THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 » 
 
 i
 
 THE WILD GEESE
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY 
 STANLEY J. WEYMAN 
 
 The House of the Wolf 
 
 The New Rector 
 
 The Story of Francis Cludde 
 
 A Gentleman of France 
 
 Under the Red Robe 
 
 My Lady Rotha 
 
 Memoirs of a Minister of France 
 
 The Red Cockade 
 
 The Man in Black 
 
 Shrewsbury 
 
 The Castle Inn 
 
 Sophia 
 
 Count Hannibal 
 
 Li Kings' Byways 
 
 The Long Night 
 
 The Abbess of Vlaye 
 
 Starvecrow Farm
 
 so THE STRUGGLE DEPICTED ITSELF TO MORE 
 THAN ONE "
 
 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 BY 
 
 STANLEY J. WEYMAN 
 
 Illustrated by W. H. Margetson 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1909
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVLAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1909, BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN 
 PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1909
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 On Board the "Cormorant " Sloop 
 
 3 
 
 II. 
 
 MORRISTOWN 
 
 • 
 
 16 
 
 III. 
 
 A Scion of Kings 
 
 ■ • 
 
 26 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Stop Thief!" . 
 
 , » 
 
 39 
 
 V. 
 
 The Mess-room at Tralee 
 
 • • 
 
 53 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Maitre d'Armes . 
 
 • 
 
 66 
 
 VII. 
 
 Bargaining . 
 
 « • 
 
 81 
 
 VIII. 
 
 An After-dinner Game 
 
 i • 
 
 92 
 
 IX. 
 
 Early Risers 
 
 • 
 
 105 
 
 X. 
 
 A Council of War 
 
 • • _ 
 
 119 
 
 XL 
 
 A Message for the Young 
 
 Master 
 
 134 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Sea Mist 
 
 • • 
 
 148 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A Slip 
 
 • • 
 
 162 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Colonel's Terms . 
 
 • • 
 
 174 
 
 XV. 
 
 Femina Furens 
 
 • « 
 
 188 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Marplot 
 
 • • 
 
 202 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Limit .... 
 
 • • 
 
 215 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A Counterplot 
 
 • < 
 
 230 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Peine Forte et Dure . 
 
 • • 
 
 244
 
 VI THE WILD GEESE 
 
 CHAPTER TAGt. 
 
 XX. An Unwelcome Visitor . . .257 
 
 XXI. The Key 273 
 
 XXII. The Scene in the Passage . . . 286 
 
 XXIII. Behind the Yews . . . .297 
 
 XXIV. The Pitcher at the Well . . .312 
 
 XXV. Peace 320
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " So THE Struggle Depicted Itself to More 
 
 Than One ! " . . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "'Who Loves Me, Follows Me! — Across the 
 
 Water'" 102 
 
 "Then.with A Queer Sobbing Sound, She Fainted" 170 
 
 " She Lunged with all the Force of Her Strong 
 
 Young Arm " . ..... 194
 
 THE WILD GEESE
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON BOARD THE " CORMORANT*' SLOOP 
 
 MIDWAY in that period of Ireland's history dur- 
 ing which, according to historians, the dis- 
 tressful country had none — to be more precise, 
 on a spring morning early in the eighteenth century, and 
 the reign of George the First, a sloop of about seventy 
 tons' burthen was beating up Dingle Bay, in the teeth 
 of a stiff easterly breeze. The sun was two hours high, 
 and the gray expanse of the bay was flecked with white 
 horses hurrying seaward in haste to leap upon the Blas- 
 quets, or to disport themselves in the field of ocean. 
 From the heaving deck of the vessel the mountains that 
 shall not be removed were visible — on the northerly 
 tack Brandon, on the southerly Carntual; the former 
 sunlit, with patches of moss gleaming like emeralds on 
 its breast, the latter dark and melancholy, clothed in 
 the midst of tradition and fancy that in those days garbed 
 so much of Ireland's bog and hill. 
 
 The sloop had missed the tide, and, close hauled to 
 the wind, rode deep in the ebb, making little way with 
 each tack. The breeze hummed through the rigging. 
 The man at the helm humped a shoulder to the sting of 
 the spray, and the rest of the crew, seven or eight in
 
 4 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 number — tarry, pigtailed, outlandish sailor men — 
 crouched under the windward rail. The skipper sat 
 with a companion on a coil of rope on the dry side of 
 the skylight, oblivious alike of the weather and his diffi- 
 culties, his eyes fixed on his neighbour, in wondering, 
 fatuous admiration. 
 
 "Never?" he murmured respectfully. 
 
 "Never," his companion answered. 
 
 "My faith!" Captain Augustin rejoined. He was 
 a cross between a Frenchman and an Irishman. For 
 twenty years he had carried wine to Ireland, and returned 
 laden with wool to Bordeaux or Cadiz. He knew every 
 inlet between Achill Sound and the Head of Kinsale, 
 and was so far a Jacobite that he scorned to pay duty 
 to King George. "Never? My faith!" he repeated, 
 staring, if possible, harder than ever. 
 
 "No," said the Colonel. "Under no provocation, 
 thank God!" 
 
 "But it's drole," Captain Augustin rejoined. "It 
 would bother me sorely to know what you do." 
 
 "What we all should do," his passenger answered 
 gently. "Our duty. Captain Augustin. Doing which, 
 we have no more to fear, no more to question." 
 
 " But west of Shannon, where there is no law ? " Augus- 
 tin answered. "And in Kerry — where we '11 be, the 
 saints helping, before noon — what with Sullivans, 
 and Mahonies, and O'Beirnes, that wear coats only for 
 a gentleman to tread upon, and would sooner shoot a 
 friend before breakfast than spend the day idle, par
 
 ON BOARD THE 'CORMORANT" 5 
 
 ma foi, I 'm not seeing what you '11 be doing there, 
 Colonel." 
 
 "A man may protect himself from violence," the 
 Colonel answered soberly, "and yet do his duty. What 
 he may not do — is this: He may not go out to kill 
 another in cold blood, for a point of honour, or for revenge, 
 or to sustain what he has already done amiss! I hope 
 I make myself clear, Captain Augustin?" he added 
 courteously. 
 
 He asked because the skipper's face of wonderment 
 was not to be misread. And the skipper answered, 
 "Quite clear!" meaning the reverse. Clear, indeed? 
 Yonder were the hills and bogs of Kerry — lawless, 
 impenetrable, abominable — a realm of Tories. On 
 the sloop itself was scarce a man whose hands were free 
 from blood. He, Augustin, mild-mannered as any 
 smuggler on the coast, had spent his life between fleeing 
 and fighting, with his four carronades ever crammed 
 to the muzzle, and his cargo ready to be jettisoned at 
 sight of a cruiser. And this man talked as if he were 
 in church! 
 
 Captain Augustin cast a wild eye at the straining, 
 shrieking rigging; the sloop was lurching heavily. But 
 whether he would or jio, his eye fluttered back and rested, 
 fascinated, on the Colonel's face. Indeed, from the 
 hour, ten days earlier, which had seen him mount the 
 side in the Bordeaux river. Colonel John Sullivan had 
 been a subject of growing astonishment to the skipper. 
 Captain Augustin knew his world tolerably. In his
 
 6 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 time he had conveyed many a strange passenger from 
 strand to strand, had talked with them, learned their 
 secrets, and more often their hopes. 
 
 But such a man as this he had never carried. A man 
 who had seen outlandish service; but who neither swore, 
 nor drank above measure, nor swaggered, nor threatened. 
 Who would not dice, nor game — save for trifles. Who, 
 on the contrary, talked of duty, had a peaceful word for 
 all, openly condemned the duello, and was mild as milk 
 and as gentle as an owl. Such a one seemed the fabled 
 "phaynix," or a bat with six wings, or any other prodigy 
 which the fancy, Irish or foreign, could conceive. 
 
 Then, to double the marvel, the Colonel had a servant, 
 a close-tongued fellow, William Bale by name, reputed 
 an Englishman, who, if he was not like his master, was 
 as unlike other folk. He was as quiet-spoken as the 
 Colonel, as precise, and as peaceable. He had even 
 been heard to talk of his duty. But while the Colonel 
 was tall and spare, with a gentle eye and a long, kindly 
 face, and was altogether of a pensive cast, Bale was short 
 and stout, of a black pallor, and very forbidding. His 
 mouth, when he opened it — which was seldom — ■ 
 dropped honey. But his brow scowled, his lip sneered, 
 and his silence invited no confidence. 
 
 Such being the skipper's passenger, and such his 
 man, the wonder was that Captain Augustin's astonish- 
 ment had not long ago melted into contempt. But it 
 had not. For one thing, a seaman had been hurt, and 
 the Colonel had exhibited a skill in the treatment of
 
 ON BOARD THE "CORMORANT" 7 
 
 wounds which would not have disgraced an experienced 
 chirurgeon. Then in the bay the sloop had met with 
 half a gale, and the passenger, in circumstances which 
 the skipper knew to be more trying to landsmen than to 
 himself, had maintained a serenity beyond applause. 
 He had even, clinging to the same ring-bolt with the 
 skipper, while the south-wester tore overhead and the 
 gallant little vessel lay over wellnigh to her beam-ends, 
 praised the conduct of the crew. 
 
 "This is the finest thing in the world," he had shouted, 
 amid the roar of things, "to see men doing their duty! 
 I would not have missed this for a hundred crowns!" 
 
 "I 'd give as much to be safe in Cherbourg," had been 
 the skipper's grim reply as he watched his mast. 
 
 But Augustin had not forgotten the Colonel's coolness. 
 A landsman, for whom the trough of the wave had no 
 terrors, was not a man to be despised. 
 
 Indeed, from that time the skipper had begun to 
 find a charm in the Colonel's gentleness and courtesy. 
 He had fought against the feeling, but it had grown upon 
 him. Something that was almost affection began to 
 mingle with and augment his wonder. Hence the patience 
 with which, with Kerry on the beam, he listened while 
 the Colonel sang his siren song. 
 
 "He will be one of the people called Quakers," the 
 skipper thought, after a while. "I've heard of them, 
 but never seen one." 
 
 Unfortunately, as he arrived at his conclusion, a cry 
 from the steersman roused him. He sprang to his feet.
 
 8 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Alas! the sloop had run too far on the northerly tack, 
 and simultaneously the wind had shifted a point to the 
 southward. She had been allowed to run into a bight of 
 the north shore and a line of foam cut her off to the 
 eastward, leaving small room to tack. She might still 
 clear the westerly rocks and run out to sea, but the skipper 
 saw that this was doubtful, and with a seaman's quick- 
 ness he made up his mind. 
 
 "Keep her on! — keep her on!" he roared. "Child 
 of the accursed! We must run into Skull haven! And 
 if the men of Skull take so much as an iron bolt from 
 us, and I misdoubt them, I '11 keel-haul you! I '11 not 
 leave an inch of skin upon you!" 
 
 The man, cowering over the wheel, obeyed, and the 
 little vessel ran up the narrowing water — on an even 
 keel. The crew were already on their feet, they had 
 loosened the sheet, and squared the boom; they stood 
 by to lower the yard. All — the skipper with a grim 
 face — stood looking forward, as the inlet narrowed, the 
 green banks closed in, the rocks that fringed them 
 approached. Silently and gracefully the sloop glided 
 on, until a turn in the passage opened a small land-locked 
 haven. At the head of the haven, barely a hundred yards 
 above high-water mark, stood a ruined tower — the 
 Tower of Skull — and below this a long house of stone 
 with a thatched roof. 
 
 It was clear that the sloop's movements had been 
 watched from the shore, for although the melancholy 
 waste of moor and mountain disclosed no other habitation,
 
 ON BOARD THE "CORMORANT" 9 
 
 a score of half-naked, barefoot figures were gathered on 
 the jetty; while others could be seen hurrying down the 
 hillside. These cried to one another in an unknown 
 tongue, with shrill voices, which vied with the screams 
 of the gulls swinging overhead. 
 
 "Stand by to let go the kedge," Augustin cried, eyeing 
 them gloomily. "We are too far in now! Let go! — 
 let go!" 
 
 But the order and the ensuing action at once redoubled 
 the clamour on shore. A dozen of the foremost natives 
 flung themselves into crazy boats, with consummate 
 skill and daring. When they were within hail, a man, 
 wearing a long frieze coat, and a fisherman's red cap, 
 stood up in the bow of the nearest. 
 
 "You will be coming to the jetty. Captain?" he cried 
 in imperfect English. 
 
 The skipper scowled at him, but did not answer. 
 
 "You will come to the jetty, Captain," the man repeated 
 in his high, sing-song voice. "Sure, and you 've come 
 convenient, for there 's no one here barring yourselves." 
 
 "And you're wanting brandy!" Augustin muttered 
 bitterly under his breath. He glanced at his men as 
 if he meditated resistance. 
 
 "Kerry law! Kerry law!" the man cried. "You 
 know it well. Captain! It's not I'll be answerable if 
 you don't come to the jetty." 
 
 The skipper, who had fared ill at Skull once before, 
 knew that he was in the men's power. True, a single 
 discharge of his carronades would blow the boats to
 
 10 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 pieces; but he could not in a moment warp his ship out 
 through the narrow passage. And if he could, he knew 
 that the act would be bloodily avenged if he ever landed 
 again in that part of Ireland. He swore under his breath, 
 and the steersman, who had wrought the harm by hold- 
 ing on too long, wilted under his eye. 
 
 At length he yielded, sulkily gave the order, the wind- 
 lass was manned, and the kedge drawn up. Fenders 
 were lowered, and the sloop slid gently to the jetty side. 
 
 In a twinkling a score of natives swarmed aboard. 
 The man in the frieze coat followed more leisurely, and 
 with such dignity as became the owner of a stone-walled 
 house. He sauntered up to the skipper, a leer in his eye. 
 
 "You will have lost something the last time you were 
 here, Captain ?" he said. " It is not I that will be respon- 
 sible this time unless the stuff is landed." 
 
 Augustin laughed scornfully. "The cargo is for 
 Crosby of Castlemaine," he said. And he added various 
 things which he hoped would happen to himself if he 
 landed so much as a single tub. 
 
 "It 's little we know of Crosby here," the other replied; 
 and he spat on the deck. "And less we '11 be caring, 
 my dear. I say it shall be landed. Here, you, Darby 
 Sullivan, off with the hatch!" 
 
 Augustin stepped forward impulsively, as if he had 
 a mind to throw the gentleman in the frieze coat into 
 the sea. But he had not armed himself before he came 
 on deck, the men of Skull outnumbered his crew two to 
 pne, and, though savage and half-naked, were furnished
 
 ON BOARD THE "CORMORANT" 11 
 
 to a man with long, sharp skenes. If resistance had been 
 possible at any time, he had let the moment pass. The 
 nearest justice lived twelve Irish miles away, and had 
 he been on the spot he would, since he was of necessity 
 a Protestant, have been helpless — unless he brought 
 the garrison of Tralee at his back. The skipper hesitated, 
 and while he hesitated the hatches were off, and the 
 Sullivans swarmed down like monkeys. Before the 
 sloop could be made fast, the smaller kegs were being 
 tossed up, and passed over the side, a line was formed 
 on land, and the cargo, which had last seen the sun on 
 the banks of the Garonne, was swiftly vanishing in the 
 maw of the stone house on the shore 
 
 The skipper's rage was great, but he could only swear, 
 and O'Sullivan Og, the man in the frieze coat, who bore 
 him an old grudge, grinned in mockery. "For better 
 custody, Captain!" he said. "Under my roof, bien! 
 And when you will to go again there will be the dues to 
 be paid, the little dues over which we quarrelled last time! 
 And all will be rendered to a stave!" 
 
 "You villain!" the Captain muttered under his breath. 
 "I understand!" Turning — for the sight was more 
 than he could bear — he found his passenger at his 
 elbow. 
 
 The Colonel liked the proceedings almost as little as 
 the skipper. His lips were tightly closed, and he frowned. 
 
 "Ay," Augustin cried bitterly — for the first instinct 
 of the man who is hurt is to hurt another — "now you 
 see what it is you 've come back to! It 's rob, or be 
 
 V
 
 12 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 robbed, this side of Tralee. I wish you well out of it! 
 But I suppose it would take more than this to make 
 you draw that long hanger of yours?" 
 
 The Colonel cast a troubled eye on him. "Beyond 
 doubt," he said, "it is the duty of a man to assist in 
 defending the house of his host. And in a sense and 
 measure, the goods of his host" — with an uneasy look 
 at the fast-vanishing cargo, which was leaping from 
 hand to hand so swiftly that the progress of a tub from 
 the hold to the house was as the flight of a swallow — 
 "are the house of his host. I do not deny that," he con- 
 tinued precisely, "but " 
 
 "But in this instance," the sea-captain struck in with 
 a sneer, contempt for the first time mastering wonder. 
 
 "In this instance," the Colonel repeated with an 
 unmistakable blush, "I am not free to act. The truth is. 
 Captain Augustin, these folk are of my kin. I was born 
 not many miles from here" — his eye measured the 
 lonely landscape as if he compared it with more recent 
 scenes — "and, wrong or right, blood is thicker than 
 wine. So that, frankly, I am not clear that for the sake 
 of your Bordeaux, I 'm tied to shed blood that might 
 be my forbears'!" 
 
 "Or your grandmother's," Augustin cried, with an 
 open sneer. 
 
 "Or my grandmother's. Very true. But if a word 
 to them in season " 
 
 "Oh, hang your words," the skipper retorted 
 disdainfully.
 
 ON BOARD THE "CORMORANT" 13 
 
 He would have said more, but at that moment it became 
 clear that something was happening on shore. On the 
 green brow beside the tower a girl mounted on horseback 
 had appeared; at a cry from her the men had stopped 
 work. The next moment her horse came cantering 
 down the slope, and with uplifted whip she rode in among 
 the men. The whip fell twice, and down went all the 
 tubs within reach. Her voice, speaking, now Erse, 
 now Kerry English, could be heard upbraiding the 
 nearest. Then on the brow behind her appeared a 
 man who looked gigantic against the sky, and who sat 
 a horse to match. He descended more slowly, and 
 reached the girl's side as O'Sullivan Og, in his frieze 
 coat, came to the front in support of his men. 
 
 For a full minute the girl vented her anger on Og, 
 while he stood sulky but patient, waiting for an opening 
 to defend himself. When he obtained this, he seemed 
 to the two on the deck of the sloop to appeal to the big 
 man, who said a word or two, but was cut short by the 
 girl. Her voice, passionate and indignant, reached the 
 deck, but not her words. 
 
 "That should be Flavia McMurrough!" the Colonel 
 murmured thoughtfully, "and Uncle Ulick. He's little 
 changed, whoever 's changed! She has a will, it seems, 
 and good impulses!" 
 
 The big man had begun by frowning on O'Sullivan 
 Og. But presently he smiled at something the latter 
 said, then he laughed; at last he made a joke himself. 
 The girl turned on him; but he argued with her. A
 
 14 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 man held up a tub for inspection, and though she struck 
 it pettishly with her whip, it was plain that she was 
 shaken. O'Sullivan Og pointed to the sloop, pointed 
 to his house, grinned. The listeners on the deck caught 
 the word " Dues! " and the peal of laughter that followed. 
 
 Captain Augustin understood naught of what was 
 going forward. But the man beside him, who did, touched 
 his sleeve. "It were well to speak to her," he said. 
 
 "Who is she?" the skipper asked impatiently. "What 
 has she to do with it?" 
 
 "They are her people," the Colonel answered simply 
 — "or they should be. If she says yea, it is yea; and 
 if she says nay, it is nay. Or, so it should be — as far 
 as a league beyond Morristown." 
 
 Augustin waited for no more. He was still in a fog, 
 but he saw a ray of hope; this was the chatelaine, it 
 seemed. He bundled over the side. 
 
 Alas! he ventured too late. As his feet touched the 
 slippery stones of the jetty, the girl wheeled her horse 
 about with an angry exclamation, shook her whip at 
 O'Sullivan Og — who winked the moment her back was 
 turned — and cantered away up the hill. On the instant 
 the men picked up the kegs they had dropped, a shrill 
 cry passed down the line, and the work was resumed. 
 
 But the big man remained; and the skipper, with the 
 Colonel at his elbow, made for him through the half- 
 naked kernes. He saw them coming, however, guessed 
 their errand, and, with the plain intention of avoiding 
 them, he turned his horse's head.
 
 ON BOARD THE "CORMORANT" 15 
 
 But the skipper, springing forward, was in time to 
 seize his stirrup. "Sir," he cried, "this is robbery! 
 Nom de Dieu, it is thievery!" 
 
 The big man looked down at him with temper. "Oh, 
 by heaven, you must pay your dues!" he said. "Oh 
 yes, you must pay your dues!" 
 
 "But this is robbery." 
 
 "Sure it 's not that you must be saying!" 
 
 The Colonel put the skipper on one side. "By your 
 leave," he cried, "one word! You don't know, sir, who 
 I am, but " 
 
 "I know you must pay your dues!" Uncle Ulick 
 answered, parrot-like. "Oh yes, you must pay your 
 dues!" He was clearly ashamed of his role, for he shook 
 off the Colonel's hold with a pettish gesture, struck his 
 horse with his stick, and cantered away over the hill. 
 
 ''Vaurien!" cried Captain Augustin, shaking his fist 
 after him, but he might as well have sworn at the moon.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MORRISTOWN 
 
 IT "WAS not until the Colonel had passed over the 
 shoulder above the stone-walled house that he 
 escaped from the jeers of the younger members 
 of this savage tribe, who, noting something abnormal 
 in the fashion of the stranger's clothes, followed him 
 a space. On descending the farther slope, however, he 
 found himself alone in the silence of the waste. 
 Choosing without hesitation one of two tracks, ill- 
 trodden, but such as in that district and at that 
 period passed for roads, he took his way along it at a 
 good pace. 
 
 A wide brown basin, bog for the most part, but rising 
 here and there into low mounds of sward or clumps of 
 thorn-trees, stretched away to the foot of the hills. The 
 tower on the shoulder behind him had been raised by 
 his wild forefathers. Soil and sky, the lark which sang 
 overhead, the dark peat-water which rose under foot, the 
 scent of the moist air, the cry of the curlew, all spoke 
 of the home which he had left in the gaiety of youth, to 
 return to it a grave man, older than his years, with gray 
 hairs flecking the black. No wonder that he stood more 
 than once, and, absorbed in thought, gazed on this or 
 
 16
 
 MORRISTOWN 17 
 
 that, on crag and moss, on the things which time and 
 experience had so strangely diminished. 
 
 The track, after zig-zagging across a segment of the 
 basin, entered a narrow valley, drained by a tolerable 
 stream. After ascending this for a couple of miles, it 
 disclosed a view of a wider vale, enclosed by gentle hills. 
 In the lap of this nestled a lake, on the upper end of which 
 some beauty was conferred by a few masses of rock 
 partly clothed by birch trees, through which a stream 
 fell sharply from the upland. Not far from these rocks 
 a long, low house stood on the shore. 
 
 The stranger paused to take in the prospect; nor was 
 it until after the lapse of some minutes, spent in the deepest 
 reverie, that he pursued his way along the left-hand 
 bank of the lake. By-and-by he was able to discern, 
 amid the masses of rock at the head of the lake, a gray 
 tower, the twin of that Tower of Skull which he had left 
 behind him; and a hundred paces farther he came upon 
 a near view of the house. 
 
 "Two and twenty years!" he murmured. "There 
 is not even a dog to bid me welcome!" 
 
 The house was of two stories, with a thatched roof. 
 Its back was to the slopes that rose by marshy terraces 
 to the hills. Its face was turned to the lake, and between 
 it and the water lay a walled forecourt, the angle on each 
 side of the entrance protected by a tower of an older 
 date than the house. The entrance was somewhat 
 pretentious, and might — for each of the pillars sup- 
 ported a heraldic beast — have seemed to an English
 
 18 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 eye out of character with the thatched roof. But one of 
 the beasts was headless, and one of the gates had fallen 
 from its hinges. In like manner the dignity of a tolerably 
 spacious garden, laid out beside the house, was marred 
 by the proximity of the fold-yard. 
 
 On the lower side of the road, opposite the gates, half 
 a dozen stone steps, that like the heraldic pillars might 
 have graced a more stately mansion, led down to the 
 water. They formed a resting-place for as many beggars, 
 engaged in drawing at empty pipes; while twice as 
 many old women sat against the wall of the forecourt 
 and, with their drugget cloaks about them, kept up a 
 continual whine. Among these, turning herself now to 
 one, now to another, moved the girl whom the Colonel 
 had seen at the landing-place. She held her riding- 
 skirt uplifted in one hand, her whip in the other, and 
 she was bareheaded. At her elbow, whistling idly, and 
 tapping his boots with a switch, lounged the big man of 
 the morning. 
 
 As the Colonel approached, the man and the maid 
 turned and looked at him. The two exchanged some 
 sentences, and the man came forward to meet him. 
 
 "Sir," he said, not without a touch of rough courtesy, 
 "if it is for hospitality you have come, you will be wel- 
 come at Morristown. But if it is to start a cry about this 
 morning's business, you Ve travelled on your ten toes 
 to no purpose.'* 
 
 The Colonel looked at him. " Cousin Ulick," he said, " I 
 take your welcome as it is meant, and I thank you for it."
 
 MORRISTOWN 19 
 
 The big man's mouth opened wide. "By the Holy 
 Cross!" he said, "if I 'm not thinking it is John SuUi- 
 vanl" 
 
 "It is," the Colonel answered, smiling. And he held 
 out his hand. 
 
 Uncle Ulick grasped it impulsively. "And it's I'm 
 the one that 's glad to see you," he said. "By heaven, 
 I am! Though I did n't expect you! And faith, I 'm 
 not sure that you will be as welcome to all, John Sullivan, 
 as you are to me." 
 
 "You were always easy, Ulick," the other answered 
 with a smile, "when you were big and I was little." 
 
 "Ay? Well, in size we're much as we were. But 
 — Flavia!" 
 
 The girl, scenting something strange, was already at 
 his elbow. "What is it?" she asked, her breath coming 
 a little quickly. "Who is it?" fixing her eyes on the 
 newcomer's face. 
 
 Uncle Ulick chuckled. "It's your guardian, my 
 jewel," he said. "No less! And what he'll say to 
 what 's going on I '11 not be foretelling!" 
 
 "My guardian?" she repeated, the blood rising 
 abruptly to her cheek. 
 
 "Just that," Ulick Sullivan answered. "It's John 
 Sullivan back from Sweden, and as I 've told him, I 'm 
 not sure that all at Morristown will be as glad to see him 
 as I am." Uncle Ulick went off into a peal of Titanic 
 laughter. 
 
 But that which amused him did not appear to amuse
 
 20 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 his niece. She stood staring at Colonel Sullivan as if she 
 were far more surprised than pleased. At length, and 
 with a childish dignity, she held out her hand. 
 
 "If you are Colonel John Sullivan," she said, in a 
 thin voice, "you are welcome at Morristown." 
 
 He might have laughed at the distance of her tone, 
 but he merely bowed, and with the utmost gravity. "I 
 thank you," he answered. And then, addressing Ulick 
 Sullivan, "I need not say that I had your communication," 
 he continued, "with the news of Sir Michael's death 
 and of the dispositions made by his will. I could not 
 come at once, but when I could I did, and I am here. 
 Having said so much," he went on, turning to the girl 
 with serious kindness, "may I add that I think it will be 
 well if we leave matters of business on one side until we 
 know one another?" 
 
 "Well, faith, I think we'd better," Ulick Sullivan 
 chuckled. "I do think so, bedad!" 
 
 The girl said nothing, and restraint fell upon the three. 
 They turned from one another and looked across the 
 lake, which the wind, brisk at sea, barely ruffled. Colonel 
 Sullivan remarked that they had a little more land under 
 tillage than he remembered, and Ulick Sullivan assented. 
 Again there was silence, until the girl struck her habit 
 with her whip and cried flippantly, "Well, to dinner, if 
 we are to have dinner I" She turned, and led the way 
 to the gate of the forecourt. 
 
 The man who followed was clever enough to read 
 defiance in the pose of her head and resentment in her
 
 M O R R I S T O W N 21 
 
 shoulders. When a beggar-woman, more importunate 
 than the rest, caught hold of her skirt, and Flavia flicked 
 her with her whip as she would have flicked a dog, he 
 understood. 
 
 There were dogs in the stone-paved hall; a hen, too, 
 finding its food on the floor and strutting here and there 
 as if it had never known another home. On the left of 
 the door, an oak table stood laid for the midday meal; 
 on the right, before a carved stone chimney-piece, under 
 which a huge log smouldered on the andirons, two or 
 three men were seated. These rose on the entrance of 
 the young mistress — they were dependents of the better 
 class, for whom open house was kept at Morristown. 
 So far, all was well; yet it may be that on the instant 
 eyes which had been blind to defects were opened by the 
 presence of this stranger from the outer world. Flavia's 
 voice was hard as she asked old Darby, the butler, if 
 The McMurrough was in the house. 
 
 "Faith, I believe not," said he. "His Honour, nor 
 the other quality, have not returned from the fishing." 
 
 "Well, let him know when he comes in," she rejoined, 
 "that Colonel John Sullivan has arrived from Sweden, 
 and," she added with a faint sneer, "it were well if you 
 put on your uniform coat. Darby." 
 
 The old butler did not hear the last words. He was 
 looking at the newcomer. "Glory be. Colonel," he 
 said; " it 's in a field of peas I 'd have known you! True 
 for you, you 're as like the father that bred you as the 
 two covers of a book! It 's he was the grand gentleman!
 
 22 THEWILD GEESE 
 
 I was beyant the Mahoney's great gravestone when he 
 shot Squire Crosby in the old churchyard of Tralee for 
 an appetite to his breakfast! More by token, he went 
 out with the garrison officer after his second bottle that 
 same day that ever was — and the creature shot him in 
 the knee — bad luck to him for a foreigner and a Protes- 
 tant — and he limped to his dying day!" 
 
 The girl laughed unkindly. "You 're opening your 
 mouth and putting your foot in it, Darby," she said. 
 "If the Colonel is not a foreigner " 
 
 "And sure he couldn't be that, and his own father's 
 son!" cried the quick-witted Irishman. "And if, bad 
 luck, he 's a Protestant, I '11 never believe he 's one of 
 them through-and-through black Protestants that you 
 and I mean ! Glory be, it 's not in the Sullivans to be 
 one of them!" 
 
 The Colonel laughed as he shook the old servant's 
 hand, and Uncle Ulick joined in the laugh. "You're 
 a clever rogue. Darby," he said. "Your neck '11 never 
 be in a rope, but your fingers will untie the knot! And 
 now, where '11 you put him?" 
 
 Flavia tapped her foot on the floor; foreseeing, perhaps, 
 what was coming. 
 
 "Put his honour?" Darby repeated, rubbing his bald 
 head. "Ay, sure, where '11 we put him? May it be 
 long before the heavens is his bed! There 's the old 
 master's room, a grand chamber fit for a lord, but there 's 
 a small matter of the floor that is sunk and lets in the 
 rats — bad cess to the dogs for an idle, useless pack.
 
 MORRISTOWN 23 
 
 The young master's friends are in the south, but the 
 small room beyant that has the camp truckle that Sir 
 Michael brought from the ould wars: that 's dry and snug! 
 And for the one window that 's airy, sure, 't is no draw- 
 back at this sayson." 
 
 "It will do very well for me, Darby," the Colonel said, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Well," Darby answered, "I 'm not so sure where 's 
 another. The young masther " 
 
 "That will do. Darby!" the girl cried impatiently. 
 And then, "I am sorry. Colonel Sullivan," she continued 
 stifHy, "that you should be so poorly lodged — who are 
 the master of all. But doubtless," with an irrepressible 
 resentment in her voice, "you will be able presently to 
 put matters on a better footing." 
 
 With a formal curtsey she retreated up the stairs, which 
 at the rear of the hall ascended to a gallery that ran right 
 and left to the rooms on the first floor. 
 
 Colonel Sullivan turned with Uncle Ulick to the nearest 
 window and looked out on the untidy forecourt. "You 
 know, I suppose," he said, in a tone which the men 
 beside the fire, who were regarding him curiously, could 
 not hear, "the gist of Sir Michael's letters to me?" 
 
 Uncle Ulick drummed with his fingers on the window- 
 sill. "Faith, the most of it," he said. 
 
 "Was he right in believing that her brother intended 
 to turn Protestant for the reasons he told me?" 
 
 "It's like enough, I'm thinking." 
 
 "Does she know? The girl?"
 
 24 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Not a breath! And I would not be the one to tell 
 her," Uncle Ulick added, with some grimness. 
 
 "Yet it may be necessary?" 
 
 Uncle Ulick shook his fist at a particularly importu- 
 nate beggar who had ventured across the forecourt. "It 's 
 a gift the little people never gave me to tell unpleasant 
 things," he said. "And if you '11 be told by me. Colonel, 
 you '11 travel easy. The girl has a spirit, and you '11 
 not persuade her to stand in her brother's light, at all, 
 at all! She has it fast that her grandfather wronged him 
 — and old Sir Michael was queer-tempered at times. 
 The gift to her will go for nothing, you '11 see ! " 
 
 "She must be a noble girl." 
 
 "Never a better!" 
 
 "But if her grandfather was right in thinking so ill of 
 his grandson?" 
 
 "I'm not saying he wasn't," Uncle Ulick muttered. 
 
 "Then we must not let her set the will aside." 
 
 Ulick Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. "Let?" he 
 said. "Faith! it's but little it'll be a question of that! 
 James is for taking, and she's for giving! He's her 
 white swan. Who 's to hinder?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "It's easiness has been my ruin, and faith! it's too 
 late to change." 
 
 "Then I?" 
 
 Uncle Ulick smiled. "To be sure," he said slily, 
 "there's you, Colonel." 
 
 "The whole estate is mine, you see, in law,"
 
 MORRISTOWN 25 
 
 "Ay, but there 's no law west of Tralee," Uncle Ulick 
 retorted. "That 's where old Sir Michael made his 
 mistake. I 'd not be knowing what would happen if it 
 went about that you were ousting them that had the 
 right, and you a Protestant He 's not the great favourite, 
 James McMurrough, and whether he or the girl took 
 most 'd be a mighty small matter. But if you think to 
 twist it, so as to play cuckoo — though with the height 
 of fair meaning and not spying a silver penny of profit for 
 yourself, Colonel — I take leave to tell you he 's a most 
 unpopular bird." 
 
 "But, Sir Michael," the Colonel answered, "left all to 
 me to that very end — that it might be secured to the girl." 
 
 "Sorrow one of me says no! " Ulick rejoined. " But " 
 
 "But what?" the Colonel replied politely. "The 
 more plainly you speak the more you will oblige me." 
 
 But all that Ulick Sullivan could be brought to say at 
 that moment — perhaps he knew that curious eyes were on 
 their conference — was that Kerry was "a mighty queer 
 country," and the thief of the world would n't know 
 what would pass there by times. And besides, there were 
 things afoot that he 'd talk about at another time. 
 
 Then he changed the subject abruptly, asking the 
 Colonel if he had seen a big ship in the bay. 
 
 "Wliat colours?" the Colonel asked — the question 
 men ask who have been at sea. 
 
 "Spanish, maybe," Uncle Ulick answered "Did you 
 sight such a one?" 
 
 But the Colonel had seen no big ship.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 A SCION OF KINGS 
 
 THE family at Morristown had been half an hour 
 at table, and in the interval a man of more 
 hasty judgment than Colonel Sullivan might 
 have made up his mind on many points. Whether the 
 young McMurrough was offensive of set purpose, and 
 because an unwelcome guest was present, or whether he 
 merely showed himself as he was — an unlicked cub — 
 such a man might have determined. But the Colonel 
 held his judgment in suspense, though he leaned to the 
 latter view of the case. 
 
 At their first sitting down the young man had shown 
 his churlishness. Beginning by viewing the Colonel in 
 sulky silence, he had answered his kinsmen's overtures 
 only by a rude stare or a boorish word. His companions, 
 two squireens of his own age, and much of his own 
 kidney, nudged him from time to time, and then the 
 three would laugh in such a way as to make it plain that 
 the stranger was the butt of the jest. Presently, over- 
 coming the reluctant impression which Colonel John's 
 manners made upon him, the young man found his 
 tongue, and, glancing at his companions to bring them 
 into the joke, "Much to have where you come from, 
 Colonel?" he asked. 
 
 26
 
 ASCIONOFKINGS 27 
 
 "As in most places," the Colonel replied mildly, "by 
 working for it, or earning it after one fashion or another. 
 Indeed, my friend, country and country are more alike, 
 except on the outside, than is thought by those who stay 
 at home." 
 
 "You Ve seen a wealth of countries, I 'm thinking?" 
 the youth asked with a sneer. 
 
 "I have crossed Europe more than once." 
 
 "And stayed in none?" 
 
 "If you mean " 
 
 "Faith, I mean you 've come back!" the young man 
 exclaimed with a loud laugh, in which his companions 
 joined. "You '11 mind the song" — and with a wink he 
 trolled out, 
 
 "In such contempt, in short, I fell 
 Which was a very hard thing. 
 They devilish badly used me there, 
 For nothing but a farthing. 
 
 " You 're better than that. Colonel, for the worst we 
 can say of you is, you 's come back a penny!" 
 
 "If you mean a bad one, come home," the Colonel 
 rejoined, taking the lad good-humouredly — he was not 
 blind to the flush of indignation which dyed Flavia's 
 cheeks — "I '11 take the wit for welcome. To be sure, 
 to die in Ireland is an Irishman's hope, all the world over." 
 
 "True for you. Colonel! " Uncle Ulick said. And " For 
 shame, James," he continued, speaking with more stern- 
 ness than was natural to him. "Faith, and if you talked 
 abroad as you talk at home, you 'd be for having a pistol-
 
 28 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 ball in your gizzard in the time it takes you to say your 
 prayers — if you ever say them, my lad ! " 
 
 "A\Tiat are my prayers to you, I'd like to know?" 
 James retorted offensively. 
 
 "Easy, lad, easy!" 
 
 The young man glared at him. "^Miat is it to you," 
 he cried still more rudely, "whether I pray or no ?" 
 
 "James! James!" Flavia pleaded under her breath. 
 
 "Do you be keeping your feet to yourself!" he cried, 
 betraying her kindly manoeuvre. "And let my shins be! 
 I want none of your guiding! More by token, miss, don't 
 you be making a sight of yourself as you did this morning, 
 or you '11 smart for it. What is it to you if O'SuUivan Og 
 takes our dues for us — and a trifle over ? And, sorra one 
 of you doubt it, if ]Mounseer comes jawing here, it 's in the 
 peathole he '11 find himself! Never the value of a cork he 
 gets out of me: that 's flat! Eh, Phelim?" 
 
 " True for you, McMurrough! " the youth who sat beside 
 him answered, winking. " We '11 soak him for you." 
 
 "So do vou be taking a lesson, ]Miss Flawy," the young 
 Hector continued, "and don't you go threatening honest 
 folk w^ith your whip, or it '11 be about your own shoulders 
 it '11 fall ! I know w^hat 's going on, and when I want your 
 help, I'll ask it." 
 
 The girl's lip trembled. "But it's robbery, James," 
 she murmured. 
 
 "Hang your robbery!" he retorted, casting a defiant 
 eye round the table. "They '11 pay our dues, and what 
 they get back w^ill be their own!"
 
 ASCIONOFKINGS 29 
 
 "And it 's rich they '11 be with it!" Phelim chuckled. 
 "Ay, faith, it 's the proud men they 'II be that day!" 
 laughed Morty, his brother. 
 
 "Fine words, my lad," Uncle Ulick replied quietly; 
 "but it's my opinion you'll fall on trouble, and more 
 than '11 please you, with Crosby of Castlemaine. And 
 why, I 'd like to know ? 'T is a grand trade, and has served 
 us well since I can remember ! Why can't you take what 's 
 fair out of it, and let the poor devil of a sea-captain that 's 
 supplied many an honest man's table have his own, and 
 go his way ? Take my word for it, it 's ruing it you '11 
 be, when all 's done. 
 
 "It's not from Crosby of Castlemaine I'll rue it!" 
 James McMurrough answered arrogantly. "I '11 shoot 
 him like a bog-snipe if he 's sorra a word to say to it! 
 That for him, the black sneak of a Protestant!" And he 
 snapped his fingers. " But his day will soon be past, and 
 we '11 be dealing with him. The toast is warming for him 
 now!" 
 
 Phelim slapped his thigh. "True for you, McMur- 
 rough! That's the talk!" 
 
 "That 's the talk!" chorussed Morty. 
 
 The Colonel opened his mouth to speak, but he caught 
 Flavia's look of distress, and he refrained. 
 
 "For my part," Morty continued jovially, "I 'd not wait 
 — for you know what! The gentleman's way 's the better; 
 early or late, Clare or Kerry, 't is all one! A drink of the 
 tea, a peppered devil, and a pair of the beauties is an 
 Irishman's morning!"
 
 30 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "And many 's the poor soul has to mourn it — long 
 and bitterly," the Colonel said. His tender corn being 
 trod upon, he could be silent no longer. "For shame, sir, 
 for shame!" he added warmly. 
 
 Morty stared. "Begorra, and why?" he cried, in a 
 tone which proved that he asked the question in perfect 
 innocence. 
 
 "Why?" Colonel John repeated. For a moment, in 
 face of prejudices so strong, he paused. " Can you ask me 
 when you know how a many life as young as yours — 
 and I take you to be scarcely, sir, in your twenties — has 
 been forfeit for a thoughtless word, an unwitting touch, 
 a look; when you know how many a bride has been 
 widowed as soon as wedded, how many a babe orphaned 
 as soon as born ? And for what, sir ? " 
 
 "For the point of honour!" The McMurrough cried. 
 Morty, for his part, was dumb with astonishment. 
 
 "The point of honour?" the Colonel repeated, more 
 slowly, "what is it? In nine cases out of ten the fear of 
 seeming to be afraid. In the tenth — the desire to wipe 
 out a stain that blood leaves as deep as before! " 
 
 "Faith, and you surprise me!" Phelim cried with a 
 genuine naivete that at another time would have provoked 
 a smile. 
 
 "Kerry '11 more than surprise you," quoth The McMur- 
 rough rudely, "if it 's that way you '11 be acting! Would 
 you let Crosby of Castlemaine call you thief?" 
 
 "I would not thieve!" the Colonel replied. 
 
 There was a stricken silence for a moment. Then The
 
 ASCIONOFKINGS 31 
 
 McMurrough sprang to his feet, his querulous face flushed 
 with rage, his arm raised. But Ulick's huge hand dragged 
 him down. "Easy, lad, easy," he cried, restraining the 
 young man. " He 's your guest ; remember that!" 
 
 "And he spoke in haste," the Colonel said. "I with- 
 draw my words," he continued, rising and frankly holding 
 out his hand. " I recognize that I was wrong. I see that 
 the act bears in your eyes a different aspect, and I beg your 
 pardon, sir." 
 
 The McMurrough took the hand, though he took it 
 sullenly; and the Colonel sat down again. His action, 
 to say nothing of his words, left Phelim and Morty in a 
 state of amazement so profound that the two sat staring 
 as if carved out of the same block of wood. 
 
 If Colonel John noticed their surprise he seemed in no 
 way put out by it. " Perhaps," he said gently, " it is wrong 
 to thrust opinions on others unasked. I think that is so! 
 It should be enough to act upon them one's self, and 
 refrain from judging others." 
 
 The Colonel was a Sullivan and an Irishman, and it 
 was supposed that he had followed the wars. Whence, 
 then, these strange words, these unheard-of opinions? 
 Morty felt his cheek flush with the shame which Colonel 
 John should have felt; and Phelim grieved for the family. 
 The gentleman might be mad; it was charitable to think 
 he was. But, mad or sane, he was like, they feared, to 
 be the cause of sad misunderstanding in the country 
 round. 
 
 The McMurrough, of a harder and less generous nature
 
 32 THEWILD GEESE 
 
 than his companions, felt more contempt than wonder. 
 The man had insulted him grossly, and had apologized 
 as abjectly; that was his view of the incident. He was 
 the first to break the silence. "Sure, it 's very well for the 
 gentleman it 's in the family," he said dryly. "Tail up, 
 tail down, 's all one among friends. But if he '11 be so 
 quick with his tongue in Tralee Market, he '11 chance on 
 one here and there that he '11 not blarney so easily! Eh, 
 Morty?" 
 
 "I 'm fearing so, too," said Phelim pensively. Morty 
 did not answer. " 'T is a queer world," Phelim added. 
 
 "And all sorts in it," The McMurrough cried, his tone 
 more arrogant than before. 
 
 Flavia glanced at him, frowning. "Let us have peace 
 now," she said. 
 
 "Peace ? Sorrow a bit of war there 's like to be in the 
 present company!" the victor cried. And he began to 
 whistle, amid an awkward silence. The air he chose was 
 one well known at that day, and when he had whistled a 
 few bars, one of the buckeens at the lower end of the table 
 began to sing the words softly. 
 
 It was a' for our rightful king 
 
 We left fair Ireland's strand! 
 It was a' for our rightful king 
 We e'er saw foreign land, my dear, 
 
 We e'er saw foreign land! 
 
 "My dear, or no, you '11 be doing well to be careful!" 
 The McMurrough said, in a jeering tone, with his eye on 
 the Colonel.
 
 ASCIONOFKINGS 33 
 
 "Pho!" the man replied. "And I that have heard the 
 young mistress sing it a score of times!" 
 
 "Ay, but not in this company!" The McMurrough 
 rejoined. 
 
 Colonel John looked round the table. "If you mean," 
 he said quietly, " that I am a loyal subject of King George, 
 I am that. But what is said at my host's table, no matter 
 who he is, is safe for me. Moreover, I 've lived long 
 enough to know, gentlemen, that most said is least meant, 
 and that the theme of a lady's song is more often — sunset 
 than sunrise! " And he bowed in the direction of the girl. 
 
 The McMurrough's lip curled. "Fair words," he 
 sneered. "And easy to speak them, when you and your 
 Protestant Whigs are on top!" 
 
 "We won't talk of Protestants," Colonel John replied; 
 and for the first time his glance, keen as the flicker of steel, 
 crossed The McMurrough's. The younger man's eyes fell. 
 
