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

owner of all--in law; and if he said the word, devil a penny there'd be for you! And no marriage for your sister but with his good will. And if Morristown stood as far east of Tralee as it stands west--glory be to God for it!--I'm thinking he'd say that word, and there'd be no penny for you, and no marriage for her, but you'd both be hat in hand to him!"

McMurrough's face showed a shade paler through the dusk.

"What would you have me do?" he muttered.

"Quit this fooling, this plan of a rising, and give him no handle. That, any way."

"But that won't rid us of him?" McMurrough said, in a low voice.

"True for you. And I'll be thinking about that same. If it is to be done, it's best done soon--I'm with you there. He's no footing yet, and if he vanished 'twould be no more than if he'd never come. See the light below? There! It's gone. Well, that way he'd go, and little more talk, if 'twere well plotted."

"But how?" The McMurrough asked nervously.

"I will consider," Asgill answered.


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 role, 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