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

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