 The cudgels were taken up in an unexpected quarter. "I 
 know nothing of Protestants in general," Flavia said, in a 
 voice vibrating with eagerness, " but only, to our sorrow, of 
 those who through centurieshave robbed us ! Who,notcon- 
 tent, shame on them ! with shutting us up in a corner of the 
 land that was ours from sea to sea, deny us even here the 
 protection of their law! Law? Can you call it law which 
 denies us all natural rights, all honourable employments; 
 which drives us abroad, divides son from father, and 
 brother from brother; which bans our priests, and forbids 
 our worship, and, if it had its will, would leave no Catholic 
 from Cape Clear to Killaloe ? "
 
 34 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 The Colonel looked sorrowfully at her, but made no 
 answer; for to much of what she said no answer could be 
 made. On the other hand, a murmur passed round the 
 board; and more than one looked at the stranger with 
 compressed lips. "If you had your will," the girl con- 
 tinued, with growing emotion; "if your law were carried 
 out — as, thank God! it is not, no man's heart being hard 
 enough — to possess a pistol were to be pilloried; to 
 possess a fowling-piece were to be whipped; to own a 
 horse, above the value of a miserable garron, were to be 
 robbed by the first rascal who passed! We must not be 
 soldiers, nor sailors," she continued; " nay" — with bitter 
 irony — "we may not be constables nor gamekeepers! 
 The courts, the bar, the bench of our fatherland, are shut 
 tons! We may have neither school nor college; the lands 
 that were our fathers' must be held for us by Protestants, 
 and it's I must have a Protestant guardian! We are 
 outlaws in the dear land that is ours; we dwell on suffer- 
 ance where our fathers ruled ! And men like you, aban- 
 doning their country, abandoning their creed " 
 
 "God forbid!" the Colonel exclaimed, much moved 
 
 himself. 
 
 "Men like you uphold these things!" 
 
 "God forbid!" he repeated. 
 
 "But let Him forbid, or not forbid," she retorted, rising 
 from her seat with eyes that flashed anger through tears, 
 "we exist, and shall exist! And the time is coming, and 
 comes soon — ay, comes perhaps to-day! — when we who 
 now suffer for the true faith and the rightful King will raise
 
 A SCION OF KINGS 35 
 
 our heads, and the Faithful Land shall cease to mourn and 
 honest men to pine! And, ah" — with upraised face and 
 clasped hands — "I pray for that day! I pray for that 
 day! I " 
 
 She broke off amid cries of applause, fierce as the bark- 
 ing of wolves. She struggled for a moment with her 
 overmastering emotion, then, unable to continue or to 
 calm herself, she turned from the table and fled weeping 
 up the stairs. 
 
 Colonel John had risen. He watched her go with deep 
 feeling; he turned to his seat again with a sigh. He was 
 a shade paler than before, and the eyes which he bent on 
 the board were dark with thought. He was unconscious 
 of all that passed round him, and, if aware, he was heedless 
 of the strength of the passions which she had unbridled — 
 until a hand fell on his arm. 
 
 He glanced up then and saw that all the men had risen, 
 and were looking at him — even Ulick Sullivan — with 
 dark faces. A passion of anger clouded their gaze. With- 
 out a word spoken, they were of one mind. The hand 
 that touched him trembled, the voice that broke the silence 
 shook under the weight of the speaker's feelings. 
 
 "You '11 be leaving here this day," the man muttered. 
 
 "I?" the Colonel said, taken by surprise. "Not at 
 all." 
 
 "We wish you no harm, but to see your back." 
 
 The Colonel, his first wonder subdued, looked from one 
 to another. "I am sure you wish me no harm," he said. 
 
 "None, but to see your back," the man repeated, while
 
 36 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 his companions looked down at the Colonel with a strange 
 fixedness. 
 
 "But I cannot go," the Colonel answered, as gently as 
 before. 
 
 "And why?" the man returned. The McMurrough 
 was not of the speakers, but stood behind them, glowering 
 at him with a dark face. 
 
 "Because," the Colonel answered, "I am in my duty 
 here, my friends; and the man who is in his duty can suffer 
 nothing." 
 
 "He can die," the man replied, breathing hard. The 
 men who were on the Colonel's side of the table leant more 
 closely about him. 
 
 But he seemed unmoved. "That," he replied cheer- 
 fully, " is nothing. To die is but an accident. Who dies 
 in his duty suffers no harm. And were that not enough 
 — and it is all," he continued slowly, "what harm should 
 happen to me, a Sullivan among Sullivans? Because I 
 have fared far and seen much, am I so changed that, 
 coming back, I shall find no welcome on the hearth of my 
 race, and no shelter where my fathers lie ? " 
 
 "And are not our hearths cold over many a league? 
 And the graves " 
 
 "Whisht!" a voice broke in sternly, as Uncle Ulick 
 thrust his way through the group. "The man says well! " 
 he continued. "He's a Sullivan " 
 
 "He 's a Protestant!" 
 
 "He is a Sullivan, I say!" Uncle Ulick retorted, "were 
 he the blackest heretic on the sod! And you, would you
 
 A SCION OF KINGS 37 
 
 do the foul deed for a woman's wet eye ? Are the hearts of 
 Kerry turned as hard as its rocks ? Make an end of this 
 prating and fooHshness! And you, James McMurrough, 
 these are your men and this is your house ? Will you be 
 telling them at once that you will be standing between 
 him and harm, be he a heretic ten times over ? For shame, 
 man ! Is it for raising the corp of old Sir Michael from his 
 grave ye are?" 
 
 The McMurrough looked sombrely at the big man. 
 " On you be the risk," he said sullenly. "You know what 
 you know." 
 
 "I know that the seal in the cave and the seal on the 
 wave are one !" Ulick answered vehemently. "Whisht, 
 man, whisht, and make an end! And do you, John Sulli- 
 van, give no thought to these omadhauns, but come with 
 me and I '11 show you to your chamber. A woman's 
 tear is ever near her smile. With her the good thought 
 treads ever on the heel of the bad word!" 
 
 "I have little knowledge of them," Colonel John 
 answered quietly. 
 
 But when he was above with Uncle Ulick, he spoke. 
 "I hope that this is but wild talk," he said. "You cannot 
 remember, nor can I, the bad days. But the little that is 
 left, it were madness and worse than madness to risk! 
 If you 've thought of a rising, in God's name put it from 
 you. Think of your maids and your children! I have 
 seen the fires rise from too many roofs, I have heard the 
 wail of the homeless too often, I have seen too many 
 frozen corpses stand for milestones by the road, I have
 
 38 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 wakened to the creak of too many gibbets — to face these 
 things in my own land!" 
 
 Uncle Ulick was looking from the little casement. He 
 turned, and showed a face working with agitation. *' And 
 you, if you wore no sword, nor dared wear one ? If you 
 walked in Tralee a clown among gentlefolk, if you lived a 
 pariah in a corner of pariahs, if your land were the hand- 
 maid of nations, and the vampire crouched upon her 
 breast, what — what would you do, then ?" 
 
 "Wait," Colonel John answered gravely, "until the time 
 came." 
 
 Uncle Ulick gripped his arm, "And if it came not in 
 your time?" 
 
 "Still wait," Colonel John answered with solemnity. 
 "For believe me, Ulick Sullivan, there is no deed that has 
 not its reward ! Not does one thatch go up in smoke that 
 is not paid for a hundredfold." 
 
 "Ay, but when? When?" 
 
 "When the time is ripe."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 "stop thief!" 
 
 A CANDID Englishman must own and deplore the 
 fact that Flavia McMurrough's tears were due 
 ^ to the wrongs of her country. Broken by three 
 great wars waged by three successive generations, defeated 
 in the last of three desperate struggles for liberty, Ireland 
 at this period lay like a woman swooning at the feet of 
 her captors. Nor were these minded that she should rise 
 again quickly, or in her natural force. The mastery which 
 they had won by the sword the English were resolved to 
 keep by the law. 
 
 They were determined that the Irishman of the old 
 faith should cease to exist; or, if he endured, should be 
 nemo, no one. Confined to hell or Connaught, he must 
 not even in the latter possess the ordinary rights. He must 
 not will his own lands or buy new lands. If his son, more 
 sensible than he, "went over," the father sank into a mere 
 life-tenant, bound to furnish a handsome allowance, and 
 to leave all to the Protestant heir. He might not marry a 
 Protestant, he might not keep a school, nor follow the 
 liberal professions. The priest who confessed him was 
 banished if known, and hanged if he returned. In a 
 country of sportsmen he might not own a fowling-piece, 
 
 89
 
 40 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 nor a horse worth more than five pounds; and in days 
 when every gentleman carried a sword at his side, he must 
 not wear one. Finally, his country grew but one article 
 of great value — wool: and that he must not make into 
 cloth, but he must sell it to England at England's price — 
 which was one-fifth of the continental price. Was it 
 wonderful that, such being Ireland's status, every Roman 
 Catholic of spirit sought fortune abroad; that the wild 
 geese, as they were called, went and came unchecked; or 
 that every inlet in Galway, Clare, and Kerry swarmed 
 with smugglers, who ran in under the green flag with 
 brandy and claret, and, running out again with wool, 
 laughed to scorn England's boast that she ruled the waves ? 
 
 Nor was it surprising that, spent and helpless as ihe land 
 lay, some sanguine spirits still clung to visions of a change 
 and of revenge. The Sullivans of Morristown and Skull 
 were of these; as were some of their neighbours. And 
 Flavia was especially of these. As she looked from her 
 window a day or two after the Colonel's arrival, as she 
 sniffed the peat reek and plumbed the soft distances 
 beyond the lake, she was lost in such a dream; until her 
 eyes fell on a man seated cross-legged under a tree between 
 herself and the shore. And she frowned. The man 
 sorted ill with her dream. 
 
 It was Bale, Colonel John's servant. He was mending 
 some article taken from his master's wardrobe. His 
 elbow went busily to and fro as he plied the needle, while 
 sprawling on the sod about him half a dozen gossoons 
 watched him inquisitively.
 
 "STOP THIEF" 41 
 
 Perhaps it was the suggestive contrast between his 
 dihgence and their idleness which irritated Flavia; but 
 she set down her annoyance to another cause. The man 
 was an Enghshman, and therefore an enemy: and what 
 did he there ? Had the Colonel left him on guard ? 
 
 Flavia's heart swelled at the thought. Here, at least, 
 she and hers were masters. Colonel John had awakened 
 mixed feelings in her. At times she admired him. But, 
 admirable or not, he should rue his insolence, if he had it in 
 his mind to push his authority, or interfere with her plans. 
 
 In the meantime she stood watching William Bale, and 
 a desire to know more of the man, and through him of the 
 master, rose within her. The house was quiet. The 
 McMurrough and his following had gone to a cocking- 
 match and race-meeting at Joyce's Corner. She went 
 down the stairs, took her hood, and crossed the courtyard. 
 Bale did not look up at her approach, but he saw her out 
 of the corner of his eye, and when she paused before him 
 he laid down his work and made as if he would rise. 
 
 She looked at him with a superciliousness not natural 
 to her. "Are all the men tailors where you come from?" 
 she asked. " There, you need not rise." 
 
 "Where I came from last," he replied, "we were all 
 trades, my lady." 
 
 "Have you been a soldier long?" she asked, feeling 
 herself rebuffed. 
 
 "Twenty-one years, my lady." 
 
 "And now you have done with it." 
 
 "It is as his honour pleases."
 
 42 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 She frowned. He had a way of speaking that sounded 
 uncivil to ears attuned to the soft Irish accent and the 
 wheedling tone. Yet the man interested her, and after a 
 moment's silence she fixed her eyes more intently on his 
 work. "Did you lose your fingers in battle ?" she asked. 
 His right hand was maimed. 
 
 " No," he answered — grudgingly, as he seemed to 
 answer all her questions — "in prison." 
 
 " In prison ? " she repeated ; "where ? " 
 
 He cast an upward look at his questioner. 
 
 "In the Grand Turk's land," he said. "Nearer than 
 that, I can't say. I 'm no scholar, my lady." 
 
 " But why ? " she asked, puzzled. " I don't understand." 
 
 "Cut off," he said, stooping over his work. 
 
 Flavia turned a shade paler. " Why ?" she repeated. 
 
 "'One God, and Mohommed His prophet' — could n't 
 swallow it. One finger!" the man answered jerkily. 
 "Next week — same. Third week " 
 
 "Third week?" she murmured, shuddering. 
 
 "Exchanged." 
 
 She lifted her eyes with an effort from his maimed hand. 
 "How many were you?" she inquired. 
 
 "Thirty-four." He laughed drily. "We know one 
 another when we meet," he said. He drew his waxed 
 thread between his finger and thumb, held it up to the light, 
 then looked askance at the gossoons about him, to whom 
 what he said was gibberish. They knew only Erse. 
 
 The day was still, the mist lay on the lake, and under it 
 the water gleamed, a smooth pale mirror. Flavia had seen
 
 "STOP THIEF" 43 
 
 it so a hundred times, and thought naught of it. But 
 to-day, moved by what she had heard, the prospect spoke 
 of a remoteness from the moving world which depressed 
 her. Hitherto the quick pulse and the energy of youth 
 had left her no time for melancholy, and not much for 
 thought. If at rare intervals she had felt herself lonely, if 
 she had been tempted to think that the brother in whom 
 were centred her hopes, her affections, and her family 
 pride was hard and selfish, rude and overbearing, she had 
 told herself that all men were so; that all men rode rough- 
 shod over their women. And that being so, who had a 
 better right to hector it than the last of the McMurroughs, 
 heir of the Wicklow kings, who in days far past had dealt 
 on equal terms with Richard Plantagenet, and to whom, 
 by virtue of that never-forgotten kingship, the Sullivans 
 and Mahonies, some of the McCarthys, and all the 
 O'Beirnes, paid rude homage? With such feelings Sir 
 Michael's strange whim of disinheriting the heir of his race 
 had but drawn her closer to her brother. To her loyalty 
 the act was abhorrent, one that could only have sprung, 
 she was certain, from second childhood, the dotage of a 
 man close on ninety, whose early years had been steeped 
 in trouble, and who loved her so much that he was ready 
 to do wrong for her sake. 
 
 Often she differed from her brother. But he was a man, 
 she told herself; and he must be right — a man's life could 
 not be ruled by the laws which a woman observed. For 
 the rest, for herself, if her life seemed solitary she had the 
 free air and the mountains; she had her dear land; above
 
 44 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 all, she had her dreams. Perhaps when these were real- 
 ized — and the time seemed very near now — and a new 
 Ireland was created, to her too a brighter world would 
 open. 
 
 She had forgotten Bale's presence, and was only recalled 
 to every-day life by the sound of voices. Four men were 
 approaching the house. Uncle Ulick, Colonel John, and 
 the French skipper were three of these; at the sight of the 
 fourth Flavia's face fell. Luke Asgill of Batterstown was 
 the nearest justice, and of necessity he was a Protestant. 
 But it was not this fact, nor the certainty that Augustin 
 was pouring his wrongs into his ears, that affected Flavia. 
 Asgill was distasteful to her, because her brother affected 
 him. For why should her brother have relations with a 
 Protestant? Why should he, a man of the oldest blood, 
 stoop to intimacy with the son of a "middleman," one of 
 those who, taking a long lease of a great estate and under- 
 letting at rack rents, made at this period huge fortunes? 
 Finally, if he must have relations with him, why did he not 
 keep him at a distance from his home — and his sister ? 
 
 It was too late, or she would have slipped away. Not 
 that Asgill — he was a stout, dark, civil-spoken man of 
 thirty-three or four — wore a threatening face. He 
 greeted Flavia with an excess of politeness which she could 
 have spared; and while Uncle Ulick and Colonel John 
 looked perturbed and ill at ease, he jested on the matter. 
 
 "The whole cargo?" he said, with one eye on the 
 Frenchman and one on his companions. "You're not 
 for stating that, sir?"
 
 "STOP THIEF" 45 
 
 "All the tubs," Augustin answered in a passion of 
 earnestness. 
 
 "The saints be between us and harm! " Asgill responded. 
 "Are you hearing this, Miss Flavia? It's no less than 
 felony that you 're accused of, and I 'm thinking, by rights, 
 I must arrest you and carry you to Batterstown." 
 
 "I do not understand," she answered stiffly. "And 
 The McMurrough is not at home." 
 
 "Gone out of the way, eh?" Asgill replied with a 
 deprecatory grin. "And the whole cargo was it, 
 Captain?" 
 
 "All the tubs, perfectly!" 
 
 "You'd paid your dues, of course?" 
 
 "Dues, mon Dieu! But they take the goods!" 
 
 "Had you paid your dues?" 
 
 "Not already, because " 
 
 "That 's unfortunate," Asgill answered in a tone of 
 mock condolence. "Mighty unfortunate!" He winked 
 at Uncle Ulick. "Port dues, you know. Captain, must be 
 paid before the ship slips her moorings." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " Mighty unfortunate ! " 
 
 "But what are the dues?" poor Augustin cried, dimly 
 aware that he was being baited. 
 
 "All, you're talking now," the magistrate answered 
 glibly. " Unluckily, that 's not in my province. I 'm 
 made aware that the goods are held under lien for dues, 
 and I can do nothing. Upon payment, of course " 
 
 "But how much? Eh, sir? How much? How much?"
 
 46 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Luke Asgill, who had two faces, and for once was minded 
 to let both be seen, enjoyed the Frenchmen's perplexity. 
 He wished to stand well with Flavia, and here was a rare 
 opportunity of exhibiting at once his friendliness and his 
 powers of drollery. He was therefore taken aback, when 
 a grave voice cut short his enjoyment. 
 
 "Still, if Captain Augustin," the voice interposed, "is 
 willing to pay a reasonable sum on account of dues?" 
 
 The magistrate turned about abruptly. "Eh?" he 
 said. "Oh, Colonel Sullivan, is it?" 
 
 "Then, doubtless, the goods will be released, so that he 
 may perform his duty to his customer." 
 
 Asgill had only known the Colonel a few minutes, and, 
 aware that he was one of the family, he did not see how to 
 take it. It was as if treason lifted its head in the camp. 
 He coughed. 
 
 "I'd not be denying it," he said. "But until The 
 McMurrough returns " 
 
 "Such a matter is doubtless within Mr. Sullivan's 
 authority," the Colonel said, turning from him to Uncle 
 Ulick. 
 
 Uncle Ulick showed his embarrassment. "Faith, I 
 don't know that it is," he said. 
 
 "If Captain Augustin paid, say, twenty per cent, on his 
 bills of lading " 
 
 "Ma foi, twenty per cent.!" the Captain exclaimed in 
 astonishment. "Twenty — but yes, I will pay it. I 
 will pay even that. Of what use to throw the handle after 
 the hatchet?"
 
 "STOP THIEF" 47 
 
 Luke Asgill thought the Colonel very simple. "Well, 
 I 've nothing to say to this, at all!" he said, shrugging his 
 shoulders. "It 's not within my province." 
 
 Colonel John looked at the girl in a way in which he had 
 not looked at her before; and she found herself speaking 
 before she knew it. "Yes," she cried impulsively; "let 
 that be done, and the goods be given up!" 
 
 "But The McMurrough?" Asgill began. 
 
 "I will answer for him," she said impulsively. "Uncle 
 Ulick, go, I beg, and see it done." 
 
 "I will go with you," Colonel Sullivan said. "And 
 doubtless Mr. Asgill will accompany us, to lend the weight 
 of his authority in the event of any difficulty arising." 
 
 Asgill's countenance fell. He was between two stools, 
 for he had no mind to displease Flavia or thwart her 
 brother. At length, "No," he said, "I 'II not be doing 
 anything in The McMurrough's absence." 
 
 Colonel John looked in the same strange fashion at 
 Flavia. "I have legal power to act, sir," he said, "as I 
 can prove to you in private. And that being so, I must 
 certainly ask you to lend me the weight of your authority." 
 
 "And I will be hanged if I do!" Asgill cried. There 
 was a change in his tone, and the reason was not far to 
 seek. "Here's The McMurrough!" 
 
 They all turned and looked along the road which ran 
 by the edge of the lake. With James McMurrough, who 
 was still a furlong away, were the two O'Beirnes. They 
 came slowly, and something in their bearing, even at that 
 distance, awoke anxiety.
 
 48 THEWILD GEESE 
 
 "They 're early from the cocking," Uncle Ulick mut- 
 tered doubtfully, "and sober as pigs! What 's the mean- 
 ing of that? There 's something amiss, I 'm fearing." 
 
 A cry from Flavia proved the keenness of her eyes. 
 "Where is Giralda?" she exclaimed. "Where is the 
 mare ? " 
 
 "Ay, what have they done with the mare ?" Uncle Ulick 
 said in a tone of consternation. "Have they lamed her, 
 I 'm wondering ? The garron Morty 's riding is none of 
 ours." 
 
 "I begged him not to take her!" Flavia cried, anger 
 contending with her grief. Giralda, her gray mare, 
 ascribed in sanguine moments to the strain of the Darley 
 Arabian, and as gentle as she was spirited, was the girl's 
 dearest possession. "I begged him not to take her!" 
 she repeated, almost in tears. " I knew there was danger." 
 
 "James was wrong to take her up country," Uncle 
 Ulick said sternly. 
 
 "They 've claimed her!" Flavia wailed. "I know they 
 have! And I shall never recover her! Oh, I 'd far rather 
 she were dead!" 
 
 Uncle Ulick lifted up his powerful voice. 
 
 "Where 's the mare?" he shouted. 
 
 James McMurrough shrugged his shoulders; a moment 
 later the riders came up and the tale was told. The three 
 young men had halted at the hedge tavern at Brocktown, 
 where their road ran out of the road to Tralee. There 
 were four men drinking in the house, who seemed to take 
 no notice of them. But when The McMurrough and his
 
 "STOP THIEF" 49 
 
 companions went to the shed beside the house to draw out 
 their horses, the men followed, challenged them for 
 Papists, threw down five pounds in gold, and seized the 
 mare. The four were armed, and resistance was useless. 
 
 The story was received with a volley of oaths and 
 curses. "But by the Holy," Uncle Ulick flamed up, 
 "I 'd have hung on their heels and raised the country!" 
 
 "Ay, ay! The thieves of the world!" 
 
 "They took the big road by Tralee," James McMur- 
 rough explained sulkily. "What was the use?" 
 
 "Were there no men working in the bogs?" 
 
 "There were none near by, to be sure," Morty said. 
 " But I 'd a notion if we followed them we might light on 
 one friend or another — 't was in Kerry, after all!" 
 
 "'T was not more than nine miles English from here!" 
 Uncle Ulick cried. 
 
 "That was just what I thought," Morty continued with 
 
 some hesitation. "Just that, but " And his eye 
 
 transferred the burden to The McMurrough. 
 
 James answered with an oath. "A nice time this to 
 be bringing the soldiers upon us," he cried, "when, 
 bedad, if the time ever was, we want no trouble with the 
 Englishry! What 's the use of crying over spilled milk? 
 I '11 give you another mare." 
 
 "But it '11 not be Giralda!" Flavia wailed. 
 
 "Sure it 's the black shame, it is!" Uncle Ulick cried, 
 his face dark. "It's enough to raise the country: Ay, 
 I say it, though you 're listening, Asgill. It 's more than 
 blood can stand!"
 
 50 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "No one is more sorry than myself," Asgill replied, with 
 a look of concern. "I don't make the laws, or they 'd 
 be other than they are!" 
 
 "True for you," Uncle Ulick answered. "I 'm allow- 
 ing that. And it is true, too, that to make a stir too early 
 would ruin all. I 'm afraid you must be making the best 
 of it, Flawy! I 'd go after them myself, but the time 's 
 not convenient, as you know, and by this they 're in Tralee, 
 bad cess to it, where there 's naught to be done. They '11 
 be for selling her to one of the garrison officers, I 'm 
 thinking; or they '11 take her farther up country, maybe 
 to Dublin." 
 
 Flavia's last hopes died with this verdict. She could not 
 control her tears, and she turned and went away in grief 
 to the house. 
 
 Meantime the hangers-on and the beggars pressed upon 
 the gentry, anxious to hear. The McMurrough, not sorry 
 to find some one on whom to vent his temper, turned upon 
 them and drove them away with blows of his whip. The 
 movement brought him face to face with Captain Augus- 
 tin. The fiery little Frenchman disdained to give way, 
 in a trice angry words passed, and — partly out of mischief, 
 for the moment was certainly not propitious — Asgill 
 repeated the proposal which Colonel John had just made. 
 The Colonel thus challenged stood forward. 
 
 "It's a fair compromise," he argued. "And if 
 Captain Augustin is prepared to pay twenty per 
 cent. " 
 
 "He'll not have his cargo, nor yet a cask!" The
 
 "STOP THIEF" 51 
 
 McMurroiigh replied with a curt, angry laugh. "Loss 
 and enough we 've had to-day." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " Get me back the mare," the young man cried, cutting 
 the Colonel short with savage ridicule. "That's all I 
 have to say." 
 
 "It seems to me," Colonel John replied quietly, "that 
 
 those who lose should find. Still " checking the 
 
 young man's anger by the very calmness of his tone, "for 
 Captain Augustin's sake, who can ill bear the loss, and 
 for your sister's sake, I will see what I can do." 
 
 The McMurrough stared. "You ?" he cried. " You ?" 
 
 "Yes, I." 
 
 "Heaven help us!" the young man laughed aloud in 
 his scorn. 
 
 But Colonel John seemed no way moved. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. "Only let us understand one 
 another" — with a look at Uncle Ulick which made him 
 party to the bargain. "If I return to-morrow evening 
 or on the following day — or week — with your sister's 
 mare " 
 
 "Mounseer shall have his stuff again to the last penny- 
 worth," young McMurrough returned with an ironical 
 laugh, "and without payment at all! Or stay! Perhaps 
 you '11 ouy the mare?" 
 
 "No, I shall not buy her," Colonel John answered, 
 "except at the price the man gave you." 
 
 "Then you '11 not get her. That 's certain! But it 's 
 your concern."
 
 52 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 The Colonel nodded, and, turning on his heels, went 
 away toward the house, calling William Bale to him as he 
 passed. 
 
 The McMurrough looked at the Frenchman. He had 
 a taste for tormenting some one. "Well, monsieur," 
 he jeered, "how do you like your bargain ?" 
 
 "I do not understand," the Frenchman answered. 
 " But he is a man of his word, ma foi! And they are not 
 — of the common."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 
 
 EARLY in the saddle, Colonel Sullivan rode east- 
 ward under Slieve Mish, with the sun rising above 
 the lower spurs of the mountain, and the lark 
 saluting the new-born radiance with a song attuned to the 
 freshness of the morning. 
 
 Bale rode behind him, taciturn, comparing the folds of 
 his native Suffolk hills with these greener vales. They 
 reached the hedge tavern, where the mare had been seized, 
 and they stayed to bait their horses, but got no news. 
 About eight they rode on; and five long Irish miles nearer 
 Tralee, they viewed from the crest of a hill a piece of road 
 stretched ribbon-like before them, and on it a man walking 
 from them at a great pace. He had for companion a boy, 
 who trotted beside him. 
 
 Neither man nor boy looked back, and it did not seem 
 
 to be from fear of the two riders that they moved so quickly. 
 
 The man wore a loose drugget coat and an old jockey-cap, 
 
 and walked with a stout six-foot staff. Thus armed he 
 
 should have stood in small fear of robbers. Yet when 
 
 Colonel John's horse, the tread of its hoofs deadened by 
 
 the sod road, showed its head at his shoulder, he turned a 
 
 face of more vivid alarm than seemed necessary. And he 
 
 crossed himself. 
 
 53
 
 54 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Colonel John touched his hat. " I give you good morn- 
 ing, good man," he said. 
 
 The walker raised his hand to his cap as if to return the 
 salute, but lowered it without doing so. He muttered 
 something. 
 
 "You will be in haste?" Colonel John continued. He 
 saw that the sweat stood in beads on the man's brow, and 
 the lad's face was tear-stained. 
 
 " I 've far to go," the man muttered. He spoke with a 
 slight foreign accent, but in the west of Ireland this was 
 common. "The top of the morning to you." 
 
 Plainly he wished the two riders to pass on, but he did 
 not slacken his speed for a moment. So for a space they 
 went abreast, the man, with every twenty paces, glancing 
 up suspiciously. And now and again, the boy, as he ran 
 or walked, vented a sob. 
 
 The Colonel looked about him. The solitude of the 
 valley was unbroken. No cabin smoked, no man worked 
 within sight, so that the haste of these two, their sweating 
 faces, their straining steps, seemed portentous, "Shall 
 I take up the lad ? " Colonel John asked. 
 
 Plainly the man hesitated. Then, " You will be doing 
 a kindness," he panted. And, seizing the lad in two 
 powerful arms, he swung him to the Colonel's stirrup, who, 
 in taking him, knocked off the other's jockey-cap. 
 
 The man snatched it up and put it on with a single 
 movement. But Colonel John had seen what he 
 expected. 
 
 " You walk on a matter of life and death ? " he said.
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 55 
 
 "It is all that," the man answered; and this time his 
 look was defiant. 
 
 "You are taking the offices, father?" 
 
 The man did not reply. 
 
 " To one who is near his end, I suspect ?" 
 
 The priest — for such he was — glanced at the weapon 
 Colonel John wore. "You can do what you will," he said 
 sullenly. "I am on my duty." 
 
 "And a fine thing, that!" Colonel John answered 
 heartily. He drew rein, and, before the other knew what 
 he would be at, he was off his horse. "Mount, father," 
 he said, "and ride, and God be with you!" 
 
 For a moment the priest stared dumfounded. 
 
 "Sir," he said, "you wear a sword! And no son of the 
 Church goes armed in these parts." 
 
 "If I am not one of your Church I am a Christian," 
 Colonel John answered. "Mount, father, and ride in 
 God's name, and when you are there send the lad back 
 with the beast." 
 
 "The Mother of God reward you!" the priest cried 
 fervently, "and turn your heart in the right way!" He 
 scrambled to the saddle. "The blessing of all " 
 
 The rest was lost in the thud of hoofs as the horse 
 started briskly, leaving Colonel John standing alone upon 
 the road beside Bale's stirrup. 
 
 "It's something if a man serves where he's listed," 
 Colonel John remarked. 
 
 Bale smiled. " And don't betray his own side," he said. 
 He slipped from his saddle.
 
 56 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " You think it 's the devil's work we 've done ?" Colonel 
 John asked. 
 
 But Bale declined to say more, and the two walked on, 
 one on either side of the horse. 
 
 They had trudged the better part of two miles when they 
 came upon the horse tethered by the reins to one of two 
 gate-pillars. Colonel John got to his saddle, and they 
 trotted on. Notwithstanding, it was late in the afternoon 
 when they approached the town of Tralee. 
 
 As the Colonel eyed the mean houses which flanked the 
 entrance to the town, he recognized that if all the saints 
 had not vouchsafed their company, the delay caused by 
 the meeting with the priest had done somewhat. For at 
 that precise moment a man was riding into the town before 
 them, and the horse under the man was Flavia McMur- 
 rough's lost mare. 
 
 Colonel John's eye lightened as he recognized its points. 
 With a sign to Bale he fell in behind the man and followed 
 him through two or three ill-paved and squalid streets. 
 Presently the rider passed through a loop-holed gateway, 
 crossed an open space surrounded by dreary buildings 
 which no military eye could take for aught but a 
 barrack yard. The two still followed — the sentry 
 staring after them. On the far side of the yard the 
 mare and its rider vanished through a second arch- 
 way, which appeared to lead to an inner court. The 
 Colonel went after them. Fortune, he thought, had 
 favoured him. 
 
 But as he emerged from the tunnel-like passage he raised
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 57 
 
 his head in astonishment. A din of voices, an outbreak 
 of laughter and revelry, burst in a flood of sound upon his 
 ears. He turned his face in the direction whence the 
 sounds came, and saw three open windows, and at each 
 window three or four flushed countenances. His sudden 
 emergence from the tunnel, perhaps his look of surprise, 
 wrought an instant's silence, which was followed by a 
 ruder outburst. 
 
 "Cock! cock! cock!" shrieked a tipsy voice, and an 
 orange, hurled at random, missed the Colonel's astonished 
 face by a yard. The mare which had led him so far had 
 disappeared, and instinctively he drew bridle. He stared 
 at the window! 
 
 "Mark one!" cried a second roisterer, and a cork, 
 better aimed than the orange, struck the Colonel sharply 
 on the chin. A shout of laughter greeted the hit. 
 
 He raised his hat. "Gentlemen," he remonstrated, 
 "gentlemen " 
 
 He could proceed no further. A flight of corks, a 
 renewed cry of "Cock! cock! cock!" a chorus of "Fetch 
 him, Ponto! Dead, good dog!" drowned his remon- 
 strances. Perhaps in the scowling face at his elbow the 
 wits of the — th found more amusement than in the master's 
 mild astonishment. 
 
 "Who the deuce is he ?" cried one of the seniors, raising 
 his voice above the uproar. "English or Irish?" 
 
 "Irish for a dozen! " a voice answered. " Here, Paddy, 
 where 's your papers?" 
 
 "Ay, be jabers!" in an exaggerated brogue; "it's the
 
 58 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 broth of a boy he is, and never a face as long as his in ould 
 Ireland!" 
 
 "Gentlemen," the Colonel said, getting in a word at 
 last. "Gentlemen, I have been in many companies 
 before this, and " 
 
 "You shall be in ours!" one of the revellers retorted. 
 And "Have him in! Fetch him in!" roared a dozen 
 voices, amid much laughter. Half as many young fellows 
 leaped from the windows, and surrounded him. 
 "Who-whoop!" cried one, " Who- whoop ! " 
 
 "Steady, gentlemen, steady!" the Colonel said, a note 
 of sternness in his voice. "I 've no objection to joining 
 you, or to a little timely frolic, but " 
 
 "Join us you will, whether or no!" replied one more 
 turbulent than the rest. He made as if he would lay hands 
 on the Colonel, and, to avoid violence, the latter suffered 
 himself to be helped from his saddle. In a twinkling he 
 was through the doorway, leaving his reins in Bale's 
 hand. 
 
 Boisterous cries of "Hallo, sobersides!" and "Cock, 
 cock, cock!" greeted the Colonel, as, partly of his own 
 accord and partly urged by unceremonious hands, he 
 crossed the threshold. 
 
 The scene presented by the apartment matched the 
 flushed faces which the windows had framed. A corner of 
 the table had been cleared for a main at hazard; but to 
 make up for this the sideboard was a wilderness of broken 
 meats and piled-up dishes, and an overturned card-table 
 beside one of the windows had strewn the floor with cards.
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 59 
 
 Here, there, everywhere on chairs, on hooks, were cast 
 sword-belts, neckcloths, neglected wigs. 
 
 A peaceful citizen of that day had as soon found himself 
 in a bear-pit; and even the Colonel's face grew a trifle 
 longer as hands, not too gentle, conducted him toward the 
 end of the table. " Gentlemen, gentlemen," he began, 
 "I have been in many companies, as I said before, 
 and " 
 
 "A speech! Old Gravity's speech!" roared a middle- 
 aged, bold-eyed man, who had suggested the sally from 
 the windows, and from the first had set the younger spirits 
 an example of recklessness. "Hear to him!" He filled 
 a glass of wine and waved it perilously near the Colonel's 
 nose. " Old Gravity's speech ! Give it tongue ! " he cried. 
 "The flure's your own, and we 're listening." 
 
 Colonel John eyed him with a slight contraction of the 
 features. But the announcement, if ill-meant, availed 
 to procure silence. The more sober had resumed their 
 seats. He raised his head and spoke. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said — and it was strange to note 
 the effect of his look as his eyes fell first on one and then on 
 another, fraught with a dignity which insensibly wrought 
 on them. "Gentlemen, I have been in many companies, 
 and I have found it true, all the world over, that what a 
 man brings he finds. I have the honour to speak to you 
 as a soldier to soldiers " 
 
 " English or Irish ?" asked a tall sallow man — sharply, 
 but in a new tone. 
 
 "Irish!"
 
 60 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 "Oh, be jabers!" from the man with the wineglass. 
 
 But the Colonel's eye and manner had had their effect, 
 and "Let him speak!" the sallow man said. "And you, 
 Payton, have done with your fooling, will you?" 
 
 "Well, hear to him!" 
 
 "I have been in many camps and many companies, 
 gentlemen," the Colonel resumed, "and those of many 
 nations. But wherever I have been I have found that if 
 a man brought no offence, he received none. I am a 
 stranger here, for I have been out of my own country for 
 a score of years. On my return you welcome me," he 
 smiled, "a little boisterously perhaps, but I am sure, 
 gentlemen, with a good intent. And as I have fared else- 
 where I am sure I shall fare at your hands." 
 
 "Well, sure," from the background, "and have n't we 
 made you welcome ? " 
 
 "Almost too freely," the Colonel replied, smiling good- 
 humouredly. "A peaceable man who had not lived as 
 long as I have might have found himself at a loss in face of 
 so strenuous a welcome. Corks, perhaps, are more in 
 place in bottles " 
 
 "And a dale more in place out of them!" from the 
 background. 
 
 "But if you will permit me to explain my errand, I will 
 say no more of that. My name, gentlemen, is Sullivan, 
 Colonel John Sullivan of Skull, formerly of the Swedish 
 service, and much at your service. I shall be still more 
 obliged if any of you will be kind enough to inform me who 
 is the purchaser "
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE Gl 
 
 Payton interrupted him rudely. " We have had enough 
 of this!" he cried. "Sink all purchasers, I say!" And 
 with a drunken crow he thrust his neighbour against the 
 speaker, causing both to reel. How it happened no one 
 saw — whether Payton himself staggered in the act, or 
 flung the wine wantonly; but somehow the contents of his 
 glass flew over the Colonel's face and neckcloth. 
 
 Half a dozen men rose from their seats. "Shame!" 
 an indignant voice cried. 
 
 Among those who had risen was the sallow man. 
 "Payton," he said sharply, "what did you do that 
 for?" 
 
 " Because I choose, if you like ! " the stout man answered. 
 " What is it to you ? I am ready to give him satisfaction 
 when he likes, and where he likes, and no heel-taps! And 
 what more can he want ? Do you hear, sir ? " he continued 
 in a bullying tone. "Sword or pistols, before breakfast 
 or after dinner, drunk or sober, Jack Payton 's your man. 
 It shall never be said in my time that the — th suffered a 
 crop-eared Irishman to preach to them in their own mess- 
 room! You can send your friend to me when you please. 
 He '11 find me!" 
 
 The Colonel was wiping the wine from his chin and 
 neckcloth. He had turned strangely pale at the moment 
 of the insult. More than one of those who watched him 
 curiously, noting the slow preciseness of his movements, 
 expected some extraordinary action. 
 
 But no one looked for anything so abnormal as the 
 course he took when he spoke. Nothing in his bearing
 
 62 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 had prepared them for it; nor anything in his conduct 
 which, so far, had been that of a man of the world not too 
 much at a loss even in the unfavourable circumstances in 
 which he was placed. 
 
 ''I do not fight," he said. "Your challenge is cheap, 
 sir, as your insult." 
 
 Pay ton stared. He had never been more astonished in 
 his life. "You do not fight? Heaven and earth! and 
 you a soldier!" 
 
 "I do not fight." 
 
 "After that, man! Not — after " 
 
 "No," Colonel John said between his teeth. 
 
 And then no one spoke. A something in Colonel John's 
 tone sobered the spectators, and turned that which might 
 have seemed an ignominy into a tragedy in which they all 
 had their share. For the insult had been so wanton, that 
 there was not one of the witnesses whose sympathy had 
 not been with the victim. 
 
 Payton alone was moved only by contempt. 
 
 "Heavens, man!" he cried, finding his voice again. 
 "Are you a Quaker? If so, why do you call yourself a 
 soldier?" 
 
 "I am no Quaker," Colonel John answered, "but I do 
 not fight duels." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "If I killed you," the Colonel replied, eyeing him 
 steadily, " would it dry my neckcloth or clean my face ? " 
 
 " No! " Payton retorted with a sneer, " but it would clean 
 your honour! It would prove, man, that, unlike the
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 63 
 
 beasts that perish, you vakied something more than 
 your Ufe!" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "What?" Payton asked with careless disdain. 
 
 "Among other things, my duty." 
 
 Payton laughed brutally. "Why, by the powers, you 
 are a preacher!" he retorted "Hang your duty, sir, and 
 you for a craven ! Give me acts, not words ! It 's a man's 
 duty to defend his honour, and you talk of your neck- 
 cloth! There 's for a new neckcloth!" He pulled out a 
 half-crown and flung it, with an insulting gesture, upon the 
 table. " Show us your back, and for the future give gentle- 
 men of honour a wide berth! You are no mate for 
 them!" 
 
 The act and the words were too strong. A murmur 
 rose — for if Payton was feared he was not loved ; and the 
 sallow-faced man, whose name was Marsh, spoke out. 
 "Easy, Payton," he said. "The gentleman " 
 
 "The gentleman, eh?" 
 
 " Did not come here of his own accord, and you 've said 
 enough, and done enough! For my part " 
 
 "I didn't ask for your interference!" the other cried 
 insolently. 
 
 'Well, anyway " 
 
 'And I don't want it! And I won't have it; do you 
 hear. Marsh?" Payton repeated menacingly. "You 
 know me, and I know you," 
 
 "I know that you are a better fencer and a better shot 
 than I am," Marsh replied, shrugging his shoulders, "and 
 
 << 
 ((
 
 64 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 I daresay than any of us. We are apt to believe it, anyway. 
 But " 
 
 "I would advise you to let that be enough," Payton 
 sneered. 
 
 It was then that the Colonel spoke — and in a tone some- 
 what altered. "I am much obliged to you, sir," he said, 
 addressing the sallow-faced man. " I crave leave to say one 
 word only, which may come home to some among you. 
 We are all, at times, at the mercy of mean persons. Yes, 
 sir, of mean persons," the Colonel repeated, in a tone so 
 determined that Payton, in the act of seizing a decanter to 
 hurl at him, hesitated. "For any but a mean person," 
 Colonel John continued, drawing himself up to his full 
 height, "finding that he had insulted one who could not 
 meet him on even terms, would have deemed it the same 
 as if he had insulted a one-armed man, or a blind man, 
 and would have set himself right by an apology." 
 
 At that word Payton found his voice. "Hang your 
 apology!" he cried furiously. 
 
 " By an apology," the Colonel repeated, fixing him with 
 eyes of unmeasured contempt, "which would have lowered 
 him no more than an apology to a woman or a child. Not 
 doing so, his act dishonours himself only, and those who 
 sit with him. And one day, unless I mistake not, his own 
 blood, and the blood of others, will rest upon his head." 
 
 With that word the speaker turned slowly, walked with 
 an even pace to the door, and opened it, none gainsaying 
 him. On the threshold he paused and looked back. 
 Something, possibly some chord of superstition in his
 
 MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE 65 
 
 breast which his adversary's last words had touched, 
 held Pay ton silent: and silent the Colonel's raised finger 
 found him. 
 
 " I believe," Colonel John said, gazing solemnly at him, 
 "that we shall meet again." And he went out. 
 
 Payton turned to the table, and with an unsteady hand 
 filled a glass. "Sink the old Square-Toes!" he cried. 
 "He got what he deserved! Who '11 throw a main with 
 me?" 
 
 "Thirty guineas against your new mare, if you like ?" 
 
 " No, confound you," Payton retorted angrily. " Did n't 
 I say she was n't for sale?"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MaTtRE d'aRMES 
 
 BEYOND doubt Colonel John was, as he retired, 
 as unhappy as a more ordinary man might have 
 been in the same case. He knew that he was no 
 craven, that he had given his proofs a score of times. But 
 old deeds and a foreign reputation availed nothing here, 
 and it was with a deep sense of vexation and shame that he 
 rode out of the barrack-yard. Nor were his spirits low 
 on this account only. 
 
 He knew that he could only get the mare from those who 
 held her by imposing himself upon them; and to do this 
 after what had happened seemed impossible. If he was 
 anxious to recover the mare, his anxiety did not rest there. 
 Her recovery was but a step to that influence at Morris- 
 town which would make him potent for good; to that 
 consideration which would enable him to expel foolish 
 counsels, and silence that simmering talk of treason which 
 might at any moment boil up into action and ruin a 
 countryside. 
 
 The story would be told, must be told: it would be 
 carried far and wide; and he had come off so ill, 
 had cut so poor a figure, that after this he could 
 hope for nothing from his personal influence here or 
 
 66
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 67 
 
 at Morristown. Nothing, unless he could set himself 
 right at Tralee. 
 
 He brooded long over the matter and at length hit on a 
 plan, promising, though distasteful. He called Bale, and 
 made inquiries through that taciturn man. Next morning 
 he sat late at his breakfast. He had learned that the 
 garrison used the inn much, many of the officers calling 
 there for their "morning"; and the information proved 
 correct. About ten he heard heavy steps in the stone- 
 paved passage, spurs rang out an arrogant challenge, 
 and voices called for Patsy and Molly. By and by two 
 officers, almost lads, sauntered into the room and, finding 
 him there, moved with a wink and a grin to the window. 
 They leaned out, and he heard them laugh; he knew 
 that they were discussing him before they turned to the 
 daily fare — the neat ankles of a passing colleen, the 
 glancing eyes of the French milliner over the way, or the 
 dog-fight at the corner. The two remained thus until 
 presently the sallow-faced man sauntered idly into the 
 room. 
 
 He did not see the Colonel at once, but the latter rose 
 and bowed. Marsh, a little added colour in his face, 
 returned the salute — with an indifferent grace. It was 
 clear that, though he had behaved better than his fellows 
 on the previous day, he had no desire to push the acquaint- 
 ance farther. 
 
 Colonel John, however, gave him no chance. Still 
 standing, and with a grave, courteous face, "May I, as a 
 stranger," he said, "trouble you with a question, sir?"
 
 68 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 The two lady-killers at the window heard the words and 
 nudged one another, with a stifled chuckle at their com- 
 rade's predicament. Captain Marsh, with one eye on 
 them, assented stiffly. 
 
 "Is there any one," the Colonel asked, ''in Tralee — I 
 fear the chance is small — who gives fencing lessons ?" 
 
 The Captain's look of surprise yielded to one of 
 pitying comprehension. He smiled — he could not help 
 it; while the young men drew in their heads to hear 
 the better. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "there is." 
 
 "In the regiment, I presume?" 
 
 "He is attached to it temporarily. If you will inquire 
 at the Armoury for Lemoine, the maitre d'armes, he will 
 oblige you, I have no doubt. But " 
 
 "If you please?" the Colonel said politely, seeing that 
 Marsh hesitated. 
 
