The Wild Geese, Stanley John Weyman [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

in the steps of a griping, miserly sire, he had risen to his present station by oppression and chicanery; by crushing the weak and cajoling the strong. And he was prepared to maintain his ground by means as vile and a hand as hard. But he loved; and--strange anomaly, bizarre exception, call it what you will--somewhere in the depths of his earthly nature a spark of good survived, and fired him with so pure an ardour that at the least hint of disrespect to his mistress, at a thought of injury to her, the whole man rose in arms. It was a strange, yet a common inconsistency; an inconstancy to evil odd enough to set The McMurrough marvelling, while common enough to commend itself to a thinking mind.

"Enough of that!" Asgill repeated after a moment's pause. While he did not fear, it did not suit him to break with his companion. "And, indeed, it was not of your sister I was thinking when I said where'd we be if we quarrelled. For it's not I'll be the cuckoo to push you out, McMurrough, lad. But a man there is will play the old grey bird yet, if you let him be. And him with the power and all."

"D'you mean John Sullivan?"

"I mean that same, my jewel."

The young man laughed derisively. He had resumed his seat by the other's side. "Pho!" he said, "you'll be jesting. For the power, it's but a name. If he were to use, were it but the thin end of it, it would run into his hand! The boys would rise upon him, and Flavvy'd be the worst of them. It's in the deep bog he'd be, before he knew where he was, and never'd he come out, Luke Asgill! Sure, I'm not afraid of him!"

"You've need to be!" Asgill said soberly.

"Pho! It takes more than him to frighten me! Why, man, he's a soft thing, if ever there was one! He'll not say boh! to a goose with a pistol in its hand!"

"And that might be, if you weren't such a fool as ye are, McMurrough!" Asgill answered. "No, but hear me out, lad!" he continued earnestly. "I say he might not harm you, if you had not the folly we both know of in your mind. But I tell you freely I'll be no bonnet to it while he stands by. 'Tis too dangerous. Not that I believe you are much in earnest, my lad, whatever others may think--what's your rightful king to you, or you to him, that you should risk aught? But whether you go into it out of pure devilment, or just to keep right with your sister----"

"Which is why you stand bonnet for it," McMurrough struck in, with a grin.

"That's possible. But I do that, my lad, because I hope naught may come of it, but just a drinking of healths and the like. So, why should I play the informer and get myself misliked? But you--you may find yourself deeper in it than you think, and quicker than you think, while all the time, if the truth were told"--with a shrewd look at the other--"I believe you've little more heart for it than myself."

The young man swore a great oath that he was in it body and soul, swore it by the bones of his ten toes. But he laughed before the words were out of his mouth. And "I don't believe you," Asgill said coolly. "You know, and I know, what you were ready to do when the old man was alive, and if it had paid you properly. And you'd do the same now, if it paid you now. So what are the wrongs of the old faith to you that you should risk all for them? Or the rights of the old Irish, for the matter of that? But this being so, and you but half-hearted, I tell you, it is too dangerous a game to play for groats. And while John Sullivan's here, that makes it more dangerous, I'll not play bonnet!"

"What'll he know of it, at all, at all?" James McMurrough asked contemptuously. And he took up a stone and flung it over the edge.

"With a Spanish ship off the coast," Asgill answered, "and you know who likely to land, and a preaching, may be, next Sunday, and pike-drill at the Carraghalin to follow--man, in three days you may have smoking roof-trees, and 'twill be too late to cry 'Hold!' Stop, I say, stop while you can, and before you've all Kerry in a flame!"

James McMurrough turned with a start. His face--but the light was beginning to fail--seemed a shade paler. "How did you know there was pike-drill?" he cried sharply. "I didn't tell you."

"Hundreds know it."

"But you!" McMurrough retorted. It was plain that he was disagreeably surprised.

"Did you think I meant nothing when I said I played bonnet to it?"

"You know a heap too much, Luke Asgill!"

"And could make a good market of it?" Asgill answered coolly. "That's what you're thinking, is it? And it's Heaven's truth I could--if you'd not a sister."

"And a care for your own skin."

"Faith," Asgill answered with humorous frankness, "and I'm plain with you, that stands for something in it. For it's a weary way west of Athlone we are!"

"And the bogs are deep," McMurrough said, with a sidelong look.

