
"Ay, too late, John. But anyway, I'll be minding what you say. On the other hand, you must go, and this very day that ever is."
"There are some here that I must not be seeing?" Colonel John said shrewdly.
"That's it."
"And if I do not go, Ulick? What then, man?"
"Whisht! Whisht!" the big man cried in unmistakable distress. "Don't say the word! Don't say the word, John, dear."
"But I must say it," Colonel John answered, smiling. "To be plain, Ulick, here I am and here I stay. They wish me gone because I am in the way of their plans. Well, and can you give me a better reason for staying?"
What argument Ulick would have used, what he was opening his mouth to say, remains unknown. Before he could reply the murmur of a voice near at hand startled them both. Uncle Ulick's face fell, and the two turned with a single movement to see who came.
They discerned, in the shadow of the wall of yew, two men, who had just passed through the wicket into the garden.
The strangers saw them at the same moment, and were equally taken by surprise. The foremost of the two, a sturdy, weather-beaten man, with a square, stern face and a look of power, laid his hand on his cutlass—he wore a broad blade in place of the usual rapier. The other, whom every line of his shaven face, as well as his dress, proclaimed a priest—and perhaps more than a priest—crossed himself, and muttered something to his companion. Then he came forward.
"You take the air early, gentlemen," he said, the French accent very plain in his speech, "as we do. If I mistake not," he continued, looking with an easy smile at Colonel John, "your Protestant kinsman, of whom you told me, Mr. Sullivan? I did not look to meet you, Colonel Sullivan; but I do not doubt you are man of the world enough to excuse, if you cannot approve, the presence of the shepherd among his sheep. The law forbids, but——" still smiling, he finished the sentence with a gesture in the air.
"I approve all men," Colonel John answered quietly, "who are in their duty, father."
"But wool and wine that pay no duty?" the priest replied, turning with a humorous look to his companion, who stood beside him unsmiling. "I'm not sure that Colonel Sullivan extends the same indulgence to free-traders, Captain Machin."
Colonel John looked closely at the man thus brought to his notice. Then he raised his hat courteously. "Sir," he said, "the guests of the Sullivans, whoever they be, are sacred to the Sullivans."
Uncle Ulick's eyes had met the priest's, as eyes meet in a moment of suspense. At this he drew a deep breath of relief. "Well said," he muttered. "Bedad, it is something to have seen the world!"
"You have served under the King of Sweden, I believe?" the ecclesiastic continued, addressing Colonel John with a polite air. He held a book of offices in his hand, as if his purpose in the garden had been merely to read the service.
"Yes."
"A great school of war, I am told?"
"It may be called so. But I interrupt you, father, and with your permission I will bid you good-morning. Doubtless we shall meet again."
"At breakfast, I trust," the ecclesiastic answered, with a certain air of intention. Then he bowed and they returned it, and the two pairs gave place to one another with ceremony, Colonel John and Ulick passing out through the garden wicket, while the strangers moved on towards the walk which looked over the lake. Here they began to pace up and down.
With his hand on the house door Uncle Ulick made a last attempt. "For God's sake, be easy and go," he muttered, his voice unsteady, his eyes fixed on the other's, as if he would read his mind. "Leave us to our fate! You cannot save us—you see what you see, you know what it means. And for what I know, you know the man. You'll but make our end the blacker."
"And the girl?"
Uncle Ulick tossed his hands in the air. "God help her!" he said.
"Shall not we too help her?"
"We cannot."
"It may be. Still, let us do our duty," Colonel John replied. He was very grave. Things were worse, the plot was thicker, than he had feared.
Uncle Ulick groaned. "You'll not be bidden?" he said.
"Not by an angel," Colonel John answered steadfastly. "And I've seen none this morning, but only a good man whose one fault in life is to answer to all men 'Sure, and I will!'"
Uncle Ulick started as if the words stung him. "You make a jest of it!" he said. "Heaven send we do not sorrow for your wilfulness. For my part, I've small hope of that same." He opened the door, and, turning his back upon his companion, went heavily, and without any attempt at concealment, past the pantry and up the stairs to his room. Colonel John heard him slip the bolt, and, bearing a heavy heart himself, he knew that the big man was gone to his prayers.
To answer "Yes" to all comers and all demands is doubtless, in the language of Uncle Ulick, a mighty convenience, and a great softener of the angles of life. But a time comes to the most easy when he must answer "No," or go open-eyed to ruin. Then he finds that from long disuse the word will not shape itself; or if uttered, it is taken for naught. That time had come for Uncle Ulick. Years ago his age and experience had sufficed to curb the hot blood about him. But he had been too easy to dictate while he might; he had let the reins fall from his hands; and to-day he must go the young folks' way—ay, go, seeing all too plainly the end of it.