 " If you are not a skilled swordsman, I fear that it is not 
 one lesson, or two, or a dozen, will enable you to meet 
 Captain Payton, if you have such a thing in your mind, sir. 
 He is but little weaker than Lemoine, and Lemoine is a 
 fair match with a small-sword for any man out of Lfjndon. 
 
 Brady in Dublin, possibly, but " he stopped abrujjtly, 
 
 his ear catching a snigger at the window. 
 
 "Still," the Colonel answered simply, "a long reach goes 
 for much, I have heard, and I am tall." 
 
 Captain Marsh looked at him in pity, and he might have 
 put his compassion into words, but for the young bloods 
 at the window, who, he knew, would repeat the conversa-
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 69 
 
 tion. He contented himself, therefore, with saying rather 
 curtlv, "I be here it goes some wav." And he turned stiffly 
 to go out. 
 
 But the Colonel had a last question to put to him. "At 
 what hour," he asked, "should I be most likely to find 
 this — Lemoine at leisure?" 
 
 "Lemoine?" 
 
 "If you please." 
 
 INIarsh opened his mouth to answer, but found himself 
 anticipated by one of the youngsters. "Three in the 
 afternoon is the best time," tne lad said bluntly, speaking 
 over his shoulder. He popped out his head again, that his 
 face, swollen by his perception of the jest, might not 
 betray it. 
 
 But the Colonel seemed to see nothing. " I thank you," 
 he said, bowing courteously. 
 
 And reseatinii himself, as Marsh went out, he finisned 
 his breakfast. The two at the window, after exploding 
 once or twice in an attempt to stifle their laughter, drew in 
 their heads, and, still red in the face, marched solemnly 
 past the Colonel, and out of the room. His seat, now the 
 window was clear, commanded a view of the street, and 
 presently he saw the two young bloods go by in the com- 
 pany of four or five of their like. They were gesticulating, 
 nor was there much doubt, from the laughter with which 
 their tale was received, that they were retailmg a joke of 
 signal humour. 
 
 That did not surprise the Colonel. But when the door 
 opened a moment later, and Marsh came hastily into the
 
 70 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 room, and with averted face began to peer about for some- 
 thing, he was surprised. 
 
 "Where's that snuff-box!" the sallow-faced man 
 exclaimed. Then, looking about him to make sure that 
 the door was closed. "See here, sir," he said awkwardly, 
 "it 's no business of mine, but for a man who has served 
 as you say you have, you 're a very simple fellow. Take 
 my advice and don't go to Lemoine's at three, if you go at 
 all." 
 
 "No?" the Colonel echoed. 
 
 " Can't you see they '11 all be there to guy you ?" Marsh 
 retorted impatiently. The next moment, with a hasty 
 nod, he was gone, He had found the box in his pocket. 
 
 Colonel Sullivan smiled, and rose from the table. "A 
 good man," he muttered. " Pity he has not more courage." 
 The next moment he came to attention, for slowly past the 
 window moved Captain Payton himself, riding Flavia's 
 mare, and talking with one of the young bloods who walked 
 at his stirrup. 
 
 The man and the horse! The Colonel began to under- 
 stand that something more than wantonness had inspired 
 Payton's conduct the previous night. He had had an 
 interest in nipping inquiry in the bud; and, learning who 
 the Colonel was, had acted on the instant, and with con- 
 siderable presence of mind. 
 
 The Colonel remained within doors until five minutes 
 before three o'clock. Then, attending to the directions 
 he had received, he made his way to a particular door a 
 little within the barrack gate.
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 71 
 
 Had he glanced up at the windows he would have seen 
 faces at them; moreover, a suspicious ear might have 
 caught a scurrying of feet, mingled with stifled laughter. 
 But he did not look up. He did not seem to expect to 
 see more than he found, when he entered — a great bare 
 room with its floor strewn with sawdust and its walls 
 adorned here and there by a gaunt trophy of arms. In 
 the middle of the floor, engaged apparently in weighing one 
 foil against another, was a stout, dark man, whose light 
 and nimble step gave the lie to his weight. 
 
 Certainly there came from a half-opened door at the end 
 of the room a stealthy sound as of rats taking cover. But 
 Colonel John did not look that way. His whole attention 
 was bent upon the maitre d'armes, who bowed low to him. 
 Clicking his heels together, and extending his palms in the 
 French fashion. " Good morning, sare," he said, his 
 southern accent unmistakable. "I make you welcome." 
 
 The Colonel returned his salute less elaborately 
 
 "The maitre d'armes, Lemoine?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, sare, that is me. At your service!" 
 
 " I am a stranger in Tralee, and I have been recom- 
 mended to apply to you. You are, I am told, accustomed 
 to give lessons." 
 
 "With the small-sword?" the Frenchman answered, 
 with the same gesture of the open hands. "It is my 
 profession." 
 
 " I am desirous of brushing up my knowledge — such 
 as it IS. 
 
 "A vare good notion," the fencing-master replied, his
 
 72 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 black, beady eyes twinkling. " Vare good for me. Vara 
 good also for you. Always ready, is the gentleman's 
 motto; and to make himself ready, his high recreation. 
 But, doubtless, sare," with a faint smile, "you are pro- 
 ficient, and I teach you nothing. You come but to sweat 
 a little." 
 
 "At one time," Colonel John replied with simplicity, 
 "I was fairly proficient. Then — this happened!" He 
 held out his right hand. "You see?" 
 
 "Ah!" the Frenchman said in a low tone, and he raised 
 his hands. "That is ogly! That is vare ogly! Can 
 you hold with that?" he added, inspecting the hand with 
 interest. He was a different man. 
 
 "So, so," the Colonel answered cheerfully. 
 
 " Not strongly, eh ? It is not possible." 
 
 "Not very strongly," the Colonel assented. His hand, 
 Hke Bale's, lacked two fingers. 
 
 Lemoine muttered something under his breath, and 
 looked at the Colonel with a wrinkled brow. "Tut — 
 tut!" he said, "and how long are you like that, sare?" 
 
 "Seven years." 
 
 "Pity! pity!" Lemoine exclaimed. Again he looked at 
 his visitor with perplexed eyes. After which, "Peste!" 
 he said suddenly. 
 
 The Colonel stared. 
 
 "It is not right!" the Frenchman continued, frowning. 
 "I — no! Pardon me, sare, I do not fence with les 
 estropies. That is downright! That is certain, sare. I 
 do not do it."
 
 THEMAITRED'ARMES 73 
 
 If the Colonel had been listening he might have caught 
 the sound of a warning cough, proceeding from the direc- 
 tion of the inner room; but he had his back to the half- 
 opened door. " But if," he objected, " I am willing to pay 
 for an hour's practice?" 
 
 "Another day, sare. Another day, if you will." 
 
 "But I shall not be here another day. I have but 
 to-day. By and by," he continued with a smile as kindly 
 as it was humorous, " I shall begin to think that you are 
 afraid to pit yourself against a manchoi!" 
 
 "Oh, la! la!" 
 
 "Do me the favour, then," Colonel John retorted. "If 
 you please?" 
 
 Against one of the walls were three chairs arranged in 
 a row. Before each stood a boot-jack, and beside it a 
 pair of boot-hooks; over it, fixed in the wall, were two or 
 three pegs for the occupant's wig, cravat, and cane. The 
 Colonel, without waiting for a further answer, took his 
 seat on one of the chairs, removed his boots, and then 
 his coat, vest, and wig, which he hung on the pegs 
 above him. 
 
 "And now," he said gaily, as he stood up, "the mask!" 
 
 He did not see the change, but as he rose, the door of the 
 room behind him became fringed with grinning faces. 
 Pay ton, the two youths who had leaned from the window 
 of the inn, a couple of older officers, half a dozen subalterns, 
 all were there. The more grave could hardly keep the 
 more hilarious in order. The stranger who fought no 
 duels, yet thought that a lesson or two would make him a
 
 74 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 match for a dead-hand hke Payton — was ever such a 
 promising joke conceived ? 
 
 The Frenchman made no further demur. He took his 
 mask, and proffered a choice of foils to his antagonist, 
 whose figure, freed from the heavy coat and vest of the day, 
 seemed more supple than the Frenchman had expected. 
 "A pity, a pity!" the latter said to himself. "To have 
 lost, if he ever was professor, the joy of life!" 
 
 "Are you ready?" Colonel John asked. 
 
 "At your service, sare," the maiire d'armes replied. 
 The two advanced each a foot, they touched swords, then 
 saluted with that graceful and courteous engagement which 
 to an ignorant observer is one of the charms of the foil. 
 As they did so, and steel grated on steel, the eavesdroppers 
 in the inner room ventured softly from ambush — like rats 
 issuing forth. 
 
 They were on the broad grin when they came out. But 
 it took them less than a minute to discover that the enter- 
 tainment was not likely to be so extravagantly funny as 
 they had hoped. The Colonel was not, strictly speaking 
 a tyro; moreover, he had, as he said, a long reach. He 
 was no match indeed for Lemoine, who touched him twice 
 in the first bout and might have touched him thrice had 
 he put forth his strength. But he did nothing absurd. 
 When he dropped his point, therefore, at the end of the 
 rally, and turning to take breath came face to face with the 
 gallery of onlookers, the best-natured of these felt rather 
 foolish. But Colonel John seemed to find nothing sur- 
 prising in their presence. He saluted them courteously
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 75 
 
 with his weapon. "I am afraid I cannot show you much 
 sport, gentlemen," he said. 
 
 One or two muttered something — a good day, or the 
 Hke. The rest grinned unmeaningly. Payton said noth- 
 ing, but, folding his arms with a superior air, leaned 
 frowning against the wall. 
 
 " Parbleu," said Lemoine, as they rested. "It is a pity. 
 The wrist is excellent, sare. But the pointing finger is 
 not — is not!" 
 
 "I do my best," the Colonel answered, with cheerful 
 resignation. "Shall we engage again?" 
 
 "At your pleasure." 
 
 The Frenchman's eye no longer twinkled; his gallantry 
 was on its mettle. He was grave and severe, fixing his 
 gaze on the Colonel's attack, and remaining blind to the 
 nods and shrugs of his patrons in the background. Again 
 he touched the Colonel, and, alas! again, with an ease 
 he could not mask. 
 
 Colonel John, a little breathed, and perhaps a little 
 chagrined also, dropped his point. Some one coughed, 
 and another tittered. 
 
 "I think he will need another lesson or two," Pavton 
 remarked, loudlv enough for all to hear. 
 
 The man whom he addressed made an inaudible answer. 
 The Colonel turned toward them. 
 
 "And — a new hand," Payton added in the same tone. 
 
 Even for his henchman the remark was almost too much. 
 But the Colonel, strange to say seemed to find nothing 
 offensive in it. On the contrary, he replied to it.
 
 76 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 "That was precisely," he said, "what I thought when 
 this" — he indicated his maimed hand — "happened to 
 me. And I did my best to procure one." 
 
 " Did you succeed ?" Payton retorted in an insolent tone. 
 
 "To some extent," the Colonel replied, in the most 
 matter-of-fact manner. And he transferred the foil to 
 his left hand. 
 
 "Give you four to one," Payton rejoined, "Lemoine 
 hits you twice before you hit him once." 
 
 Colonel John had anticipated some of the things that 
 had happened. But he had not foreseen this. He was 
 quick to see the use to which he might put it, and it was 
 only for an instant that he hesitated. Then "Four to 
 one?" he repeated. 
 
 "Five, if you like!" Payton sneered. 
 
 "If you will wager," the Colonel said slowly, "if you 
 will wager the gray mare you were riding this morning, 
 Sir 
 
 Payton uttered an angry oath. "What do you mean ?" 
 he said. 
 
 "Against ten guineas," Colonel John continued care- 
 lessly, bending the foil against the floor and letting it 
 spring to its length again," I will make that wager." 
 
 Payton scowled at him. He was aware of the other's 
 interest in the mare, and suspected that he had come to 
 town to recover her. And caution would have had him 
 refuse the snare. But his toadies were about him, he had 
 long ruled the roost, to retreat went against the grain; 
 while to suppose that the man had the least chance against
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 77 
 
 Lemoine was absurd. Yet he hesitated. "What do you 
 know about the mare?" he said coarsely. 
 
 "I have seen her. But of course, if you are afraid to 
 wager her, sir " 
 
 Pay ton answered to the spur. "Bah! Afraid?" he 
 cried contemptuously. "Done with you!" 
 
 "That is settled," the Colonel replied. "I am at your 
 service," he continued, turning to the maitre d'armes. 
 "I trust," indicating that he was going to fence with his 
 left hand, "that this will not embarrass you?" 
 
 "No! But it is interesting, vare interesting," the 
 Frenchman replied. "I have encountered les gauchers 
 before, and " 
 
 He did not finish the sentence, but saluting, he assumed 
 an attitude a little more wary than usual. The foils felt 
 one another, and ''Oh, va, va!" he muttered. "I under- 
 stand the droll!" 
 
 For half a minute or so the faces of the onlookers 
 reflected only a mild surprise, mingled with curiosity. 
 But the fencers had not made more than half a dozen 
 serious passes before this was changed, before one face 
 grew longer and another more intent. A man who was no 
 fencer, and therefore no judge, spoke. A fierce oath 
 silenced him. Another murmured an exclamation under 
 his breath. Payton's face became slowly a dull red. At 
 length, "Ha!" cried one, drawing in his breath. And he 
 was right. The maitre d'armes' button, sliding under 
 the Colonel's blade, had touched his opponent. At 
 once, Lemoine sprang back out of danger, the two
 
 78 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 points dropped, the two fencers stood back to take 
 breath. 
 
 For a few seconds the Colonel's chagrin was plain. 
 Then he conquered the feeling, and smiled. "I fear you 
 are too strong for me," he said. 
 
 "Not at all," the Frenchman made answer. "Not at 
 all! It was fortune, sare. I know not what you were 
 with your right hand, but you are with the left vare strong, 
 of the first force. It is certain." 
 
 Payton, an expert, had been among the earliest to dis- 
 cern the Colonel's skill. With a sudden sinking of the 
 heart, he had foreseen the figure he would cut if Lemoine 
 were worsted; he had endured a moment of great fear. 
 But at this success he choked down his apprehension. 
 One more hit, one more success on Lemoine's part, and he 
 had won the wager! But he could no longer bear himself 
 carelessly. While he faltered, seeking for a gibe and 
 finding none, the two combatants had crossed their foils 
 again. Their tense features, their wary movements, 
 made it clear that they played for a victory of which neither 
 was confident. 
 
 Apart from the wager, it was clear that if Lemoine had 
 not met his match, the Captain had; and doubtless many 
 in the room, on whose toes Payton had trodden, felt secret 
 joy, pleased that the bully of the regiment was like to meet 
 with a reverse and a master. 
 
 Whatever their thoughts, a quick rally riveted all eyes 
 on the fencers. For a moment thrust and parry followed 
 one another so rapidly that the untrained gaze could not
 
 THE MAITRE D'ARMES 79 
 
 distinguish them or trace the play. The spectators held 
 their breath, expecting a hit with each second. But the 
 rally died away again, neither of the players had got 
 through the other's guard; and now they fell to it more 
 slowly, the Colonel, a little winded, giving ground, and 
 Lemoine pressing him. 
 
 Then, no one saw precisely how it happened, whiff- 
 whaff, Lemoine's weapon flew from his hand and struck 
 the wall with a whirr and a jangle. The fencing-master 
 wrung his wrist. " Sacre!" he cried, between his teeth, 
 unable in the moment of surprise to control his chagrin. 
 
 The Colonel touched him with his button for form's 
 sake, then stepped rapidly to the wall, picked up the foil 
 by the blade, and courteously returned it to him. Two 
 or three cried "Bravo," but faintly, as barely compre- 
 hending what had happened. The greater part stood 
 silent in sheer astonishment. Payton remained dumb 
 with mortification and disgust. 
 
 Lemoine, indeed, the person more immediately con- 
 cerned, had eyes only for his opponent, whom he regarded 
 with a queer mixture of approval and vexation. "You 
 have been at Angelo's school in Paris, sare?" he said, in 
 the tone of one who stated a fact rather than asked a 
 question. 
 
 "It is true," the Colonel answered, smiling. 
 
 "And learned that trick from him?" 
 
 " I did. It is of little use except to a left-handed man." 
 
 " Yet in play with one not of the first force it succeeds 
 twice out of three times," Lemoine answered. "Twice
 
 80 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 out of three times, with the right hand. Ma foil I 
 remember it well! I offered the master twenty guineas, 
 monsieur, if he would teach it me. But because" — he 
 held out his palms pathetically — "I was right-handed, 
 he would not." 
 
 "I am fortunate," Colonel John answered, bowing, 
 "in being able to requite your good nature. I shall be 
 pleased to teach it you for nothing, but not now. Gentle- 
 men," he continued, giving up his foil to Lemoine, and 
 removing his mask, "gentlemen, you will bear me witness 
 I trust, that I have won the wager?" 
 
 Some nodded, some murmured an affirmative, others 
 turned toward Payton, who nodded sullenly. How 
 willingly at that moment would he have laid the Colonel 
 dead at his feet, and Lemoine, and the whole crew, friends 
 and enemies! " Oh, hang you! " he said, " Take the mare, 
 she 's in the stable!" 
 
 At that a brother officer touched his arm, and drew him 
 aside. The intervener seemed to be reminding him of 
 something; and the Colonel, not inattentive, caught the 
 name "Asgill" twice repeated. But Payton was too 
 angry to care for minor consequences. He shook off his 
 adviser with a rough hand. 
 
 "What do I care?" he answered, "He must shoe his 
 own cattle!" Then, with a poor show of hiding his spite 
 under a cloak of insouciance, he addressed the Colonel. 
 "The mare is yours," he said. "Much good may she do 
 you!" 
 
 And he turned on his heel and went out of the armoury.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BARGAINING 
 
 IT WAS perhaps because Flavia often sought the 
 tower beside the waterfall at sunset, and he had 
 noted the fact, that Luke Asgill's steps bore him 
 thither on an evening three days after the Colonel's 
 departure for Tralee. Asgill had remained at Morris- 
 town, though the girl had not hidden her distaste for 
 his presence. But to all her remonstrances The 
 McMurrough had replied, with his usual churlishness, 
 that the man was there on business — did she want to 
 recover her mare, or did she not ? And she had found 
 nothing more to say. But the most slavish observance 
 on the guest's part, and some improvement in her 
 brother's conduct — which she might have rightly 
 attributed to Asgill's presence — had not melted her. 
 Be that as it might, Asgill did not find her at the tower. 
 But he thought that she might still come, and he waited, 
 sitting low, with his back against the ruined wall, that she 
 might not see him until it was too late for her to retreat. 
 By and by he heard footsteps mounting the path; his 
 face reddened, and he made as if he would rise. But the 
 face that rose above the brow was not Flavia's, but her 
 brother's. And Asgill swore. 
 
 81
 
 82 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 The McMiirrough understood, grinned, and threw him- 
 self on the ground beside him. " You '11 be wishing me in 
 the devil's bowl, I'm thinking," he said. "Yet, faith, 
 I 'm not so sure — if you 're not a fool. For it 's certain 
 I am you '11 never touch so much as the sole of her foot 
 without me." 
 
 "I 'm not denying it," the other answered sulkily. 
 "So it's mighty little use your wishing me away!" 
 The McMurrough continued, stretching himself at his 
 ease. "You can't get her without me; nor at all, at all 
 but on my terms! It would be a fine thing for you, no 
 doubt, if you could sneak round her behind my back! 
 Don't I know you 'd be all for old Sir Michael's will then, 
 and I might die in a gutter, for you! But an egg, and an 
 egg 's fair sharing." 
 
 "Have I said it was any other?" Asgill asked gloomily. 
 "The old place is mine, and I 'm minded to keep it." 
 "And if any other marries her," Asgill said quietly, "he 
 will want her rights." 
 
 "Well, and do you think," the younger man answered 
 in his ugliest manner, "that if it were n't for that small 
 
 fact, Mister Asgill " 
 
 "And the small fact," Asgill struck in, " that before your 
 grandfather died I lent you a clear five hundred, and I 'm 
 to take that, that 's my own already, in quittance of all! " 
 
 "Well, and wasn't it that same I'm saying?" The 
 McMurrough retorted. "If it were n't for that, and the 
 bargain we 've struck d' you think that I 'd be letting my 
 sister and a McMurrough look at the likes of you ? No,
 
 BARGAINING 83 
 
 not in as many midsummer days as are between this and 
 world without end!" 
 
 The look Asgill shot at him would have made a wiser 
 man tremble. But The McMurrough knew the strength 
 of his position. 
 
 "And if I were to tell her ? " Asgill said slowly. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That we 've made a bargain about her." 
 
 "It's the last strand of hope you'd be breaking, my 
 man," the younger man answered briskly. "For you 'd 
 lose my help, and she 'd not believe you — though every 
 priest in Douai backed your word!" 
 
 Asgill knew that that was true, and he changed his tone. 
 "Enough said," he replied pacifically. "Where '11 we 
 be if we quarrel ? You want the old place that is yours by 
 right. And I want — your sister." He swallowed some- 
 thing as he named her; even his tone was different. 
 " 'T is one and one. That 's all." 
 
 "And you 're the one who wants the most," James 
 replied cunningly. "Asgill, my man, you 'd give your 
 soul for her, I 'm thinking." 
 
 "I would." 
 
 "You would, I believe," he continued, with a leer, 
 "you 're that fond of her I '11 have to look to her! Hang 
 me, my friend, if I let her be alone with you after this. 
 Safe bind, safe bind. Women and fruit are easily 
 bruised." 
 
 Asgill rose slowly to his feet. "You scoundrel!" he 
 said in a low tone. And it was only when The McMur-
 
 84 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 rough, surprised by his movement, turned to him, that the 
 young man saw that his face was black with passion, so 
 menacing, that he also sprang to his feet. "You scoun- 
 drel!" Asgill repeated, choking on the words. "If you 
 say a thing like that again I '11 do you a mischief. Do you 
 hear?" 
 
 "What in the saints' names is the matter with you?" 
 The McMurrough faltered. 
 
 "You 're not fit to breathe the air she breathes!" Asgill 
 continued, with the same ferocity. "Nor am II But I 
 know it. And you don't! Why, man," he continued, still 
 fighting with the passion that possessed him, "I would n't 
 dare to touch the hem of her gown without her leave. 
 I would n't dare to look in her face if she bade me not! 
 She 's as safe with me as if she were an angel in heaven! 
 And you say — you; but you don't understand!" 
 
 "Faith and I don't," The McMurrough answered, 
 his tone much lowered. "That 's true for you! " 
 
 "No," Asgill repeated. "But don't you talk like that 
 again, or harm will come of it. I may be what you say, 
 but I would n't lay a finger on your sister against her will — 
 no, not to be in Paradise!" 
 
 "I thought you did n't believe in Paradise," the younger 
 man muttered. 
 
 "There 's a Paradise I do believe in," Asgill answered. 
 "But never mind that." He sat down again. 
 
 Strange to relate, he meant what he said. Asgill was 
 as unscrupulous a man as the time in which he lived and 
 the class from which he sprang could show. He had risen
 
 BARGAINING 85 
 
 to his present station by crushing the weak and cajoUng 
 the strong, and he was prepared to maintain his ground by 
 means as vile and a hand as hard. But he loved; and 
 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, the whole 
 man rose in arms. 
 
 "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 '11 be the cuckoo to push you 
 out, McMurrough, lad. But a man there is will play the 
 old gray 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. "Pho!" he said, 
 "you '11 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 
 Flawy '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 '11 not 
 say boh! to a goose with a pistol in its hand!"
 
 86 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "And that might be, if you were n't such a fool as ye are, 
 McMurrough!" Asgill answered. "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 '11 be no bonnet to it while 
 he stands by. 'T is too dangerous. Not that I believe 
 you are much in earnest, my lad. 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. But he laughed before the words were 
 out of his mouth. 
 
 "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. You 'd do the 
 same now, if it paid you. 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? This 
 being so, I tell you, it is too dangerous a game to play for
 
 BARGAINING 87 
 
 groats. While John SuIHvan 's here, that makes it more 
 dangerous. I '11 not play bonnet!" 
 
 " What '11 he know of it, at all, at all ?" James McMur- 
 rough asked contemptuously. 
 
 "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. "How did 
 you know there was pike-drill?" he cried, sharply, "I 
 did n'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. 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. But 
 that I 've not that in my mind — I 'm giving you proof, 
 James McMurrough. Is n'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,
 
 88 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 and so am I ! And for the rest, if you are fool enough to be 
 in earnest, which I '11 never believe, you 've neither money, 
 nor men, nor powder." 
 
 "You know a heap of things, Asgill," James McMur- 
 rough answered disdainfully. 
 
 "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. Or what would I be doing ? Why, I 'd be 
 pressing you into this, in place of holding you back! And 
 then when the trouble came, 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 '11 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 reluc- 
 tance. James shuddered, and his countenance changed. 
 A creature of small vanities and small vices, worthless, 
 selfish, and cruel, but as weak as water, he quailed before
 
 BARGAINING 89 
 
 this view of a soul darker than his own. 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 would n't 
 understand! Still, if you must be knowing, there 's ways 
 of winning would be worse than losing!" 
 
 The McIMurrough'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 stars 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 '11 
 out-general you. See if he does n'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 '11 see, he '11 get possession of her — and it 's 
 weak is your position as it is, my lad." 
 
 "Pho!"
 
 90 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 *"T is not 'phoM And in a week you '11 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," Asgill replied. "I'd not have played the 
 trick about your sister 's mare, 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 stanch." 
 
 "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 '11 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 owner of all — in 
 law; and if he said the word, devil a penny there 'd be for
 
 BARGAINING 91 
 
 you! And no marriage for your sister but with his good 
 will." 
 
 McMurrough's face showed a shade paler through the 
 dusk. 
 
 "\^Tiat would you have me do?" he muttered. 
 
 "Quit this plan of a rising, and give him no handle. 
 That, anyway." 
 
 "But that won't rid us of him?" McMurrough said, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 "True for you. And I '11 be thinking about that same. 
 He 's no footing yet, and if he vanished 't would 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 't were 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. 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. 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 knew 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, and the simu- 
 lated 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. For 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.
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 93 
 
 At this point 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 dreamed; 
 and he sat this evening — while Asgill talked on the hill 
 with The McMurrough — and was sore troubled. Was it, 
 or was it not, too late ? Meanwhile, Flavia sat on a stool 
 on the farther side of the blaze, 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! 
 But the cup was full and running over, and the oppressors 
 should rue it! A short day, and they would find opposed 
 to them 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." 
 
 "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! 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? 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.
 
 94 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " Just to endure," he said, sadly, "till better times. Or 
 what if we make things worse ? Believe me, Flawy, 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!" 
 
 " 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.'* 
 
 "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 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. 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 con- 
 tinued, as he took the middle of the hearth and spread his 
 skirts to the blaze. Then, as she shook her head despon-
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 95 
 
 dently, " Bet you a hundred crowns to one, Asgill," he said, 
 with a grin, " Cousin SuUivan don't recover her!" 
 
 "I could n'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 could n'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 'II 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 did n't hear a mare," her brother retorted, grin- 
 ning. "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. Con- 
 fronting her across the threshold, looking ghostly against 
 the dark background of the night, a gray horse threw up 
 its head and, dazzled by the light, started back a pace — 
 then blithered gently. Before the men had grasped the 
 truth, Flavia had sprung across the threshold, her arms
 
 96 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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, and swore. Fortunately Uncle Ulick 
 was engrossed in the scene at the door, and the girl was out- 
 side. Neither heard. 
 
 Asgill's mortification was a hundred times deeper, but 
 his quicker brain had taken in the 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. 
 
 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 
 toward the open door — "it would please her to find the 
 creature so!" 
 
 The McMurrough stood speechless with mortification.
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 97 
 
 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! 
 
 But the thing was done, and she found words at last. 
 "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, hurt by 
 her words and manner, but hiding the hurt. "You need 
 not thank me, 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 ser- 
 vice you have done me." 
 
 "But wish another had done it!" he answered, with the 
 faintest tinge of reproach in his voice. 
 
 " 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 went out into the 
 night, to see that the mare was safely disposed. 
 
 The four men looked at one another, and Uncle Ulick
 
 98 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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 '11 be good 
 news for the little French captain. John Sullivan, I give 
 you joy. You '11 amend us all at this rate! Sure, and I 
 begin to think you 're one of the Little People!" 
 
 "About the brandy," The McMurrough said curtly, 
 "things are by way of being changed, I 'd have you know. 
 I 'm not going to forego 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." 
 
 "Well, it 's not I '11 tell O'Sullivan Og," James McMur- 
 rough retorted. " It 's little he '11 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! It 's little he '11 count in a week from this!" 
 
 "Still, 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 something sinister in 
 the tone; but the words were hearty, and Colonel John
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 99 
 
 made no demur. 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. Questions were asked: 
 Where 'd the Colonel light on the cratur, and how 'd 
 he persuade 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 mis- 
 tress 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 found- 
 ing 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 McMur-
 
 100 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 rough 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 and was 
 cursed for awkwardness. Where was Darby? He also 
 had vanished. 
 
 The claret began to go round. Still, neither Flavia nor 
 the butler returned. 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. "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. Sulli- 
 van!" Phelim answered, with a shiver. "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. 
 
 Uncle Ulick made no reply, and a moment later Darby
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 101 
 
 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 leaped 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 
 could n'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!"
 
 102 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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 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 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 witti- 
 cisms. Asgill was her slave. Darby, with the familiarity 
 of the old servant, chuckled openly, and more than 
 one dish rolled on the floor without drawing down a 
 rebuke. Even her brother regarded her with unwilling 
 amusement. 
 
 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 if such were the case, she was 
 ungrateful, 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
 
 ■ R ,\ 4 T i ■•■- N' . 
 
 WHO LUVKS MK, FOLLOWS Mk! ACKOSS THE WATEK
 
 AN AFTER-DINNER GAME 103 
 
 hoyden, a castback to Sir Michael's wild youth and the 
 gay days of the Restoration Court. 
 
 He Hstened to her drollery, her ringing laugh, her arch 
 sayings, with some blame, but more admiration. Listen- 
 ing with a kindlier heart, he discerned that at her wildest 
 and loudest 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 excite- 
 ment. 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. 
 
 "\Yho loves me, follows me!" she cried, a queer exulta- 
 tion 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 hound- 
 ing them on with the magic of her voice, while her beauti- 
 ful face blazed with excitement. "All— but you?" — 
 with which, for the briefest space, she turned to Colonel
 
 104 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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. " Yes, a game ! " she cried, laugh- 
 ing, 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.' 
 
 Sure, and I '11 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 
 
 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 — 
 
 "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 endanger- 
 ing those she loved for the sake of the King across the 
 Water. 
 
 Consequently he knew that he might be wrong in dot- 
 ting the i's and crossing the t's of the scene which he 
 had witnessed. Such a scene might mean no more than 
 
 105
 
 106 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 a burst of high spirits: in nine cases out of ten it would 
 not be followed by action, nor import more than that sing- 
 ing 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 wit- 
 nessed were no more than the safety-valves of outraged 
 pride. 
 
 Colonel John leaned upon such arguments; and, dis- 
 appointed 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 ; 
 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 sur- 
 prised. Repressing the exclamation on his lips, he rose 
 to his elbow and waited until the figure at the door 
 straightened itself, and, turning toward him, became
 
 EARLY RISERS 107 
 
 recognizable 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 by night gave forth a smell of sour corks 
 and mice; but Colonel John slid by the open door as noise- 
 lessly 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 gray-hued, the world still colourless 
 and mysterious, the house a long black bulk against a 
 slowly lightening sky.
 
 108 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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 pleas- 
 aunce, 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 '11 do me the justice, John Sullivan," he said, with 
 a touch of passion, " that never in my life have I been over- 
 hasty? 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 '11 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, instead of from those who may be '11 not put it
 
 EARLY RISERS 109 
 
 so kindly, nor be so wishful for you to be taking the warn- 
 ing they give." 
 
 "Is it Flavia you 're meaning?" 
 
 " No; and don't you be thinking it," Uncle Uhck rephed 
 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 '11 be thinking she 's not the only fool at 
 Morristown, nor the oldest, nor the biggest. 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 — tliat 
 there 's those here you '11 be wise not to see! And you 'II 
 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. "Is n'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 afterward!" 
 
 " Not the least taste in life! " Uncle Ulick asseverated. 
 
 "And be sorry for it afterward," Colonel John repeated 
 quietly. "Kinsman, come here," he continued, with 
 unusual gravity. And taking Uncle Ulick by the arm he
 
 110 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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. 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, the 
 scene, these oases in the limitless brown of the bog, had 
 been wild and rude; but to Colonel John 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 afterward," 
 he said, "for you 'd think of this, Ulick. 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, it is of this, it is of the women 
 and the children under these roofs that will go up in smoke, 
 that you '11 be thinking, Ulick, at the last! Believe me or 
 not, this is the last thing you '11 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 
 -yvife — and Pat Mahony and Judy Mahony's four sons, 
 and the three Sullivans at the landing, and Phil the crowder
 
 EARLY RISERS 111 
 
 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 hke 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 — they think the black 
 Protestants are afraid of them! While you and I, you and 
 I know, Ulick," he continued, dropping his voice, " 't is 
 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. "Notwithstanding, I '11 do what 
 I can to quiet them — if it be not too late." 
 
 "Too late?" 
 
 " Ay, too late, John. But anyway, I '11 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."
 
 112 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " And if I do not go, Ulick ? What then, man ? ' ' 
 
 "Whisht! Whisht!" the big man cried in unmistak- 
 able 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.
 
 EARLY RISERS 113 
 
 Mr. Sullivan ? I did not look to meet you, Colonel Sul- 
 livan ; 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 SuUivans, 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 some- 
 thing 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
 
 114 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 with your permission I will bid you good morning. 
 Doubdess 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 
 toward 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 '11 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 '11 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!'"
 
 EARLY RISERS 115 
 
 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. 
 
 To answer "Yes" to all comers and all demands is 
 doubtless, in the language of Uncle Ulick, a mighty con- 
 venience 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, and to-day he must go the young folks' 
 way, seeing all too plainly the end of it. 
 
 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. Therefore he was 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.
 
 116 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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. 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. Some strange change had 
 fallen upon Morristown, and imbued it with life. 
 
 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 —
 
 EARLY RISERS 117 
 
 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 McMur- 
 rough 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, address- 
 ing 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
 
 118 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 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 mur- 
 mured 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 
 jom us : 
 
 The McMurrough uttered an exclamation, so unex- 
 pected 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.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A COUNCIL OF WAR 
 
 THE meal had been eaten, stolidly by some, by 
 others with a poor appetite, by Colonel John 
 with a thoughtful face. Two men of family? 
 but broken fortunes, old Sir Donny McCarthy of Dingle, 
 and Timothy Burke of Maamtrasna, had joined the party 
 — under the rose, as it were, and neither giving nor receiv- 
 ing a welcome. Now old Darby kept the door and the 
 Bishop the hearth; whence, standing with his back to the 
 glowing peat, he could address his audience with eye and 
 voice. The others, risen from the table, had placed them- 
 selves here and there where they pleased. The courtyard, 
 visible through the windows, seethed with an ever-increas- 
 ing crew of peasantry, frieze-coated or half bare, who 
 whooped and jabbered, now about one of their number, 
 now about another. The Irish air was soft, the hum of 
 voices cheerful; nor could anything less like a secret 
 council, less like a meeting of men about to commit 
 themselves to a dark and dangerous enterprise, be well 
 imagined. 
 
 But no one was deceived. The courage, the enthusiasm, 
 that danced in Flavia's eyes were reflected more darkly and 
 more furtively in a score of faces, within the room and 
 
 119
 
 120 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 without. To enjoy one hour of triumph, to wreak upon 
 the cursed EngHsh a tithe of the wrongs, a tithe of the 
 insults, that their country had suffered, to be the spoke 
 on top, were it but for a day, to die for Ireland if they could 
 not live for her. Could man own Irish blood, and an 
 Irish name, and not rise at the call ? 
 
 If there were such a man, oh! cowardly, mean, and 
 miserable he seemed to Flavia McMurrough. Much she 
 marvelled at the patience, the consideration, the argu- 
 ments which the silver-tongued ecclesiastic brought to 
 bear upon him. She longed to denounce him, to bid him 
 begone, and do his worst. 
 
 But she was a young plotter, and he who spoke from the 
 middle of the hearth with so much patience and forbear- 
 ance was an old one, proved by years of peril, and tem- 
 pered by a score of failures; a man long accustomed to 
 play with the lives and fortunes of men. He knew better 
 than she what was at stake to win or lose; nor was it 
 without forethought that he had determined to risk much 
 to gain Colonel Sullivan. To his mind, and to Machin's 
 mind, the other men in the room were but tools to be used, 
 puppets to be danced. But this man — for among 
 soldiers of fortune there is a camaraderie, so that they are 
 known to one another by repute from the Baltic to Cadiz — 
 was a coadjutor to be gained. He was one whose experi- 
 ence, joined with an Irish name, might well avail them 
 much. 
 
 Colonel John might refuse, he might be obdurate. But 
 in that event the Bishop's mind was made up. Flavia
 
 ACOUNCILOFWAR 121 
 
 supposed that, if the Colonel held out he would be dis- 
 missed, and so an end. But the speaker made no mistake. 
 He had chosen to grip the nettle danger, and he knew that 
 gentle measures were no longer possible. He must enlist 
 Colonel Sullivan, or — but it has been said that he was 
 no novice in dealing with the lives of men. 
 
 "If it be a question only of the chances," he said, after 
 some beating about the bush, "if I am right in supposing 
 that it is only that which withholds Colonel Sullivan from 
 joining us " 
 
 *'I do not say it is," Colonel John replied very gravely, 
 "But to deal with it on that basis: while I can admire, 
 reverend sir, the man who is ready to set his life on a 
 desperate hazard to gain something which he sets above 
 that life, I take the case to be different where it is a ques- 
 tion of the lives of others. Then I say the chances must be 
 weighed." 
 
 "However sacred the cause and high the aim?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 The Bishop sighed, his chin sinking on his breast. "I 
 am sorry," he said, "I am sorry," 
 
 "That we cannot see alike in a matter so grave? 
 Yes, sir, so am I." 
 
 "No. That I met you this morning." 
 
 "I am not sorry," Colonel John replied, stoutly refusing 
 to see the other's meaning. " For — hear me out, I beg. 
 You and I have seen the world and can weigh the chances. 
 Your friend, too, Captain Machin" — he pronounced the 
 name in an odd tone — "he too knows on what he is
 
 122 THEWIl^DGEESE 
 
 embarked and how he will stand if the result be failure. 
 It may be that he already has his home, his rank, and his 
 fortune in foreign parts, and will be little the worse if the 
 worst befall." 
 
 "I?" Machin cried, stung out of his taciturnity. "Let 
 me tell you, sir, that I fling back the insinuation!" 
 
 But the Colonel proceeded as if the other were not 
 speaking. "You, reverend sir, yourself," he continued, 
 "know well on what you are embarking, its prospects, 
 and the issue for you if it fail. But you are by your pro- 
 fession and choice devoted to a life of danger. You are 
 willing, day by day and hour by hour, to run the risk of 
 death. But these, my cousin there" — looking with a 
 kind eye at Flavia — "she " 
 
 "Leave me out!" she cried, passionately. And she rose 
 to her feet, her face on fire. " I separate myself from you ! 
 I, for my part, ask no better than to suffer for my country! " 
 
 "She thinks she knows, but she does not know," the 
 Colonel continued quietly, unmoved by her words. "She 
 cannot guess what it is to be cast adrift — alone, a woman, 
 penniless, in a strange land. And yet that at the best — 
 and the worst may be unspeakably worse — must be her 
 fate if this plot miscarry! For others, The McMurrough 
 and his friends yonder" — he indicated the group by the 
 window — "they also are ignorant." 
 
 The McMurrough sprang to his feet, spluttering with 
 rage. "Speak for yourself!" he cried 
 
 "They know nothing," the Colonel continued, quite 
 unmoved, "of that force against which they are asked to
 
 A COUNCIL OF WAR 123 
 
 pit themselves, of that stolid power over sea, never more 
 powerful than now!" 
 
 "The saints will be between us and harm!" the eldest 
 of the O'Beirnes cried, rising in his wrath. "It 's speak 
 foT yourself I say too!" 
 
 "And I!" 
 
 "And I!" others of the group roared with gestures of 
 defiance. 
 
 One, stepping forward, snapped his fingers close to the 
 Colonel's face. "Thatforyou! — thatforyou!" he cried. 
 "Now, or whenever you will, day or night, and sword or 
 pistol! To the devil with your impudence, sir; I 'd have 
 you know you 're not the only man has seen the world. 
 The shame of the world on you, talking like a school- 
 master while your country cries for you, and 't is not your 
 tongue but your hand she 's wanting!" 
 
 Uncle Ulick put his big form between Colonel John and 
 his assailant. "Sure and be easy!" he said. "SirDonny, 
 you 're forgetting yourself! And you, Tim Burke! Be 
 easy, I say. It 's only for himself the Colonel's speaking! " 
 
 "Thank God for that!" Flavia cried in a voice which 
 rang high. 
 
 They were round him now, a ring of men with dark, 
 angry faces, and hardly restrained hands. But the Bishop 
 intervened. 
 
 "One moment," he said, still speaking smoothly 
 and with a smile. "Perhaps it is for those he thinks he 
 speaks!" And the Bishop pointed to the crowd which 
 filled the forecourt. "Perhaps it is for those he thinks
 
 124 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 he speaks!" he repeated in irony — for of the feeling of 
 the crowd there could be no doubt. 
 
 Colonel John replied, "It is on their behalf I appeal to 
 you. For it is they who foresee the least, and they who will 
 suffer the most. It is they who will follow like sheep, and 
 they who like sheep will go to the butcher! Ay, it is they," 
 he continued with deeper feeling, and he turned to Flavia, 
 "who are yours, and they will pay for you. Therefore," 
 raising his hands for silence, "before you name the prize, 
 sum up the cost! Your country, your faith, your race — 
 there are great things, but they are far off and can do 
 without you. But these — these are that fragment of 
 your country, that handful of your race which God has 
 laid in the palm of your hand, to cherish or to crush, 
 and " 
 
 "The devil!" Machin ejaculated with sudden violence. 
 Perhaps he read in the girl's face some shadow of perplexity. 
 "Have done with your preaching, sir, I say! Have done, 
 man. If we fail " 
 
 "You must fail!" Colonel John retorted. "You will 
 fail! And failing, sir, his reverence will stand no worse 
 than now, for his life is forfeit already! While you " 
 
 "What of me? Well, what of me?" the stout man 
 cried truculently. His brows descended over his eyes, 
 and his lips twitched. 
 
 "For you, Admiral Cammock " 
 
 The other stepped forward a pace. "You know me?" 
 
 "Yes, I know you." 
 
 There was silence for an instant, while those who were
 
 ACOUNCILOFWAR 125 
 
 in the secret eyed Colonel Sullivan askance, and those 
 who were not gaped at Cammock. 
 
 Soldiers of fortune, of fame and name, were plentiful 
 in those days, but seamen of equal note were few. And 
 with this man's name the world had lately rung. An 
 Irishman, he had risen high in Queen Anne's service; 
 but at her death, incited by his devotion to the Stuarts, 
 he had made a move for them at a critical moment. He 
 had been broken, being already a notable man; on which 
 he had entered the Spanish marine, and been advanced to 
 a position of rank and power. In Ireland his life was 
 forfeit, Great Britain counted him renegade and traitor. 
 So that to find himself recognized, though grateful to his 
 vanity, was a shock to his discretion. 
 
 "Well, and knowing me?" he replied at last, with the 
 tail of his eyes on the Bishop, as if he would gladly gain a 
 hint from his subtlety. "What of me?" 
 
 "You have your home, your rank, your relations 
 abroad," Colonel Sullivan answered firmly. " If a descent 
 on the coast be a part of your scheme, then you do not 
 share the peril equally with us. We shall suffer, while you 
 sail away." 
 
 " I fling that in your teeth! " Cammock cried. " I know 
 you too, sir, and " 
 
 "Know no worse of me than of yourself!" Colonel Sulli- 
 van retorted. "But if you do indeed know me, you know 
 that I am not one to stand by and see my friends led blind- 
 fold to certain ruin. It may suit your plans to make a 
 diversion here. But that diversion is a part of larger
 
 126 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 schemes, and the fate of those who make it is Httle 
 to you." 
 
 Cammock's hand flew to his belt, he took a step forward, 
 his face suffused with passion. "For half as much I 
 have cut a man down!" he cried. 
 
 "May be, but " 
 
 "Peace, peace, my friends," the Bishop interposed. He 
 laid a warning hand on Cammock's arm. "This gentle- 
 man," he continued smoothly, "thinks he speaks for our 
 friends outside." 
 
 "Let me speak, not for them, but to them," Colonel 
 Sullivan replied impulsively. "Let me tell them what I 
 think of this scheme, of its chances, of its certain end!" 
 
 He moved, whether he thought they would let him or 
 not, toward the window. But he had not taken three 
 steps before he found his progress barred, "What is 
 this?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Needs must with so impulsive a gentleman," the 
 Bishop said. He had not moved, but at a signal from him 
 The McMurrough, the O'Beirnes and two of the other 
 young men had thrust themselves forward. "You must 
 give up your sword. Colonel Sullivan," he continued. 
 
 The Colonel retreated a pace, and evinced more surprise 
 than he felt. " Give up — do you mean that I am a 
 prisoner?" he cried. He had not drawn, but two or three 
 of the young men had done so, and Flavia, in the back- 
 ground by the fire was white as paper — so suddenly had 
 the shadow of violence fallen on the room. 
 
 "You must surrender!" the Bishop repeated firmly.
 
 ACOUNCILOFWAR 127 
 
 He too was a trifle pale, but he was used to such scenes 
 and he spoke with decision. "Resistance is vain. I 
 hope that with this lady in the room " 
 
 "One moment!" the Colonel cried, raising his hand. 
 But as The McMurrough and the others hesitated, he 
 whipped out his sword and stepped two paces to one side 
 with an agility no one had foreseen. He now had the table 
 behind him and Uncle Ulick on his left hand. "One 
 moment!" he repeated, raising his hand in deprecation 
 and keeping his point lowered. "Do you consider " 
 
 "We consider our own safety," Cammock answered 
 grimly. And signing to one of the men to join Darby at 
 the door, he drew his cutlass. "You know too much to 
 go free, sir, that is certain." 
 
 " Ay, faith, you do," The McMurrough chimed in with a 
 sort of glee. ' ' He was at Tralee yesterday, no less. We '11 
 have the garrison here before the time!" 
 
