The Wild Geese Part 26

"Or you can stay here," Colonel John continued, "and we will treat the past as if it had not been. But on a condition."

James's colour came back. "What'll you be wanting?" he muttered, averting his gaze.

"You must swear that you will not pursue this foolish plan further.

That first."

"What can I be doing without _them_?" was the sullen answer.

"Very true," Colonel John rejoined. "But you must swear also, my friend, that you will not attempt anything against me, nor be party to anything."

"What'd I be doing?"

"Don't lie!" the Colonel replied, losing his temper for a single instant. "You know what you have done, and therefore what you'd be likely to do. I've no time to bandy words, and you know how you stand.

Swear on your hope of salvation to those two things, and you may stay.

Refuse, and I make myself safe by your absence. That is all I have to say."

The young man had the sense to know that he was escaping lightly. The times were rough, the district was lawless, he had embarked--how foolishly he saw--on an enterprise too high for him. He was willing enough to swear that he would not pursue that enterprise further. But the second undertaking stuck in his gizzard. He hated Colonel John. For the past wrong, for the past defeat, above all for the present humiliation, ay, and for the very magnanimity which spared him, he, the weak spirit, hated the strong with a furious, if timid malignity.

"I'm having no choice," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Very good," Colonel John answered curtly. And, going to the door, he called Bale from his station by the hatchway, and despatched him to the Bishop and to Admiral Cammock, requesting them to do him the honour to descend.

They came readily enough, in the hope of some favourable turn. But the Colonel's words quickly set them right.

"Gentlemen," he said politely, "I know you to be men of honour in private life. For this reason I have asked you to be present as witnesses to the bargain between my cousin and myself. Blood is thicker than water: he has no mind to go abroad, and I have no mind to send him against his will. But his presence, after what has pa.s.sed, is a standing peril to myself. To meet this difficulty, and to free me from the necessity of banis.h.i.+ng him, he is ready to swear by all he holds sacred, and upon his honour, that he will attempt nothing against me, nor be a party to it. Is that so, sir?" the speaker continued. "Do you willingly, in the presence of these gentlemen, give that undertaking?"

The young man, with averted eyes and a downcast face, nodded.

"I am afraid I must trouble you to speak," Colonel John said.

"I do," he muttered, looking at no one.

"Further, that you will not within six months attempt anything against the Government?" Colonel John continued.

"I will not."

"Very good. I accept that undertaking, and I thank these gentlemen for their courtesy in condescending to act as witnesses. Admiral Cammock and you, reverend father," Colonel John continued, "it remains but to bid you farewell, and to ask you to believe"--the Colonel paused--"that I have not pushed further than was necessary the advantage I gained."

"By a neat stroke, Colonel Sullivan," the Bishop replied, with a rather sour smile, "not to say a bold one. I'm not denying it. But one, I'd have you notice, that cannot be repeated."

"Maybe not," the Colonel answered. "I am content to think that for some time to come I have transferred your operations, gentlemen, to a sphere where I am not concerned for the lives of the people."

"There are things more precious than lives," the Bishop said.

"I admit it. More by token I'm blaming you little--only you see, sir, I differ. That is all."

With that Colonel Sullivan bowed and left the cabin, and The McMurrough, who had listened to the colloquy with the air of a whipped hound, slunk after him. On deck the Colonel and Augustin talked apart for a moment, then the former signed to the young man to go down into the boat, which lay alongside with a couple of men at the oars, and Bale seated in the sternsheets. The fog still hung upon the water, and the land was hidden. The young man could not see where they lay.

After the lapse of a minute or two Colonel John joined him, and the rowers pushed off, while Augustin and the crew leant over the rail to see them go, and to send after them a torrent of voluble good wishes. A very few, strokes of the oars brought the pa.s.sengers within misty view of the land; in less than two minutes after leaving the _Cormorant_ the boat grated on the rocks, and the Colonel, James McMurrough, and Bale landed. The young man made out that they were some half-mile eastward of Skull Harbour.

Bale stayed to exchange a few words with the seamen, while Colonel John and The McMurrough set off along the beach. They had not walked fifty yards before the fog isolated them; they were alone. And astonishment filled the young man, and grew as they walked. Did Colonel John, after all that had happened, mean to return to Morristown? to establish himself calmly--he, alone--in the midst of the conspirators whose leaders he had removed?

It seemed incredible! For though he, James McMurrough, thirst for revenge as he might, was muzzled by his oath, what of the others? What of Sir Donny and old Timothy Burke? What of the two O'Beirnes? Nay, what of his sister, whom he could fancy more incensed, more vindictive, more dangerous than them all? What, finally, of the barbarous rout of peasants, ready to commit any violence at a word from him?

And still the Colonel walked on by his side. And now they were in sight of Skull--of the old tower and the house by the jetty, looming large through the dripping mist. And at last Colonel John spoke.

"It was fortunate that I made my will as I came through Paris," he said.

CHAPTER XV

FEMINA FURENS

The Irish of that day, with all their wit and all their courage, had the bad habit of looking abroad for leaders. Colonel John had run little risk of being wrong in taking for granted that the meeting at the Carraghalin, mysteriously robbed of the chiefs from over-seas, whose presence had brought the movement to a head, would disperse; either amid the peals of Homeric laughter that in Ireland greet a monster jest, or, in sadder mood, cursing the detested Saxon for one more added to the many wrongs of a downtrodden land.

Had Flavia indeed escaped, had the raid which Colonel Sullivan had so audaciously conceived failed to embrace her, the issue might have been different. Had she appeared upon the scene at the critical moment, her courage and enthusiasm might have supported the spirits of the a.s.semblage and kept it together. But Uncle Ulick had not the force to do this: much less had old Timothy Burke or Sir Donny. Uncle Ulick, we know, expected little good from the rising; he was prepared for any, the worst mishap; while the faith of the older men in any change for the better was not robust enough to stand alone or to resist the first blast of doubt.