It was not his fate only. Many good men in the '15 and the '45, ay, and in the war of La Vendée, went out against their better judgment, borne along by the energy of more vehement spirits—went out, aware, as they rode down the avenue, and looked back at the old house, that they would see it no more; that never again except in dreams would they mount from the horse-block which their grandsires' feet had hollowed, walk through the coverts which their fathers had planted, or see the faces of the aged serving-men who had taught their childish fingers to hold the reins and level the fowling-piece!
But Colonel John was of another kind and another mind. Often in the Swedish wars had he seen a fair country-side changed in one day into a waste, from the recesses of which naked creatures with wolfish eyes stole out at night, maddened by their wrongs, to wreak a horrid vengeance on the passing soldier. He knew that the fairest parts of Ireland had undergone such a fate within living memory; and how often before, God and her dark annals alone could tell! Therefore he was firmly minded, as firmly minded as one man could be, that not again should the corner of Kerry under his eyes, the corner he loved, the corner entrusted to him, suffer that fate.
Yet when he descended to breakfast, his face told no tale of his thoughts, and he greeted with a smile the unusual brightness of the morning. As he stood at the door, that looked on the courtyard, he had a laughing word for the beggars—never were beggars lacking at the door of Morristown. Nor as he sunned himself and inhaled with enjoyment the freshness of the air did any sign escape him that he marked a change.
But he was not blind. Among the cripples and vagrants who lounged about the entrance he detected six or eight ragged fellows whose sunburnt faces were new to him and who certainly were not cripples. In the doorway of one of the two towers that fronted him across the court stood O'Sullivan Og, whittling a stick and chatting with a sturdy idler in seafaring clothes. The Colonel could not give his reason, but he had not looked twice at these two before he got a notion that there was more in that tower this morning than the old ploughs and the broken boat which commonly filled the ground floor, or the grain which was stored above. Powder? Treasure? He could not say which or what; but he felt that the open door was a mask that deceived no one.
And there was a stir, there was a bustle in the court; a sparkle in the eyes of some as they glanced slyly and under their lashes at the house, a lilt in the tread of others as they stepped to and fro. He divined that hands would fly to caubeens and knees seek the ground if a certain face showed at a window: moreover, that that at which he merely guessed was no secret to the barefooted colleens who fed the pigs, or the barelegged urchins who carried the potatoes. Some strange change had fallen upon Morristown, and imbued it with life and hope and movement.
He was weighing this when he caught the sound of voices in the house, and he turned about and entered. The priest and Captain Machin had descended and were standing with Uncle Ulick warming themselves before the wood fire. The McMurrough, the O'Beirnes, and two or three strangers—grim-looking men who had followed, a glance told him, the trade he had followed—formed a group a little apart, yet near enough to be addressed. Asgill was not present, nor Flavia.
"Good-morning, again," Colonel John said. And he bowed.
"With all my heart, Colonel Sullivan," the priest answered cordially. And Colonel John saw that he had guessed aright: the speaker no longer took the trouble to hide his episcopal cross and chain, or the ring on his finger. There was an increase of dignity, too, in his manner. His very cordiality seemed a condescension.
Captain Machin bowed silently, while The McMurrough and the O'Beirnes looked darkly at the Colonel. They did not understand: it was plain that they were not in the secret of the morning encounter.
"I see O'Sullivan Og is here," the Colonel said, addressing Uncle Ulick. "That will be very convenient."
"Convenient?" Uncle Ulick repeated, looking blank.
"We can give him the orders as to the Frenchman's cargo," the Colonel said calmly.
Uncle Ulick winced. "Ay, to be sure! To be sure, lad," he answered. But he rubbed his head, like a man in a difficulty.
The Bishop seemed to be going to ask a question. Before he could speak, however, Flavia came tripping down the stairs, a gay song on her lips. Half way down, the song, light and sweet as a bird's, came to a sudden end.
"I am afraid I am late!" she said. And then—as the Colonel supposed—she saw that more than the family party were assembled: that the Bishop and Captain Machin were there also, and the strangers—and, above all, that he was there. She descended the last three stairs silently, but with a heightened colour, moved proudly into the middle of the group, and curtsied before the ecclesiastic till her knee touched the floor.
He gave her his hand to kiss, with a smile and a murmured blessing. She rose with sparkling eyes.
"It is a good morning!" she said, as one who having done her duty could be cheerful.
"It is a very fine morning," the Bishop answered in the same spirit. "The sun shines on us, as we would have him shine. And after breakfast, with your leave, my daughter, and your brother's leave, we will hold a little council. What say you, Colonel Sullivan?" he continued, turning to the Colonel. "A family council? Will you join us?"
The McMurrough uttered an exclamation, so unexpected and strident, that the words were not articulate. But the Bishop understood them, for, as all turned to him, "Nay," he said, "it shall be for the Colonel to say. But it's ill arguing with a fasting man," he continued genially, "and by your leave we will return to the matter after breakfast!"
"I am not for argument at all," Captain Machin said. It was the first time he had spoken.