 "But by the powers," Uncle Ulick cried, "ye shall not 
 hurt him! Your reverence! " — the big man's voice shook 
 — "your reverence, this shall not be! It's not in this 
 house they shall murder him, and him a Sullivan! Flavia! 
 Speak, girl," he continued, the perspiration standing on 
 his brow. "Say ye '11 not have it. After all, it 's your 
 house! There shall be no Sullivan blood spilt in it while 
 I am standing by to prevent it!" 
 
 "Then let him give up his sword!" Cammock answered 
 doggedly. 
 
 "Yes, let him give up his sword," Flavia said in a small 
 voice.
 
 128 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Colonel Sullivan," the Bishop interposed, stepping 
 forward, "I hope you '11 hear reason. Resistance is vain. 
 Give up your sword and " 
 
 "And presto!'' Cammock cried, "or take the conse- 
 quences!" He had edged his way, while the Bishop 
 spoke, round Ulick and round the head of the table. Now, 
 with his foot on the bench, he was ready at a word to spring 
 on the table, and take the Colonel in the rear. It was 
 clear that he was a man of action. "Down with your 
 sword, sir," he cried, flatly. 
 
 Colonel John recognized the weakness of his position. 
 Before him the young men were five to one, with old Sir 
 Donny and Timothy Burke in the rear. On his flank the 
 help which Ulick might give was discounted by the move 
 Cammock had made. He saw that he could do no more 
 at present. Suddenly as the storm had blown up, he knew 
 that he was dealing with desperate men, who from this 
 day onward would act with their necks in a noose, and 
 whom his word might send to the scaffold. They had but 
 to denounce him to the rabble who waited outside, and, 
 besides the Bishop, one only there, as he believed, would 
 have the influence to save him. 
 
 Colonel John had confronted danger many times; to 
 confront it had been his trade. And it was with coolness 
 and a clear perception of the position that he turned to 
 Flavia. "I will give up my sword," he said, "but to my 
 cousin only. This is her house, and I yield myself" — 
 with a smile and a bow — "her prisoner." 
 
 Before they knew what he would be at, he stepped for-
 
 ACOUNCILOFWAR 129 
 
 ward and tendered his hilt to the girl, who took it with 
 flaccid fingers. "I am in your hands now," he said, fix- 
 ing his eyes on hers and endeavouring to convey his mean- 
 ing to her. For surely, with such a face, she must have, 
 with all her recklessness, some womanliness, some tender- 
 ness of feeling in her. 
 
 "Hang your impudence!" The McMurrough cried. 
 
 "A truce, a truce," the Bishop interposed. "We are 
 all agreed that Colonel Sullivan knows too much to go 
 free. He must be secured," he continued smoothly, "for 
 his own sake. Will two of these gentlemen see him to his 
 room, and see also that his servant is placed under guard 
 in another room ?" 
 
 "But," the Colonel objected, looking at Flavia, "my 
 cousin will surely allow me to give " 
 
 "She will be guided by us in this," the Bishop rejoined 
 with asperity. "Let what I have said be done." 
 
 Flavia, very pale, holding the Colonel's sword as if it 
 might sting her, did not speak. Colonel Sullivan, after a 
 moment's hesitation, followed one of the O'Beirnes from 
 the room, the other bringing up the rear. 
 
 When the door had closed upon them, Flavia's was not 
 the only pale face in the room. The scene had brought 
 home to more than one the fact that here was an end of 
 peace and law, and a beginning of violence and rebellion. 
 The majority, secretly uneasy, put on a reckless air to 
 cover their apprehensions. The Bishop and Cammock 
 though they saw themselves in a fair way to do what they 
 had come to do, looked thoughtful. Only Flavia, shaking
 
 130 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 off the remembrance of Colonel John's face and Colonel 
 John's existence, closed her grip upon his sword, and in the 
 ardour of her patriotism saw with her mind's eye not 
 victory nor acclaiming thousands, but the scaffold, and a 
 death for her country. Sweet it seemed to her to die for 
 the cause, for the faith, to die for Ireland! 
 
 True, her country, her Ireland, was but this little corner 
 of Kerry beaten by the Atlantic storms and sad with the 
 wailing cries of seagulls. But if she knew no more of 
 Ireland than this, she had read her story; and naught is 
 more true than that the land the most downtrodden is also 
 the best beloved. Wrongs beget a passion of affection; 
 and from oppression springs sacrifice. This daughter of 
 the windswept shore, of the misty hills and fairy glens, 
 whose life from infancy had been bare and rugged and 
 solitary, had become, for that reason, a dreamer of dreams 
 and a worshipper of the ideal Ireland, her country, her 
 faith. The salt breeze that lashed her cheeks and tore at 
 her hair, the peat reek and the soft shadows of the bogland 
 — ay, and many an hour of lonely communing — had 
 filled her breast with such love as impels rather to suffering 
 and to sacrifice than to enjoyment. 
 
 For one moment she had recoiled before the shock of 
 impending violence. But that had passed; now her one 
 thought, as she stood with dilated eyes, unconsciously 
 clutching the Colonel's sword, was that the time was come^ 
 the thing was begun — henceforth she belonged not to 
 herself, but to Ireland and to God. 
 
 Deep in such thoughts, the girl was not aware that the
 
 A COUNCIL OF WAR 131 
 
 others had got together and were discussing the Colonel's 
 fate until mention was made of the French sloop and of 
 Captain Augustin. "Faith, and let him go in that!" 
 she heard Uncle Ulick urging. " D' ye hear me, your 
 reverence ? 'T will be a week before they land him, and 
 the fire we '11 be lighting will be no secret at all at all by 
 then." 
 
 "May be, Mr. Sullivan," the Bishop replied — "may be. 
 But we cannot spare the sloop." 
 
 "No, we'll not spare her!" The McMurrough chimed 
 in. "She 's heels to her, and it 's a godsend she '11 be to 
 us if things go ill." 
 
 "An addition to our fleet, anyway," Cammock said. 
 "We 'd be mad to let her go — just to make a man safe; 
 we can make safe a deal cheaper!" 
 
 Flavia propped the sword carefully in an angle of the 
 hearth, and moved forward. "But I do not understand," 
 she said timidly. " We agreed that the sloop and the cargo 
 were to go free if Colonel Sullivan — but you know!" 
 she added, breaking off and addressing her brother. 
 
 " I it dreaming you are ? " he retorted, contemptuously. 
 "Is it we '11 be taking note of that now?" 
 
 "It was a debt of honour," she said. 
 
 "The girl 's right," Uncle Ulick said, "and we '11 be rid 
 of him." 
 
 "We '11 be rid of him without that," The McMurrough 
 muttered. 
 
 "I am fearing, Mr. Sullivan," the Bishop said, "that it 
 is not quite understood by all that we are embarked upon
 
 132 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 a matter of life and death. We cannot let bagatelles stand 
 in the way. The sloop and her cargo can be made good 
 to her owners — at another time. For yoiir relative and 
 his servant " 
 
 "The shortest way with them!" some one cried. 
 "That's the best and the surest!" 
 
 "For them," the Bishop continued, silencing the inter- 
 ruption by a look, "we must not forget that some days 
 must pass before we can hope to get our people together. 
 During the interval we lie at the mercy of an informer. 
 Your own people you know, but the same cannot be said 
 of this gentleman — who has very fixed ideas — and his 
 servant. Our lives and the lives of others are in their 
 hands, and it is of the last importance that they be kept 
 secure and silent." 
 
 "Ay, silent 's the word," Cammock growled. 
 
 "There could be no better place than one of the towers," 
 The McMurrough suggested, "for keeping them safe, 
 bedad!" 
 
 "And why '11 they be safer there than in the house?" 
 Uncle Ulick asked suspiciously. He looked from one 
 speaker to another with a baffled face, trying to read 
 their minds. He^^was sure that they meant more than 
 they said. 
 
 "Oh, for the good reason!" the young man returned 
 contemptuously. "Isn't all the world passing the door 
 upstairs? And what more easy than to open it?" 
 
 Cammock's eyes met the Bishop's. "The tower '11 
 be best," he said. "Draw off the people, and let them be
 
 ACOUNCILOFWAR 133 
 
 taken there, and a guard set. We 've matters of more 
 importance to discuss now. This gathering to-morrow, 
 to raise the country — what 's the time fixed for it?" 
 
 But Flavia, who had listened with a face of perplexity, 
 interposed. "Still, he is my prisoner, is he not ? " she said 
 wistfully. "And if I answer for him?" 
 
 "By your leave, ma'am," Cammock replied, with deci- 
 sion, "one word. Women to women's work! I'll let 
 no woman weave a halter for me!" 
 
 The room echoed low applause. And Flavia was silent.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A MESSAGE FOR THE YOUNG MASTER 
 
 JAMES McMURROUGH cared little for his 
 country, and nothing for his Faith. He cared 
 only for himself; and but for the resentment 
 which the provisions of his grandfather's will had bred 
 in him, he would have seen the Irish race in Purgatory, 
 and the Roman faith in a worse place, before he would 
 have risked a finger to right the one or restore the other. 
 
 Once embarked, however, on the enterprise, vanity 
 swept him onward. The night which followed Colonel 
 Sullivan's arrest was a night long remembered at Morris- 
 town — a night to uplift the sanguine and to kindle the 
 short-sighted, nor was it a wonder that the young chief — 
 as he strode among his admiring tenants, his presence 
 greeted with Irish acclamations, and his skirts kissed by 
 devoted kernes — sniffed the pleasing incense, and trod 
 the ground to the measure of imagined music. The tri- 
 umph that was never to be intoxicated him. 
 
 His people had kindled a huge bonfire in the middle of 
 the forecourt, and beside this he extended a gracious 
 welcome to a crowd of strong tenants. A second fire, for 
 the comfort of the baser sort, had been kindled outside the 
 gates, and was the centre of merriment less restrained; 
 
 134
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 135 
 
 while a third, which served as a beacon to the valley, and 
 a proclamation of what was being done, glowed on the 
 platform before the ruined tower at the head of the lake. 
 From this last the red flames streamed far across the water; 
 and now revealed a belated boat shooting from the shadow, 
 now a troop of countrymen, who, led by their priest, came 
 limping along the lakeside, ostensibly to join in the services 
 of the morrow, but in reality to hear something and to do 
 something toward freeing old Ireland and shaking off 
 the grip of the cursed Saxon. 
 
 In the more settled parts of the land, such a summons 
 as had brought them from their rude shielings among the 
 hills would have passed for a dark jest. But in this remote 
 spot the notion of overthrowing the hated power by 
 means of a few score pikes did not seem preposterous, 
 either to these poor folk or to their betters. Cammock, 
 of course, knew the truth, and the Bishop. 
 
 But the native gentry saw nothing hopeless in the plan. 
 That plan was first to fall upon Tralee in combination 
 with a couple of sloops said to be lying in Galway Bay; 
 and afterward to surprise Kenmare. Masters of these 
 places, they proposed to raise the old standard, to call 
 Connaught to their aid, to cry a crusade. And faith, as 
 Sir Donny said, before the Castle tyrants could open their 
 eyes, or raise their heads from the pillow, they 'd be seeing 
 themselves driven into the salt ocean! 
 
 So, while the house walls gave back the ruddy glare of 
 the torches, and the barefooted, bareheaded, laughing 
 colleens damped the thatch, and men confessed in one
 
 136 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 corner and kissed their girls in another, and the smiths in 
 a third wrought hard at the pike-heads — so the struggle 
 depicted itself to more than one! 
 
 And all the time Cammock and the Bishop walked in 
 the dark in the garden, a little apart from the turmoil, 
 and, wrapped in their cloaks, talked in low voices; debat- 
 ing much of Sicily and Naples and the Cardinal and the 
 Mediterranean fleet, and at times laughing at some court 
 story. But they said, strange to tell, no word of Tralee, 
 or of Kenmare, or of Dublin Castle, or even of Connaught. 
 They were no visionaries. They had to do with greater 
 things than these, and in doing them knew that they must 
 spend to gain. The lives of a few score peasants, the ruin 
 of half a dozen hamlets, what were these beside the diver- 
 sion of a single squadron from the great pitched fight, 
 already foreseen, where the excess of one battleship might 
 win an empire, and its absence might ruin nations ? 
 
 And one other man, and one only, because his life had 
 been passed on their wider plane, and he could judge of the 
 relative value of Connaught and Kent, divined the trend 
 of their thoughts, and understood the deliberation with 
 which they prepared to sacrifice their pawns. 
 
 Colonel Sullivan sat in the upper room of one of the two 
 towers that flanked the entrance to the forecourt. Bale 
 was with him, and the two, with the door doubly locked 
 upon them and guarded by a sentry whose crooning they 
 could hear, shared such comfort as a pitcher of water and 
 a gloomy outlook afforded. The darkness hid the medley 
 of odds and ends which littered their prison; but the inner
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 137 
 
 of the two slit-like windows that lighted the room admitted 
 a thin shaft of firelight that, dancing among the uncovered 
 rafters, told of the orgy below. Bale, staring morosely at 
 the crowd about the fire, crouched in the splay of the 
 window, while the Colonel, in the same posture at the other 
 window, gazed with feelings not more cheerful on the dark 
 lake. 
 
 He was concerned for himself and his companion. 
 But he was more gravely concerned for those whose advo- 
 cate he had made himself — for the ignorant cotters in 
 their lowly hovels, the women, the children, upon whom 
 the inevitable punishment would fall. He doubted, now 
 that it was too late, the wisdom of the course he had taken ; 
 and, blaming himself for precipitation, he fancied that if 
 he had acted with a little more guile, a little less haste, his 
 remonstrance might have had greater weight. 
 
 William Bale, as was natural, thought more of his own 
 position. "May the fire burn them!" he muttered, his 
 ire excited by some prank of the party below. "The 
 Turks were polite beside these barefoot devils!" 
 
 "You'd have said the other thing at Bender," the 
 Colonel answered, turning his head. 
 
 " Ay, your honour," Bale returned; " a man never knows 
 when he is well off." 
 
 His master laughed. "I 'd have you apply that now," 
 he said. 
 
 "So I would if it were n't that I 've a kind of a scunner 
 at those black bog-holes," Bale said. "To be planted 
 head first 's no proper end of a man, to my thinking;
 
 138 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 and if there 's not something of the kind in these raga- 
 muffins' minds I 'm precious mistaken." 
 
 "Pooh, man, you 're frightening yourself," the Colonel 
 answered. But the room was dank and chill, the lake 
 without lay lonely, and the picture which Bale's words 
 called up was not pleasant to the bravest. " It 's a civilized 
 land, and they 'd not think of it!" 
 
 "There's one, and that's the young lady's brother," 
 Bale answered darkly, "would not pull us out by the feet! 
 I '11 swear to that. Your honour 's too much in his way, 
 if what they say in the house is true." 
 
 "Pooh!" the Colonel answered again. "We're of 
 one blood." 
 
 "Cain and Abel," Bale said. "There's example for 
 it." And he chuckled. 
 
 The Colonel scolded him anew. But having done so 
 he could not shake off the impression which the man's 
 words had made on him. While he lived he was a constant 
 and an irritating check upon James McMurrough. If the 
 young man saw a chance of getting rid of that check, was 
 he one to put it from him ? Colonel John's face grew long 
 as he pondered the question; he had seen enough of James 
 to feel considerable doubt about the answer. The fire on 
 the height above the lake had died down, the one on the 
 strand was a bed of red ashes. The lake lay buried in 
 darkness, from which at intervals the cry of an owl as it 
 moused along the shore rose mournfully. 
 
 But Colonel John was not one to give way to fears that 
 might be baseless. "Let us sleep," he said, shrugging his
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 139 
 
 shoulders. He lay down where he was, pillowing his 
 head on a fishing-net. Bale said nothing, but examined 
 the door before he stretched himself across the threshold. 
 
 Half an hour after dawn they were roused. It was a 
 heavy trampling on the stairs that awakened them. The 
 door was quickly unlocked, it was thrown open, and the 
 hairy face of O'Sullivan Og, who held it wide, looked in. 
 Behind him were two of the boys with pikes — frowsy, 
 savage, repellent figures, with drugget coats tied by the 
 sleeves about their necks. 
 
 "You 'II be coming with us, Colonel, no less," Og said. 
 
 Colonel John looked at him. "Whither, my man?" 
 he asked coolly. He and Bale had got to their feet at the 
 first alarm. 
 
 "Och, sure, where it will be best for you," Og replied, 
 with a leer. 
 
 "Both of us?" the Colonel asked, in the same hard 
 tone. 
 
 "Faith, and why'd we be separating you, I'd be 
 asking." 
 
 Colonel John liked neither the man's tone nor his looks. 
 But he was far above starting at shadows, and he guessed 
 that resistance would be useless. "Very good," he said. 
 "Lead on." 
 
 " Bedad, and if you 'II be doing that same, we will," 
 O'Sullivan Og answered, with a grin. 
 
 The Colonel and Bale found their hats — they 'd been 
 allowed to bring nothing else with them — and they went 
 down the stairs. In the gloom before the door of the tower
 
 140 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 waited two sturdy fellows, barefoot and shock-headed, 
 with musqiietoons on their shoulders, who seemed to be 
 expecting them. Round the smouldering embers of the 
 fire a score of figures lay sleeping in the open, wrapped in 
 their frieze coats. The sun was not yet up, and all things 
 were wrapped in a mist that chilled to the bone. Nothing 
 in all that was visible took from the ominous aspect of the 
 two men with the firearms. One for each. Bale thought. 
 And his face, always pallid, showed livid in the morning 
 light. 
 
 Without a word the four men formed up round their 
 prisoners, and at once O'Sullivan Og led the way at a 
 brisk pace toward the gate. Colonel John was following, 
 but he had not taken three steps before a thought struck 
 him, and he halted. " Are we leaving the house at once ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "We are. And why not, I 'm asking." 
 
 "Only that I 've a message for the McMurrough it will 
 be well for him to have." 
 
 "Sure," O'Sullivan Og answered, his manner half 
 wheedling, half truculent, " 't is no time for messages and 
 trifles and the like now. Colonel. No time at all, I tell you. 
 Ye can see that for yourself, I 'm thinking, such a morning 
 as this." 
 
 "I'm thinking nothing of the kind," the Colonel 
 answered, and he hung back, looking toward the house. 
 Fortunately Darby chose that minute to appear at the door. 
 The butler's face was pale, and showed fatigue; his hair 
 hung in wisps; his clothes were ill-fastened. He threw
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 141 
 
 a glance of contempt at the sleeping figures lying here and 
 there in the wet. Thence his eyes travelled on and took 
 in the group by the gate. He started, and wrung his hands 
 in sudden, irrepressible distress. It was as if a spasm 
 seized the man. 
 
 The Colonel called him. "Darby," he cried. "Come 
 here, my man." 
 
 O'Sullivan Og opened his mouth; he was on the point 
 of interposing, but he thought better of it, and shrugged his 
 shoulders, muttering something in the Erse. 
 
 "Darby," the Colonel said, gravely, "I've a message 
 for the young master, and it must be given him in his bed. 
 Will you give it?" 
 
 "I will, your honour." 
 
 "You will not fail?" 
 
 "I will not, your honour," the old servant answered 
 earnestly. 
 
 "Tell him, then, that Colonel Sullivan made his will as 
 he passed through Paris, and 't is now in Dublin. You 
 mind me. Darby?" 
 
 The old man began to shake — he had an Irishman's 
 superstition. "1 do, your honour. But the saints be 
 between us and harm," he continued, with the same 
 gesture of distress. "Who 's speaking of wills ?" 
 
 "Only tell him that in his bed," Colonel John repeated, 
 with an urgent look. "That is all." 
 
 "And by your leave, it is now we'll be going," Og 
 interposed sharply. "We are late already for what 
 we 've to do."
 
 142 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "There are some things," the Colonel rephed with a 
 steady look, "which it is well to be late about." 
 
 Then, without further remonstrance, he and Bale, with 
 their guard, marched out through the gate, and took the 
 road along the lake — that same road by which the Colonel 
 had come some days before from the French sloop. The 
 men with the firelocks walked beside them, one on either 
 flank, while the pikeman guarded them behind, and 
 O'Sullivan Og brought up the rear. 
 
 They had not taken twenty paces before the fog swal- 
 lowed up the party; and henceforth they walked in a sea 
 of mist, like men moving in a nightmare from which they 
 cannot awake. The clammy vapour chilled them to the 
 bone; while the unceasing wailing of seagulls, borne off 
 the lough, the whistle of an unseen curlew on the hillside, 
 the hurtle of wings as some ghostly bird swept over them 
 — these were sounds to depress men who had reason to 
 suspect that they were being led to a treacherous end. 
 
 The Colonel, though he masked his apprehensions under 
 an impenetrable firmness, began to fear no less than that — 
 and with cause. He observed that O'Sullivan Og's 
 followers were of the lowest type of kerne, islanders in all 
 probability, and half starved; men whose hands were 
 never far from their skenes, and whose one orderly instinct 
 consisted in a blind obedience to their chief. O'Sullivan 
 Og himself he believed to be The McMurrough's agent in 
 his more lawless business; a fierce, unscrupulous man, 
 prospering on his lack of scruple. The Colonel could 
 augur nothing but ill from the hands to which he had been
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 143 
 
 entrusted; and worse from the manner in which these 
 savage, half-naked creatures, shambHng beside him, stole 
 from time to time a glance at him, as if they fancied they 
 saw the winding-sheet high on his breast. 
 
 Some, so placed, and feeling themselves helpless, isolated 
 by the fog, and entirely at these men's mercy, might have 
 lost their firmness. But he did not; nor did Bale, though 
 the servant's face betrayed the keenness of his anxiety. 
 They weighed indeed the chances of escape: such chances 
 as a headlong rush into the fog might afford to unarmed 
 men, uncertain where they were. But the Colonel reflected 
 that it was possible that that was the very course 
 upon which O'Sullivan Og counted for a pretext. And, 
 for a second objection, the two could not, so closely were 
 they guarded, communicate with each other. 
 
 After all, The McMurrough's plan might amount to no 
 more than their detention in some secret place among the 
 hills. Colonel John hoped so. 
 
 He could not but think ill of things; of O'Sullivan Og's 
 silence, of the men's stealthy glances, of the uncanny hour. 
 And when they came presently to a point where a faintly 
 marked track left the road, and the party, at a word from 
 their leader, turned into it, he thought worse of the matter. 
 Was it his fancy — he was far from nervous — or were the 
 men beginning to look impatiently at one another ? Was 
 it his fancy, or were they beginning to press more closely 
 on their prisoners, as if they sought a quarrel? He 
 imagined that he read in one man's eyes the question 
 " When ? " and in another's the question " Now ? " And a
 
 144 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 third, he thought, handled his weapon in an ominous 
 fashion. 
 
 Colonel John was a brave man, inured to danger, one 
 who had faced death in many forms. But the lack of 
 arms shakes the bravest, and it needed even his nerve to 
 confront without a quiver the fate that, if his fears were 
 justified, lay before them: the sudden, violent death, and 
 the black bog-water which would swallow all traces of the 
 crime. But he did not lose his firmness or lower his crest 
 for a moment. 
 
 By and by the track, which for a time had ascended, 
 began to run downward. The path grew less sound. 
 The mist, which was thicker than before, and shut them 
 in on the spot where they walked, as in a world desolate and 
 apart, allowed nothing to be seen in front; but now and 
 again a ragged thorn tree or a furze bush, dripping with 
 moisture, showed ghostlike to right or left. There was 
 nothing to indicate the point they were approaching, or 
 how far they were likely to travel; until the Colonel, 
 peering keenly before them, caught the gleam of water. 
 It was gone as soon as seen, the mist falling again like a 
 curtain ; but he had seen it, and he looked back to see what 
 Og was doing. He caught him also in the act of looking 
 over his shoulder. Was he making sure that they were 
 beyond the chance of interruption ? 
 
 It might be so; and Colonel John wheeled about quickly, 
 thinking that while O'Sullivan Og's attention was directed 
 elsewhere, he might take one of the other men by surprise, 
 seize his weapon and make a fight for his life and his
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 145 
 
 servant's life. But he met only sinister looks, eyes that 
 watched his smallest movement with suspicion, a point 
 ready levelled to strike him if he budged. And then, out 
 of the mist before them, loomed the gaunt figure of a man 
 walking apace toward them. 
 
 The meeting appeared to be as little expected by the 
 stranger as by Og's party. For not only did he ^ring 
 aside and leave the track to give them a wider berth, but 
 he went by warily, with his feet in the bog. Some word 
 was cried to him in the Erse; he answered, for a moment he 
 appeared to be going to stop. Then he passed on and 
 was lost in the mist. 
 
 But he left a change behind him. One of the fire-lock 
 men broke into hasty speech, glancing, the Colonel noticed, 
 at him and Bale, as if they were the subjects of his words. 
 O'Sullivan Og answered the man curtly and harshly; but 
 before the reply was off his lips a second man broke in 
 vehemently in support of the other. They all halted; for 
 a few seconds all spoke at once. Then, just as Colonel 
 John was beginning to hope that they would quarrel, 
 O'Sullivan Og gave way with sullen reluctance, and a 
 man ran back the way they had come, shouting a name. 
 Before the prisoners could decide whether his absence 
 afforded a chance of escape, he was back again, and with 
 him the man who had passed in the bog. 
 
 Colonel John looked at the stranger, and recognized him; 
 and, a man of quick wit, he knew on the instant that he 
 had to face the worst. His face set more hard, more firm 
 — if it turned also a shade paler. He addressed his
 
 146 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 companion. "They've called him back to confess us," 
 he muttered in Bale's ear. 
 
 "The devils! " Bale exclaimed. He choked on the word 
 and worked his jaw, glaring at them; but he said no more. 
 Only his eyes glanced from one to another, wild and full 
 of rage. 
 
 Colonel John did not reply, for already O'SuUivan Og 
 was addressing him. "There 's no more to it," The 
 McMurrough's agent said, bluntly, "but you've come 
 your last journey. Colonel, and we '11 go back wanting you. 
 There 's no room in Ireland from this day for them that 's 
 not Irish at heart! Nor safety for honest men while you 're 
 walking the sod. But " 
 
 "Will you murder us?" Colonel John said. "Do you 
 know, man," he continued, sternly, "what you do ? What 
 have we done to you, or your master?" 
 
 "Done ?" O'SuUivan Og answered with sudden ferocity. 
 "And murder, say you ? Ay, faith, I would, and ten thou- 
 sand like you, for the sake of old Ireland ! You may make 
 your peace, and have five minutes to that — and no more, 
 for time presses, and we 've work to do. These fools 
 would have a priest for you" — he turned and spat on the 
 ground — "but it is I, and none better, know you are 
 Protestants, and 't would take more than that to make 
 your souls!" 
 
 Colonel John looked at him with a strange light in his 
 eyes. "It is little to you," he said, "and much to me. 
 Yet think, think, man, what you do. Or if you will not, 
 here is my servant. Spare his life at least. Put him, if
 
 MESSAGE FOR THE MASTER 147 
 
 you please, on board the French sloop that 's in the 
 bay—" 
 
 "Faith, and you 're wasting the little breath that is left 
 you," the ruffian answered, irritated rather than moved by 
 the other's calmness. "It 's to take or leave. I told the 
 men a heretic had no soul to make, but " 
 
 " God forgive you ! " Colonel John said, and was silent; 
 for he saw that remonstrance would not help him, nor 
 prayer avail. The man's mind was made up, his heart 
 steeled. For a brief instant, something, perhaps that 
 human fear which he had so often defied, clutched Colonel 
 John's heart. For a brief instant human weakness had 
 its way with him, and he shuddered — in the face of the 
 bog, in the face of such an end as this. Then the gracious 
 faith that was his returned to him: he was his grave, 
 unyielding self again. He took Bale's hand and begged 
 his forgiveness. "Would I had never brought you!" 
 he said. "Why did I, why did I? Yet, God's will be 
 done!" 
 
 Bale did not seem able to speak. His jaw continued 
 to work, while his eyes looked sideways at Og. Had 
 the Irishman known his man, he would have put himself 
 out of reach, armed as he was. 
 
 "But I will appeal for you to the priest!" Colonel John 
 continued; "he may yet prevail with them to spare you." 
 
 "He will not!" O'SuUivan Og said, naively.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SEA MIST 
 
 FATHER O'HARA looked at the ,two prisoners, 
 and the tears ran down his face. He was the 
 man whom Colonel Sullivan and Bale had over- 
 taken on their way to Tralee. He was a merciful man 
 and with all his heart he wished that, if he could do no 
 good, God had been pleased to send him another way 
 through the mist. 
 
 " What can I do ?" he cried. " Oh, what can I do ?" 
 
 "You can do nothing, father," O'Sullivan Og said 
 grimly. "They 're heretics, no less! And we 're wasting 
 your time, blessed man." He whispered a few words in 
 the priest's ear. 
 
 The latter shuddered. " God forgive us all ! " he wailed. 
 "And most, those who need it most! God keep us from 
 high place!" 
 
 "Sure and we 're in little peril!" O'Sullivan Og replied. 
 
 Colonel John looked at the priest with solemn eyes. 
 Nor did aught but a tiny pulse beating in his cheek betray 
 that he was listening, watching, ready to seize the least 
 chance, that he might save, at any rate, poor Bale. Then 
 "You are a Christian, father," he said gravely. "I ask 
 nothing for myself. But this is my servant. He knows 
 nothing. Prevail with them to spare him!" 
 
 148
 
 THE SEA MIST 149 
 
 Bale uttered a fierce remonstrance. No one under- 
 stood it, or what he said, or meant. His eyes looked 
 askance, like the eyes of a beast in a snare — seeking a 
 weapon, or a throat! To be butchered thus! 
 
 Perhaps Colonel John, notwithstanding his calm cour- 
 age, had the same thought, and found it bitter. Death 
 had been good in the face of silent thousands, with pride 
 and high resolve for cheer. But here in the mist, 
 unknown, unnoticed, to perish and be forgotten in a 
 week, even by the savage hands that took their breath! 
 Perhaps to face this he, too, had need of all his Christian 
 stoicism. 
 
 "My God! My God!" the priest said. "Have pity 
 on these two, and soften the hearts of their murderers!" 
 
 "Amen," said Colonel John, quietly. 
 
 "Faith, and 't is idle, this," O'Sullivan Og cried, irrita- 
 bly. He gave a secret sign to his men to draw to one side 
 and be ready. "We 've our orders, and other work to do. 
 Kneel aside, father, 't is no harm we mean you. But 
 you 're wasting breath on these same. And you," he 
 continued, addressing the two, "say what prayer you will, 
 if you know one, and then kneel or stand — it 's all one to 
 us — and, God willing, you '11 be in purgatory and never 
 a knowledge of it!" 
 
 "One moment," Colonel John interposed, his face pale 
 but composed, "I have something to say to my friend." 
 
 "And you may, if you '11 play no tricks." 
 
 "If you would spare him " 
 
 "'T is idle, I say! Sorra a bit of good is it! But there,
 
 150 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 ye shall be having while the blessed man says three Pater- 
 nosters, and not the least taste of time beyond!" 
 
 Colonel John made a sign to the priest, who, bowing 
 himself on the wet sod, covered his eyes with his hand and 
 began to pray. The men, at a sign from O'SuUivan, had 
 drawn to either side, and the fire-lockmen were handling 
 their pieces, with one eye on their leader and one on the 
 prisoners. 
 
 Colonel John took Bale's hand. "What matter, soon 
 or late?" he said, gently. "Here or on our beds we die 
 in our duty. Let us say, hi manus tuas " 
 
 "Popish! Popish!" Bale muttered, shaking his head. 
 He spoke hoarsely, his tongue cleaving to his mouth. His 
 eyes were full of rage. 
 
 "Into Thy Hands!" Colonel John said. He stooped 
 nearer to his man's ear. "When I shout, jump and run ! " 
 he breathed. "I will hold two." Again he lifted his 
 head and looked calmly at the threatening figures standing 
 about them, gaunt and dark, against the curtain of mist. 
 They were waiting for the signal. The priest was half way 
 through his second Paternoster. His trembling tongue 
 was stumbling, lagging more and more. As he ended it — 
 the two men still standing hand in hand — Colonel John 
 gripped Bale's fingers hard, but held him. 
 
 "What is that?" he cried, in a loud voice — but still 
 he held Bale tight that he might not move. "What is 
 that ? " he repeated. On the ear — on his ear first — had 
 fallen the sound of hurrying feet. 
 
 They strained their eyes through the mist.
 
 THESEAMIST 151 
 
 ''And what '11 this be ?" O'Sullivan Og muttered suspi- 
 ciously. "If you budge a step," he growled, "I 'II drive 
 this pike " 
 
 "A messenger from The McMurrough," Colonel John 
 said. If he was human, if his heart, at the hope of respite, 
 beat upon his ribs as the heart of a worse man might 
 have beaten, he did not betray it save by a light in 
 his eyes. 
 
 They had not to wait. A tall, lathy form emerged from 
 the mist. It advanced with long leaps, the way they had 
 come. A moment, and the messenger saw them, pulled 
 up, and walked the intervening distance, his arms droop- 
 ing, and his breath coming in gasps. He had run apace, 
 and he could not speak. But he nodded — as he wiped the 
 saliva from his parted lips — to O'Sullivan Og to come 
 aside with him; and the two moved off a space. The 
 others eyed them while the message was given. The 
 suspense was short. Quickly O'Sullivan Og came back. 
 
 "Ye may be thankful," he said, drily. "Ye 've 
 cheated the pikes for this time, no less, and 't is safe 
 ye are." 
 
 " You have the greater reason to be thankful," Colonel 
 John replied solemnly. "You have been spared a foul 
 
 crime." 
 
 "Faith and I hope I may never do worse," Og answered, 
 hardily, "than rid the world of two black Protestants, 
 an' them with a priest to make their souls! Many 's the 
 honest man 's closed his eyes without that same. But 
 't is no time for prating! I wonder at your honour, and
 
 152 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 you no more than out of the black water! Bring them 
 along, boys," he continued, "we 've work to do yet!" 
 
 " Laus Deo!" the priest cried, lifting up his hands. 
 "Give Him the glory!" 
 
 "Amen," the Colonel said softly. And for a moment 
 he shut his eyes and stood with clasped hands. " I thank 
 you kindly, father, for your prayers!" he said. "The 
 words of a good man avail much!" 
 
 No more was said. For a few yards Bale walked 
 unsteadily. But he recovered himself and, urged by 
 O'SuUivan's continual injunctions to hasten, the party 
 were not long in retracing their steps. They reached the 
 road, and went along it, but in the direction of the landing- 
 place. In a few minutes they were threading their way 
 in single file across the saucer-like waste which lay to land- 
 ward of the hill overlooking the jetty. 
 
 "Are you taking us to the French sloop ?" Colonel John 
 asked. 
 
 "You '11 be as wise as the lave of us by and by!" Og 
 answered sulkily. 
 
 They crossed the shoulder near the tower, and strode 
 down the slope to the stone pier. The mist lay low on the 
 water. The tide was almost at the flood. Og bade the 
 men draw in one of the boats, ordered Colonel Sullivan 
 and Bale to go into the bow, and the pikemen to take the 
 oars. He and the two fire-lock men took their seats in the 
 stern. 
 
 "Pull out, you cripples," he said, "and there '11 be flood 
 enough to be bringing us back."
 
 THESEAMIST 153 
 
 The men bent to the clumsy oars, and the boat slid down 
 the inlet, and passed under the beam of the French sloop, 
 which lay moored farther along the jetty. Not a sign of 
 life appeared on deck as they passed; the ship seemed to 
 be deserted. Half a dozen strokes carried the boat beyond 
 view of it, and the little party were alone on the bosom 
 of the water, that lay rocking smoothly between its unseen 
 banks. Some minutes were spent in stout rowing, and 
 soon the boat began to rise and fall on the Atlantic rollers. 
 
 " 'T is more deceitful than a pretty colleen," O'Sullivan 
 Og said, "is the sea-fog, bad cess to it! My own father 
 was lost in it. Will you be seeing her, boys ?" 
 
 "Ye '11 not see her till ye touch her!" one of the rowers 
 answered. 
 
 "And the tide running?" the other said. "Save us 
 from that same!" 
 
 "She's farther out by three gunshots!" struck in a 
 fire-lock man. "We'll be drifting back, ye thieves of the 
 world, if ye sit staring there! Pull, an' we '11 be inshore 
 an' ye know it." 
 
 For some minutes the men pulled steadily onward, while 
 one of the passengers, apprized that their destination was 
 the Spanish war-vessel, felt anything but eager to reach it. 
 A Spanish warship meant imprisonment, possibly the 
 Inquisition, persecution, and death. When the men lay 
 at last on their oars, and swore that they must have passed 
 the ship, he alone listened indifferently. 
 
 "'Tis a black Protestant fog!" O'Sullivan cried. 
 "Where '11 we be, I wonder?"
 
 154 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Sure, ye can make no mistake," one answered. "The 
 wind 's light off the land." 
 
 "We '11 be pulling back, lads." 
 
 "That 's the word." 
 
 The men put the boat about, and started on the return 
 journey. Suddenly Colonel John, crouching in the bow, 
 vv^here was scant room for Bale and himself, saw a large 
 shape loom before him. Involuntarily he uttered a warn- 
 ing cry, O 'Sullivan echoed it, the men tried to hold the 
 boat. In doing this, however, one man was quicker than 
 the other, the boat turned broadside on to her former 
 course, and before the cry was well off O'Sullivan Og's 
 lips, it swept violently athwart a cable hauled taut by the 
 weight of a vessel straining to the flow of the tide. In a 
 twinkhng the boat careened, throwing its occupants into 
 the water. 
 
 Colonel John and Bale were nearest to the hawser, and 
 managed to seize it and cling to it. But the first wave 
 washed over them, blinding them and choking them; and, 
 warned by this, they worked themselves along the rope 
 until they could twist a leg over their slender support. 
 
 That effected, they shouted for help. But their shouts 
 were merged in the wail of despair, of shrieks and cries, 
 that floated away into the mist. The boat, travelling with 
 the last of the tide, had struck the cable with force, and 
 was already drifting a gunshot away. Whether any 
 saved themselves on it, the two clinging to the hawser 
 could not see. 
 
 Bale, shivering and scared, would have shouted again,
 
 THESEAMIST 155 
 
 but Colonel John stayed him. "God rest their souls!" 
 he said solemnly. "The men aboard can do nothing. 
 By the time they '11 have lowered a boat it will be done 
 with these." 
 
 "They can take us aboard," Bale said. 
 
 "Ay, if we want to go to Cadiz gaol," Colonel John 
 answered slowly. He was peering keenly toward the 
 land. 
 
 "But what can we do, your honour?" Bale asked with 
 a shiver. 
 
 "Swim ashore." 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 "But you can swim?" 
 
 "Not that far. Not near that far, God knows!" Bale 
 repeated with emphasis, his teeth chattering. "I'll go 
 down like a stone." 
 
 "Cadiz gaol! Cadiz gaol!" Colonel John muttered. 
 "Is n't it worth a swim to escape that?" 
 
 "Ay, ay, but " 
 
 "Do you see that oar drifting? In a twinkling it will 
 be out of reach. Off with your boots, man, off with your 
 clothes, and to it! That oar is freedom! The tide is 
 with us still, or it would not be moving that way. But let 
 the tide turn and we cannot do it." 
 
 "It's too far!" 
 
 "If you could see the shore," Colonel John argued, 
 "you 'd think nothing of it! With your chin on that 
 oar, you can't sink. But it must be done before we are 
 chilled."
 
 156 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 He was stripping himself to his underclothes while he 
 talked : and in haste, fearing that he might feel the hawser 
 slacken and dip — a sign that the tide had turned. 
 Already Colonel John had plans and hopes, but freedom 
 was needful if they were to come to anything. 
 
 "Come!" he cried, impulsively. "Man, you are not a 
 coward. Come!" 
 
 He let himself into the water and after a moment of 
 hesitation Bale followed his example, let the rope go, 
 and with quick, nervous strokes bobbed after him in the 
 direction of the oar. Colonel John deserved the less credit, 
 as he was the better swimmer. He swam long and slow 
 with his head low, and his eyes watched his follov/er, A 
 half minute of violent exertion, and Bale 's outstretched 
 hand clutched the oar. It was a thick, clumsy imple- 
 ment, and it floated high. Colonel John bade him rest 
 his hands on it, and thrust it before him lengthwise, swim- 
 ming with his feet. 
 
 For five minutes nothing was said, but they proceeded 
 slowly and patiently, trusting — for they could see nothing 
 — that the tide was still seconding their efforts. Colonel 
 John knew that if the shore lay, as he judged, about 
 half a mile distant, he must, to reach it, swim slowly 
 and reserve his strength. Though a natural desire to 
 decide the question quickly would have impelled him 
 to great exertion, he resisted it. At the worst, he 
 reflected that the oar would support them both for a 
 short time. 
 
 They had been swimming for ten minutes, as he cal-
 
 THE SEA MIST 157 
 
 culated, when Bale, who floated higher, cried joyfully that 
 he could see the land. Colonel John made no answer, he 
 needed all his breath. But a minute later he too saw it 
 loom low through the fog; and then, in some minutes 
 afterward, they felt bottom and waded on to a ledge of 
 rocks which projected a hundred yards from the mainland 
 eastward of the mouth of the inlet. The tide had served 
 them well by carrying them a little to the eastward. They 
 sat a moment on the rocks to recover their strength; and 
 then, stung to action by the chill wind, which set their 
 teeth chattering, they got to their feet and scrambled 
 painfully along the rocks until they reached the marshy 
 bank of the inlet. A pilgrimage scarcely less painful, 
 through gorse and rushes, brought them at the end of ten 
 minutes to the jetty. 
 
 Here all was quiet. If any of O'SuUivan Og's party 
 had saved themselves they were not to be seen, nor was 
 there any indication that the accident was known on 
 shore. 
 
 While Colonel John had been picking his way, his 
 thoughts had not been idle; and now, without hesitation, 
 he made along the jetty until the masts of the French sloop 
 loomed beside it. He boarded the vessel by a plank and 
 looked round him. There was no watch on deck, but 
 a melancholy voice piping a French song rose from the 
 depths of the cabin. Colonel John bade Bale follow him 
 — they were shivering from head to foot — and descended 
 the companion. 
 
 The singer was Captain Augustin. He lay on his back
 
 158 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 in his bunk, while his mate, between sleep and waking, 
 formed an unwilling audience. 
 
 " Tout mal chausse, tout mal vetu," 
 sang the Captain in a doleful voice, 
 
 *' Pauvre marin, d'oureviens-tu ? 
 Tout doux! Tout doux." 
 
 With the last word on his lips, he called on the name 
 of his Maker, for he saw two half-naked, dripping figures 
 peering at him through the open door. For the moment 
 he took them, by the dim light for the revenants of 
 drowned men; while his mate, a Breton, rose on his elbow 
 and shrieked aloud. 
 
 It was only when Colonel John called them by name 
 that they were reassured, lost their fears, and recognized 
 in the pallid figures before them their late passenger and 
 his attendant. Then the cabin rang with oaths and 
 invocations, with mon Dieu! and ma foi! Immediately 
 clothes were fetched, and rough cloths to dry the visitors 
 and restore warmth to their limbs, and cognac and food — 
 for the two were half starved. While these comforts were 
 being administered, and half the crew, crouching about the 
 companion, listened, Colonel John told very shortly the 
 tale of their adventures, of the fate that had menaced them, 
 and their narrow escape. In return he learned that the 
 Frenchmen were virtually prisoners. 
 
 "They have taken our equipage, cursed dogs! " Augustin 
 explained, refraining with difficulty from a dance of rage. 
 The rudder, the sails, they are not, see you ? They have 
 locked all in the house on shore, that we may not go by
 
 THE SEA MIST 159 
 
 night, you understand. And by day the ship of war 
 beyond, Spanish it is possible, pirate for certain, goes about 
 to sink us if we move! Ah, sacre nom, that I had never 
 seen this land of swine!" 
 
 "Have they a guard over the rudder and the sails?" 
 Colonel John asked. 
 
 "I know not. What matter?" 
 
 " If not, it were not hard to regain them," Colonel John 
 said, with an odd light in his eyes. 
 
 "And the ship of war beyond? What would she be 
 doing?" 
 
 " While the fog lies ? " Colonel John replied. 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "The fog ?" Augustin exclaimed. He clapped his hand 
 to his head, ran up the companion and as quickly returned. 
 "There is a fog," he cried, "like the inside of Jonah's 
 whale! For the ship beyond I snap the finger at her! 
 She is not! Then forward, mes braves! Yet tranquil! 
 They have taken the arms!" 
 
 "Ay?" Colonel John said, still eating. "Is that so? 
 Then it seems to me we must retake them. That first." 
 
 "What, you?" Augustin exclaimed. 
 
 "Why not?" Colonel John responded, looking round 
 him, a twinkle in his eye. "The goods of his host are in 
 a manner of speaking the house of his host. And it is the 
 duty — as I said once before." 
 
 " But is it not that they are — of your kin ?" 
 
 "That is the reason," Colonel John answered cryptically 
 and to the skipper's surprise. But that surprise lasted a
 
 160 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 very short time. "Listen to me," the Colonel continued. 
 "This goes farther than you think, and to cure it we must 
 not stop short. Let me speak, and do you, my friends, 
 listen. Courage, and I will give you not only freedom 
 but a good bargain." 
 
 The skipper stared. "How so?" he asked. 
 
 Then Colonel John unfolded the plan on which he had 
 been meditating while the gorse bushes pricked his feet 
 and the stones gibed them. It was a great plan, and before 
 all things a bold one; so bold that the seamen, who crowded 
 the foot of the companion, opened their eyes. 
 
 Augustin smacked his lips. "It is what you call mag- 
 nifiqiie!" he said. "But," he shrugged his shoulders, 
 "it is not possible!" 
 
 "If the fog holds?" 
 
 " But if it — what you call — lifts ? What then, eh ? " 
 
 "Through how many storms have you ridden?" the 
 Colonel answered. "Yet if the mast had gone?" 
 
 ' ' We had gone 1 V raiment! ' ' 
 
 "That did not keep you ashore." 
 
 Augustin cogitated over this for a while. Then, "But 
 we are eight only," he objected. "Myself, nine." 
 
 "And two are eleven," Colonel John replied. 
 
 "We do not know the ground." 
 
 "I do." 
 
 The skipper shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "And they have treated you — but you know how they 
 have treated you," Colonel John went on, appealing to the 
 lower motive.
 