"Maybe," Asgill replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But that I've not that in my mind--I'm giving you proof, James McMurrough. Isn't it I am praying you to draw out of it in time, for all our sakes? If you mean nothing but to keep sweet with your sister, you're playing with fire, and so am I! And we'd best see it's not carried too far, as it's like to be before we know it. But if you are fool enough to be in earnest, which I'll never believe, d'you think to overturn the Protestant Succession with a few foreigners and a hundred of White-boys that wouldn't stand before the garrison of Tralee? You've neither money nor men nor powder. Half a dozen broken captains who must starve if there's no fighting afoot, as many more who've put their souls in the priests' hands and see with their eyes--these and a few score boys without a coat to their backs or breeches to their nakedness--d'you think to oust old Malbrouk with these?"

"He's dead!"

"He's not, my jewel; and if he be he's left more of his kidney. No; if you must be a fool, be a fool with your eyes open! I tell you old Ireland had her lesson thirty years back, and if you were Sarsfield himself, and called on 'em to rise against the Saxon to-day, you'd not find as many follow you as would take a sessions town!"

"You know a heap of things, Asgill," James McMurrough answered disdainfully. But he looked his discomfiture.

"I do. And more by token, I know this!" Asgill retorted. He had risen to depart, and the two stood with their faces close together. "This!" he repeated, clapping one hand on the other. "If you're a fool, I'm a bigger! By Heaven, I am! Or what would I be doing? Why, I'd be pressing you into this, by the Lord, I would, in place of holding you back! And then when the trouble came, as come it would, and you'd to quit, my lad, and no choice but to make work for the hangman or beg a crust over seas, and your sister 'd no more left than she stood up in, and small choice either, it's then she'd be glad to take Luke Asgill, as she'll barely look at now! Ay, my lad, I'd win her then, if it were but as the price of saving your neck! There's naught she'd not do for you, and I'd ask but herself."

James McMurrough stared at him, confounded. For Asgill spoke with a bitterness as well as a vehemence that betrayed how little he cared for the man he addressed--whether he swung or lived, begged or famished. His tone, his manner, his black look, all made it plain that the scheme he outlined was no sudden thought, but a plan long conceived, often studied, and put aside with reluctance. For the listener it was as if, the steam clearing away, he'd a glimpse of the burning pit of a volcano, on the shelving side of which he stood. He shuddered, and his countenance changed. A creature of small vanities and small vices, utterly worthless, selfish, and cruel, but as weak as water, he quailed before this glimpse of elemental passion, before this view of a soul darker than his own. And it was with a poor affectation of defiance that he made his answer.

"And what for, if it's as easy as you say, don't you do it?" he stammered.

Asgill groaned. "Because--but there, you wouldn't understand--you wouldn't understand! Still, if you must be knowing, there's ways of winning would be worse than losing!"

The McMurrough's confidence began to return. "You're grown scrupulous," he sneered, half in jest, half in earnest.

Asgill's answer flung him down again. "You may thank your God I am!" he replied, with a look that scorched the other.

"Well--well," McMurrough made an effort to mutter--he was thoroughly disconcerted--"at any rate, I'm obliged to you for your warning."

"You will be obliged to me," Asgill replied, resuming his ordinary manner, "if you take my warning, as to the big matter; and also as to your kinsman, John Sullivan. For, I tell you, I'm afraid of him."

"Of him?" James cried.

"Ay, of him. Have a care, have a care, man, or he'll out-general you. See if he doesn't poison your sister against you! See if he does not make this hearth too hot for you! As long as he's in the house there's danger. I know the sort," Asgill continued shrewdly, "and little by little, you'll see, he'll get possession of her--and it's weak is your position as it is, my lad."

"Pho!"

"'Tis not 'pho'! And in a week you'll know it, and be as glad to see his back as I should be to-day!"

"What, a man who has not the spirit to go out with a gentleman!"

"A man you mean," Asgill retorted, showing his greater shrewdness, "who has the spirit to say that he won't go out!"

"Sure, and I've not much opinion of a man of that kind," McMurrough exclaimed.

"I have. He'll stand, or I'm mistaken, for more than'll spoil your sport--and mine," Asgill replied. "I'd not have played the trick about your sister's mare, good trick as it was, if I'd known he'd be here. It seemed the height of invention when you hit upon it, and no better way of commending myself. But I misdoubt it now. Suppose this Colonel brings her back?"

"But Payton's staunch."

"Ah, I hold Payton, sure enough," Asgill answered, "in the hollow of my hand, James McMurrough. But there's accident, and there's what not, and if in place of my restoring the mare to your sister, John Sullivan restored her--faith, my lad, I'd be laughing on the other side of my face. And if he told what I'll be bound he knows of you, it would not suit you either!"

"It would not," The McMurrough replied, with an ugly look which the gloaming failed to mask. "It would not. But there's small chance of that."

"Things happen," Asgill answered in a sombre tone. "Faith, my lad, the man's a danger. D'you consider," he continued, his voice low, "that he's