Their views indeed were more singular than cheerful.

"Very like," Sir Donny said, with a fallen under-lip, "the ould earth's opened her mouth and swallowed them. She's tired, small blame to her, with all the heretics burdening her and tormenting her--the cream of h.e.l.l's fire to them!"

"Whisht, man!" the other answered. "Be easy; you're forgetting one's a bishop. Small chance of the devil's tackling him, and, like enough the holy water and all ready to his hand!"

"Then I'm not knowing what it is," the first p.r.o.nounced hopelessly.

"There you speak truth, Sir Donny," Tim Burke answered. "Is it they can be losing their way in the least taste of fog there is, do you think?"

"And the young lady knowing the path, so that she'd be walking it blindfold in the dark!"

"I'm fearing, then, it will be the garr'son from Tralee," was Uncle Ulick's contribution. And he shook his head. "The saints be between us and them, and grant we'll not be seeing more of them than we like, and sooner!"

"Amen to that same!" replied old Timothy Burke, with an uneasy look behind him.

There was nothing comforting in this. And the messengers sent to learn what was amiss and why the expected party did not arrive had as little cheer to give. They could learn nothing. On which Uncle Ulick and his fellows rubbed their heads: the small men wondered. A few panic-stricken, began to slip away, but the ma.s.s were faithful. An hour went by in this trying uncertainty, and a second and part of a third; and messengers departed and came, and there were rumours and alarms, and presently something like the truth got abroad; and there was talk of pursuit, and a band of young stalwarts was detailed and sent off.

Still the greater part of the a.s.semblage, with Irish patience, remained seated in ranks on the slopes of the hills, the women with their drugget shawls drawn over their heads, the men with their frieze coats hanging loose about them. The chill mist which clung to the hillsides, and the atmosphere of doubt which overhung all, were a poor exchange for the roaring bonfires, the good cheer, the enthusiasm, the merriment of the previous evening. But the Irish peasant, if he be less staunch at the waiting--even as he is more forward in the hand-to-hand than his Scottish cousins--has the peasant's gift of endurance; and in the most trying hours--in ignorance, in doubt, in danger--has often held his ground in dependence on his betters, with a result pitiful in the reading. For too often the great have abandoned the little, the horse has borne off the rider, and the naked footman, surprised, surrounded, out-matched, and put to the sword, has paid for all.

But on this day a time came, about high noon, when the a.s.semblage--and the fog--began at last to melt. Sir Donny was gone, and old Tim Burke of Maamtrasna. They had slipped homewards, by little-known tracks across the peat hags; and, shamefaced and fearful of the consequences, the spirit all gone out of them, had turned their minds to oaths and alibis. They had been in trouble before, and were taken to know; and their departure sapped the O'Beirnes' resolution, whose uneasy faces as they talked together spread the contagion. Uncle Ulick and several of the buckeens were away on the search; the handful of Spanish seamen had returned to the house or to the s.h.i.+p: there was no one to check the defection when it set in. An hour after Sir Donny had slipped away, the movement which might have meant so much to so many was spent. The slopes about the ruined gables which they called Carraghalin, and which were all that remained of the once proud abbey, had returned to their wonted solitude; where hundreds had sat a short hour before the eagle hovered, the fox turned his head and scented the wind. Even the house at Morristown had so far become itself again that a scarcity, rather than a plenitude of life, betrayed the past night of orgy; and a quietness beyond the ordinary, the things that had been dreamed. The garrison of Tralee, the Protestant Settlement at Kenmare, facts which had been held distant and negligible in the first flush of hope and action, now seemed to the fearful fancy many an Irish mile nearer and many a shade more real.

Doubtless, in the minds of some, a secret thankfulness that, after all, they were not required to take the leap, relieved the disappointment and lessened the shame. They were well out of an ugly sc.r.a.pe, they reflected; well clear of the ugly shadow of the gallows--always supposing that no informer appeared. It might even be the hand of Providence, they thought, that had removed their leaders, and so held them back. They might think themselves happy to be quit of it for the fright.

But there was one--one who found no such consolation; one to whom the issue was pure loss, a shameful defeat, the end of hopes, the defeat of prayers that had never risen to heaven more purely than that morning.

Flavia sat with her eyes on the dead peat that c.u.mbered the hearth--for in the general excitement the fire had been suffered to go out--and in a stupor of misery refused to be comforted. Of her plans, of her devotion, of her lofty resolves, this was the result. She had aspired, G.o.d knew how honestly and earnestly, for her race downtrodden and her faith despised, and this was the bitter fruit. Nor was it only the girl's devotion to her country and to her faith that lay sore wounded: her vanity suffered, and perhaps more keenly. The enterprise that was to have glorified the name of McMurrough, that was to have raised that fallen race, that was to have made that distant province blessed among the provinces of Ireland, had come to an end, derisive and contemptible, before it was born. Her spirit, unbroken by experience and untrained to defeat, fearing before all things ridicule, dashed itself against the dreadful conviction, the dreadful fact. She could hardly believe that all was over. She could hardly realise that the cup was no longer at her lip, that the bird had escaped from the hand. But she looked from the window; and, lo, the courtyard which had hummed and seethed was dead and silent. In one corner a knot of men were carrying out the arms and the powder, and were preparing to bury them. In another, a woman--it was Sullivan Og's widow--sat weeping. It was the _Hic jacet_ of the great Rising that was to have been, and that was to have regenerated Ireland!

And "You must kill him!" she cried, with livid cheeks and blazing eyes.

"If you do not, I will!"