 THESEAMIST 161 
 
 The group of seamen who stood about the door growled 
 seamen's oaths. 
 
 "There are things that seem hard," the Colonel con- 
 tinued, "and being begun, pouf! they are done while you 
 think of them!" 
 
 Captain Augustin of Bordeaux swelled out his breast. 
 "That is true," he said. "I have done things like that." 
 
 "Then do one more!" 
 
 The skipper's eyes surveyed the men's faces. He 
 caught the spark in their eyes. " I will do it," he cried. 
 
 "Good!" Colonel John cried. "The arms first!"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A SLIP 
 
 FLAVIA McMURROUGH enjoyed one advantage 
 over her partners in conspiracy. She could rise 
 on the morning after the night of the bonfires 
 with a clear head. 
 
 Colonel John had scarcely passed away under guard 
 before she was afoot, gay as a lark and trilling like one, for 
 on this day would they begin a work the end of which no 
 man could see, but which, to the close of time, should shed 
 a lustre on the name of McMurrough. No more should 
 their native land be swept along, a chained slave in the 
 train of a more brutal, a more violent, and a more stupid 
 people! From this day Ireland's valour should be 
 recognized for what it was, her wit be turned to good uses, 
 her old traditions be revived in the light of new glories. 
 The tears rose to the girl's eyes, her bosom heaved, as she 
 pictured the fruition of the work to be begun this day 
 and with clasped hands and prayerful eyes sang her 
 morning hymn. 
 
 The tears gushed from her eyes and with an overflowing 
 heart she thanked heaven for the grace and favour that 
 assigned her a part in the work. It was much — may she 
 be forgiven! — if, in the first enthusiasm of the morning, 
 
 162
 
 A SLIP 163 
 
 she gave a single thought to the misguided kinsman whose 
 opposition had exposed him to dangers at which she 
 vaguely guessed. 
 
 She lived in a dream, but a golden dream, and when 
 she descended to the living-room her lips quivered as she 
 kissed the Bishop's hand and received on her bent knees 
 his episcopal blessing. "And on this house, my daughter," 
 he added, "and on this day!" 
 
 "Amen!" she murmured in her heart. 
 
 True, breakfast, and the hour after breakfast, gave some 
 pause to her happiness. The men's nerves were on edge 
 with potheen and they had not been at table five minutes 
 before quarrelling broke out. The Spanish officer who 
 was in attendance on Cammock came to words with one 
 of the O'Beirnes, who resented the notion that the 
 Admiral's safety was not sufficiently secured by the Irish 
 about him. The peace was kept with difficulty, and so 
 much ill-feeling survived the outbreak that Cammock 
 thought it prudent to remit two-thirds of the sailors to the 
 ship. 
 
 This was not a promising beginning, where the numbers 
 were already so scanty that the Bishop wondered in his 
 heart whether his dupes would dare to pass from words to 
 action. But it was not all. Some one spoke of Asgill, and 
 of another justice in the neighbourhood, asserting that 
 their hearts were with the rising, and that at a later point 
 their aid might be expected. 
 
 "The Evil One's spawn!" cried Sir Donny, rising in 
 his place, and speaking under the influence of great
 
 164 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 excitement. "If you're for dealing with them, I'm 
 riding! No Protestants! I 'd as soon never wear sword 
 again as wear it in their company." 
 
 "You 're not meaning it, Sir Donny!" Uncle Ulick said. 
 
 "Faith, but if he 's not, I am!" cried old Tim Burke, 
 rising and banging the table with his fist. " 'T is what 
 I 'm meaning, and not a bit of a mistake! Just that!" 
 
 Another backed him, with so much violence that the 
 most moderate and sensible looked serious and it needed 
 the Bishop's interference to calm the storm. "We need 
 not decide one way or the other," he said, " until they come 
 in." Probably he thought that an unlikely contingency. 
 "There are arguments on both sides," he continued, 
 blandly. "But of this at another time. I think we must 
 be moving, gentlemen. It grows late." 
 
 While the gentry talked thus at table, the courtyard and 
 the space between the house and the lake began to present, 
 where the mist allowed them to be seen, the lively and 
 animated appearance which the Irish, ever lovers of a 
 crowd, admire. Food and drink were there served to the 
 barefoot, shock-headed boys drawn up in bodies under 
 their priests, or under the great men's agents; and when 
 these matters had been consumed one band after another 
 moved off in the direction of the rendezvous. This was at 
 the Carraghalin, a name long given to the ruins of an 
 abbey situate in an upland valley above the waterfall. 
 
 The orders for all were to take their seats in an orderly 
 fashion and in a mighty semicircle about a well-known 
 rock situate a hundred yards from the abbey. Tradition
 
 A SLIP 165 
 
 reported that in old days this rock had been a pulpit, and 
 that thence the Irish Apostle had preached to the heathen. 
 The turf about it was dry, sweet, and sheep bitten; on 
 either side it sloped gently to the rock, while a sentry 
 posted on each of the two low hills which flanked the vale 
 was a sufficient surety against surprise. 
 
 It was not until the last of the peasants had filed off that 
 the gentry began to make their way in the same direction. 
 The buckeens were the first to go, while the last to leave 
 were the Admiral and the Bishop, honourably escorted, 
 as became their rank, by their host and hostess. 
 
 Freed from the wrangling and confusion which the 
 presence of the others bred, Flavia regained her serenity 
 as she walked. There was nothing, indeed, in the face of 
 nature, in the mist and the dark day, and the moisture 
 that hung in beads on thorn and furze, to cheer her. But 
 she drew her spirits from a higher source, and, sanguine 
 and self-reliant, foreseeing naught but success, stepped 
 proudly along beside the Bishop, who found, perhaps, in 
 her presence and her courage a make-weight for the gloom 
 of the day. 
 
 "You are sure," he said, smiling, " that we shall not lose 
 our way?" 
 
 "Ah! and I am sure," she answered, "I could take you 
 blindfold." 
 
 "The mist " 
 
 " It stands, my lord, for the mist overhanging this poor 
 land, which our sun shall disperse." 
 
 "God grant it!" he said. "God grant it, indeed, my
 
 166 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 daughter!" But, do what he would, he spoke without 
 fervour. 
 
 They passed along the lake edge, catching now and then 
 the shimmer of water on their right. Thence they 
 ascended the steep path that led up the glen of the water- 
 fall to the level of the platform on which the old tower 
 stood. Leaving this on the right, they climbed yet a little 
 higher, and entered a deep driftway that, at the summit of 
 the gorge, clove its way between the mound behind the 
 tower and the hill on their left, and so penetrated presently 
 to the valley of the Carraghalin. The mist was thinner 
 here, the nature of the ground was more perceptible, and 
 they had not proceeded fifty yards along the sunken way 
 before Cammock, who was leading, in the company of 
 The McMurrough, halted. 
 
 *'A fine place for a stand," he said, looking about him 
 with a soldierly eye. "And better for an ambush. 
 Especially on such a morning as this, when you cannot see 
 a man five paces away." 
 
 "I trust," the Bishop answered, smiling, "that we shall 
 have no need to make the one or to fear the other." 
 
 "You could hold this," Flavia asked eagerly, "with such 
 men as we have ? " 
 
 "Against an army," Cammock answered. 
 
 "Against an army!" she murmured as, her heart beat- 
 ing high with pride, they resumed their way, Flavia and 
 the Bishop in the van. "Against an army!" she repeated 
 fondly. 
 
 The words had not fully left her lips when she recoiled.
 
 A SLIP 167 
 
 At the same moment the Bishop uttered an exclamation, 
 Cammock swore and seized his hilt, The McMurrough 
 turned as if to flee. For on the path close to them, facing 
 them with a pistol in his hand, stood Colonel Sullivan. 
 
 He levelled the pistol at the head of the nearest man, 
 and though Flavia, with instant presence of mind, struck 
 it up, the act helped little. Before Cammock could clear 
 his blade, or his companions back up his resistance, four 
 or five men of Colonel John's following, flung themselves 
 on them from behind. They were seized, strong arms 
 pinioned them, knives were at their throats. In a twink- 
 ling, and while they still expected death, sacks were dragged 
 over their heads and down to their waists, and they were 
 helpless. 
 
 It was well, it was neatly done; and completely done, 
 with a single drawback. The men had not seized Flavia, 
 and, white as paper, but with rage, not fear, she screamed 
 shrilly for help — screamed twice. 
 
 She would have screamed a third time, but Colonel 
 Sullivan, who knew that they were scarcely two furlongs 
 from the meeting-place, and from some hundreds of merci- 
 less foes, did the only thing possible. He flung his arms 
 round her, pressed her face roughly against his shoulder, 
 smothered her cries remorselessly. Then raising her, 
 aided by the man with the musket, he bore her, vainly 
 struggling — and, it must be owned, scratching — after 
 the others out of the driftway. 
 
 The thincr done, the Colonel's little band of Frenchmen 
 knew that they had cast the die and must now succeed
 
 168 THEWILD GEESE 
 
 or perish. The girl's screams, quickly suppressed, might 
 not have given the alarm; but they had set nerves on edge. 
 The prick of a knife was used — and often — to apprize 
 the blinded prisoners that if they did not move they would 
 be piked. They were dragged, a seaman on either side of 
 each captive, over some hundred paces of rough ground, 
 through the stream, and so into a path little better than a 
 sheep-track which ran round the farther side of the hill 
 of the tower, and descended that way to the more remote 
 bank of the lake. It was a rugged path, steep and slippery, 
 dropping precipitously a couple of feet in places, and more 
 than once following the bed of the stream. But it was 
 traceable even in the mist, and the party from the sloop, 
 once put on it, could follow it. 
 
 If no late comer to the meeting encountered them, 
 Colonel John, to whom every foot of the ground was 
 familiar, saw no reason, apart from the chances of pursuit 
 why they should not convey their prisoners to the sloop. 
 All, however, depended on time. If Flavia's screams had 
 not given the alarm, it would soon be given by the absence 
 of those whom the people had come to meet. The missing 
 leaders would be sought, pursuit would be organized. 
 
 But, with peril on every side of them, Flavia was still 
 the main, the real difficulty. Colonel Sullivan could not 
 hope to carry her far, even with the help of the man who 
 fettered her feet, and bore part of her weight. Twice she 
 freed her mouth and uttered a stifled cry. The Colonel 
 only pressed her face more ruthlessly to him — his men's 
 lives depended on her silence. But the sweat stood on
 
 A SLIP 169 
 
 his brow; and, after carrying her no more than three 
 hundred yards, he staggered under the unwilling burden. 
 He was on the path now and descending, and he held out 
 a little farther. 
 
 But presently, when he hoped that she had swooned, 
 she fell to struggling more desperately. He thought, on 
 this, that he might be smothering her; and he relaxed his 
 hold to allow her to breathe. For reward she struck 
 him madly, furiously in the face, and he had to stifle 
 her again. 
 
 But his heart was sick It was a horrible, a brutal 
 business, a thing he had not foreseen on board the Cor- 
 morant. He had supposed that she would faint at the first 
 alarm; and his courage, which would have faced almost 
 any event with coolness, quailed. He could not murder 
 .the girl, and she would not be silent. No, she would not 
 be silent! Short of setting her down and binding her hand 
 and foot, which would take time, and was horrible to 
 imagine, he could not see what to do. And the man with 
 him, who saw the rest of the party outstripping them, 
 and as good as disappearing in the fog, who fancied, with 
 every step, that he heard the feet of merciless pursuers 
 overtaking them, was frantic with impatience. 
 
 Then Colonel John, with the sweat standing on his brow, 
 did a thing to which he afterward looked back with great 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Give me your knife," he said, with a groan, "and hold 
 her hands! We must silence her, and there is only one 
 way!"
 
 170 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 The man, terrified as he was, and selfish as terrified 
 men are, recoiled from the deed. "My God! "he said. 
 "No!" 
 
 "Yes!" Colonel John retorted fiercely. "The knife! 
 — the knife, man! And do you hold her hands!" 
 
 With a jerk he lifted her face from his breast — and this 
 time she neither struck him nor screamed. The man 
 had half-heartedly drawn his knife. The Colonel snatched 
 it from him. "Now her hands!" he said. "Hold her, 
 fool! I know where to strike!" 
 
 She opened her mouth to shriek, but no sound came. 
 She had heard, she understood; and for a moment she 
 could neither struggle nor cry. That terror which rage 
 and an almost indomitable spirit had kept at bay seized 
 her; the sight of the gleaming death poised above her 
 paralyzed her throat. Her mouth gaped, her eyes glared 
 at the steel; then, with a queer sobbing sound, she fainted. 
 
 "Thank God!" the Colonel cried. He thrust the knife 
 back into the man's hands, and, raising the girl again in 
 his arms, "There 's a house a little below," he said. "We 
 can leave her there! Hurry, man! — hurry!" 
 
 He had not traversed that road for twenty years, but his 
 memory had not tricked him. Less than fifty paces below 
 they came on a cabin, close to the foot of the waterfall. 
 The door was not fastened — for what, in such a place, 
 was there to steal ? — and Colonel John thrust it open with 
 his foot. The interior was dark, the place was almost 
 windowless; but he made out the form of an old crone 
 who, nursing her knees, crouched with a pipe in her
 
 1 
 
 
 THEN, WITH A QIEEK FOBBING t^Ul.NU .SHE EAi.NTEU
 
 A SLIP 171 
 
 mouth beside a handful of peat. Seeing him, the woman 
 tottered to her feet with a cry of alarm, and shaded her 
 bleared eyes from the inrush of daylight. She gabbled 
 shrilly, but she knew only Erse, and Colonel John 
 attempted no explanation. 
 
 "The Lady of the House," he said, in that tongue. And 
 
 he laid Flavia, not ungently, but very quickly, on the floor. 
 
 He turned about without another word, shut the door on 
 
 the two, and hurried along the path at the full stretch of his 
 
 legs. In half a minute he had overtaken his companion, 
 
 and the two pressed on together on the heels of the main 
 
 oarty. 
 
 The old beldame, left alone with the girl, viewed her 
 
 'ith an astonishment which would have been greater if 
 
 le had not reached that age at which all sensations become 
 
 ulled. How the Lady of the House, who was to her both 
 
 ower and Providence, came to be there, and there in that 
 
 s ite, passed her conception. But she had the sense to 
 
 loosen the girl's frock at the neck, to throw water on her 
 
 face, and to beat her hands. In a verv few minutes Flavia, 
 
 who had never swooned before — fashionable as the 
 
 exercise was at this period in feminine society — sighed 
 
 once or twice, and came to herself. 
 
 "^Miere am I ?" she muttered. Still for some moments 
 she continued to look about her in a dazed way; at length 
 she recognized the old woman, and the cottage. Then 
 she remembered, with a moan, what had happened — 
 the ambuscade, the flight, the knife. 
 She could not turn whiter, but she shuddered and closed
 
 172 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 her eyes. At last, with shrinking, she looked at her ciress. 
 "Am I — hurt?" she whispered. 
 
 The old woman did not understand, but she patted 
 Flavia's hand. Meanwhile the girl saw that there was no 
 blood on her dress, and she found courage to raise her 
 hand to her throat. She found no wound. At that she 
 smiled faintly. Then she began to cry — for she was a 
 woman. 
 
 But, broken as she was by that moment of terror, Flavia 
 very quickly overcame her weakness. She rose, she 
 understood, and she extended her arms in rage and grief 
 and unavailing passion. 
 
 She would that the villains had killed her! She would 
 that they had finished her life! Why should she survive, 
 except for vengeance? For not only were her hopes for 
 Ireland fallen; not only were those who had trusted them- 
 selves to The McMurrough perishing even now in the 
 hands of ruthless foes; but her brother, whom her prayers, 
 her influence, had brought into this path, he too was 
 snared, of his fate also there could be no doubt! 
 
 She felt all that was most keen, most poignant, of grief, 
 of anger, of indignation. But the sharpest pang of all — 
 had she analyzed her feelings — was inflicted by the con- 
 sciousness of failure, and of failure verging on the ignomin- 
 ious. The mature take good and evil fortune as they 
 come; but to fail at first setting out in life, to be outwitted 
 in the opening venture, is a mishap which sours the 
 magnanimous and poisons young blood. 
 
 She had not known before what it was to hate. Now
 
 A SLIP 173 
 
 she only lived to hate: to hate the man who had shown 
 himself so much cleverer than her friends, who, in a 
 twinkling, and by a single blow, had wrecked her plans, 
 duped her allies, betrayed her brother, made her name a 
 lau";hino;-stock, robbed Ireland of a last chance of freedom! 
 Who had held her in his arms, terrified her, mastered her! 
 Oh, why had she swooned? Why had she not rather, 
 disregarding her womanish weakness, her womanish fears, 
 snatched the knife from him and plunged it into his 
 treacherous breast?
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE colonel's TERMS 
 
 CAMMOCK and the Bishop, certain only that 
 they were in hostile hands, and hurried, bhnd 
 and helpless, to an unknown doom, might have 
 been pardoned had they succumbed to despair. But 
 they did not succumb. The habit of danger, and a hun- 
 dred adventures and escapes, had hardened them; they 
 felt more rage than fear. Stunned for a moment by the 
 audacity of the attack, they had not been dragged a hun- 
 dred yards before they began to calculate the chances. 
 If the purpose of those into whose hands they had fallen 
 were to murder them they would have been piked on the 
 spot. On the other hand, if their captors' object was to 
 deliver them to English justice, weeks, if not months, must 
 elapse before they stood at the bar on a capital charge; 
 much water must flow under the bridges, and many 
 a thing might happen, by force or fraud, in the interval. 
 
 So, half-stifled and bitterly chagrined as they were, they 
 did not waste their strength in a vain resistance. 
 
 With the third of the prisoners it was otherwise. The 
 courage of the Irish is more conspicuous in the advance 
 than in the retreat; and even of that joy in the conflict, 
 which is their birthright and their fame, Flavia had taken 
 
 174
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 175 
 
 more than her woman's share. Li James McMurrough's 
 mean nature there was small room for the generous 
 passions. Unlike his sister, he would have struck the face 
 of no man in whose power he lay; nor was he one to keep 
 a stout heart when his hands were bound. Conscience 
 does not always make cowards. But he knew into whose 
 hands he had fallen, he knew the fate to which he had 
 himself consigned Colonel John, and his heart was water, 
 his hair rose, as he pictured in livid hues the fate that now 
 awaited himself. 
 
 As he had meant to do to the other, it would be done to 
 him! He felt the cruel pike rend the gasping throat. 
 Or would they throw him, bound and blind as he was, into 
 the sullen lake — yes, that was it! They were carrying 
 him that way, they were taking him to the lake. 
 
 And once and twice, in the insanity of fear, he fought 
 with his bonds until the blood came, even throwing himself 
 down, until the men, out of patience, pricked him savagely, 
 and drove him, venting choked cries of pain, to his feet 
 again. After the second attempt he staggered on, beaten, 
 hopeless. 
 
 He was aware that Colonel John was not with them, and 
 then, again, that he was with them; and then — they were 
 on the wide track now between the end of the lake and the 
 sea — that they were proceeding with increased caution. 
 That might have given a braver man hope, the hope of 
 rescue. But rescue had itself terrors for The McMur- 
 rough. His captors, if pressed, might hasten the end, or 
 his friends might strike him in the m^lee. And so, with
 
 176 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 every furlong of the forced journey, he died a fresh death. 
 And the furlongs seemed interminable. But at last he 
 heard the fall of the waves on the shore, the men about 
 him spoke louder, he caught a distant hail. Laughter and 
 exclamations of triumph reached him, and the voices of 
 men who had won in spite of odds. 
 
 Then a boat grated on the pebbles, he was lifted into it, 
 and thrust down in the bottom. He felt it float off, and 
 heard the measured sound of the oars in the thole-pins. 
 A few moments elapsed, the sound of the oars ceased, 
 the boat bumped something. He was raised to his feet, 
 his hands were unbound, he was set on a rope-ladder, and 
 bidden to climb. Obeying with shaking knees, he was 
 led across what he guessed to be a deck, and down steep 
 stairs. Then his head was freed from the sack, and, 
 sweating, disheveled, pale with exhaustion and fear, he 
 looked about him. 
 
 The fog was still thick outside, turning day into twilight, 
 and the cabin lamp had been lit and swung above the nar- 
 row table, filling the low-browed, Dutch-like interior with 
 a strong but shifting light. Behind the table Colonel John 
 and the skipper leant against a bulkhead; before them, on 
 the nearer side of the table, were ranged the three captives. 
 Behind these, again, the dark, grinning faces of the sailors, 
 with their tarred pigtails and flashing eyes, filled the door- 
 way; and, beyond doubt, viewed under the uncertain light 
 of the lamp, they showed a wild and savage crew. As 
 James McMurrough looked, his hopes, which had risen 
 during the last few minutes, sank. Escape, or chance of
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 177 
 
 escape, there was none. He was helpless, and what those 
 into whose hands he had fallen determined, he must 
 suffer. For a moment his heart stood still, his mouth 
 gaped, he swayed on his feet. Then he clutched the 
 table and steadied himself. 
 
 "I am — giddy," he muttered. 
 
 "I am sorry that you have been put to so much incon- 
 venience," Colonel John answered civilly. 
 
 The words, the tone, might have reassured him if he 
 had not suspected a devilish irony. Even when Colonel 
 John proceeded to direct one of the men to open a port- 
 hole and admit more air, he derived no comfort from the 
 attention. But steady! Colonel John was speaking 
 again. 
 
 "You, too, gentlemen," he said, addressing Cammock 
 and the Bishop, " I am sorry that I have been forced to put 
 you to so much discomfort. But I saw no other way of 
 effecting my purpose. And," he went on with a smile, 
 "if you ask my warranty for acting as I have acted " 
 
 "I do!" the Bishop said between his teeth. The 
 Admiral said nothing, but breathed hard. 
 
 "Then I can only vouch," the Colonel answered, 
 " the authority by virtue of which you seized me yesterday. 
 I give you credit, reverend father, and you, Admiral, for 
 a belief that in creating a rising here you were serving a 
 cause which you think worthy of sacrifice — the sacrifice 
 of others as well as of yourselves. But I tell you, as 
 frankly, I feel it my duty to prevent that rising; and for 
 the moment fortune is with me. Now I need hardly say,"
 
 178 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Colonel John continued, with an appearance almost of 
 bonhomie, "that I do not wish to go further than is neces- 
 sary. I might hand you over to the English authorities. 
 But far be it from me to do that! I would have no man's 
 blood on my hands. And though I say at once I would not 
 shrink, were there no other way of saving innocent lives, 
 from sending you to the scaffold " 
 
 "A thousand thanks to you!" the Bishop said. But, 
 brave man as he was, the irony in his voice masked relief; 
 and not then, but a moment later, he passed his handker- 
 chief across his brow. Cammock said nothing, but the 
 angry, bloodshot eyes which he fixed on the Colonel lost 
 a little of their ferocity. 
 
 "I say, I would not shrink from doing that," Colonel 
 John continued mildly, "were it necessary. Fortunately 
 for us all, it is not necessary. I must provide against your 
 immediate return. I must see that the movement which 
 will die in your absence is not revived by any word from 
 you. To that end, gentlemen, I must put you to the 
 inconvenience of a prolonged sea-voyage." 
 
 " If I could speak with you in private ? " the Bishop said. 
 
 "You will have every opportunity," Colonel John 
 answered, smiling, "of speaking to Captain Augustin in 
 private." 
 
 "Still, sir, if I could see you alone I think I could con- 
 vince you " 
 
 "You shall have every opportunity of convincing Cap- 
 tain Augustin," Colonel John returned, smiling more 
 broadly, " and of convincing him by the same means which
 
 THE COLONELS TERMS 179 
 
 I venture to think, reverend sir, you would employ with me. 
 To be plain, he will take you to sea for a certain period and 
 at the end of that time, if your arguments are sufficiently 
 weighty, he will land you on the French shore. He will 
 be at the loss of his cargo, and that loss I fear you will 
 have to make good. Something, too, he may charge by 
 way of interest, and for your passage." By this time the 
 sailors were on the broad grin. "A trifle, perhaps, for 
 landing dues. But I have spoken with him to be 
 moderate, and I doubt not that within a few weeks 
 you. Admiral Cammock, will be with your command, 
 and the reverend father will be pursuing his calling in 
 another place." 
 
 For a moment there was silence, save for a titter from 
 the group of seamen. Then Cammock laughed — a curt, 
 barking laugh. "A bite!" he said. " If I can ever repay 
 it, sir, I will! Be sure of that!" 
 
 Colonel John bowed courteously. 
 
 The Bishop took it otherwise. The veins on his fore- 
 head swelled, and he had much ado to control himself. 
 The truth was, he feared ridicule more than he feared 
 danger, perhaps more than he feared death; and such an 
 end to such an enterprise was hard to bear. 
 
 " Is there no alternative ? " he asked, barely able to speak 
 for the chagrin that took him by the throat. 
 
 "One, if you prefer it," Colonel Sullivan answered 
 suavely. "You can take your chance with the English 
 authorities. For myself, I lean to the course I have 
 suggested."
 
 180 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " If money were paid down — now ? Now, sir ? " 
 
 "It would not avail." 
 
 "Much money?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 The Bishop glared at him for a few seconds. Then his 
 face relaxed, his eyes grew mild, his chin sank on his 
 breast. His fingers drummed on the table. "His will be 
 done!" he said — "His will be done! I was not worthy." 
 
 His surrender seemed to sting Cammock. Perhaps in 
 the course of their joint adventures he had come to know 
 and to respect his companion, and felt more for him than 
 for himself. 
 
 " If I had you on my quarter-deck for only half an hour," 
 he growled, "I would learn who was the better man! 
 All, my man, I would!" 
 
 "The doubt flatters me," Colonel John answered, 
 viewing them both with great respect; for he saw that, 
 bad or good, they were men. Then, " That being settled,'* 
 he continued, "I shall ask you, gentlemen, to go on deck 
 for a few moments, that I may say a word to my kinsman." 
 
 "He is not to go with us ?" 
 
 "That remains to be seen," Colonel John replied, a 
 note of sternness in his voice. Still they hesitated, and he 
 stood; but at last, in obedience to his courteous gesture, 
 they bowed, turned — with a deep sigh on the Bishop's 
 part — and clambered up the companion. The seamen 
 had already vanished at a word from Augustin, who him- 
 self proceeded to follow his prisoners on deck. 
 
 "Sit down!" Colonel Sullivan said, the same sternness
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 181 
 
 in his voice. And he sat down on his side of the table, 
 while James McMurrough, with a sullen look but a 
 beating heart, took his seat on the other. The fear of 
 immediate death had left the young man ; he tried to put 
 on an air of bravado, but with so little success that if his 
 sister had seen him thus she had been blind indeed if she 
 had not discerned, between these two men seated opposite 
 to one another, the difference that exists between the great 
 and the small, the strong and the infirm of purpose. 
 
 It was significant of that difference that the one was 
 silent at will, while the other spoke because he had not the 
 force to be silent. 
 
 "What are you wanting with me?" the young man 
 asked. 
 
 "Is it not you," Colonel John answered, with a piercing 
 look, "will be wanting to know where O'Sullivan Og is — 
 O'Sullivan Og, whom you sent to do your bidding this 
 morning." 
 
 The young man turned a shade paler, and his bravado 
 fell from him. His breath seemed to stop. Then, 
 "Where?" he whispered — "where is he?" 
 
 "Where, I pray, heaven," Colonel John answered, with 
 the same solemnity, "may have mercy upon him." 
 
 "He is not dead?" The McMurrough cried, his voice 
 rising on the last word. 
 
 " I have little doubt he is," the Colonel replied. " Dead, 
 sir! And the men who were with him — dead also, or the 
 most part of them. Dead, James McMurrough, on the 
 errand they went for you."
 
 182 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 The shock of the news struck the young man dumb, 
 and for some moments he stared at the Colonel, his face 
 colourless. At length, "All dead ? " he whispered. " Not 
 all?" 
 
 "For what I know!" Colonel John replied. "Heaven 
 forgive them!" And, in half a dozen sentences, he told 
 him what had happened. Then: "They are the first 
 fruits," he continued sternly; "God grant that they be the 
 last fruits of this reckless plot! Not that I blame them, 
 who did but as they were bid. Nor do I blame any man 
 or any woman who embarked on this with a single heart, 
 for the sake of an end which they set above their own lives. 
 But — but" — and Colonel John's voice grew more 
 grave — "there was one who had not a single heart. 
 There was one who was willing to do murder, not in blind 
 obedience, nor for a great cause, but to serve his own 
 private interest." 
 
 "No! no!" the young man cried, cowering before him. 
 "It is not true!" 
 
 "One who was ready to do murder," Colonel John con- 
 tinued pitilessly, " because it suited him to remove a man! " 
 
 "No! no!" the wretched youth cried, almost grovelling 
 before him. "It was all of them! — it was all!" 
 
 "It was not all!" Colonel John retorted; but there was 
 a keenness in his face which showed that he had still some- 
 thing to learn. 
 
 "It was — those two — on deck!" The McMurrough 
 cried eagerly. "I swear it was! They said — it was 
 necessary."
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 183 
 
 "They were one with you in condemning! Be it so! 
 I beheve you! But who spared?" 
 
 "I!" The McMurrough cried, breathlessly eager to 
 exculpate himself. "It was I alone. I! I swear it! 
 I sent the boy!" 
 
 "You spared ? Yes, and you alone! " the Colonel made 
 answer. "You spared because you learned that I had 
 made a will, and you feared lest that which had passed to 
 me in trust might pass to a stranger for good and all! 
 You spared because it was to your interest, your advan- 
 tage! I say, out of your own mouth you are condemned.'' 
 
 James McMurrough had scarcely force to follow the 
 pitiless reasoning by which the elder man convicted him. 
 But his conscience filled the hiatus, and what his tongue 
 did not own his colourless face, his terrified eyes, 
 confessed. 
 
 "You have fallen into our hands," Colonel John con- 
 tinued, grave as fate. "Why should we not deal with 
 you as you would have dealt with us ? No ! " — the 
 young man by a gesture had appealed to those on deck — 
 "no! They may have consented to my death ; but as the 
 judge condemns, or the soldier kills; you, for your private 
 profit and advantage. Nevertheless, I shall not deal so 
 with you. You can go as they are going — abroad, to 
 return, I hope, a wiser man. Or " 
 
 "Or — what?" the young man cried hurriedly. 
 
 "Or you can stay here," Colonel John continued, "and 
 we will treat the past as if it had not been. But on a 
 condition."
 
 184 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 James's colour came back. "What '11 you be want- 
 ing?" 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 themf" 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. "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." 
 
 The young man had the sense to know that he was 
 escaping lightly. 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. 
 
 "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 favour- 
 able turn. But the Colonel's words quickly set them right.
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 185 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said politely, 'T 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 passed, 
 is a standing peril to myself. To meet this difficulty 
 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 your word, 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 fare- 
 well, 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,
 
 186 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 with a rather sour smile, " not to say a bold one. 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 con- 
 cerned 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 
 stern-sheets. 
 
 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 passengers to 
 land. 
 
 Bale stayed to exchange a few words with the seamen, 
 while Colonel John and The McMurrough set off along 
 the beach. 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
 
 THE COLONEL'S TERMS 187 
 
 himself calmly — he, alone — in the midst of the con- 
 spirators whose leaders he had removed ? 
 
 It seemed incredible! For though he, James McMur- 
 rough, thirst for revenge as he might, was muzzled by his 
 oath, what of the others ? 
 
 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. At 
 last Colonel John spoke. 
 
 " It was fortunate that I made my will as I came through 
 Paris," he said.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FEMINA FURENS 
 
 COLONEL JOHN had run little risk of being 
 wrong in taking for granted that the meeting at 
 the CarraghaHn, mysteriously robbed of the chiefs 
 from over-seas, 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 escaped, her courage and enthusiasm might 
 have supported the spirits of the assemblage and kept it 
 together. But Uncle Ulick had not the force to do this: 
 much less had old Timothy Burke or Sir Donny. 
 
 Their views 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 bur- 
 dening her and tormenting her." 
 
 "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 
 pronounced hopelessly. 
 
 X88
 
 FEMINAFURENS 1S9 
 
 "There you speak truth, Sir Donny," Tim Burke 
 answered. "Is it they can be losing tlieir way in the least 
 taste of fog there is, do you think ? " 
 
 "And the young hidy 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. "The saints be between 
 us and them, and grant we '11 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. The messengers 
 sent to learn why the expected party did not arrive had as 
 little cheer to give; they could learn nothing. An hour 
 went by, a second and part of a third ; messengers departed 
 and came, and presently something like the truth got 
 abroad. Still the greater part of the assemblage, 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. 
 
 But a time came, about high noon, when the assemblage 
 — and the fog — beran at last to melt. Sir Donnv was 
 gone, and old Tim Burke of Maamtrasna. They had 
 slipped homeward, by little-known tracks across the peat 
 hags ; and, 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
 
 190 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 they talked together spread the contagion. An hour after 
 Sir Donny had shpped away, the movement which might 
 have meant so much to so many was spent. The slopes 
 about Carraghalin 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. 
 
 Doubtless, in the minds of some, a secret thankfulness 
 that, after all, they were not required to take the leap, 
 relieved the disappointment. They were well out of an 
 ugly scrape. Well clear of the shadow of the gallows — 
 always supposing that no informer appeared. It might 
 even be the hand of Providence, that had removed their 
 leaders, and held them back. They might think them- 
 selves happy to be quit of it for the fright. 
 
 But there was one who found no such consolation; 
 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 cumbered 
 the hearth, and in a stupor of misery refused to be com- 
 forted. Of her plans, of her devotion, of her lofty resolves, 
 this was the result. She had aspired, honestly and earn- 
 estly, 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
 
 FEMINAFURENS 191 
 
 the provinces of Ireland, had come to an end, derisive and 
 contemptible, before it was born. Her spirit, fearing 
 before all things ridicule, dashed itself against the dreadful 
 fact. She could hardly believe that all was over. She 
 could hardly realize that the cup was no longer at her lip. 
 
 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. 
 
 "You must kill him!" she cried, with livid cheeks and 
 blazing eyes. "If you do not, I will!" 
 
 Uncle Ulick, who beyond doubt was one of those who 
 felt more relief than disappointment, stretched his legs 
 uneasily. He longed to comfort her, but he did not 
 know what to say. 
 
 "You must kill him!" she repeated. 
 
 "We '11 talk of that," he said, "when we see him." 
 
 "You must kill him!" the girl repeated passionately. 
 "Or I will! If you are a man, if you are an Irishman, if 
 you are a Sullivan, kill him, the shame of your race! Or 
 I will!" 
 
 "If he had been on our side," Uncle Ulick answered 
 soberly, "instead of against us, I 'm thinking we should 
 have done better." 
 
 The girl drew in her breath sharply, pierced to the 
 quick by the thought. Simultaneously the big man 
 started, but for another reason. His eyes were on the
 
 192 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 window, and they saw a sight which his mind declined 
 to beheve. Two men had entered the courtyard — had 
 entered with astonishing, with petrifying nonchalance, 
 as it seemed to him. For the first was Colonel 
 Sullivan. The second — but the second slunk at 
 the heels of the first with a hang-dog air — was James 
 McMurrough. 
 
 Fortunately Flavia, whose eyes were glooming on the 
 cold hearth, had her back to the casement. Uncle Ulick 
 rose. His thoughts came with a shock against the possi- 
 bility that Colonel John had the garrison of Tralee at his 
 back. But, although The McMurrough had all the 
 appearance of a prisoner, Ulick thrust away the notion as 
 soon as it occurred. To clear his mind, he looked to see 
 how the men engaged in getting out the powder were tak- 
 ing it. They had ceased to work, and were staring with 
 all their eyes. Something in their bearing told Uncle Ulick 
 that the notion which had occurred to him had occurred 
 to them, and that they were prepared to run at the least 
 alarm. 
 
 "His blood be on his own head!" he muttered. But 
 he did not say it in the tone of a man who meant it. 
 
 "Amen!" she cried. The words fell in with her 
 thoughts. 
 
 By this time Colonel Sullivan was within four paces of 
 the door. In a handturn he would be in the room, he 
 would be actually in the girl's presence — and Uncle Ulick 
 shrank from the scene which must follow. Colonel John 
 was, indeed, and plainly, running on his fate. Already
 
 F E M I N A F U R E N S 193 
 
 the O'Beirnes, awakening from their trance of astonish- 
 ment, were closing in behind him with grim faces; and 
 short of the garrison of Tralee the big man saw no help for 
 him; well-nigh — so strongly did even he feel on the 
 matter — he desired none. But Flavia must have no part 
 in it. Let the girl be clear of it! 
 
 The big man took two steps to the door, opened it, slipped 
 through, and closed it behind him. His breast as good as 
 touched that of Colonel Sullivan, who was on the thres- 
 hold. Behind the Colonel was James McMurrough; 
 behind James were the two O'Beirnes and two others, of 
 whose object, as they cut off the Colonel's retreat, no man 
 who saw their faces could doubt. 
 
 For once, in view of the worse things that might happen 
 in the house, Ulick was firm. "You can't come in!" he 
 said, his face pale and frowning. He had no word of 
 greeting for the Colonel. "You can't come in!" he 
 repeated, staring straight at him. 
 
 The Colonel turned and saw the four men with arms in 
 their hands spreading out behind him. He understood. 
 "You had better let me in," he said gently. "James 
 will talk to them." 
 
 "James " 
 
 "You had better speak to them," Colonel John 
 continued, addressing his companion. "And you, 
 Ulick " 
 
 "You can't come in," Ulick repeated grimly. 
 
 James McMurrough interposed in his harshest tone. 
 "An end to this!" he cried. "Who are you to bar the
 
 194 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 door, Ulick! And you, Phelim and Morty, be easy a 
 minute till you hear me speak." 
 
 Ulick still barred the way. "James," he said, in a 
 voice little above a whisper, "you don't know " 
 
 "I know enough!" The McMurrough answered 
 violently. It went sadly against the grain with him to 
 shield his enemy, but so it must be. " Curse you, let him 
 in!" he continued, fiercely; they were making his task 
 more hard for him. "And have a care of him," he added 
 anxiously. "Do you hear? Have a care of him!" 
 
 Uncle Ulick made a last feeble attempt. " But Flavia," 
 he said. "Flavia is there and " 
 
 "Curse the girl!" James answered. "Get out of the 
 road and let the man in! Is this my house or yours?" 
 
 Ulick yielded, as he had yielded so often before. He 
 stood aside. Colonel John opened the door and entered. 
 
 The rest happened so quickly that no movement on his 
 part could have saved him. Flavia had heard their voices 
 in altercation — it might be half a minute, it might be a 
 few seconds before. She had risen to her feet, she had 
 recognized the voice of one of the speakers — he had 
 spoken once only, but that was enough — she had snatched 
 up the naked sword that since the previous morning had 
 leaned in the chimney corner. As Colonel John crossed 
 the threshold — oh, dastardly audacity, oh, insolence 
 incredible, that in the hour of his triumph he should soil 
 that threshold ! — she lunged with all the force of her 
 strong young arm at his heart. 
 
 With such violence that the hilt struck his breast and
 
 <iffi 
 
 
 SHE LUNGED WITH ALL THE FORCE OF HER 
 STRONG YOUNG ARM "
 
 FEMINAFURENS 195 
 
 hurled him bodily against the doorpost, while the blade 
 broke off, shivered by contact with the hard wood. 
 
 Uncle Ulick uttered a cry of horror. "You have killed 
 him!" 
 
 "His blood " 
 
 She stopped on the word. For instead of falling Colonel 
 John was regaining his balance. "Flavia!" he cried — 
 the blade had passed through his coat, missing his breast 
 by a bare half-inch. "Flavia, hold! Listen! Listen a 
 moment!" 
 
 But in a frenzy of rage, as soon as she saw that her blow 
 had failed, she struck at him with the hilt and the ragged 
 blade that remained — struck at his face, struck at his 
 breast, with cries of fury almost animal. "Wretch! 
 wretch!" she cried — "die! If they are cowards, I am 
 not! Die!" 
 
 The scene was atrocious, and Uncle Ulick, staring open- 
 mouthed, gave no help. But Colonel Sullivan mastered 
 her wrists, though not until he had sustained a long bleed- 
 ing cut on the jaw. Even then, though fettered, and 
 though he had forced her to drop the weapon, she struggled 
 desperately with him — as she had struggled when he 
 carried her through the mist. "Kill him! kill him!" she 
 shrieked. "Help! help!" 
 
 The men would have killed him twice and thrice if The 
 McMurrough, with voice and blade and frantic impreca- 
 tions and the interposition of his own body, had not kept 
 the O'Beirnes and the others at bay — explaining, depre- 
 cating, praying, cursing, all in a breath. Twice a blow
 
 196 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 was struck at the Colonel through the doorway, but one 
 fell short and the other James McMurrough parried. For 
 a moment the peril was of the greatest: the girl's cries, 
 the sight of her struggling in Colonel John's grip, wrought 
 the men almost beyond James's holding. Then the 
 strength went out of her suddenly, she ceased to fight, and 
 but for Colonel Sullivan's grasp she would have fallen her 
 length on the floor. 
 
 He knew that she was harmless then, and he thrust 
 her into the nearest chair. He kicked the broken sword 
 under the table, stanched the blood that trickled fast 
 from his cheek; last of all, he looked at the men who were 
 contending with James in the doorway. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, breathing a little quickly, but 
 in no other way betraying the strait through which he had 
 passed, "I shall not run away. I shall be here to answer 
 you to-morrow, as fully as to-day. In the meantime I 
 beg to suggest" — again he raised the handkerchief to 
 his cheek and stanched the blood — " that you retire now, 
 and hear what The McMurrough has to say to you: the 
 more as the cases and the arms I see in the courtyard lie 
 obnoxious to discovery and expose all to risk while they 
 remain so." 
 
 His surprising coolness did more to check them than The 
 McMurrough's efforts. They gaped at him in wonder. 
 Then one uttered an imprecation. 
 
 " The McMurrough will explain if you will go with him," 
 Colonel John answered patiently. "I say again, gentle- 
 men, I shall not run away."
 
 FEMINAFURENS 197 
 
 "If you mean her any harm " 
 
 "I mean her no harm." 
 
 "Are you alone?" 
 
 "I am alone." 
 
 So far Morty. But Phelim O'Beirne was not quite 
 
 satisfied. "If a hair of her head be hurt " he 
 
 growled, pushing himself forward, "I tell you, sir " 
 
 "And I tell you!" James McMurrough retorted, repel- 
 ling him. " What are the hairs of her head to you, Phelim 
 O'Beirne ? Am I not him that 's her brother ? A truce 
 to your prating, curse you, and be coming with me. I 
 understand him, and that is enough! " 
 
 "But his reverence " 
 
 " His reverence is as safe as you or me! " James retorted. 
 " If it were not so, are you thinking I 'd be here ? Fie on 
 you!" he went on, pushing Phelim through the door; 
 "you are good at the talking now, when it 's little good 
 it will be doing. But where were you this morning when 
 a good blow might have saved all?" 
 
 "Could I be helping it, when ?" 
 
 The voices passed away, still wrangling across the court- 
 yard. Uncle Ulick stepped to the door and closed it. 
 Then he turned and spoke his mind. 
 
 "You were wrong to come back, John Sullivan," he 
 said, the hardness of his tone bearing witness to his horror 
 of what had happened. " It is no thanks to you that your 
 blood is not on the girl's hands, and the floor of your 
 grandfather's house! You 're a bold man, I allow. But 
 the fox made too free with the window at last, and, take my
 
 198 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 word for it, there are a score of men, whose hands are surer 
 than this child's, who will not rest till they have had your 
 life ! Be bid, and go, then. Be bid, and go while the breath 
 is firm in you!" 
 
 Colonel John did not speak for a moment, and when he 
 did answer, it was with a severity that overbore Ulick's 
 anger. "If the breath be firm in those whom you, Ulick 
 Sullivan," he said, "and your fellows would have duped, 
 it is enough for me! For myself, whom should I fear? 
 The plotters whose childish plans were not proof against 
 the simplest stratagem? The conspirators " ^ his tone 
 grew more cutting in its scorn — "who took it in hand to 
 pull down a throne and were routed by a sergeant's 
 guard ? The poor puppets who played at a game too high 
 for them, and danced to others' piping? Shall I fear 
 them," he continued, the tail of his eye on the girl, who, 
 sitting low in her chair, writhed involuntarily under his 
 words — "poor tools, poor creatures, only a little less 
 ignorant, only a little more guilty than the clods they would 
 have led to the crows or the hangman ? Is it these I am 
 to flee from ? Ulick Sullivan ! I am not the man to flee 
 from shadows!" 
 
 His tone, his manner, which were intended to open the 
 girl's eyes, but did in fact increase her resentment — hurt 
 even Uncle Ulick's pride. "Whisht, man," he said, 
 bitterly. " It 's plain you 're thinking you 're master 
 here!" 
 
 "I am," Colonel John replied sternly. "I am, and I 
 intend to be. Nor a day too soon! Where all are chil-
 
 FEMINAFURENS 199 
 
 dren, there is need of a master! And for my cousin, let her 
 hear the truth for once! Let her know what men who 
 have seen the world think of the visions, from which she 
 would have awakened in a dungeon, and her fellow-dupes 
 under the gibbet! A great rising for a great cause, if it 
 be real, man, if it be earnest, if it be based on forethought, 
 heaven knows I hold it a fine thing, and a high thing! 
 But the rising of a child with a bladder against an armed 
 man, a rising that can ruin but cannot help, I know not 
 whether to call it more silly or more wicked! Man, the 
 devil does his choicest work through fools, not rogues! 
 And, for certain, he never found fitter instruments than at 
 Morristown yesterday." 
 
 Uncle Ulick swore impatiently. "We may be fools," 
 be growled. "Yet spare the girl! Spare the girl!" 
 
 "What? Spare her the truth?" 
 
 "All! Everything!" Uncle Ulick cried, with unusual 
 heat. "Cannot you see that she at least meant well!" 
 
 "Such do the most ill," Colonel John retorted, with 
 sententious severity. "God forgive them — and her!" 
 He paused for a moment and then, in a lighter tone, he 
 continued, "As I do. Only there must be an end of this 
 foolishness. The two men who had reason in their wrong- 
 doing are beyond seas. The McMurrough is not so mad 
 as to act without them. He" — with a faint smile — "is 
 not implacable. You, Ulick, are not of the stuff of whom 
 martyrs are made. But the two young men outside" — 
 he paused as if he reflected — "they and three or four 
 others are — what my cousin now listening to me makes
 
 200 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 them. They are tow, if the flame be brought near them. 
 And therefore — and therefore," he repeated still more 
 slowly, "I have spoken the truth and plainly. To this 
 purpose, that there may be an end." 
 
 Flavia had sat at first with closed eyes, in a state next 
 door to collapse, her head inclined, her arms drooping, 
 as if at any moment she might sink to the floor. But in the 
 course of his speaking a change had come over her. The 
 last heavings of the storm, physical and mental, still shook 
 her. But the indomitable youth in her, and the spirit 
 which she had inherited from some dead forefather, were 
 not to be long gainsaid. Slowly, as she listened her colour 
 had returned, her face grown more firm, her form more 
 stiff. In truth Colonel John had adopted the wrong 
 course with her. He had been hard — knowing men 
 better than women — when he should have been mild; 
 he had browbeaten where he should have forgiven. And 
 so at his last declaration, "There must be an end," she 
 rose to her feet, and spoke. And speaking, she showed 
 that neither the failure of her attempt on him, nor the 
 bodily struggle with him, horribly as it humiliated her in 
 the remembrance, had quelled her courage. 
 
 "An end!" she said, in a voice vibrating with emotion. 
 "Yes, but it will be an end for you! Children, are we? 
 Better that than be so old before our time, so cold of heart 
 and cunning of head that there is naught real for us but 
 that we touch and see, nothing high for us but that our 
 words will be measuring, nothing worth risk but that we 
 are safe to gain! Children, are we?" she continued, with
 
 FEMINAFURENS 201 
 
 deep passion. " But at least we believe! At least we own 
 something higher than ourselves — a God, a Cause, a 
 Country ! At least we have not bartered all — all three 
 and honour for a pittance of pay, fighting alike for right or 
 wrong, betraying alike the right and wrong! Children? 
 May be! But, God be thanked, we are warm, the blood 
 runs in us " 
 
 "Flavia!" 
 
 "I say the blood runs in us!" she repeated. "And if 
 we are foolish, we are wiser yet than one" — she looked 
 at him with a strange steadfastness — "who in his wisdom 
 thinks that a traitor can walk our Irish soil unharmed, 
 or one go back and forth in safety who has ruined and 
 shamed us! You have escaped my hand! But I know 
 that all your boasted wisdom will not lengthen your life 
 till the moon wanes!" 
 
 He had tried to interrupt her once — eagerly, vividly, 
 as one who would defend himself. He answered her now 
 after another fashion: perhaps he had learned his lesson. 
 "If God wills," he said simply, "it will be as you say. 
 And the road will lie open to you. Only while I live, 
 Flavia, whether I love this Irish soil or not, or my country, 
 or my honour, the storm shall not break here, nor the house 
 fall from which we spring!" 
 
 "While you hve!" she repeated, with a dreadful smile. 
 "I tell you, I tell you," and she extended her hand toward 
 him, " the winding-sheet is high upon your breast, and the 
 salt dried that shall lie upon your heart."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE MARPLOT 
 
 IF, AFTER that, Colonel Sullivan's life had depended 
 on his courage or the vigilance of his servant, it is cer- 
 tain that Flavia's prophecy would have been quickly 
 fulfilled. The part which he had played in the events at 
 the Carraghalin was known to few; but the hundred 
 tongues of rumour were abroad, carrying as many versions, 
 and in all he was the marplot. His traffic with the Old 
 Fox had spirited away the holy father and swept off also, 
 probably on a broomstick, the doughty champion whose 
 sole desire it was to lead the hosts of Ireland to victory. 
 The logical consequence was certain. That the man 
 who had these things on his black heretic conscience should 
 continue to haunt the scene of his crimes and lord it over 
 those whom his misdeeds had sullied, was to the common 
 mind unthinkable. To every potato-setter who, out of 
 the corner of his eye, watched his passage, to every beggar 
 by the road, this was plain and known, and the man already 
 as the dead. If the cotters by the lakeside were not men 
 enough, was there not Roaring Andy's band in the hills, 
 who would cut any man's throat for a silver doubloon,, 
 and a heretic's for the "trate it would be, and sorra a bit 
 of pay at all, the good men!" 
 
 202
 
 THE MARPLOT 203 
 
 Beyond doubt the Colonel's nerve, which enabled him 
 to take his place as if nothing threatened him, went for 
 something; and for something the sinister prestige which 
 the disappearance of O'Sullivan Og and his whole party 
 cast about him. The means by which the two prisoners, 
 in face of odds so great, had destroyed their captors, were 
 still a secret; but the Irish are ever open to superstitious 
 beliefs, and the man who poured death as it were from a 
 horn, went his way shrouded in a gloomy fame that might 
 provoke the bold, but kept the timid at bay. 
 
 Before night it was known that the Colonel might be 
 shot from behind with a silver bullet; or stabbed, if a 
 man were bold enough, with a cross-handled knife, blessed 
 and sprinkled. But woe to him whose aim proved faulty 
 or his hand uncertain! 
 
 But this reputation alone, seeing that reckless spirits 
 were not wanting, would have availed him little if the pro- 
 tection of The McMurrough had not been cast over him. 
 Why it was cast over him men scarcely dared to guess. It 
 was a dark thing into which it were ill to peer too closely. 
 But the fact was certain that the anxiety of the young man 
 that the Colonel might meet with no hurt was plain and 
 notorious, a thing observed stealthily and with wonder. 
 
 Did Colonel John saunter across the court to look on the 
 lake ? The McMurrough was at his shoulder in a twink- 
 ling, and thence, with a haggard eye, searched the furze- 
 bush for the glint of a gun-barrel, and the angle of the wall 
 for a lurking foe. It was the same if the Colonel fared 
 as far as the ruined tower, or stretched his legs on the road
 
 204 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 by the shore. The McMurrough could not be too near 
 him, walked with his hand on his arm, cast from time to 
 time vigilant looks to the rear. A score of times between 
 rising and sleeping Colonel John smiled at the care that 
 forewent his steps and covered his retreat; nor perhaps 
 had the contempt in which he held James McMurrough 
 ever reached a higher pitch than while he thus stood from 
 hour to hour indebted to that young man for his life. 
 
 What Uncle Ulick, if he held the key to the matter, 
 thought of it, did not appear; nor was Colonel John 
 overcurious to know. But what Flavia thought of the 
 position was a point which aroused his most lively curi- 
 osity. He gave her credit for feelings so deep and for a 
 nature so downright, that time-serving or paltering were 
 the last faults he looked to find in her. He could hardly 
 believe that she would consent to sit at meat with him after 
 what had happened ; and possibly — for men are strange, 
 and the motives of the best are mixed — a desire to see 
 how she would bear herself in the circumstances had 
 something to do with the course he was taking. 
 
 That she consented to the plan was soon made clear. 
 She even took part in it. James could not be always at 
 his elbow. The young man must sometimes retire. 
 When this happened, the girl took her brother's place, 
 stooped to dog the Colonel's footsteps, and for a day or 
 two cast the mantle of her presence over the man she 
 hated. 
 
 But stoop as she might, she never for a moment stooped 
 to mask her hate. In her incomings and her outgoings,
 
 THE MARPLOT 205 
 
 in her risings-up and at table with him, every movement 
 of her body, the carriage of her head, the glance of her eye, 
 showed that she despised him; that she who now suffered 
 him was the same woman who had struck at his life, and, 
 failing, repented only the failure. 
 
 For her brother's sake she was willing to do this, though 
 she abhorred it; and though every time that she broke 
 bread with the intruder, met his eyes, or breathed the air 
 that he breathed, she told herself that it was intolerable, 
 that it must end. 
 
 Once or twice, feeling the humiliation more than she 
 could bear, she declared to her brother that the man must 
 go. "Let him go!" she cried, in uncontrollable excite- 
 ment. "Let him go!" 
 
 "But he will not be going, Flawy." 
 
 "He must go!" she replied. 
 
 "And Morristown his?" James would answer. "Ye 
 are forgetting! Over and above that, he 's not one to do 
 my bidding, nor yours ! " 
 
 That was true. Pie would not go; he persisted in 
 remaining and being master. But it was not there the 
 difficulty lay. If he had not made a will before he came, 
 a will that doubtless set the property of the family forever 
 beyond James's reach, the thing had been simple and 
 Colonel John's shrift had been short. But now, to rid the 
 earth of him was to place the power in the hands of a 
 stranger, an alien, for whom the ties of family and honour 
 would have no stringency. True, the law was weak in 
 Kerry. A writ was one thing, and possession another
 
 206 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 A bold man might keep the forces of law at bay for a time ; 
 but James McMurrough, notwithstanding the folly into 
 which he had been led, was no desperado. He had no 
 desire to live with a rope round his neck, to flee to the 
 bog on the least alarm, and, in the issue, to give his name 
 to an Irish Glencoe. 
 
 A position it had been hard to conceive more humiliat- 
 ing to a proud and untamed spirit such as Flavia's. The 
 McMurrough found little difficulty in subduing his temper 
 to his interests, though now and again his churlishness 
 broke out. For Uncle Ulick, his habit was to be easy and 
 to bid others be easy; the dawn and dark of a day recon- 
 ciled him to most things. The O'Beirnes, sullen and 
 distrustful, were still glad to escape present peril. Look- 
 ing for a better time to come, they helped to shield the 
 common enemy, supposed it policy, and felt no shame. 
 Flavia alone, in presence of the man who had announced 
 that he meant to be master, writhed in helpless revolt, 
 swore that he should never be her master, swore that who- 
 ever bowed her head she never would. 
 
 And Colonel Sullivan, seated, apparently at his ease, on 
 the steep lap of danger, found his thoughts dwelling on the 
 one untamable person, on the one enemy who would not 
 stoop, and whose submission seemed valuable. The 
 others took up the positions he assigned to them, gave 
 him lip-service, pretended that they were as they had been 
 and he as he had been. She did not; she would not. 
 
 Presently he discovered with surprise that her attitude 
 rendered him unhappy. Secure in his sense of right, cer-
 
 THE MARPLOT 207 
 
 tain that he was acting for the best, he should have been 
 indifferent. But he was not indifferent. 
 
 Meantime, she beheved that there was no length to 
 which she would not go against him; she fancied that there 
 was no weapon which she would not stoop to pick up if it 
 would hurt him. And presently she was tried. A week 
 had passed since the great fiasco. Again it was the eve of 
 Sunday, and in the usual course of things a priest would 
 appear to celebrate mass on the following day. This risk 
 James was now unwilling to run. His fears painted that 
 as dangerous which had been done safely Sunday by Sun- 
 day for years; and in a hang-dog, hesitating way, he let 
 Flavia know his doubts. 
 
 "Devil take me if I think he '11 suffer it!" he said, kick- 
 ing up the turf with his toe. They were standing together 
 by the waterside, Flavia rebelling against the consciousness 
 that it was only outside their own walls that they could talk 
 freely. "May be," he continued, "it will be best to let 
 Father O'Hara know — to let be for a week or two." 
 
 The girl turned upon him, in passionate reprehension. 
 "Why?" she cried, "Why?" 
 
 " Why, is it you 're asking ? " James answered sullenly. 
 "Well, isn't he master for the time, bad luck to him! 
 And if he thinks we 're beginning to draw the boys together 
 he '11 may be put his foot down! And I 'd rather be stop- 
 ping it myself, just for a week or two, Flawy, than be 
 bidden by him." 
 
 "Never!" she cried. 
 
 "But "
 
 208 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Never! Never! Never!" she repeated, firmly. "Let 
 us turn our back on our King by all means! But on our 
 God, no! Let him do his worst!" 
 
 He was ashamed to persist, and he took another line. 
 "I 'm thinking of O'Hara," he said. "It '11 be four walls 
 for him, or worse, if he 's taken." 
 
 "There 's no one will be taking him," she answered 
 steadfastly. 
 
 "But if he is?" 
 
 "I 'm saying there 's no one will be taking him." 
 
 James felt himself repulsed. He shrugged his shoulders 
 and was silent. Presently, "Flawy," he said in a low 
 tone, "I 've a notion, my girl. And it '11 serve, I 'm think- 
 ing. This can't be lasting." 
 
 She looked at him without much hope. 
 
 "Well?" she said coldly. She had begun to find him 
 out. 
 
 He looked at her cunningly. "We might put the boot 
 on the other leg," he said. "He 's for informing. But 
 what if we inform, my girl ? It 's the first in the field that 's 
 believed. He 's his tale of the Spanish ship, and you know 
 who. But what if we tell it first, and say that he came 
 with them and stayed behind to get us to move ? Who 's 
 to say he did n't land from the Spaniard, if we 're all in a 
 tale ? And faith, he 's no friend here nor one that will 
 open his mouth for him. A word at Tralee will do it 
 and Luke Asgill has friends there that will be glad to set 
 the ball rolling at his bidding. Once clapped up John 
 Sullivan may squeal, he '11 not be the one to be believed,
 
 THE MARPLOT 209 
 
 but those that put him there. It '11 be no more than to 
 swear an information, and Luke Asgill will do the rest." 
 
 Flavia shuddered. "They won't take his life?" she 
 asked. 
 
 James. frowned. "That would not suit us at all," he 
 said. "Not at all! We could do that for ourselves. 
 Faith," with a sudden laugh, "you did n't lack much of 
 doing it, Flawy! No; but a stone box and a ring round 
 his leg, and four walls to talk to — until such time as we 
 have a use for him, would be mighty convenient for every- 
 body. He 'd have leisure to think of his dear relations, and 
 of the neat way he outwitted them, the clever devil! But 
 for taking his life — I 'm seeing my way there too," with 
 a grin — "it was naming his dear relations made me think 
 of it. They 'd not bear to be informing without surety 
 for his life, to be sure! No! " with a chuckle. "And very 
 creditable to them!" 
 
 Flavia stared across the water. She was very pale. 
 
 "We '11 be wanting one or two to swear to it," he con- 
 tinued, " and the rest to be silent. Sorra a bit of difficulty 
 will there be about it!" 
 
 " But if," she said slowly, " he gets the first word ? And 
 tells the truth?" 
 
 "The truth?" James McMurrough replied scornfully. 
 "The truth is what we '11 make it! I '11 see to that, my 
 jewel." 
 
 She shivered. " Still," she said, " it will not be truth." 
 
 "What matter?" James answered. "It will cook his 
 goose. Curse him," he continued with violence, "what
 
 210 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 right had he to come here and thrust himself into other 
 folks' affairs?" 
 
 "I could have killed him," she said. "But " 
 
 " But you can't," he rejoined. " And you know why." 
 
 "But this" — she continued with a shudder, "this is 
 different." 
 
 " What will you be after ? " he cried impatiently. " You 
 are not turning sheep-hearted at this time of day?" 
 
 "I am not sheep-hearted." 
 
 "What is it then, my girl?" 
 
 "I can't do this," she said. She was still very pale. 
 Something had touched her, that had never approached her 
 so nearly before. 
 
 He stared at her. "But he '11 have his life," he said. 
 
 "It 's not that," she answered slowly. "It *s the way. 
 I can't!" she repeated. "I've tried, and I can't! It 
 sickens me." 
 
 "And he 's to do what he likes with us ? " James cried. 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 "And we 're not to touch him without our gloves?" 
 
 She did not answer, and twice her brother repeated the 
 taunt. At last, "It's too vile!" she cried passionately. 
 " It 's too horrible ! It 's to sink to what he is, and worse ! " 
 Her voice trembled with the intensity of her feelings — 
 "Worse!" she repeated. 
 
 To relieve his feelings, perhaps to hide his shame, he 
 cursed his enemy anew. And "I wish I had never told 
 you!" he added bitterly. 
 
 " It 's too late now," she replied.
 
 THE MARPLOT 211 
 
 " Asgill could have managed it, and no one the wiser." 
 
 "I believe you!" she repHed quickly. "But not you! 
 Don't do it, James," she repeated, laying her hand on his 
 arm and speaking with sudden heat. "Don't you do it! 
 Don't!" 
 
 "And we 're to let the worst happen," he retorted, "and 
 O'Hara perhaps be seized " 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 "That 's rubbish! And this man be seized, and that 
 man, as he pleases! We 're to let him rule over us, and 
 we 're to be good boys whatever happens, and serve King 
 George and turn Protestants, every man of us!" 
 
 " God forbid!" she repeated strenuously. 
 
 "As well turn," he retorted, if we are to live slaves all 
 our days ! Cammock was right when he said that he would 
 let no woman knit a halter for his throat!" 
 
 She did not ask him who had been the life and soul of the 
 movement, whose enthusiasm had set it going, and whose 
 steadfastness maintained it. She did not tell him that the 
 issue was a hundred times more grievous to her than to him. 
 Her eyes were beginning to be opened to his failings; but 
 the habit of giving way to him was still strong; and when, 
 with another volley of harsh, contemptuous words, he 
 flung away from her, though her last interjection was a 
 prayer to him to refrain, she blamed herself rather than 
 him. 
 
 Now that she was alone, too, the priest's safety weighed 
 on her mind. If Colonel John betrayed him, she would 
 never forgive herself. Certainly it was unlikely he would;
 
 212 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 for in that part priests moved freely, the authorities winked 
 at their presence, and it was only within sight of the walls 
 of Tralee or of Galway that the law which proscribed them 
 was enforced. But her experience of Colonel Sullivan — 
 of his activity, his determination, his adroitness — made 
 all things seem possible. He had been firm as fate in the 
 removal of the Bishop and Cammock; he had been turned 
 no jot from his purpose by her prayers, her rage, her 
 ineffectual struggles — she sickened at the remembrance 
 of that moment. He was capable of everything, and if he 
 thought fit — but at that point her eyes alighted on a man 
 who was approaching along the lake-road. It was Father 
 O'Hara himself. The priest was advancing as calmly 
 and openly as if no law made his presence a felony, or as 
 if no Protestant breathed the soft Irish air for a dozen 
 leagues about. 
 
 Her brother's words had shaken Flavia's nerves. She 
 was courageous, but she was a woman. She flew to meet 
 the priest, and with every step his peril loomed larger before 
 her fluttered spirits. The wretch had said that he would be 
 master, and a master who was a Protestant, a fanatic 
 
 She did not follow the thought to its conclusion. She 
 waved a warning even before she reached the father. 
 When she did, "Father!" she cried eagerly, "you must 
 get away, and come back after dark!" 
 
 The good man's jaw fell. He had been looking forward 
 to good cheer and a good bed, to a rare oasis of comfort 
 in his squalid life. He cast a wary look round him. 
 "What has happened, my daughter?" he asked.
 
 THE MARPLOT 213 
 
 "Colonel Sullivan!" Flavia gasped. "He is here and 
 he will certainly give you up." 
 
 "Colonel Sullivan?" 
 
 "Yes. You were at the Carraghalin? You have 
 heard what happened! He will surely give you up!" 
 
 "Are the soldiers here?" the priest asked, with a 
 blanched face. 
 
 "No, but he is here! He is in the house, and may come 
 out at any moment," Flavia explained. "Don't you 
 understand?" 
 
 "Did he tell you " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That he would inform?" 
 
 "No!" Flavia replied, thinking the man very dull. 
 "But you wouldn't trust him?" 
 
 The priest looked round to assure himself that the 
 landscape held no overt signs of danger. Then he brought 
 back his eyes to the girl's face, and he stroked his thin, 
 brown cheek reflectively. He recalled the scene in the 
 bog, Colonel John's courage, and his thought for his ser- 
 vant. And at last, "I am not thinking." he said coolly, 
 " that he will betray me. I am sure — I think I am 
 sure," he continued, correcting himself, " that he will not. 
 He is a heretic, but he is a good man." 
 
 Flavia's cheek flamed. She started back. "A good 
 man!" she cried in a voice audible half a hundred yards 
 away. 
 
 Father O'Hara looked a little ashamed of himself; but 
 he stood by his guns. "A heretic, of course," he said.
 
 214 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " But, I 'm thinking, a good man. At any rate, I 'm not 
 believing that he will inform against me." 
 
 As quickly as it had come, the colour fled from Flavia's 
 face, and left it cold and hard. She looked at the priest 
 as she had never looked at a priest of her Church before. 
 "You must take your own course, then," she said. And 
 with a gesture which he did not understand she turned 
 from him, and leaving him, puzzled and disconcerted, she 
 went away into the house. 
 
 A good man! Heaven and earth and the sea besides! 
 A good man! Father O'Hara was a fool I
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE LIMIT 
 
 IF THERE was one man more sorry than another 
 that the Morristown rising had been nipped in the 
 bud it was Luke Asgill. He had honestly tried to 
 turn James McMurrough from the attempt, though he 
 had seen that the faihire of the plot would provide his one 
 best chance of winning Flavia. A score of times he had 
 pictured, with rapture, the inevitable collapse. In visions 
 he had seen the girl turn to him in the wreck of things — 
 it might be to save her brother's life, it might be to save her 
 tender feet from the stones of foreign streets. And in the 
 same dream he had seen himself standing by her, alone 
 against the world; as, to do him justice, he would have 
 stood, no matter how sharp the stress or great the cost. 
 
 Keen therefore was his chagrin when, through the 
 underground channels which were in his power, he heard 
 two days after the event, and in distant Tralee, what had 
 happened. In a moment, not only was the opportunity 
 to which he looked forward vanished below the horizon, 
 but news still less welcome was whispered in his ear. The 
 man whom he had distrusted from the first had done this. 
 More, the man was still at Morristown, if not honoured, 
 protected, and if not openly triumphant, master in fact. 
 
 215
 
 216 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Luke Asgill swore horribly. Colonel Sullivan had got 
 the better of him once but he was not to be duped again. 
 He examined the matter on many sides before he took 
 horse to see things with his own eyes. Nor did he alight 
 at Morristown until he had made many a resolution to be 
 on his guard. 
 
 He had reason to call these to mind before his foot was 
 well out of the stirrup, for the first person he saw, after he 
 had bidden his groom take the horses to the stable, was 
 Colonel Sullivan. Asgill had time to scan his face before 
 they met in the courtyard, and he judged that Colonel 
 John's triumph did not go very deep. He was looking 
 graver, sadder, older, finally — this he saw as they saluted 
 one another — sterner. 
 
 Asgill stepped aside courteously, meaning to go by him. 
 But the Colonel stepped aside also, and so barred his way. 
 " Mr. Asgill," he said — and there was something of the 
 martinet in his tone — "I will trouble you to give me a 
 word apart." 
 
 "A word apart?" Asgill answered. He was taken 
 aback, and do what he could the Colonel's grave eyes 
 discomposed him. " With all the pleasure in life. Colonel. 
 But a little later, by your leave." 
 
 "I think now were more convenient, sir," the Colonel 
 answered, "by your leave." 
 
 "I will lay my cloak in the house, and then " 
 
 "It will be more convenient to keep your cloak, I 'm 
 thinking," the Colonel rejoined with dryness. And either 
 because of the meaning in his voice or the command in his
 
 THE LIMIT 217 
 
 eyes, Asgill gave way and the two walked gravely and step 
 for step through the gateway. 
 
 Outside the Colonel beckoned to a ragged urchin who 
 was playing ducks and drakes with his naked toes. "Go, 
 after Mr. Asgill's horses," he said, "and bid the man 
 bring them back.' 
 
 "Colonel Sullivan!" 
 
 The Colonel did not heed his remonstrance. "And 
 follow us !" he continued. " Are you hearing, boy ? Go, 
 then." 
 
 " Colonel Sullivan," Asgill repeated, his face both darker 
 and paler — for there could be no doubt about the other's 
 meaning — " I 'm thinking this is a strange liberty you 're 
 taking. And I beg to say I don't understand the meaning 
 of it." 
 
 "You wish to know the meaning of it?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "It means, sir," Colonel John replied, "that the sooner 
 you start on your return journey the better!" 
 
 Asgill stared. "The better you will be pleased, you 
 mean!" he said. And he laughed harshly. 
 
 "The better it will be for you, I mean," Colonel John 
 answered. 
 
 Asgill flushed darkly, but he commanded himself. 
 
 "This is an odd tone," he said. "I must ask you to 
 explain yourself further. I am here upon the invitation of 
 my friend. The McMurrough " 
 
 "This is not his house." 
 
 Asgill stared. " Do you mean "
 
 218 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "I mean what I say," the Colonel answered. "This is 
 not his house, as you well know." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " It is mine, and I do not propose to entertain you, Mr. 
 Asgill," Colonel John continued. "Is that sufficiently 
 plain?" 
 
 The glove was down. The two men looked at each 
 other. Asgill was at a disadvantage. He did not know 
 precisely how things stood. Yet if the tall, lean man, 
 serious and growing gray, represented one form of strength, 
 the shorter, stouter man, with the mobile face and the quick 
 brain, stood for another. Offhand he could think of no 
 weak spot on his side; and if he must fight, he would fight. 
 
 He forced a laugh. 
 
 "More plain than hospitable. Colonel," he said. "Per- 
 haps, after all, it will be best so, and we shall understand 
 one another." 
 
 " I am thinking so," Colonel Sullivan answered. It was 
 plain that he did not mean to be drawn from the position 
 he had taken up. 
 
 "Only I think that you have overlooked this," Asgill 
 continued smoothly. "It is one thing to own a house 
 and another to kick the logs on the hearth; one thing to 
 have the deeds and another — in the west — to pass the 
 punch-bowl! More, by token, 'tis a hospitable country 
 this, Colonel and if there is one thing would annoy The 
 McMurrough and the young lady, his sister, more than 
 another, it would be to turn a guest from the door — that 
 is thought to be theirs!"
 
 THELIMIT 219 
 
 "You mean that you will not take my bidding?" the 
 Colonel said. 
 
 "Not the least taste in life," Asgill answered gaily, 
 "unless it is backed by the gentleman or the lady." 
 
 "Yet I believe, sir, that I have a means to persuade you," 
 Colonel John replied. "It is no more than a week ago, 
 Mr. Asgill, since a number of persons in my presence 
 assumed a badge so notoriously treasonable that a child 
 could not doubt its meaning." 
 
 "In the west of Ireland," Asgill said, with a twinkle in 
 his eye, " that is a trifle, my dear sir, not worth naming." 
 
 "But if reported in the east?" 
 
 Asgill averted his face that its smile might not be seen. 
 "Well," he said, "it might be a serious matter there." 
 
 "I think you take me now," Colonel John rejoined. "I 
 wish to use no threats. The least said the soonest 
 mended." 
 
 Asgill looked at him with the amusement of a man 
 watching the transparent scheming of a child, "As you 
 say, the least said the soonest mended," he rejoined. "So 
 — who is to report it in the east?" 
 
 "I will, if necessary." 
 
 "If " 
 
 "If you push me to it." 
 
 Asgill raised his eyebrows impertinently. "An 
 informer?" he said. 
 
 Colonel John did not flinch. "If necessary," he 
 repeated. 
 
 "That would be serious," Asgill rejoined, "for many
 
 220 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 people. In the first place for the young lady, your war^, 
 Colonel. Then for your kinsman — and Mr. Ulick 
 Sullivan. After that for quite a number of honest gentle- 
 men, whose only fault is a tendency to heroics after dinner. 
 It would be so serious, and for so many, Colonel, that for 
 my part I should be glad to suffer in such good company. 
 Particularly," he continued, with a droll look, the droller 
 for his appreciation of the Colonel's face of discomfiture, 
 "as being a Protestant and a justice, I should, ten to one, 
 be the only person against whom the story would not pass. 
 So that, ten to one, I should go free, and the others go to 
 Geordie's prison!" 
 
 Colonel John was fairly defeated, his flank turned, his 
 guns captured. He had counted so surely on the man 
 whom he knew to be a knave proving also a coward, that 
 even his anger could not hide his discomfiture. He looked, 
 indeed, so rueful, and at the same time so wrathful, that 
 Asgill laughed aloud. 
 
 "Come, Colonel," he said, "it is no use to scowl at me. 
 We know you never call any one out. Let me just hint 
 that wits in Ireland are not quite so slow as in colder 
 countries, and that, had I been here a week back, you had 
 not found it so easy to " 
 
 "To what, sir?" 
 
 "To send two old women to sea in a cockboat," Asgill 
 replied. And he laughed anew and loudly. But this time 
 there was no gaiety in his laugh. If the Colonel had not 
 performed the feat in question, in how different a state 
 things might have been at this moment! Asgill felt mur-
 
 THELIMIT 221 
 
 derous toward him as he thought of that; and the weapon 
 of the flesh being out of the question — for he had no mind 
 to face the Colonel's small-sword — he sought about for 
 an arm of another kind. " More by token," he continued; 
 " if you are going to turn informer, it was a pity you did 
 not send the young woman to sea with the old ones. But 
 I 'm thinking jou 'd not be liking to be without her, 
 Colonel?" 
 
 Colonel John turned surprisingly red. "We will 
 leave her out of the question, sir," he said haughtily. 
 "Or — that reminds me," he continued, with increas- 
 ing sternness. "You question my right to bid you 
 begone " 
 
 "I dol" Asgill cried, with zest. He was beginning to 
 enjoy himself. 
 
 "But you forget, I think, another little matter in the 
 past that is known to me — and that you would not like 
 disclosed, I believe, sir." 
 
 " You seem to have been raking things up, Colonel." 
 
 " One must deal with a rogue according to his roguery," 
 Colonel John retorted. 
 
 Asgill's face grew dark. He made a movement, but 
 restrained himself. "You don't mince matters," he said. 
 
 "I do not." 
 
 "You may be finding it an unfortunate policy before 
 long," Asgill said between his teeth. He was moved 
 at last, angered, perhaps apprehensive of what was 
 coming. 
 
 "Maybe, sir," Colonel John returned, "maybe. But
 
 222 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 in the meantime let me remind you that your tricks as a 
 horsedealer would not go far to recommend you as a guest 
 to my kinswoman." 
 
 "Oh?" 
 
 " Wlio shall assuredly hear who seized her mare if you 
 persist in forcing your company upon her." 
 
 "Upon her?" Asgill repeated, in a peculiar tone. "I 
 see." 
 
 Colonel John reddened. "You know now," he said. 
 "And if you persist " 
 
 "You will tell her," Asgill took him up, "that I — shall 
 I say — abducted her mare ? " 
 
 "I shall tell her without hesitation." 
 
 "Or scruple?" 
 
 Colonel Sullivan glowered at him, but did not answer. 
 
 Asgill laughed a laugh of honest contempt. "And 
 she," he said, "will not believe you if you swear it a score 
 of times! Try, sir! You will injure yourself, you will not 
 injure me. Why, man," he continued, in a tone of 
 unmeasured scorn, "you are duller than I thought you 
 were! The ice is still in your wits, and the fog in your 
 brain. I thought, when I heard what you had done, that 
 you were the man for Kerry! But " 
 
 "What is it? What's this?" 
 
 The speaker was James McMurrough. He had 
 approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that 
 what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill 
 supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his 
 enemy, and he appealed to him.
 
 THE LIMIT 223 
 
 " What is it ? " he answered with energy ; " I '11 tell you ! " 
 "Then you '11 be telling me indoors!" James answered 
 curtly. 
 
 "No!" said Colonel Sullivan. 
 
 But at that the young man exploded. " No ? " he cried. 
 "No? And, why no? Confusion, sir, it's too far you 
 are driving us," he continued passionately. " Is it at your 
 bidding I must stand in a mob of beggars at my own gate — 
 I, The McMurrough ? And be telling and taking for all 
 the gossoons in the country to hear ? No ? But it 's 
 yes, I say! There's bounds to it all, and if you 
 must be falling to words with my friends, quarrel 
 like gentlemen within doors, and not in a parcel of 
 loons at the gate." 
 
 He turned without waiting for a reply and strode into 
 the courtyard. Colonel John hesitated a moment, then he 
 stood aside, and, with a stern face, he invited Asgill to 
 precede him. The justice did so, smiling. He had won 
 the first bout; and now, if he was not much mistaken, his 
 opponent had made a false move. 
 
 That opponent, following with a sombre face, began to 
 be of the same opinion. In his simplicity he had supposed 
 that it would be easy to bell the cat. But the cat had teeth, 
 and claws, and the cunning of a cat, and was not, it now 
 appeared, an animal easy to bell. 
 
 They passed into the house. There were two or three 
 buckeens in the hall, and Darby and one of the down-at- 
 heel serving-boys were laying the evening meal. "You 'II 
 be getting out," James said curtly.
 
 224 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "We will," replied one of the men. And they trooped 
 out at the back. 
 
 "Now, what is it ?" The McMurroiigh asked, turning on 
 his followers and speaking in a tone hardly more civil. 
 
 "It 's what you 're saying — Get out! " Asgill answered 
 smiling. "Only it 's the Colonel here 's for saying it, and 
 it seems I 'm the one to get out," 
 
 "What do you mean?" James growled, "Sorra bit of 
 your fun am I wishing at this present!" He wanted no 
 trouble, and he saw that here was trouble. 
 
 "I can tell you in a few words," Colonel Sullivan 
 answered. "You know on what terms we are here. I 
 wish to do nothing uncivil, and I was looking for this 
 gentleman to take a hint and go quietly. He will not, it 
 seems, and so I must say plainly what I mean. I object to 
 his presence here." 
 
 James stared. He did not understand, "Why, man, 
 he 's no Jacobite ! " he cried. His surprise was genuine. 
 
 " I will say nothing as to that," Colonel John answered 
 precisely. 
 
 "Then, faith, what are you saying?" James asked, 
 Asgill stood by smiling, aware that silence would best 
 fight his battle. 
 
 "This," Colonel John returned. "That I know those 
 things of him that make him unfit company here." 
 
 "The deuce you do!" 
 
 "And " 
 
 But James's patience was at an end, "Unfit company 
 for whom ?" he cried, "Eh! Is it Darby he '11 be spoil-
 
 THE LIMIT 225 
 
 ing ? Or Thaddy the lad ? Or" — resentment gradually 
 overcoming irony — " is it Phelim or Morty he '11 be taint- 
 ing the souls of, and he a Protestant, like yourself? 
 Colonel Sullivan, it 's clean out of patience you put me! 
 Are we boys at school, to be scolded and flouted and put 
 right by you? Unfit company? For whom? For 
 whom, sir?" 
 
 "For your sister," Colonel John replied. "Without 
 saying more, Mr. Asgill is not of the class with whom your 
 grandfather " 
 
 "My grandfather — be hanged!" cried the angry 
 young man. "You said you'd be master here, and 
 faith," he continued with bitterness, "it's master you 
 mean to be. But there 's a limit! By heaven, there 's 
 a limit " 
 
 "Yes, James, there is a limit!" a voice struck in — a 
 voice as angry as The McMurrough's, but vibrating to 
 a purer note of passion; so that the indignation which it 
 expressed seemed to raise the opposition to Colonel John's 
 action to a higher plane. "There is a limit. Colonel 
 Sullivan!" Flavia repeated, stepping from the foot of the 
 stairs, on the upper flight of which — drawn from her room 
 by the first outburst — she had heard the whole. " And 
 it has been reached ! When the head of The McMurroughs 
 of Morristown is told on his own hearth whom he shall 
 receive and whom he shall put to the door! Limit is it? 
 Let me tell you, sir, I would rather be the poorest exile than 
 live thus. I would rather beg my bread barefoot among 
 strangers, never to see the sod again, never to hear the
 
 226 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 friendly Irish tongue, never to smell the peat reek, than 
 live on this tenure, at the mercy of a hand I loathe, on the 
 sufferance of a man I despise, of an informer, a traitor, ay, 
 an apostate " 
 
 ''Flavia! Flavia!" Colonel John's remonstrance was 
 full of pain. 
 
 "All, don't call me that!" she rejoined passionately. 
 "Don't make me hate my own name! Better a hundred 
 times an open foe " 
 
 "Have I ever been anything but an open foe?" he 
 returned. 
 
 She swept the remonstrance by. "Better," she cried, 
 vehemently, "far better a fate we know, a lot we under- 
 stand; far better freedom and poverty, than to live thus — 
 yesterday a laughing-stock, to-day slaves; yesterday false 
 to our vows, to-day false to our friends! Oh, there must 
 be an end! There " 
 
 She choked on the word, and her distress moved Asgill 
 to do a strange thing. He had listened to her with an 
 admiration that for the time purified the man. Now he 
 stepped forward. "I would rather never cross this thres- 
 hold again," he cried; "never, ay, believe me, I would 
 rather never see you again, than give you this pain! I 
 go, dear lady, I go! And do not let one thought of me 
 trouble or distress you! Let this gentleman have his way. 
 I do not ask to understand how he holds you, but I shall 
 be silent." 
 
 He seemed to the onlookers as much raised above him- 
 self as Colonel John seemed depressed below himself.
 
 THE LIMIT 227 
 
 There could be no doubt with whom the victory lay : with 
 whom the magnanimity. 
 
 But as Asgill turned on his heel Flavia found her voice. 
 "Do not go!" she cried impulsively. "There must be an 
 end of this!" 
 
 But Asgill insisted. He saw that to go was to com- 
 mend himself to her a hundred times more seriously than 
 if he stayed, "No," he said; "permit me to go." He 
 stepped forward and, with a grace borrowed for the 
 occasion, and with lips that trembled at his daring, 
 he raised and kissed her hand. "Permit me to go, 
 dear lady. 1 would rather banish myself a hundred 
 times than bring ill into this house or differences into 
 this family." 
 
 "Flavia!" Colonel Sullivan said, finding his voice at 
 last, "hear first, I am begging you, what I have to say! 
 Hear it, since against my will the matter has been brought 
 to your knowledge." 
 
 "That last I can believe!" she cried, spitefully. "But 
 for hearing, I choose the part this gentleman has chosen — 
 to go from your presence. What ? " looking at the Colonel 
 with white cheeks and flaming eyes "has it come to this? 
 That we must seek your leave to live, to breathe, to have 
 a guest, to eat and sleep, and perhaps to die ? Then I 
 say — then I say, if this be so, we have no choice but to go. 
 This is no place for us!" 
 
 "Flavia!" 
 
 "Ah, do not call me that!" she retorted. "My hope, 
 joy, honour, are in this house, and you have disgraced it!
 
 228 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 My brother is a McMurrough, and what have you made of 
 him? He cowers before your eye! He has no will but 
 yours! You flog us like children, but you forget that we 
 are grown, and that it is more than the body that smarts. 
 It is shame we feel — shame so bitter that if a look could 
 lay you dead at my feet, though it cost us all, though it left 
 us beggared, I would look it joyfully — were I alone! 
 But you, a schemer living on our impotence, walk on and 
 trample upon us " 
 
 "Enough," Colonel Sullivan cried, intolerable pain in 
 his voice. "You win! You have a heart harder than the 
 millstone, more set than ice! I call you to witness I have 
 struggled hard " 
 
 "For the mastery," she cried venomously. "And for 
 your master, the devil!" 
 
 "No," he replied, more quietly. " I think for God. If 
 I was wrong, may he forgive me ! " 
 
 "I never will!" she protested. 
 
 " I shall not ask for your forgiveness," he retorted. He 
 looked at her silently, and then, in an altered tone, "the 
 more," he said, "as my mind is changed again. A minute 
 ago I was weak; now I am strong, and I will do my duty 
 as I have set myself to do it. When I came here I came to 
 be a peacemaker, I came to save the great from his folly, 
 and the poor from his ignorance, to shield the house of my 
 fathers from ruin and my kin from the jail and the gibbet. 
 And I stand here still, and I shall persist — I shall persist." 
 
 "You will?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "I shall! I shall remain and persist."
 
 THELIMIT 229 
 
 Passion choked her. She could not find words. After 
 all she had said he would persist. He would still trample 
 upon them, still be master. They were to have no life, 
 no will, no freedom — while he lived. Ah, while he lived. 
 She made an odd gesture with her hands, and turned and 
 went up the stairs. The worse for him!
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 
 
 LUKE ASGILL rode slowly from the gates. The 
 McMiirrough walked by his stirrup, talking 
 ■ rapidly — he, too, with furtive backward glances. 
 In five minutes he had explained the situation and the 
 Colonel's vantage ground. At the end of those minutes, 
 "I see," Asgill said, thoughtfully. "Easy to put him 
 under the sod! But you're thinking him worse dead 
 than alive." 
 
 "Sorraadoubtof it!" 
 
 "Yet the bogs are deep," Asgill returned, his tone smack- 
 ing faintly of raillery. "You might deal with him first 
 and his heir when the time came. Why not ? " 
 
 "God knows!" James answered. "And I 've no taste 
 to make the trial." Then he spoke of the will. 
 
 Asffill looked for some moments between his horse's 
 ears, flicking his foot the while with his switch. When 
 he spoke he proved in three or four sentences that if his 
 will was the stronger, his cunning was also the more subtle. 
 
 " A will is revocable," he said. " Eh ? " 
 
 "It is." 
 
 " And the man that 's made one may make another ? " 
 
 "Who's doubting it?" 
 
 230
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 231 
 
 "But you're doubting," Asgill rejoined — and he 
 laughed as he spoke — "that it would not be in your 
 favour, my lad." 
 
 "Never a bit do I doubt it!" James said. 
 
 "No, but in a minute you will," Asgill answered. And 
 stooping from his saddle, he talked for some minutes in a 
 low tone. When he raised his head again he clapped The 
 McMurrough on the shoulder. "There!" he said, "now 
 won't that be doing the trick for you?" 
 
 "It's clever," James answered, with a cruel gleam in 
 his eyes. "It is clever! The old devil himself could n't 
 be beating it by the length of his hoof! But " 
 
 "What's amiss with it?" 
 
 "A will 's revocable," James said, with a cunning look. 
 "And what he can do once he can do twice." 
 
 "Sorrow a doubt of that, too, if you 're innocent enough 
 to let him make one! But you 're not, my lad. No; 
 
 the will first, and then " Luke Asgill did not finish 
 
 the sentence, but he grinned. "Anything else amiss with 
 it ? ' ^he asked. 
 
 "No. But the devil a bit do I see why you bring 
 Flawy into it?" 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 "I do not." 
 
 Asgill drew rein, and by a' gesture bade his groom ride 
 on. No?" he said. "Well, I'll be telling you. He's 
 an obstinate dog; faith, as obstinate a dog as ever walked 
 on two legs! And left to himself he 'd, maybe, take more 
 time and trouble to come to where we want him than we
 
 232 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 can spare. But I 'm thinking, James McMurrough, that 
 he 's sweet on your sister!" 
 
 The McMurrough stared. "It's jesting you are?" 
 he said. 
 
 "It's the last thing I'd jest about," Asgill answered 
 sombrely. " It is so; whether she knows it or not, I know 
 it! And so d' you see, if she 's in this, 't will do more — 
 take my word for it that know — to break him down and 
 draw the heart out of him, so that he '11 care little one way 
 or the other, than anything you can do yourself! " 
 
 James McMurrough's face reflected his admiration. 
 "If you 're in the right," he said, "I '11 say it for you, 
 Asgill, you 're the match of the old one for cleverness. 
 But do you think she '11 come to it, the jewel?" 
 
 "She will." 
 
 James shook his head. "I 'm not thinking it," he said. 
 
 "Are you not?" Asgill answered, and his face fell and 
 his voice was anxious. "And why?" 
 
 "Sure and why? I '11 tell you. It was but a day or 
 two ago I 'd a plan of my own. It was just to swear the 
 plot upon him; swear he 'd come off the Spanish ship, and 
 the rest, d' you see, and get him clapped in Tralee jail in 
 my place. More by token, I was coming to you to help 
 in it. But I thought I 'd need the girl to swear to it, and 
 when I up and told her she was like a hen you 'd take the 
 chickens from!" 
 
 Asgill was silent for a moment. Then, "You asked her 
 to do that ? " he said, in an odd tone. 
 
 "Just so."
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 233 
 
 "And you 're wondering she did n't do it?" 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "And I'm thankful she'd not be doing it!" Asgill 
 retorted. 
 
 "Oh!" James exclaimed. "You 're mighty particular 
 all in a minute, Mr. Asgill. But if not that, why this. 
 Eh? Why this?" 
 
 "For a reason you'd not be understanding," Asgill 
 answered, coolly. "But I know it myself in my bones. 
 She '11 do this if she 's handled. But there 's a man that 'U 
 not be doing it at all, at all, and that 's Ulick Sullivan. 
 You '11 have to be rid of him for a time, and how I 'm not 
 saying." 
 
 "I'll be planning that." 
 
 "And still there 's a thing you must be planning, my lad. 
 It 's only to a Protestant he can leave it, and you must have 
 one ready. Now if I " 
 
 " No ! " James cried, with sudden energy. And he drew 
 back a step, and looked the other in the face. "No, 
 Mr. Asgill," he continued; "if it is to that you 've been 
 working, I 'd as soon him as you! Ay, I would! I 'd 
 sooner turn myself!" 
 
 "I can believe that." 
 
 "A hundred times sooner!" James repeated. "And 
 what for not? What's to prevent me? Eh? WTiat 's 
 to prevent me?" 
 
 "Your sister," Asgill answered. 
 
 James's face, which had flamed with passion, lost its 
 colour.
 
 234 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Your sister," Asgill repeated with gusto. "I'd like 
 fine to see you asking her to help you turn Protestant! 
 Faith, and, for a mere word of that same, I '11 warrant 
 she 'd treat you as the old gentleman treated you!" 
 
 "Anyway, I'll not trust you," James replied, with 
 venom. "Sooner than that I '11 have — ay, that will do 
 finely — I '11 have Constantine Hussey of Duppa. He 's 
 holder for three or four already, and the whole country 
 calls him honest! I '11 have him and be safe." 
 
 "You '11 do as you please about that," Asgill answered 
 equably. "Only, mind you, I don't use my wits for 
 nothing. If the estate 's to be yours, Flavia 's to be 
 mine — if she 's willing." 
 
 " Willing or unwilling for what I care! " James answered 
 brutally. 
 
 Asgill did not hide his scorn. "An excellent brother!" 
 he said. "And so, good day to you." 
 
 The McMurrough watched the rider go, and twice he 
 shook his fist after him. 
 
 "Marry my sister, you dog," he muttered. "Ay, if it 
 will give me my place again! But for helping you to the 
 land first and to her afterward, as you 'd have me, you 
 schemer, you bog-trotter, it would make Tophet's dog sick! 
 You son of an upstart! You 'd marry my sister, would 
 you? It will be odd if I don't jink you yet, when I 've 
 made my use of you! I 'm a schemer too, Mister Asgill, 
 only — one at a time. The Colonel first, and you after- 
 ward! Ay, you afterward, brother-in-law!" 
 
 With a last gesture of defiance he returned to the house.
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 235 
 
 It was two or three days after this interview that Colonel 
 SulHvan, descending at the breakfast hour, found Flavia 
 in the room. He saw her with surprise, for during those 
 three days the girl had not sat at meals with him. Once 
 or twice his entrance had surprised her, but it had been 
 the signal for her departure; and he had seen no more of 
 her than the back of her head or the tail of her gown. 
 More often he had found the men alone and had sat down 
 with them. Far from resenting this avoidance, he had 
 found it proper. He suffered it patiently, and hoped 
 that by steering a steady course he would gradually 
 force her to change her opinion of him. 
 
 That she was already beginning to change he could 
 scarcely hope; yet, when he saw on this morning that she 
 meant to abide his coming, he was secretly and absurdly 
 elated. 
 
 She was at the window, but turned on hearing his step. 
 " I am wishing to speak to you," she said. But her unfor- 
 giving eyes looked out of a hard-cut face, and her figure 
 was stiff as a sergeant's cane. 
 
 After that he did not try to compass a commonplace 
 greeting. He bowed gravely. "I am ready to listen," he 
 answered. 
 
 " I am wanting to give you a warning," she said. " Your 
 man Bale does not share the immunity Vv^hich you have 
 secured, and if you '11 be taking my advice you will send 
 him away. My uncle is riding as far as Mallow; he will 
 be absent ten days. If you think fit, you will allow 
 your man to go with him. The interval may" — she
 
 236 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 halted as if in search of a word, but her eyes did 
 not leave his — "I do not say it will, but it may mend 
 matters." 
 
 "I am obliged to you," he answered. Then he was 
 silent, reflecting. 
 
 "You are not wishing," she said, with a touch of con- 
 tempt, " to expose the man to a risk you do not run 
 yourself ? " 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" he answered. "But " 
 
 "If you think he is a protection to you," she continued 
 in the same tone, "do not send him." 
 
 "He is not that," he replied, unmoved by her taunt. 
 " But I am alone, and he is a comfort to me." 
 
 "As you please," she answered. 
 
 "Nevertheless he shall go," he continued. "It may be 
 for the best." He was thinking that if he rejected this 
 overture, she might make no other. "In any case," he 
 added, "I thank you." 
 
 She did not deign to answer, but turned and went out. 
 On the threshold she met a serving-boy and she paused 
 so that the Colonel caught a momentary glimpse of her 
 face. It wore a strange look, of disgust or of horror — 
 he was not sure which — that appalled him ; so that when 
 the door closed upon her, he remained gazing at it. Had 
 he misread the look ? Or — what was its meaning ? 
 Could it be that she hated him to that degree ! He was in a 
 brown study when Uncle Ulick came in and confirmed the 
 story of his journey. 
 
 "You had better come with me," he said. "I shall lie
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 237 
 
 at Tralee one night, and at Ross Castle one night, and at 
 Mallow the third." 
 
 But Colonel John had set his course, and was resolved 
 to abide by it. After breakfast he saw Bale, and the man 
 consented to go — with forebodings at which his master 
 affected to smile. 
 
 "None the less I misdoubt them," the man said, stick- 
 ing to his point. "I misdoubt them, your honour. They 
 were never so careful for me," he added grimly, "when 
 they were for piking me in the bog!" 
 
 "The young lady had naught to do with that," Colonel 
 John replied. 
 
 "The deuce take me if I know!" 
 
 "Nonsense, man!" the Colonel said sharply. "I'll 
 not hear such words." 
 
 "But why separate us, your honour?" Bale pleaded. 
 "Not for good, I swear. No, not for good!" 
 
 "For your greater safety, I hope." 
 
 "Oh, ay, I understand that! But what of your 
 honour's?" 
 
 "I have explained to you," the Colonel said patiently, 
 "why I am safe here." 
 
 "For my part, and that's flat, I hate their blarney!" 
 the man burst out. "It 's everything to please you while 
 they sharpen the pike to stick in your back." 
 
 "Hush!" Colonel John cried, sternly. "And, for my 
 sake, keep your tongue between your teeth. Be more 
 prudent, man!" 
 
 " It's my belief I '11 never see your honour again ! " the
 
 238 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 man cried, with passion. "That 's my belief and you '11 
 not stir it." 
 
 " We 've parted before in worse hap," Colonel John 
 answered, "and come together again. We '11 do the 
 same this time." 
 
 The man did not answer, but for the rest of the day he 
 clung to his master like a burr, and it was with an unusual 
 sinking of the heart that Colonel John saw him ride away 
 on the morrow. With him went Uncle Ulick, the Colonel's 
 other friend in the house; and certainly the departure of 
 these two seemed unlucky. But the man who was left 
 behind was not one to give way to vain fears. He chid 
 himself for a presentiment that belittled Providence. 
 Perhaps, in the depths of his heart, he welcomed a change, 
 finding cheer in the thought that the smaller the household 
 at Morristown, the more prominently, and therefore the 
 more fairly, he must stand in Flavia's view. 
 
 Be that as it might, he saw nothing of her on that day 
 or the following day. But though she shunned him, 
 others did not. He began to remark that he was seldom 
 alone. James and the O'Beirnes were always at his elbow 
 — watching, it seemed to him. They said little, but if he 
 came out of his chamber he found one in the passage, and 
 if he mounted to it one forewent him! This dogging, 
 this endless watching, would have got on the nerves of a 
 more timid man; it began to disturb him. He began to 
 fancy that even Darby and the serving-boys looked askance 
 at him and kept him in view. Once he took a notion that 
 the butler, who had been friendly within limits, wished to
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 239 
 
 say something to him. But at the critical moment Morty 
 O'Beirne popped up from somewhere, and Darby sneaked 
 off in silence. 
 
 The Colonel thought that he would give Morty a chance 
 of speaking. "Are you looking for your brother?" he 
 asked suavely. 
 
 "I am not," Morty answered, with a gloomy look. 
 
 "Nor for The McMurrough?" 
 
 "I am not. I am thinking," he added, with a grin, 
 "that he has his hands full with the young lady." 
 
 Colonel John was startled. "What's the matter?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Oh, two minds in a house. Sorrow a bit more than 
 that. It 's no very new thing in a family," Morty added. 
 And he went out whistling " 'T was a' for our rightful 
 King." But he went, as the Colonel noted, no farther than 
 the courtyard, whence he could command the room 
 through the window. He lounged there, whistling, and 
 now and again peeping. 
 
 Suddenly, on the upper floor. Colonel John heard a door 
 open, and the clamour of a voice raised in anger. It was 
 James's voice. "Tell him? Curse me if you shall!" 
 Colonel John heard him say. The next moment the door 
 was sharply closed and he caught no more. 
 
 But he had heard enough to quicken his pulses. What 
 was it she wished to tell him ? Was she seeking to follow 
 up the hint which she had given him on Bale's behalf? 
 And was the surveillance to which he had been subjected 
 for the last two days aimed at keeping them apart ?
 
 240 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Colonel John suspected that this might be so; and his 
 heart beat more quickly. At the evening meal he was 
 early in the room, on the chance that she might appear 
 before the others. But she did not descend, and the meal 
 proved unpleasant beyond the ordinary, James drinking 
 more than was good for him, and taking a tone brutal 
 and churlish. For some reason, the Colonel reflected, 
 the young man was beginning to lose his fears. Why? 
 What was he planning? 
 
 "Secure as I seem, I must look to myself," Colonel John 
 thought. And he slept that night with his door bolted and 
 a loaded pistol under his pillow. Next morning he took 
 care to descend early, on the chance of seeing Flavia before 
 the others appeared. She was not down; he waited, and 
 she did not come. But when he had been in the room 
 five minutes a serving-girl slipped in at the back, showed 
 him a scared face, held out a scrap of paper and, when he 
 had taken it, fled in a panic without a word. 
 
 He hid the paper about him and read it later. The 
 message was in Flavia's hand; neither James nor the 
 O'Beirnes were capable of penning a grammatical sentence. 
 Colonel John's spirits rose as he read the note. 
 
 "Be at the old Tower an hour after sunset. You must 
 not be followed." 
 
 "That is more easily said than done," he commented. 
 
 Nor did he see how it was to be done. He stood, 
 cudgelling his brains to evolve a plan. But he found none 
 that might not, by awakening James's suspicions, make 
 matters worse. He had at last to let things take their
 
 A COUNTERPLOT 241 
 
 course, in the hope that when the time came they would 
 shape themselves favourably. 
 
 They did. For before noon he gathered that James 
 wanted to go fishing. The O'Beirnes also wanted to go 
 fishing, and for the general convenience it became him to 
 go with them. He said neither No nor Yes ; but he dallied 
 with the idea until it was time to start and they had made 
 up their minds that he w^as coming. Then he declined. 
 
 James swore, the O'Beirnes scowled at him and 
 grumbled. Presently the three went outside and held a 
 conference. His hopes rose as he sat smiling to himself, 
 for their next step was to call Darby. Evidently they 
 gave him orders and left him in charge, for a few minutes 
 later they went off, spending their anger on one another 
 and on the barefoot gossoons who carried the tackle. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Colonel John took up his position 
 on the horse-block; there he affected to be busy plaiting 
 horse-hair lines. Every two or three minutes Darby 
 showed himself at the door; once in a quarter of an hour 
 the old man found occasion to cross the court to count the 
 ducks or rout a trespassing beggar. Toward sunset he 
 came less often, having to busy himself with the evening 
 meal. The Colonel smiled and waited, and presently 
 the butler came again, found him still seated there, and 
 withdrew — this time with an air of finality. " He 's 
 satisfied," the Colonel muttered, and the next moment he 
 was gone also. The light was waning fast, night was 
 falling in the valley. Before he had travelled a hundred 
 yards he was lost to view.
 
 242 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 When he had gone a quarter of a mile he halted and 
 listened, with his ear near the ground, for the beat of pur- 
 suing footsteps. He heard none, nor any sounds but the 
 low of a cow whose calf was being weaned, the "Whoo! 
 hoo! hoo! " of owls beginning to mouse beside the lake, and 
 the creak of oars in a boat which darkness already hid. 
 He straightened himself with a sigh of relief, and hastened 
 at speed in the direction of the waterfall. 
 
 Before he stood on the platform and made out the shape 
 of the Tower looming dark and huge above him, he had 
 come to the conclusion that the need which forced Flavia 
 to such a place at such an hour must be great. The moon 
 would not rise before eleven o'clock, the last shimmer of 
 the water had faded into unfathomable blackness beneath 
 him; he had to tread softly and with care to avoid the 
 brink. 
 
 He peered about him, hoping to see her figure emerge 
 beside him. He did not, and disappointed, he coughed. 
 Finally, in a subdued voice, he called her by name, once 
 and twice. Alas! only the wind, softly stirring the grass 
 and whispering in the ivy, answered him. He was begin- 
 ning to think that she had failed to come, when, at no great 
 distance before him, he fancied some one moved. He 
 groped his way forward half a dozen paces, found a light 
 break on his view, and stood in astonishment. 
 
 The movement had carried him beyond the face of the 
 Tower, and so revealed the light, which issued from a 
 doorway situate in the flank of the building. He paused; 
 but second thoughts reassured him. He saw that in that
 
 ^ A COUNTERPLOT 243 
 
 position the light was not visible from the lake or the house; 
 and he moved quickly to the open door, expecting to see 
 Flavia. Three steps led down to the basement room of 
 the Tower; great was his surprise when he saw below him 
 in this remote, abandoned building — in this room three 
 feet below the level of the soil — a table set handsomely 
 with four lighted candles in tall sticks, and furnished 
 besides with a silver inkhorn, pens, and paper. Beside the 
 table stood a couple of chairs and a stool. Doubtless there 
 was other furniture in the room, but in his astonishment 
 he saw only these. 
 
 He uttered an exclamation and descended the steps. 
 "Flavia!" he cried. "Flavia!" He did not see her, and 
 he moved a pace toward that part of the room which the 
 door hid from him. 
 
 Crash! The door fell to, dragged by an unseen hand. 
 Colonel John sprang toward it; but too late. He heard 
 the grating of a rusty key turned in the lock; he heard 
 through one of the loopholes the sound of an inhuman 
 laugh; and he knew that he was a prisoner. In that 
 moment the cold air of the vault struck a chill to his bones; 
 but it struck not so cold nor so death-like as the knowledge 
 struck to his heart that Flavia had duped him. Yes, 
 before the crash of the closing door had ceased to echo in 
 the stone vaulting, he knew that, he felt that! She had 
 tricked him. He let his chin sink on his breast. Oh, the 
 pity of it!
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 
 
 FOR many minutes Colonel John sat motionless in 
 the chair into which he had sunk, his eyes fixed 
 on the flames of the candles. His unwinking 
 gaze created about each tongue of flame strange effects of 
 vapour, halo-like circles that widened and again contracted, 
 colours that came and went. But he saw these things with 
 his eyes without seeing them with his mind. It was not 
 of them, it was not of the death-cold room about him, it 
 was not of anything within sight he was thinking; but of 
 Flavia! 
 
 Of Flavia, who had deceived him, duped him, cajoled 
 him. Who, by affecting a quarrel with her brother, 
 had thrown him off his guard, and won his confidence, 
 only to betray it. Who, having lured him thither, 
 had laughed — had laughed! As he sat and thought 
 of her treachery, he looked years older. It cut him to 
 the heart. 
 
 At length, with a sigh drawn from his very soul, he 
 roused himself, and, taking a candle, he made the round 
 of the chamber. The door by which he had entered was 
 the only outlet, and it was of stout oak, clamped with iron, 
 and locked. For windows, a pair of loopholes, slits so 
 
 244
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 245 
 
 narrow that on the brightest day the room must be twilit, 
 pierced the wall toward the lake. 
 
 The walls w^ere two feet thick, and the groined roof was 
 of stone, hard as the weathering of centuries had left it. 
 But not so hard, not so cruel as her heart! Flavia! The 
 word almost came from his lips in a cry of pain. 
 
 Yet what was her purpose ? He had been lured hither : 
 but why? His eyes fell on the table; the answer would 
 doubtless be found among the papers that lay on it. He 
 sat down in the chair set before it, and took up the first 
 sheet that came to hand, a note of a dozen lines in her 
 handwriting. 
 
 "Sir," so it ran, — 
 
 "You have betrayed us; and, were that all, I 'd still 
 be finding it in my heart to forgive you. But you have 
 betrayed also our country, our King, and our faith; 
 and for this it 's not with me it lies to pardon. Over and 
 above, you have thought to hold us in a web that would 
 make you safe at once in your life and your person; but 
 you are meshed in your turn, and will fare as you can, 
 without water, food, or fire, until you have signed and 
 sealed the grant which lies beside this paper. We 're 
 not unmerciful ; and one will visit you once in twenty-four 
 hours until he has it under your hand, when he will witness 
 it. That done, you will go where you please ; and heaven 
 forgive you. I, who write this, am, though unjustly, the 
 owner of that you grant, and you do no wrong. 
 
 "Flavia McMurrough."
 
 246 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 He read the letter with a mixture of emotions. Beside 
 it lay a deed, engrossed on parchment, which purported 
 to grant all that he held under the will of the late Sir 
 Michael McMurrough to Constantine Hussey, Esquire, of 
 Duppa. But annexed to the deed was a separate scroll, 
 illegal but not unusual in Ireland at that day, stating that 
 the true meaning was that the lands should be held by 
 Constantine Hussey for the use of The McMurrough, who, 
 as a Roman Catholic, was not capable of taking them in 
 his own name. 
 
 Fully, only too fully, enlightened by Flavia's letter, 
 Colonel John barely glanced at the parchments; for, 
 largely as these bulked on the table, the gist of all lay in 
 the letter. He had fallen into a trap — a trap as cold, 
 cruel, heartless as the bosom of her who had decoyed him 
 hither. Without food or water! And already the chill of 
 the earthen floor was eating into his bones, already the 
 damp of a hundred years was creeping over him. 
 
 He sat gazing at the paper with dull eyes. For, after all, 
 whose interests had he upheld ? Whose cause had he 
 supported against James McMurrough and his friends? 
 For whose sake had he declared himself master at Morris- 
 town, with no intention, no thought, as heaven was his 
 witness, of deriving one jot or one tittle of advantage for 
 himself ? Flavia's ! And she had planned this ! She had 
 consigned him to this, playing to its crafty end the farce 
 that had blinded him! 
 
 His mind travelled back to the beginning of it all; to 
 the day on which Sir Michael's letter, with a copy of his
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 247 
 
 will, had reached his hands, at Stralsund on the Baltic, 
 in his quarters beside the East Gate. The cast of his 
 thoughts at the reading rose up before him. The recollec- 
 tions of his home, his boyhood, his father, which the old 
 man's writing had evoked, and the firmness with which, 
 touched by the dead man's confidence, he had resolved to 
 protect the girl's interests, that the old man's confidence 
 should be justified, the young girl's inheritance secured to 
 her — this had been the purpose in his mind from first to 
 last. 
 
 And this was his reward! 
 
 True, that purpose would not have embroiled him with 
 her if it had not become entwined with another — with the 
 resolve to pluck her and hers from the abyss into which 
 they were bent on flinging themselves. It was that resolu- 
 tion which had made her his enemy to this point. But he 
 could not regret that — he who had seen war in all its 
 cruel phases, and fierce rebellions, and more cruel repres- 
 sions. Perish — though he perished himself in this cold 
 prison — perish the thought! For even now some heat 
 was kindled in him by the reflection that, whatever befell 
 him, he had saved scores from misery, a countryside from 
 devastation, women and children from the worst of fates. 
 And though he never saw the sun again, he would at least 
 pass beyond with full hands, and with the knowledge 
 that for every life he, the soldier of fortune, had taken, he 
 had saved ten. 
 
 At the end of two hours he roused himself. He was very 
 cold, and that could only be mended by such exercise as
 
 248 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 the size of his prison permitted. He set himself to walk 
 briskly up and down. When he had taken a few turns, 
 however, he paused with his eyes on the table. The 
 candles ? They would serve him the longer if he burned 
 but one at a time. He extinguished three. The deed ? 
 He might burn it, and so put the temptation, which he 
 was too wise to despise, out of reach. But he had noticed 
 in one corner a few half-charred fragments of wood, damp 
 indeed, but such as might be kindled by coaxing. He 
 would preserve the deed for the purpose of kindling the 
 wood; and the fire, as his only luxury, he would postpone 
 until he needed it more sorely. In the end the table and 
 the chairs — or all but one should eke out his fuel; and he 
 would sleep. But not yet. 
 
 He had no desire to die; and with warmth he knew that 
 he could put up for a long time with the lack of food. 
 Every hour during which he had the strength and courage 
 to bear up against privation increased his chances ; it was 
 impossible to say what might not happen with time. Uncle 
 Ulick was due to return in a week — and Bale. Or his 
 jailers might relent. Nay, they must relent for their own 
 sakes, if he bore a stout heart and held out; for until the 
 deed was signed they dared not let him perish. 
 
 That was a good thought. They could put him on the 
 rack, but they dared not push the torment so far as to 
 endanger his life. He must tighten his belt, he must eke 
 out his fuel, he must bear equably the pangs of appetite; 
 after all, in comparison with the perils and privations 
 through which he had passed on the cruel plains of Eastern
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 249 
 
 Europe, and among a barbarous people, this was a small 
 thing. 
 
 Or it would have been a small thing if that sadness at the 
 heart which had held him motionless so long had not still 
 bowed his head upon his breast. A small thing! a few 
 hours, a few days even of hunger and cold and physical 
 privation — no more! But when it was overpast, and he 
 had suffered and was free, to what could he look forward ? 
 What prospect stretched beyond, save one gray, dull, and 
 sunless, a homeless middle age, an old age without solace ? 
 He was wounded in the house of his friend, and felt not the 
 pain only, but the sorrow. In a little while he would 
 remember that, if he had not to take, he had still to give: 
 if he had not to enjoy, he had still to do. Already 
 shadowy plans rose before him. 
 
 His had been a mad fancy, a foolish fancy, a fancy of 
 which — for how many years rolled between him and the 
 girl, and how many things done, suffered, seen — he should 
 have known the outcome. But it had mastered him slowly, 
 not so much against his will as without his knowledge; 
 until he had awakened one day to find himself possessed 
 by a madness, the more powerful because he was no longer 
 young. By and by, for a certainty, the man's sense of 
 duty, the principles that had ruled him so long, would 
 assert themselves. He would go back to the Baltic 
 lands, the barren, snow-bitten lands of his prime, a 
 grayer, older, more sombre — but not an unhappy man. 
 
 Something of this he told himself as he paced up and 
 down the gloomy chamber, while the flame of the candle
 
 250 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 crept steadily downward. It must be midnight; it must 
 be two; it must be three in the morning. The loopholes, 
 when he stood between them and the candle, were growing 
 gray; the birds were beginning to chirp. Presently the 
 sun would rise, and through the narrow windows he would 
 see its beams flashing on the distant water. But the 
 windows looked north-west, and many hours must pass 
 before a ray would strike into his dungeon. 
 
 The candle was beginning to burn low, and it seemed 
 a pity to light another, with the daylight peering in. But 
 if he did not, he would lack the means to light his fire. 
 And he was eager to do without the fire as long as possible. 
 He was cold now, but he would be colder by and by, and 
 his need of the fire v/ould be greater. 
 
 From that the time wore wearily on to the breakfast 
 hour. The sun was high now; the birds were singing 
 sweetly in the rough brakes and brambles about the 
 Tower; far away on the shining lake, of which only the 
 farther end lay within his sight, three men were fishing 
 from a boat. He watched them ; now and again he caught 
 the tiny splash as they flung the bait far out. So watching, 
 with no thought or expectation of it, he fell asleep, and 
 slept, for five or six hours, the sleep of which excitement 
 had cheated him through the night. In warmth, morning 
 and evening, night and day differed little in that sunken 
 room. Still the air in it profited a little by the high sun; 
 and he awoke, not only less weary, but warmer. But, 
 alas! he awoke also hungry. 
 
 He stood up and stretched himself; and, seeing that
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 251 
 
 two-thirds of the second candle had burned away while 
 he slept, he was thankful that he had lit it. He tried to 
 put away the visions of hot bacon, cold round, and swe^t 
 brown bread that rose before him. He wondered how far 
 the plot would be carried; and thus mind got the better 
 of body, and he forgot his appetite in a thought more 
 engrossing. 
 
 Would she come ? Every twenty-four hours, her letter 
 said, a person would visit him. Would she be the person ? 
 It was wonderful with what interest, nay, with what agita- 
 tion, he dwelt on this. How would she look ? how would 
 she bear herself ? how would she meet his eye ? Would she 
 shun his gaze, or would she face it without flinching, with 
 a steady colour and a smiling lip ? If the latter were the 
 case, would it be the same when hours and days of fasting 
 had hollowed his cheeks, and given to his eyes the glare 
 which he had seen in many a wretched peasant's eyes in 
 those distant lands? Would she still be able to view his 
 sufferings without a qualm, and turn, firm in her cruel 
 purpose, from the dumb pleading of his hunger ? 
 
 " God forbid ! " he cried. " Ah ! God forbid ! " 
 
 And he prayed that, rather than have that last proof of 
 hardness of heart, he might not see her at all. Yet, so 
 W'Cak are men — to see her come, to see how she bore 
 herself, was now the one hope that had power to lighten the 
 time, and keep at bay the attacks of hunger! He had 
 fasted twenty-four hours. 
 
 The thought possessed him to an extraordinary extent. 
 W^ould she come ? Or, having lured him into his enemies'
 
 252 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 power, would she leave him to be treated as they chose, 
 while she lay warm and safe in the house which his inter- 
 ference had saved for her? 
 
 Oh! cruel! 
 
 Then the very barbarity of an action so unwomanly 
 suggested that, viewed from her side, it must wear another 
 shape. What was this girl gaining? Revenge, yes; yet, 
 if they kept faith with him, and, the deed signed, let him 
 go free, she had not even revenge. For the rest, she lost 
 by the deed. All that her grandfather had meant for her 
 passed by it to her brother. To lend herself to stripping 
 herself was not the part of a selfish woman. Even in her 
 falseness there was something magnanimous. 
 
 He was still staring dreamily at the table when a shadow 
 falling on the table roused him. He lifted his eyes to the 
 nearest loophole, through which the setting sun had been 
 darting its rays a moment before. Morty O'Beirne bend- 
 ing almost double — for outside, the arrow-slit was not 
 more than two feet from the ground — was peering in. 
 
 "Ye '11 not have changed your quarters. Colonel," he 
 said, in a tone of raillery which was assumed perhaps to 
 hide a real feeling of shame. "Sure, you 're there, 
 Colonel, safe enough?" 
 
 "Yes, I am here," Colonel John answered austerely. 
 He did not leave his seat at the table. 
 
 "And as much at home as a mole in a hill," Morty 
 continued. "And, like that same blessed little fellow in 
 black velvet that I take my hat off to, with lashings of time 
 for thinking."
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 253 
 
 "So much," Colonel John answered, with the same 
 severe look, " that I am loth to think ill of any. Are you 
 alone, Mr. O'Beirne?" 
 
 " Faith, and who 'd there be with me ?" Morty answered 
 in true Irish fashion. 
 
 " I cannot say. I ask only, are you alone ? " 
 
 "Then I am, and that's the truth," Morty replied, 
 peering inquisitively into the corners of the gloomy cham- 
 ber. "More by token I wish you no worse than just to 
 be doing as you 're bid — and faith, it 's but what 's right ! 
 — and go your way. 'T is a cold, damp, unchancy place 
 you 'v'e chosen. Colonel," he continued, with a grin; "like 
 nothino; in all the wide world so much as that same mole- 
 hill. Well, glory be, it can't be said I 'm one for talking; 
 but, if you 're asking my advice, you '11 be wiser acting 
 first than last, and full than empty!" 
 
 "I 'm not of that opinion, sir," Colonel John replied, 
 looking at him with the same stern eyes. 
 
 "Then I 'm thinking you 're not as hungry as I 'd be! 
 And not the least taste in life to stay my stomach for twenty- 
 
 « 
 
 four hours!" 
 
 " It has happened to me before," Colonel John answered. 
 
 "You 're not for signing then?" 
 
 "I am not." 
 
 " Don't be saying that. Colonel ! " Morty rejoined. " It's 
 not yet awhile, you 're meaning?" 
 
 "Neither now nor ever." Colonel John answered. 
 "I quote from yourself, sir. As well say it first as last, 
 and full as empty!"
 
 254 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Sure, and ye '11 be thinking better of it by and by, 
 Colonel." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Ah, you will," Morty retorted, in that tone which to a 
 mind made up is worse than a blister. "Sure, ye '11 not 
 be so hard-hearted, Colonel, as to refuse a lady! It 's 
 not Kerry-born you are, and say the word ' No' that easy!" 
 
 "Do not deceive yourself, sir," Colonel John answered 
 severely, and with a darker look. "I shall not give way 
 either to-day or to-morrow." 
 
 "Nor the next day?" 
 
 " Nor the next day." 
 
 " Not if the lady asks you herself ? Come, Colonel." 
 
 Colonel John rose sharply from his seat; such patience, 
 as a famished man has, come to an end. 
 
 " Sir," he said, "if this is all you have to say to me, I have 
 your message, and I prefer to be alone." 
 
 Morty grinned at him a moment, then with an Irish 
 shrug, he gave way. "As you will," he said. 
 
 He withdrew himself suddenly, and the sunset light 
 darted into the room through the narrow window, dimming 
 the candle's rays. The Colonel heard him laugh as he 
 strode away across the platform and down the hill. A 
 moment and the sounds ceased. He was gone. The 
 Colonel was alone. 
 
 Until this time to-morrow! Twenty-four hours. Yes, 
 he must tighten his belt. 
 
 Morty, poking his head this way and that, peering into
 
 PEINE FORTE ET DURE 255 
 
 the chamber as he had peered yesterday, wished he could 
 see Colonel John's face. But Colonel John, bending 
 resolutely over the handful of embers that glowed in an 
 inner angle of the room, showed only his back. Even that 
 Morty could not see plainly; for the last of the candles had 
 burned out, and in the chamber, dark in comparison with 
 the open air, the crouching figure was no more than a 
 shapeless mass obscuring the glow of the fuel. 
 
 Morty shaded his eyes and peered more closely. He 
 was not a sensitive person, and he was obeying orders. 
 But he was not quite comfortable. 
 
 " And that 's your last word ? " he said slowly. " Come, 
 Colonel dear, ye '11 say something more to that." 
 
 "That 's my last word to-day," Colonel John answered 
 as slowly, and without turning his head. 
 
 "Honour bright? Won't ye think better of it before I 
 go?" 
 
 "I will not." 
 
 Morty paused, to tell the truth, in extreme exasperation. 
 He had no great liking for the part he was playing; but 
 why could n't the man be reasonable ? " You 're sure of it, 
 Colonel," he said. 
 
 Colonel John did not answer. 
 
 "And I 'm to tell her so ?" Morty concluded. 
 
 Colonel John rose sharply, as if at last the other tried 
 him too far. "Yes," he said, "tell her that! Or," 
 lowering his voice and his hand, "do not tell her, as you 
 please. That is my last word, sir! Let me be." 
 
 But it was not his last word. For as Morty turned to go,
 
 256 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 the Colonel heard him speak — in a lower and a different 
 tone. At the same moment, or his eyes deceived him, a 
 shadow that was not Morty O'Beirne's fell for one second 
 on the splayed wall inside the window. It was gone as 
 soon as seen ; but Colonel John had seen it, and he sprang 
 to the window. 
 
 "Flavia!" he cried. "Flavia!" 
 
 He paused to listen, his hand on the wall on either side 
 of the opening. His face, which had been pinched and 
 haggard a moment before, was now flushed by the sunset. 
 Then "Flavia!" he repeated, keen appeal in his voice. 
 "Flavia!" 
 
 She did not answer. She was gone. And perhaps it 
 was as well. He listened for a long time, but in vain; and 
 he told himself again that it was as well. Why, after all, 
 appeal to her ? How could it avail him ? Slowly he went 
 back to his chair and sat down in the old attitude over the 
 embers. But his lip quivered.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 
 
 A LITTLE before sunset on that same day two men 
 stood beside the entrance at Morristown They 
 ^ were staring at a third, who, seated nonchalantly 
 upon the horse-block, slapped his boot with his riding 
 switch, and made as poor a show of hiding his amuse- 
 ment as they of masking their disgust. The man 
 who slapped his leg and shaped his lips to a silent 
 whistle, was Major Payton of the — th. The men 
 who looked at him, and cursed the unlucky star which 
 had brought him thither, were Luke Asgill and The 
 McMurrough. 
 
 "Faith, and I should have thought," Asgill said, with a 
 clouded face, "that my presence here, Major, and I, a 
 justice " 
 
 "True for you!" Payton said, with a grin. 
 
 "Should have been enough by itself, and the least taste 
 more than enough, to prove the absurdity of the Castle's 
 story." 
 
 "True for you again," Payton replied. "And ain't I 
 saying that but for your presence here, and a friend at 
 court that I '11 not name, it 's not your humble servant this 
 gentleman would be entertaining" — he turned to The 
 
 257
 
 258 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 McMurrough — "but half a company and a sergeant's 
 guard!" 
 
 "I'm allowing it." 
 
 "You 've no cause to do other." 
 
 "Nary a bit I 'm denying it/' Asgill replied more amica- 
 bly; and, as far as he could, he cleared his face. "It 's 
 not that you 're not welcome. Not at all, Major! Sure, 
 and I '11 answer for it, my friend The McMurrough is 
 glad to welcome any English gentleman, much more one 
 of your reputation." 
 
 "Truth, and I am," The McMurrough assented. But 
 he had not Asgill's self-control, and his sulky tone belied 
 his words. 
 
 "Still — I come at an awkward time, perhaps?" Pay- 
 ton answered, looking with a grin from one to the other. 
 
 Partly to tease Asgill, whom he did not love the more 
 because he owed him money, and partly to see the rustic 
 beauty whom, rumour had it, Asgill was courting in the 
 wilds, he had volunteered to do with three or four troopers 
 what otherwise a half-company would have been sent to do. 
 That he could at the same time put his creditor under an 
 obligation, and annoy him, had not been the least part of 
 the temptation; while no one at Tralee believed the story 
 sent down from Dublin. 
 
 "Eh! An awkward time, perhaps ?" he repeated, look- 
 ing at The McMurrough. "Sorry, I 'm sure, but " 
 
 "I 'd have entertained you better, I 'm thinking," James 
 McMurrough said, "if I 'd known you were coming before 
 you came."
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 259 
 
 "Devil a doubt of it!" said Asgill, whose subtle brain 
 had been at work. "Not that it matters, bedad, for an 
 Irish gentleman will do his best. And to-morrow Colonel 
 Sullivan, that 's more knowledge of the mode and foreign 
 ways, will be back, and he '11 be helping his cousin. More 
 by token," he added, in a different tone, "you know him 
 of old?" 
 
 Payton, who had frowned at the name, reddened at the 
 question, "Is that," he asked, "the Colonel Sullivan 
 who " 
 
 "Who tried the foils with Lemoine at Tralee?" Asgill 
 cried heartily. "The same and no other! He is away 
 to-day, but he '11 be returning to-morrow, and he '11 be 
 delighted to see you! And by good luck, there are foils in 
 the house, and he '11. pass the time pleasantly with you. 
 It 's he 's the hospitable creature!" 
 
 Payton was anything but anxious to see the man whose 
 skill had turned the joke against him; and his face betok- 
 ened his feelings. Had he foreseen the meeting he would 
 have left the job to a subaltern. " Hang it! " he exclaimed, 
 vexed by the recollection, "a fine mess you led me into 
 there, Asgill!" 
 
 "I did not know him then," Asgill replied lightly. 
 "And, pho! Take my word for it, he 's no man to bear 
 malice!" 
 
 "Malice, begad!" Payton answered, ill-humouredly; 
 "I think it's I " 
 
 "Ah, you are right again, to be sure!" Asgill agreed, 
 laughing silently. For already he had formed a hope that
 
 260 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 the guest might he manoeuvred out of the house on the 
 morrow. He knew Payton. He knew the man's arro- 
 gance, the contempt in which be held the Irish, his view of 
 them as an inferior race. He was sure that, if he saw 
 Flavia and fancied her, he was capable of any outrage ; or, 
 if he learned her position in regard to the estate, he might 
 prove a formidable, if an honourable, competitor. In 
 either case, to hasten the man's departure, and to induce 
 Flavia to remain in the background in the meantime, 
 became Asgill's chief aim. 
 
 James McMurrough, on the other hand, saw in the 
 unwelcome intruder an English officer; and, troubled by 
 his guilty conscience, he dreaded above all things what he 
 might discover. True, the past was past, the plot spent, 
 the Spanish ship gone. But the Colonel remained, and in 
 durance. And if by any chance the Englishman 
 stumbled on him, heard his story, and lived to carry it 
 back to Tralee — the consequences might be such that a 
 cold sweat broke out on the young man's brow at the 
 thought of them. To add to his alarm, Payton, whose 
 mind was secretly occupied with the Colonel, sought to 
 evince his indifference by changing the subject, and in 
 doing so, hit on one singularly unfortunate. 
 
 "A pretty fair piece of water," he said, rising with an 
 affected yawn. "The tower at the head of it — it's 
 grown too dark to see it — is it inhabited?" 
 
 The McMurrough started guiltily. "The tower?" 
 he stammered. Could it be that the man knew all, and 
 was here to expose him ? His heart stood still, then raced.
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 261 
 
 "The Major '11 be meaning the tower on the rock," 
 Asgill said smoothly, but with a warning look. "Ah, 
 sure, it '11 be used at times, Major, for a prison, you 
 understand." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " But we '11 be better to be moving inside, I 'm thinking," 
 he continued, 
 
 Payton assented. He was still brooding on his enemy, 
 the Colonel. Curse the man, he was thinking. Why 
 could n't he keep out of his way? 
 
 "Take the Major in, McMurrough," Asgill said, who 
 feared Flavia and Morty O'Beirne might arrive from the 
 Tower. "You '11 like to get rid of your boots before 
 supper, Major?" he went on. "Bid Darby send the 
 Major's man to him, McMurrough; or, better, I '11 be 
 going to the stables myself and I '11 be telling him!" 
 
 As the others went in, Asgill strolled toward the stables. 
 But when they had passed out of sight he turned and 
 walked along the lake to meet the girl and her companion. 
 As he walked he had time to decide how he might best 
 deal with Flavia, and how much he should tell her. When 
 he met them, therefore — by this time the night was falling 
 ■ — his first question related to that which an hour before 
 had been the one pre-occupation of all their minds. 
 
 "Well," he said, "he '11 not have yielded yet, I am 
 thinking?" 
 
 Dark as it was, the girl averted her face to hide the 
 trouble in her eyes. She shook her head. " No," she said, 
 "he has not."
 
 262 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 " I did not count on it," Asgill replied cheerfully. " But 
 time — time and hunger and patience — not a doubt he '11 
 give in presently." 
 
 She did not answer, but he fancied — she kept her face 
 averted — that she shivered. 
 
 "While you have been away, something has happened," 
 he continued. After all, it was perhaps as well, he 
 reflected, that Payton had come. His coming, even if 
 Flavia did not encounter him, would prevent her dwelling 
 too long on that room in the Tower, and on the man who 
 famished there. She hated the Colonel, Asgill believed. 
 She had hated him, he was sure. But how long would 
 she continue to hate him in these circumstances? How 
 long if she learned what were the Colonel's feelings toward 
 her? "An unwelcome guest has come," he continued 
 glibly, "and one that '11 be giving trouble, I 'm fearing." 
 
 "A guest?" Flavia repeated in astonishment. She 
 halted. What time for guests was this? "And unwel- 
 come?" she added. "Who is it?" 
 
 "An English officer," Asgill explained, "from Tralee. 
 He is saying that the Castle has heard something, and has 
 sent him here to look about him." 
 
 Naturally the danger seemed greater to the two than to 
 Asgill, who knew his man. Words of dismay broke from 
 Flavia and O'Beirne. "From Tralee? "she cried. "And 
 an English officer ? Good heavens ! Do you know him ? " 
 
 "I do," Asgill answered confidently. "And I can 
 manage him. I hold him, like that, not the least doubt 
 of it ; but the less we '11 be doing for him the sooner
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 263 
 
 he '11 be going, and the safer we '11 be! I would not be so 
 bold as to advise," he continued diffidently," but I 'm think- 
 ing it would be no worse if you left him to be entertained 
 by the men." 
 
 "I will!" she cried. "Why should I be wanting to 
 see him?" 
 
 "Then I think he '11 be ordering his horse to-morrow!" 
 
 "I wish he were gone now!" she cried. 
 
 "All, so do I!" he replied, from his heart. 
 
 "I will go in through the garden," she said. 
 
 He assented. She turned aside, and for a moment he 
 bent to the temptation to go v/ith her. He was sure that 
 she had begun, not only to suffer his company, but to suffer 
 it willingly. And here, as she passed through the darkling 
 garden, was an opportunity of making a further advance. 
 She would have to grope her way, a reason for taking her 
 hand might offer, and — his head grew hot at the thought. 
 
 But he thrust the temptation from him. He knew that 
 it was not only the stranger's presence that weighed her 
 down, but her recollection of the man in the tower and his 
 miserable plight. 
 
 As he went on with Morty, he gave him a hint to say as 
 little in Payton's presence as possible. " I know the man," 
 he explained, "and where he 's weak. I 'm for seeing the 
 back of him as soon as we can, but without noise." 
 
 "There 's always the bog," grumbled Morty. 
 
 "And the garrison at Tralee," Asgill rejoined drily, 
 "to ask where he is! And his troopers to answer the 
 question."
 
 264 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Morty bade him manage it his own way. "Only I '11 
 trouble you not to blame me," he added, "if the English 
 soger finds the Colonel, and ruins us entirely." 
 
 "I'll not," Asgill answered pithily, "if so be you'll 
 hold your tongue." 
 
 So at supper that night Payton looked in vain for the 
 Kerry beauty whose charms the warmer wits of the mess 
 had more than once painted in hues rather florid than fit. 
 Nevertheless he would have enjoyed himself tolerably — 
 nor the less because now and again he let his contempt 
 for the company peep from under his complaisance — 
 but for the obtuseness of his friend; who, as if he had only 
 one man and one idea in his head, let fall with every 
 moment some mention of Colonel John. Now, it was the 
 happy certainty of the Colonel's return next day that 
 inspired his eloquence; now, the pleasure with which the 
 Colonel would meet Payton again; now, the lucky chance 
 that found a pair of new foils on the window ledge. 
 
 " For he 's ruined entirely and no one to play with him ! " 
 Asgill continued, a twinkle in his eye. "No one, I 'm 
 meaning. Major, of his sort of force at all! Begad, boys, 
 you '11 see some fine fencing for once! Ye '11 think ye 've 
 never seen any before I 'm doubting!" 
 
 "I 'm not sure that I can remain to-morrow," Payton 
 said in a surly tone. He began to suspect that Asgill was 
 quizzing him. He noticed that every time the justice 
 named Colonel Sullivan, men looked furtively at one 
 another, or straight before them, as if they were in a design. 
 If that were so, the design could only be to pit Colonel
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 2G5 
 
 Sullivan against him, or to provoke a quarrel between them. 
 He felt a qualm of apprehension, and he was confirmed in 
 the plan he had already formed — to be gone next day. 
 But in the meantime his temper moved him to carry the 
 war into the enemy's country. 
 
 "I didn't know," he snarled, taking Asgill up in the 
 middle of a eulogy of Colonel John's skill, "that he was 
 so great a favourite of yours." 
 
 "He was not," Asgill replied, drily. 
 
 "He is now, it seems!" in the same sneering tone. 
 
 "We know him better. Don't we boys?" 
 
 They murmured assent. 
 
 "And the lady whose horse I sheltered for you," the 
 ]\Iajor continued, spitefully watching for an opening — 
 "confound you, little you thanked me for it! — she must 
 be still more in his interest than you ? And how does that 
 suit vour book?" 
 
 Asgill had great self-control, and the Major was not a 
 close observer. But the thrust was so unexpected that on 
 the instant Payton read the other secret in his eyes — knew 
 that he loved, and knew that he was jealous. Jealous of 
 Sullivan! Jealous of the man whom he was for some 
 reason praising. Then why not jealous of a younger, 
 a more fashionable rival ? Asgill's cunningly reared plans 
 began to sink, and even while he answered he knew it. 
 
 "She likes him," he said, "as we all do." 
 
 "Some more, some less," Payton answered with a grin. 
 
 "Just so," the Irishman returned, controlling himself. 
 "Some more, some less. And why not, I 'm asking."
 
 2m THE WILD GEESE 
 
 " I think I must stav over to-nion\nv," Pavton romarkod, 
 smilinir at the ceilmir. "There must be a e:ood deal to be 
 seen here." 
 
 "Ah, there is," Asgill answered in apparent good 
 humour. 
 
 "AYorth seeing, too, I'll be sworn 1" tlie Englishman 
 replied, smiling more broadly. 
 
 "And that 's true, too!" the other rejoined. 
 
 He had himself in hand; and it was not from him that 
 the proposal to break up the party came. The Major it 
 was who at last pleaded fatigue. Englishmen's heads, 
 he said, were stronger than their stomachs; they were a 
 match for port, but not for claret. 
 
 "You should correct it, ISIajor, with a little cognac," 
 The McMurrough suggested politely. 
 
 "Not to-night; and, by your leave, I '11 have my man 
 called and go to bed." 
 
 " It's early," James McMurrough said, playing the host. 
 
 "It is, but I '11 have my man and go to bed," Pay ton 
 answered, with true British obstinacy. "No offence to 
 any gentleman." 
 
 "There 's none will take it here," Asgill answered. 
 "An Irishman's house is his guest's castle." But, know- 
 ing that Payton liked his glass, he wondered; until it 
 occurred to him that the other wished to have his haml 
 steady for the sword-play next day. 
 
 The IMc^NIurrough, who had risen, took a liirht and 
 attended his guest to his room. Asgill and the O'Beirnes 
 remained seated at the table, the young men scoffing at
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 267 
 
 the Englishman's conceit of himself, Asgill silent and 
 downcast. His scheme for ridding himself of Payton had 
 failed; it remained to face the situation. He did not 
 distrust Flavia, but he distrusted Payton — his insolence, 
 his violence, and the privileged position which his duellist's 
 skill gave him. And then there was Colonel John. If 
 Payton learned what was afoot at the tower, and saw his 
 way to make use of it, the worst might happen to all 
 concerned. 
 
 He looked up at a touch from Morty, and to his astonish- 
 ment he saw Flavia standing at the end of the table. 
 There was a hasty scrambling to the feet, for the men had 
 not drunk deep, and by all in the house — except her 
 brother — the girl was treated with respect. 
 
 "I was thinking," Asgill said, foreseeing trouble, "that 
 you were in bed and asleep." Her hair was tied back 
 negligently and her dress half-fastened at the throat. 
 
 "I cannot sleep," she answered. And then she stood 
 a moment drumming with her slender fingers on the 
 table, and the men noticed that she was unusually pale. 
 "I cannot sleep," she repeated, a tremor in her voice. 
 "I keep thinking of him. I want some one — to go to 
 him." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 "Now!" 
 
 "But," Asgill said slowly, "I 'm thinking that to do that 
 were to give him hopes. It were to spoil all. Once in 
 twenty-four hours — that was agreed. And it is not four 
 hours since you were there. If there is one thing needful,
 
 268 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 not the least doubt of it! — it is to leave him thinking that 
 we 're meaning it." 
 
 He spoke reasonably. But the girl laboured under a 
 weight of agitation that did not suffer her to reason. 
 " But if he dies ? " she cried in a woeful tone. " If he dies 
 of hunger ? Oh, my God, of hunger! What have we done 
 then? I tell you," she continued, "I cannot bear it! I 
 cannot bear it!" She looked from one to the other as 
 appealing to each in turn to share her horror, and to act. 
 It is wicked, it is wicked!" she continued, in a shriller 
 tone and with a note of defiance in her voice, "and who 
 will answer for it if he dies ? I, not you! I, who tricked 
 him, who lied to him, who lured him there!" 
 
 For a moment there was a stricken silence in the room. 
 Then, "And what had he done to you?" Asgill retorted 
 with spirit — for he saw that if he did not meet her on her 
 own plane she was capable of any act, however ruinous. 
 "Or, if not to you, to Ireland, to your King, to your coun- 
 try, to your hopes ?" He flung into his voice all the indig- 
 nation of which he was master. " A trick, you say ? Was 
 it not by a trick he ruined all ? The fairest prospect, the 
 brightest day that ever dawned for Ireland! The day of 
 freedom, of liberty, of " 
 
 She twisted her fingers feverishly together. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "yes! Yes, but — I can't bear it! 
 It is no use talking," she continued, with a violent shudder. 
 "You are here — look! " she pointed to the table strewn with 
 the remains of the meal. "But he is — starving! Starv- 
 ing! "she repeated, as if the physical pain touched herself.
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 269 
 
 "You shall go to him to-morrow! Go, yourself!" he 
 replied in a soothing tone. 
 
 "I!" she cried. "Never!" 
 
 "Oh, but " Asgill began, perplexed but not sur- 
 prised by her attitude. "But there 's your brother," he 
 continued, relieved. "He will tell you, I'm sure, that 
 nothing can be so harmful as to change now. Your 
 sister," he went on, addressing The McMurrough, who 
 had just descended the stairs, "she 's wishing some one 
 will go to the Colonel, and see if he 's down a peg. But 
 I 'm telling her " 
 
 "It 's folly entirely, you should be telling her!" James 
 McMurrough replied, curtly and roughly. "To-morrow 
 at sunset, and not an hour earlier, he '11 be visited. And 
 then it '11 be you, Flav\7, that '11 speak to him! What 
 more is it you 're wanting ? " 
 
 "I speak to him?" she cried. "I could n't!" 
 
 "But it'll be you'll have to!" he replied roughly. 
 "Wasn't it so arranged?" 
 
 "I could n't," she replied, in the same tone of trouble. 
 "Some one else — if you like!" 
 
 "But it 's not some one else will do," James retorted. 
 
 "But why should I be the one — to go?" she wailed. 
 She had Colonel John's face before her, haggard, sunken, 
 famished, as, peering into the gloomy, firelit room, she had 
 seen it that afternoon. 
 
 "For a very good reason," her brother retorted with a 
 sneer. He looked at Asgill and laughed. 
 
 That look startled her as a flash of light startles
 
 270 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 a traveller groping through darkness. "Why?" she 
 repeated in a different tone. 
 
 But neither her tone nor Asgill's glance put James 
 McMurrough on his guard; he was in one of his brutal 
 humours. "Why?" he replied. "Because he's a silly 
 fool, as I 'm thinking some others are, and has a fancy for 
 you, Flawy! Faith, you're not blind!" he continued, 
 "and know it, I '11 be sworn, as well as I do! Any way, 
 I 've a notion that if you let him see that there is no one in 
 the house wishes him worse than you, or would see him 
 starve with a lighter heart — I 'm thinking it will be for 
 bringing him down, if anything will!" 
 
 She did not answer. Outwardly she was not much 
 moved; but inwardly, the horror of herself which she had 
 felt as she lay upstairs in the darkness, thinking of the 
 starving man, choked her. They were using her because 
 the man — loved her! Because hard words, cruel treat- 
 ment, brutality from her would be ten times more hard, 
 more cruel, more brutal than from others! Because such 
 treatment at her hands would be more likely to break his 
 spirit and crush his heart! To what viler use, to what 
 lower end, could a woman be used or human feeling be 
 prostituted ? 
 
 Nor was this all. On the tide of this loathing of herself 
 rose another, a stranger feeling. The man loved her. She 
 did not doubt the statement Its truth came home to her 
 at once. And because it placed him in a light in which she 
 had never viewed him before, because it recalled a hundred 
 things, acts, words on his part which she had barely noted
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 271 
 
 at the time, it showed him, too, as one whom she had 
 never seen. Had he been free, prosperous, triumphant, 
 the knowledge that he loved her, that he, her enemy, loved 
 her, might have revolted her — she might have hated him 
 the more for it. But now that he lay a prisoner, famished, 
 starving, the fact that he loved her touched her heart, 
 transfixed her with an almost poignant feeling, choked her 
 with a rising flood of pity and self-reproach. 
 
 "So there you have it. Flawy!" James cried, compla- 
 cently. "And sure, you '11 not be making a fool of your- 
 self at this time of day!" 
 
 She stood looking at him with strange eyes, thinking, 
 not answering. Asgill only saw a burning blush dye for 
 an instant the whiteness of her face. He discovered, with 
 the subtle insight of one who loved, a part of what she was 
 thinking. He wished James McMurrough in the depth of 
 perdition. But it was too late, or he feared so. 
 
 Great was his relief, therefore, when she spoke. "Then 
 you '11 not — be going now?" she said. 
 
 "Now?" James retorted contemptuously. "Haven't 
 I told you, you '11 go to-morrow?" 
 
 "If I must," she said, slowly, "I will — if I must." 
 
 "Then what 's the good of talking," The McMurrough 
 answered. He was proceeding to say more when the 
 opportunity was taken from him. One of the O'Beirnes, 
 who happened to avert his eyes from the girl, discovered 
 Payton standing at the foot of the stairs. Phelim's 
 exclamation apprised the others that something was amiss, 
 and they turned.
 
 272 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "I left my snuff-box on the table," Payton said, with a 
 sly grin. How much he had heard they could not tell. 
 "Ha! there it is! Thank you. Sorry, I am sure! Hope 
 I don't trespass. Will you present me to your sister, 
 Mr. McMurrough?" 
 
 James McMurrough had no option but to do so — look- 
 ing foolish. Luke Asgill stood by with rage in his heart, 
 cursing the evil chance which had brought Flavia 
 downstairs. 
 
 "I assure you," Payton said, bowing low before her, 
 but not so low that the insolence of his smile was hidden 
 from all, "I think myself happy. My friend Asgill's 
 picture of you, warmly as he painted it, fell infinitely 
 below the reality!"
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE KEY 
 
 COLONEL JOHN rose and walked unsteadily to 
 the window. He rested a hand on either jamb 
 and looked through it, peering to right and left 
 with wistful eyes. He detected no one, nothing, no 
 change, no movement, and, with a groan, he straightened 
 himself. But he still continued to look out, gazing at the 
 pitiless blue sky in which the sun was still high. 
 
 Presently he grew weary, and went back to his chair. 
 He sat down with his elbows on his knees and his head 
 between his hands. Again his ears had deceived him! 
 How many more times would he start to his feet, fancying 
 he heard the footstep that did not fall, calling aloud to 
 those who were not there, anticipating those who, more 
 heedless than the face of nature without, would not come 
 before the appointed time! And that was hours away, 
 hours of thirst and hunger, almost intolerable; of 
 patience and waiting, broken only by such a fancy, 
 born of his weakened senses, as had just drawn him to 
 the window. 
 
 Colonel John was a man sane and well-balanced; but 
 even he had succumbed more than once during the last 
 twelve hours to gusts of rage, provoked as much by the 
 
 273
 
 274 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 futility of his suffering as by the cruelty of his persecutors. 
 After each of these storms he had scolded himself and 
 grown calm. But they had made their mark upon him, 
 they had left his eyes wilder, his cheeks more hollow, his 
 hand less firm. 
 
 Notwithstanding, he was not light-headed. He could 
 command his faculties, he could still reflect and plan. 
 But at times he found himself confounding the present 
 with the past, fancying, for a while, that he was in a 
 Turkish prison, or starting from a waking dream of some 
 cold camp in Russian snows — alas! starting from it 
 only to shiver with that penetrating, heart-piercing, fright- 
 ful cold, which was worse to bear than the gnawing of 
 hunger or the longing of thirst. He had burned, in fighting 
 the cold of the past night, all that would burn, except the 
 chair on which he sat. 
 
 He had not eaten for more than seventy hours. But the 
 long privation, which had weakened his limbs and blanched 
 his cheeks, had not availed to shake his will. The possi- 
 bility of surrender did not occur to him, partly because he 
 felt sure that James McMurrough would not be so foolish 
 as to let him die; but partly, also, by reason of a noble 
 stubbornness in the man, that for no pain of death would 
 leave a woman or a child to perish. More than once 
 Colonel Sullivan had had to make that choice, amid the 
 horrors of a retreat across famished lands, with wolves 
 and Cossacks on his skirts; and perhaps the choice then 
 made had become a habit of the mind. At any rate, he 
 gave no thought to yielding.
 
 THE KEY 275 
 
 He had sat for some minutes in the attitude described, 
 when once more a sound startled him. He raised his head 
 and turned his eyes on the window. Then he faltered to 
 his feet, and once again went unsteadily to the window 
 and looked out. 
 
 At the same moment Flavia looked in. Their eyes met. 
 Their faces were less than a yard apart. 
 
 The girl started back with a cry, caused by horror at the 
 change in his aspect. For she had left him hungry, she 
 found him starving; she had left him haggard, she found 
 him with eyes unnaturally large, his temples hollow, his 
 lips dry, his chin unshaven. It was indeed a staring mask 
 of famine that looked out of the dusky room at her, and 
 looked not the less pitifully, not the less wofully, because, 
 as soon as its owner took in her identity, the mask tried to 
 smile. 
 
 " Mother of God ! " she whispered. Her face had grown 
 nearly as white as his. She had imagined nothing like this. 
 
 Colonel John, believing that he read pity as well as 
 horror in her face, felt a sob rise in his breast. He tried to 
 smile the more bravely for that, and presently he found a 
 queer, husky voice. 
 
 "You must not leave me — too long," he said. 
 
 She drew in her breath, and averted her face, to hide, he 
 hoped, the effect of the sight upon her. Or perhaps — 
 for he saw her shudder — she was mutely calling the 
 sunlit lake on which her eyes rested, the blue sky, to 
 witness against this foul cruelty. 
 
 But it seemed that he deceived himself. For when she
 
 276 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 turned her face to him again, though it was still colourless, 
 it was hard and set. 
 
 "You must sign," she said. "You must sign the paper." 
 
 His parched lips opened, but he did not answer. 
 
 "You must sign!" she repeated insistently. "You 
 must sign!" 
 
 Still he did not answer; he only looked at her with eyes 
 of infinite reproach. She, a woman, a girl, whose tender 
 heart should have bled for him, could see him tortured, 
 could aid in the work, and cry "Sign!" 
 
 She could indeed, for she repeated the word — fever- 
 ishly. "Sign!" she cried. And then, "If you will," she 
 said, "I will give you — see! You shall have this. You 
 shall eat and drink; only sign! For God's sake sign 
 what they want, and eat and drink!" 
 
 With fingers that trembled with haste she drew from 
 a hiding-place in her cloak bread and milk and wine. 
 "See what I have brought," she continued, holding them 
 before his starting eyes, his cracking lips, " if you will sign." 
 
 He gazed at them, at her, with anguish of the mind as 
 well as of the body. How he had mistaken her! How he 
 had misread her! Then, with a groan, " God forgive you!" 
 he cried, "I cannot! I cannot!" 
 
 "You will not sign ?" she retorted. 
 
 "Cannot, and will not!" he said. 
 
 " And why ? Why will you not ? " 
 
 On that his patience gave way; and, swept along by 
 one of those gusts of rage, he spoke. "Why?" he cried 
 in hoarse accents. "Because, ungrateful, unwomanly,
 
 THE KEY 277 
 
 miserable as you are — I will not rob you or the 
 dead! Because I will not be false to an old man's trust! 
 Because," — he laughed a half-delirious laugh — " there is 
 nothing to sign. I have burned your parchments these 
 two days, and if you make me suffer twice as much as I 
 have suffered you can do nothing!" He held out hands 
 which trembled with passion. "You can do nothing!" 
 he repeated,. "Neither you, who — God forgive you, 
 have no woman's heart, no woman's pity! nor he who 
 would have killed me in the bog to gain that which he now 
 starves me to get! But I foiled him then, as I will foil him 
 to-day, ingrate, perjured, accursed " 
 
 He faltered, steadying himself against the wall. For a 
 moment he covered his eyes with the other hand. Then 
 "God forgive me!" he resumed in a lower tone, "I know 
 not what I say! And you — Go! for you know not what 
 you do. You do not know what it is to hunger and thirst, 
 or you would not try me thus! Yet I ought to remember 
 that — that it is not for yourself you do it! " 
 
 He turned his back on her and on the window. He had 
 taken three steps when she cried, "Wait!" 
 
 " Go! " he repeated with a backward gesture of the hand. 
 "Go!" 
 
 "Wait!" she cried. "And take them! Oh! take 
 them! Quick!" He turned about. She was holding the 
 food and the drink through the window, holding them out 
 for him to take. But it might be another deception. He 
 was not sure, and he took a step in a stealthy fashion 
 toward the window, as if, were she off her guard, he would
 
 278 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 snatch them from her. But she cried again, "Take them! 
 Take them!" with tears in her voice. "I brought them 
 for you." 
 
 The craving was so strong upon him that he took them 
 then without answering her or thanking her. He turned 
 his back on her, as if he dared not let her see the desire in 
 his face; and standing thus, he drew the stopper from the 
 bottle of milk, and drank. He would fain have held the 
 bottle to his lips until he had drained the last drop, but 
 he controlled himself, and when he had swallowed a few 
 mouthfuls, he removed it Then he broke off three or 
 four small fragments of the bread, and ate them one by 
 one and slowly — the first with difficulty, the second more 
 easily, the third with an avidity which he checked only 
 by a firm effort of the will. " Presently! " he told himself. 
 "There is plenty, there is plenty." Yet he allowed himself 
 two more mouthfuls of bread and another sip of milk — 
 milk that was nectar, rather than any earthly drink. 
 
 At length, with new life running in his veins, and a pure 
 thankfulness that she had proved herself very woman at the 
 last, he laid his treasures on the chair, and turned to her. 
 She was gone. 
 
 While he had eaten and drunk he had felt her presence 
 at his back, and once he was sure that he had heard her 
 sob. But she was gone. He staggered — for he was not 
 yet steady on his feet — to the window, and looked to right 
 and left. 
 
 She had not gone far She was lying prone on the 
 sward, her face hidden on her arms; and it was true
 
 THE KEY 279 
 
 that he had heard her sob, for she was weeping without 
 restraint. The change in him, to say nothing of his 
 reproaches, had done something more than shock her. 
 The scales of prejudice which had dimmed her sight fell 
 from her eyes; and, for the first time, she saw him as he 
 was. For the first time she perceived that, in pursuing 
 the path he had followed, he might have thought himself 
 right. Parts of the passionate rebuke which suffering 
 and indignation had forced from him remained branded 
 upon her memory; and she wept in shame, feeling her 
 helplessness, her ignorance, feeling that she had no longer 
 any sure support or prop. How could she trust those who, 
 taking advantage at once of her wounded vanity and her 
 affection for her brother, had drawn her into this hideous, 
 this cruel, business? 
 
 The sense of her loneliness, the knowledge that those 
 about her used her for their own ends — and those the 
 most unworthy — overwhelmed her. 
 
 When the first passion of self-reproach had spent itself, 
 she heard him calling her by name, and in a voice that 
 stirred her heart-strings. She rose, first to her knees and 
 then to her feet, and, averting her face, "I will open the 
 door," she said, humbly and in a broken voice. "I have 
 brought the key." 
 
 He did not answer, and she did not unlock. For as, 
 still keeping her face averted that he might not see her 
 tears, she turned the corner of the tt)wer to gain the door, 
 her brother's head and shoulders rose above the level of 
 the platform. As The McMurrough stepped on to the
 
 280 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 latter from the path, he was in time to see her skirt 
 vanishing. He saw no more. But his suspicions 
 were aroused. He strode across the face of the tower, 
 turned the corner and came on her in the act of putting 
 the key in the lock. 
 
 "What are you doing?" he cried, in a terrible voice. 
 "Are you mad ?" 
 
 She did not answer, but neither did he pause for her 
 answer. The imminence of the peril, the thought that 
 the man whom he had so deeply wronged might in 
 another minute be free to avenge himself and punish his 
 foes, rose up before him, and he thrust her roughly from 
 the door. The key, not yet turned, came away in her 
 hand, and he tried to snatch it from her. 
 
 " Give it me! " he cried. " Do you hear ? Give it me! " 
 
 "I will not!" she cried. "No!" 
 
 "Give it up, I say!" he retorted. And this time he 
 made good his hold on her wrist. He tried to force the 
 key from her. "Let it go!" he panted, "or I shall hurt 
 you!" 
 
 But he made a great mistake if he thought that he ^ould 
 coerce Flavia in that way. Her fingers only closed more 
 tightly on the key. "Never!" she cried, struggling with 
 him. "Never! I am going to let him out!" 
 
 "You coward!" a voice cried through the door. 
 "Coward! Coward!" There was a sound of drumming 
 on the door. 
 
 But Colonel John's voice and his blows were powerless 
 to help, as James, in a frenzy of rage and alarm, gripped
 
 THE KEY 281 
 
 the girl's wrist and twisted it. "Let it go! Let it go, 
 you fool!" he cried, brutally, "or I will break your arm!" 
 
 Her face turned white with pain, but for a moment she 
 endured in silence. Then a shriek escaped her. 
 
 It was answered instantly. Neither he nor she had had 
 eyes for aught but one another; and the hand that fell, 
 and fell heavily, on James's shoulder was as unexpected 
 as a thunderbolt. 
 
 "By Heaven, man," a voice cried in his ear. "Are you 
 mad ? Or is this the way you treat women in Kerry ? 
 Let the lady go! Let her go, I say!" 
 
 The command was needless, for at the first sound of 
 the voice James had fallen back with a curse, and Flavia, 
 grasping her bruised wrist with her other hand, reeled for 
 support against the Tower wall. For a moment no one 
 spoke. Then James, with scarcely a look at Payton — 
 for he it was — bade her come away with him. "If you 
 are not mad," he growled, "you '11 have a care! You '11 
 have a care, and come away, girl!" 
 
 "When I have let him out, I will," she answered, her 
 eyes glowing sombrely as she nursed her wrist. In her, 
 too, the old Adam had been raised. 
 
 "Give me the key!" he said for the last time. 
 
 "I will not," she said. 
 
 The McMurrough turned his rage upon the intruder. 
 "Deuce take you, what business will it be of yours?" he 
 cried. "Who are you to come between us, eh?" 
 
 Payton bowed. "If I offend," he said, airily, "I am 
 entirely at your service." He tapped the hilt of his sword.
 
 282 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 *'You do not wear one, but I have no doubt you can use 
 one. I shall be happy to give you satisfaction where and 
 when you please. A time and place " 
 
 But James did not stop to hear him out. He turned 
 with an oath and a snarl, and went off — went off in such 
 a manner that Flavia could not but see that the challenge 
 was not to his taste. At another time she would have 
 blushed for him. But his brutal violence had done more 
 during the last ten minutes to depose his image from her 
 heart than years of neglect and rudeness. 
 
 Payton saw him go, and, blessing the good fortune which 
 had put him in a position to command the beauty's thanks, 
 he turned to receive them. But Flavia was not looking at 
 him, was not thinking of him. She had put the key in 
 the lock and was trying to turn it. Her left wrist, however, 
 was too weak, and the right was so strained as to be 
 useless. She signed to him to turn the key, and he did so, 
 and threw open the door, wondering much what it was 
 all about. 
 
 He did not at once recognize the man who, pale and 
 haggard, a mere ghost of himself, dragged himself up the 
 three steps, and, exhausted by the effort, leaned against the 
 doorpost. But when Colonel John spoke and tried to 
 thank the girl, he knew him. 
 
 He whistled. "You are Colonel Sullivan!" he said. 
 
 "The same, sir!" Colonel John murmured mechanically. 
 
 "Are you ill?" 
 
 "I am not well," the other replied, with a sickly smile. 
 The indignation which he had felt during the contest
 
 THE KEY 283 
 
 between the girl and her brother had been too much for 
 his strength. "I shall be better presently," he added. 
 He closed his eyes. 
 
 "We should be getting him below," Flavia said in an 
 undertone. 
 
 Payton looked from one to the other. He was in a fog. 
 "Has he been here long?" he asked. 
 
 "Nearly four days," she replied, with a shiver. 
 
 "And nothing to eat?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 'The deuce! And why?" 
 
 She did not stay to think how much it was wise to tell 
 him. In her repentant mood she was anxious to pour 
 herself out in self-reproach. "We wanted him to con- 
 vey some property," she said, "as we wished." 
 
 "To your brother?" 
 
 "Ah, to him!" Then, seeing his astonishment, "It 
 was mine," she added. 
 
 Payton began to understand. He looked at her; but 
 no, he did not understand now. For if the idea had been 
 to constrain Colonel Sullivan to transfer her property to 
 her brother, how did her interest match with that? He 
 could only suppose that her brother had coerced her, and 
 that she had given him the slip and tried to release the 
 man — with the result he had witnessed. 
 
 One thing was clear. The property, large or small, 
 was still hers. The Major looked with a thoughtful face 
 at the smiling valley, with its cabins scattered over the 
 slopes, at the lake and the fishing-boats, and the rambling
 
 284 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 slate-roofed house with its sheds and peat-stacks. He 
 wondered. 
 
 No more was said at that moment, however, for Flavia 
 saw that Colonel Sullivan's strength was not to be revived 
 in an hour. He must be assisted to the house and cared for 
 there. In the meantime, and to lend some strength, she 
 was anxious to give him such wine and food as he could 
 safely take. To procure these she entered the room in 
 which he had been confined. 
 
 As she cast her eyes round its dismal interior, marked 
 the poor handful of embers that told of his long struggle 
 with the cold, marked the one chair which he had saved 
 — for to lie on the floor had been death — marked the 
 beaten path that led from the chair to the window, and 
 spoke of many an hour of painful waiting and of hope 
 deferred, she saw the man in another, a more gentle aspect. 
 She had seen the heroism, she now saw the pathos of his 
 conduct, and tears came afresh to her eyes. "For me!" 
 she murmured. " For me ! And how had I treated him I " 
 
 Her old grievance against him was forgotten, wiped out 
 of remembrance by his sufferings. She dwelt only on the 
 treatment she had meted out to him. 
 
 When they had given him to eat and drink he assured 
 them, smiling, that he could walk. But when he attempted 
 to do so he staggered. " He will need a stronger arm than 
 yours," Payton said, with a grin. "May I offer mine ?" 
 
 For the first time she looked at him gratefully. " Thank 
 you," she said. 
 
 "I can walk," the Colonel repeated obstinately. "A
 
 THE KEY 285 
 
 little giddy, that is all." But in the end he needed all the 
 help that both could give him. And so it happened that 
 a few minutes later Luke Asgill, standing at the entrance 
 to the courtyard, looked along the road, and saw the three 
 approaching, linked in apparent amity. 
 
 The shock was great, for James McMurrough had fled, 
 cursing, into solitude and the hills, taking no steps to warn 
 his ally. The sight struck Asgill with the force of a bullet. 
 Colonel John released, and in the company of Flavia and 
 Pay ton! All his craft, all his coolness, forsook him. He 
 slunk out of sight by a back way, but not before Payton 
 had marked his retreat.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 
 
 UNDER the shadow of the great peat-stack, 
 whither he had retired that he might make up 
 his mind before he faced the three, Asgill 
 cursed The McMurrough with all his heart. It was, it 
 must be, through his folly and mismanagement that the 
 thing had befallen, that the prisoner had been released, 
 that Payton had been let into the secret. 
 
 How was he to get rid of Payton ? How prevent Colonel 
 John from resuming that sway in the house which he had 
 exercised before ? How nip in the bud that nascent sym- 
 pathy, that feeling for him, which Flavia's outbreak the 
 night before had suggested ? Or how, short of all this, 
 was he to face either Payton or the Colonel ? 
 
 In counsel with James McMurrough he might have 
 arranged a plan of action ; at least, he would have learned 
 from him what Payton knew. But James's absence ruined 
 all. In the end, after waiting some time in the vain hope 
 that he would appear, Asgill went in to supper. 
 
 Colonel Sullivan was not there; he was in no condition 
 to descend. Nor was Flavia; whereon Asgill reflected, 
 with chagrin, that probably she was attending upon the 
 invalid. Payton was at table, with the two O'Beirnes, and 
 
 286
 
 SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 287 
 
 three other buckeens. The Englishman, amused by the 
 discovery he had made, was openly disdainful of his com- 
 panions; while the Irishmen, sullen and suspicious, were 
 not aware how much he knew. If The McMurrough 
 chose to imprison his unpopular kinsman, it was nothing 
 to them; nor a matter into which gentlemen eating at his 
 table and drinking his potheen and claret were called 
 upon to peer too closely. 
 
 But for his repute as a duellist they would have picked 
 a quarrel with the visitor there and then. And but 
 for the presence of his four troopers in the background 
 they might have fallen upon him in some less regular 
 fashion. As it was, they sat eyeing him askance; and, 
 without shame, were relieved when Asgill entered. They 
 looked to him to clear up the situation and put the inter- 
 loper in his right place. 
 
 "I'm fearing I'm late," Asgill said. "Where '11 
 The McMurrough be, I wonder?" 
 
 "Gone to meet your friend, I should think," Payton 
 replied with a sneer. 
 
 Asgill maintained a steady face. "My friend?" he 
 repeated. "Oh, Colonel Sullivan?" 
 
 "Yes, your friend who was to return to-day," the other 
 retorted. "Have you seen anything of him?" he con- 
 tinued, with a grin. 
 
 Asgill fixed his eyes steadily on Payton's face. "I 'm 
 fancying you have the advantage of me," he said. " More 
 by token, I 'm thinking. Major, you have seen that same 
 friend already."
 
 288 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Maybe I have." 
 
 "And had a bout with him?" 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "And, faith, had the best of the bout, too!" Asgill con- 
 tinued coolly, and with his eyes fixed on the other's features 
 as if his one aim was to see if he had hit the mark. "So 
 much the best that I '11 be chancing a guess he 's upstairs 
 at this moment, and wounded ! Leastwise, I hear you and 
 the young lady brought him to the house between you, and 
 him scarcely able to use his ten toes." 
 
 Payton, with his mouth open, glared at the speaker 
 in a manner that at another time must have provoked him 
 to laughter. 
 
 "Is n't that the fact?" Asgill asked, coldly. 
 
 "The fact!" the other burst forth. "No, I 'm cursed 
 if it is! And you know it is not! You know as well as I 
 
 do " And with that he poured forth a version of the 
 
 events of the afternoon. 
 
 When he had done, "That's a strange story," Asgill 
 said quietly, "if it's true." 
 
 "True?" Payton rejoined, laying his hand on a glass 
 and speaking in a towering rage. "You know it 's true!" 
 
 "I know nothing about it," Asgill replied, with the 
 utmost coolness. 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 "And for a good reason. Sure, and I 'm the last person 
 they would be likely to tell it to!" 
 
 "And you were not a party to it?" Payton crie< 
 
 "Why should I be?" Asgill rejoined. "What have I
 
 SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 289 
 
 to gain by robbing the young lady of her inheritance ? 
 I 'd be more Hkely to lose by it than gain." 
 
 "Lose by it? Why?" 
 
 *' That is my affair," Asgill answered. And he hummed : 
 
 " 'They tried put the comether on Judy McBain : 
 One, two, three, one, two three ! 
 Cotter and crowder and Paddy O'Hea ; 
 For who but she 's owner of BalljTnacshane ?' " 
 
 He made his meaning so clear that Pay ton, scowling 
 at him with his hand on a glass as if he meant to 
 throw it, dropped his eyes and his hand and fell into a 
 gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of the 
 other's argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the 
 heiress's hand the last thought in his mind would be to 
 divest her of her property. 
 
 Asgill read his thoughts, and presently: "I hope the 
 wound is not serious?" he said. 
 
 "He is not wounded," the Major answered curtly. 
 Meanwhile the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned their 
 admiration of the bear-tamer; and went out one by one, 
 until the two men were left together 
 
 They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, 
 with his eyes on the table, Asgill toying with the things 
 before him. Each saw the prize clear before him; each 
 saw the other in the way. Payton cared for the girl herself 
 only as a toy that had caught his fancy; but his mouth 
 watered for her possessions. Asgill cared little or nothing 
 fo'" '' 'nheritance, but he swore that the other man should 
 never live to possess the woman. " It is a pity," Payton
 
 290 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 meditated, "for, with his aid, I could take the girl, wilHng 
 or unwiUing. She 'd not be the first Irish girl who has 
 gone to her marriage across the pommel!" While Asgill 
 reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night 
 it would not be his small-sword would help him or his 
 four troopers would find him! But it must not be at 
 Morristown. 
 
 Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had 
 advantages. Asgill was Irish, and known to Flavia; 
 but Payton, though English, was the younger, the hand- 
 somer, the better born, and he flattered himself that, given 
 a little time, he would win, if not by favour, by force or 
 fraud. But, could he have looked into Asgill's heart, 
 he would have trembled. He would have known that, 
 while Irish bogs were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, 
 his life would not be worth one week's purchase if he 
 wronged this girl. 
 
 And Asgill suspected the other; and he shook with rage 
 at the thought that Payton might offer the girl some 
 rudeness. When Payton rose to go, he rose also; and 
 when, by chance, Payton sat down, he sat down also. 
 At once the Englishman understood; and thenceforth they 
 sat with frowning faces, each more certain, with every 
 moment, that, the other removed, his path to the goal 
 was clear and open. 
 
 There was claret on the table, and the Major did not 
 spare it. When he rose to his feet to retire he was heated 
 and flushed, but not drunk. "Where 's that young cub ?" 
 he asked.
 
 SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 291 
 
 Asgill shrugged his shoulders. "I can't hope to fill his 
 place," he said with a smooth smile. " But I will be doing 
 the honours as well as I can." 
 
 "You are very officious, it seems to me," Pay ton growled. 
 And then, more loudly, "I am going to bed," he said. 
 
 "Tn his absence," Asgill answered, with mock polite- 
 ness, "I will have the honour of lighting you." 
 
 "You need n't trouble." 
 
 "Faith, and it 's no trouble at all," Asgill replied in the 
 same tone. And, taking two of the candles from the table, 
 he preceded the Englishman up the stairs. 
 
 The gradual ascent of the lights and the men's footsteps 
 should have given Flavia warning of their coming. But 
 either she disdained concealment or she was thinking of 
 other things, for when they entered the passage beyond 
 the landing they espied the girl standing outside the 
 Colonel's door A pang shot through Asgill's heart, and 
 he drew in his breath. 
 
 She raised her hand. "Ah," she said, "he has been 
 crying out! But I think it was in his sleep. Will you be 
 making as little noise as you can ?" 
 
 Asgill did not answer, but Pay ton did, " Happy man ! " 
 he said. And, being in his cups, he said it in such a tone 
 and with such a look that a deep blush crimsoned the 
 girl's face. 
 
 Her eyes snapped. "Good-night," she said, coldly. 
 
 Asgill continued to keep silence, but Payton did not 
 take the hint. " Wish I 'd such a guardian ! " he said with 
 a chuckle. "I 'd be a happy man then!"
 
 292 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 Asgill's face was dark with passion, but "Good-night" 
 Flavia repeated coldly. And this time the displeasure in 
 her tone silenced the Major. The two men went on to 
 their rooms, though Asgill's hands itched to be at the 
 other's throat. A moment later two doors closed sharply. 
 
 Flavia remained in the darkness of the passage, but she 
 no longer listened — she thought. Presently slie went 
 back to her room. 
 
 There she continued to stand and to think. And the 
 blush which the Major's insinuation had brought to her 
 cheek still burned there. It was natural that Payton's 
 words should direct her thoughts to the man outside whose 
 door he had found her; nor less natural that she should 
 institute a comparison between the two, should consider 
 how the one had treated her, when he had held her strug- 
 gling in his arms, when in her despair she had beaten his 
 face with her hands, and how the other had treated her in 
 the few hours he had known her! Thus comparing she 
 could not but find in the one a nobility, in the other a — a 
 dreadfulness. Looking back, and having Payton's words 
 and manner fresh in her mind, she had to own that, in all 
 his treatment of her, Colonel Sullivan, while opposing and 
 thwarting her, had still, and always, respected her. 
 
 Strange to say, she could not now understand that rage 
 against him which had before carried her to such lengths. 
 How had he wronged her? She could find no sufficing 
 answer. A curtain had fallen between the past and the 
 present. The rising ? It stood on a sudden very distant, 
 very dim, a thing of the past, an enterprise romantic, but
 
 SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 293 
 
 hopeless. The contemptuous words in which he had 
 denounced it rang again in her ears, but they no longer 
 kindled her resentment; they convinced. As one recover- 
 ing from sickness looks back on the delusions of fever, 
 Flavia reviewed the hopes and aspirations of the past 
 month. She saw now it was not with a handful of cotters 
 and peasants that Ireland could be saved or the true faith 
 restored ! 
 
 She was still standing a pace within her door, when a 
 foot stumbled heavily on the stairs. She recognized it for 
 James's footstep — she had heard him stumble on those 
 stairs before — and she laid her hand on the latch. She 
 had never had a real quarrel with him until now and, out- 
 rageously as he had treated her, she could not bear to sleep 
 without making an attempt to heal the breach. She 
 opened the door, and stepped out. 
 
 James's light was travelling up the stairs, but he had not 
 himself reached the landing. She had just noted this when 
 a door opened, and Pay ton looked out. He saw her, and, 
 still flushed with claret, he misunderstood her presence 
 and her purpose. He stepped toward her 
 
 "Thought so!" he chuckled. "Still listening, eh? 
 Why not listen at my door? Then it would be a pretty 
 man and a pretty maid. But I 've caught you." He shot 
 out his arm and tried to draw her toward him. "There 's 
 no one to see, and the least you can do is to give me a kiss 
 for a forfeit!" 
 
 The girl recoiled, outraged and angry. But, knowing 
 her brother was at hand, and seeing in a flash what might
 
 294 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 happen in the event of a colHsion, she did so in silence, 
 hoping to escape before he came upon them". Unfortu- 
 nately Payton misread her silence and took her movement 
 for a show of feigned modesty. With a movement as quick 
 as hers, he grasped her roughly, dragged her toward him 
 and kissed her. 
 
 She screamed then in sheer rage — screamed with such 
 passion that Payton let her go and stepped back with an 
 oath. As he did so he turned, and the turn brought him 
 face to face with James McMurrough. 
 
 The young man, tipsy and smarting with his wrongs 
 saw what was before his eyes — his sister in Payton's 
 arms — but he saw something more. He saw the man 
 who had thwarted him that day, and whom he had not at 
 the time dared to beard. What he might have done had 
 he been sober matters not. Drink and vindictiveness 
 gave him more than the courage he needed, and, with a 
 roar of anger, he dashed the glass he was carrying — and 
 its contents — into Payton's face. 
 
 The Englishman dropped where he was, and James 
 stood over him, swearing, while the grease guttered from 
 the tilted candle in his right hand. Flavia gasped, and, 
 horror-struck, clutched James's arm as he lifted the 
 candlestick and made as if he would beat in the man's 
 brains. 
 
 Fortunately a stronger hand than hers interfered. Asgill 
 dragged the young man back. "Haven't you done 
 enough?" he cried. "Would you murder the man, and 
 his troopers in the house?"
 
 SCENE IN THE PASSAGE 295 
 
 'Ah, did n't you see, curse you, he " 
 
 "I know, I know!" Asgill answered hoarsely. "But 
 not now! Not now! Let him rise if he can! Let him 
 rise, I say! Payton!" 
 
 The moment James stood back the fallen man staggered 
 to his feet, and though the blood was running down his 
 face from a cut on the cheekbone, he showed that he was 
 less hurt than startled. "You '11 give me satisfaction for 
 this!" he muttered. "You '11 give me satisfaction for 
 this," he repeated, between his teeth. 
 
 "Ah, by heaven, I will!" James McMurrough answered 
 furiously. "And kill you, too!" 
 
 "At eight to-morrow! Do you hear? At eight to- 
 to-morrow! Not an hour later!" 
 
 "I '11 not keep you waiting," James retorted. 
 
 Flavia leaned almost fainting against her door. She 
 tried to speak, but her voice failed her. 
 
 And Payton's livid, scowling, bleeding face was hate 
 itself. "Behind the yews in the garden?" he said, dis- 
 regarding her presence. 
 
 " Ah, I '11 meet you there ! " The Mc^NIurrough answered, 
 pot-valiant. "And, more by token, order your cofBn, 
 for you '11 need it!" Drink and rage left no place in his 
 brain for fear. 
 
 "That will be seen — to-morrow," the Englishman 
 answered, in a tone that chilled the girl's marrow. Then, 
 with his kerchief pressed to his cheek to stanch the blood, 
 he retreated into his room, and slammed the door. They 
 heard him turn the key in it.
 
 296 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 Flavia found her voice. She looked at her brother. 
 "Ah, heavens!" she cried. "Why did I open my door?" 
 
 James, still pot-valiant, returned her look. "Because 
 you were a fool," he said. "But I '11 spit him, never fear! 
 Faith, and I 'II spit him like a fowl!" In his turn he went 
 on unsteadily to his room, disappeared within it, and closed 
 the door. 
 
 Flavia and Asgill remained together. Her eyes met his. 
 "Ah, why did I open my door?" she cried. "Why did 
 I?" 
 
 He had no comfort for her. He shook his head, but 
 did not speak. 
 
 "He will kill him!" she said. 
 
 Asgill reflected in a heavy silence. "I will think what 
 can be done," he muttered at last. "Do you go to bed." 
 
 "To bed?" she cried. 
 
 "There is naught to be done to-night," he answered, in 
 a low tone. "If the troopers were not with him — but 
 that is useless. And — his door is locked. Do you go to 
 bed, and I will think what we can do." 
 
 "To save James ?" She laid her hand on Asgill's arm, 
 and he quivered. "Ah, you will save him!" She had 
 forgotten her brother's treatment of her earlier in the day. 
 
 " If I can," he said slowly. His face was damp and very 
 pale. "If I can," he repeated. "But it will not be easy 
 to save him honourably." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" she whispered. 
 
 "He '11 save himself, I fancy. But his honour " 
 
 "Ah! " The word came from her in a cry of pain.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 
 
 THE passages were still gray and chill, when one of 
 the bedchamber doors opened and a face peeped 
 out. The face was Flavia's. Presently the girl 
 stepped forward — paused, scared by a board that creaked 
 under her naked foot — then went on again. She reached 
 one of the doors, and scratched on it with her nail. 
 
 No one answered the summons, and she pushed the door 
 open and went in. As she had feared, enlightened by 
 Asgill's hint she found James was awake and sitting up in 
 his bed, his arms clasped about his knees. His eyes met 
 hers as she entered, and in his eyes, and in his form, 
 huddled together as in sheer physical pain, she read beyond 
 all doubt fear. Why she had felt certain, courageous 
 herself, that this was what she would find she did not know. 
 But there it was, as she had foreseen it, through the long, 
 restless, torturing hours. 
 
 James tried to utter the oath that, deceiving her, might 
 rid him of her presence. But his nerves, shaken by his 
 overnight drink, could not command his voice even for 
 that. His eyes dropped in shame; the muttered "What 
 the plague will you be wanting at this hour ?" was no more 
 than a querulous whisper. 
 
 297
 
 298 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "I could n't sleep," she said, avoiding his eyes. 
 
 "I, no more," he muttered. "Curse him! Curse you, 
 too ! Why were you getting in his way ? You 've as good 
 as murdered me with your tricks and your poses!" 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Ah, you have!" he answered, rocking himself to and 
 fro in his excitement. "If it were any one else, I 'm as 
 ready to fight as another! But he 's killed four men, and 
 he '11 kill me! Oh, if I 'd not come up at that minute! 
 If I 'd not come up at that minute!" 
 
 The picture of what he would have escaped had he 
 mounted the stairs a minute later was too much for him. 
 Not a thought did he give to what might have happened 
 to her had he come on the scene later; but, with all his 
 cowardly soul laid bare, he rocked himself to and fro 
 in a paroxysm of self-pity. 
 
 Yet he did not suffer more sorely under the lash of his 
 own terrors than Flavia suffered — seeing him thus, the 
 braggadocio stripped from him, and the poor, cringing 
 creature displayed. If she had thought too much of her 
 descent — and the more in proportion as fortune had 
 straitened the line, and only in this corner of a downtrodden 
 land was its greatness even a memory — she was chastened 
 for it now! She could have wept tears of shame. And 
 yet, so plain was the collapse of the man before her, that 
 she did not think of reproach, even had she found heart 
 to chide him, knowing that her words might send him to 
 his death. 
 
 All her thought was, could she hide the blot? Could
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 299 
 
 she, at any rate, so veil it that this insolent Enghshman, 
 this bully of the conquering race, might not perceive it? 
 That were worth so much that her own life seemed a small 
 price to pay for it. 
 
 But, alas! she could not purchase it with her life. Only 
 in fairy tales can the woman pass for the man, and Doris 
 receive in her tender bosom the thrust intended for the 
 sterner breast. Then how could they shun at least open 
 disgrace — open dishonour? For it needed but a glance 
 at her brother's pallid face to assure her that, brought to 
 the field, he would prove unequal even to the task of cloak- 
 ing his fears. 
 
 She sickened at the thought, and her eyes grew hard. 
 Was this the man in whom she had believed ? And when 
 he turned on his side and hid his face in the pillow and 
 groaned she had small pity to spare for him. "Ai-e you 
 not well?" she asked. 
 
 "Can't you be seeing?" he answered fractiously; but 
 for very shame he could not face her eyes. " Cannot you be 
 seeing I am not fit to get up ? See how my hand shakes! " 
 
 "What is to be done, then?" 
 
 He cursed Payton thrice in a frenzy of rage. He beat 
 the pillow with his fist. 
 
 "That does no g od," she said. 
 
 "I believe you want to kill me!" he complained 
 with childish passion. "I believe you want to see me 
 dead! Why can't you be managing your own affairs, 
 without — without — heavens!" And then, in a dreadful 
 voice, " I shall be dead to-night! And you care nothing!"
 
 300 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 He hid unmanly tears on his pillow, while she looked at 
 the wall, pale to the lips. Her worst misgivings had not 
 pictured a thing so mean as this, a spirit so poor. And 
 this was her brother, her idol, he to whom she had fondly 
 looked to revive the glories of the race! Truly she had 
 been blind. 
 
 She had spoken to Luke Asgill the night before, and he 
 would help her, she believed. But for that she would have 
 turned, as her thoughts did turn, to Colonel John. But 
 he lay prostrate, and the O'Beirnes were out of the ques- 
 tion; she could not tell them. Youth has no pity, makes 
 no allowance, expects the utmost, and a hundred times 
 they had heard James brag and brawl. And Uncle Ulick 
 was away. 
 
 There remained only Luke Asgill. 
 
 "If you are not well," she said, in the same hard voice, 
 "shall I be telling Mr, Asgill? He may contrive 
 something." 
 
 The man sweating in the bed leaped at the hope, as he 
 would have leaped at any hope. Nor was he so upset by 
 fear as not to reflect that, whatever Flavia asked Asgill 
 would do. "Ah, tell him," he cried, raising Iiimself on 
 his elbow. " Do you be telling him ! He can make him — 
 wait, may be." 
 
 At that moment she came near to hating her brother. 
 "I will send him to you," she said. 
 
 "No!" he cried anxiously. "No! Do you be telling 
 him! Do you hear? I 'm not so well to see him." 
 
 She shivered, seeing plainly the unmixed selfishness of
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 301 
 
 he course he urged. But she had not the heart to answer 
 him. She went from the room and, going back to her own 
 chamber, she dressed. By this time the house was 
 astir, the June sunshine was pouring with the songs 
 of birds through the windows. She heard one of 
 the O'Beirnes stumble downstairs. Next Asgill opened 
 his door and passed down. In a twinkUng she followed 
 him, making a sign to him to go on, and led him into 
 the open air. Nor when they were outside did she 
 speak until she had put the courtyard between herself 
 and the house. 
 
 For she would have hidden their shame from all if she 
 could! Even to say what she had to say cost her in 
 humiliation more than her brother had paid for aught in 
 his selfish life. But it had to be said, and, after a pause, 
 and with eyes averted, "My brother is ill," she faltered. 
 "He cannot meet — that man, this morning. It is — as 
 you feared. And — what can we do ?" 
 
 In another case Luke Asgill would have blessed the 
 chance that linked him with her, cast her on his help. 
 He had guessed, before she opened her mouth, what she 
 had to say — nay, for hours he had lain sleepless on his 
 bed, anticipating it. He had been certain of the issue — 
 he knew James McMurrough ; and, being a man who 
 loved Flavia indeed, but loved life also, he had foreseen, 
 with the cold sweat on his brow, what he would be driven 
 to do. 
 
 He made no haste to answer, therefore, and his tone, 
 when he did answer, was dull and lifeless. "Is it ill he
 
 302 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 is?" he asked. "It's a bad morning to be ill, and a 
 meeting on hand." 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 "Is he too bad to stand?" he continued. He made no 
 attempt to hide his comprehension or his scorn- 
 
 "I don't say that," she faltered. 
 
 "Perhaps he told you," Asgill said — and there was 
 nothing of the lover in his tone — " to speak to me ?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "It is I am to — put it off, I suppose ?" 
 
 "If it be possible," she cried. "Oh, if it be possible! 
 Is it?" 
 
 He stood, thinking, with a gloomy face. From the first 
 he had seen that there were two ways only of extricating 
 The McMurrough. The one by a mild explanation, 
 which would leave his honour in the mud. The other 
 by an explanation after a different fashion, with the word 
 "liar" ready to answer to the word "coward." But he 
 who gave this last explanation must be willing to back 
 the word with the deed, and stop cavilling with the sword- 
 point. 
 
 Now, Asgill knew the Major's skill with the sword; 
 none better. And under other circumstances the justice 
 — cold, selfish, scheming — would have gone many a 
 mile about before he entered upon a quarrel with him. 
 None the less, love had drawn him to contemplate this 
 very thing. For surely, if he did this and lived, Flavia 
 would smile on him. Surely, if he saved her brother's 
 honour, she would be won. It was a forlorn, it was a
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 303 
 
 desperate expedient. For no other advantage would Luke 
 Asgill have faced the Major's sword-point. But, what- 
 ever he was, he loved. He loved! And for the face and 
 the form beside him, and for the quality of soul that shone 
 from the girl's eyes, and made her what she was, and to 
 him different from all other women, he had made up his 
 mind to run the risk. 
 
 It went for something that he believed that Flavia, if 
 he failed her, would go to Colonel Sullivan. If she did 
 that, Asgill was sure that his own chance was at an end. 
 This was his chance. It lay with him now, to-day, at this 
 moment — to dare or to retire, to win her favour at the 
 risk of his life, or to yield her to another. In the chill 
 morning hour he had discovered that he must risk all or 
 lose all: and he had decided. 
 
 "I will make it possible," he said, slowly, questioning in 
 his mind whether he dared make terms with her, "I 
 will make it possible," he repeated, still more slowly, and 
 with his eyes fixed on her face. 
 
 **If you could!" she cried, clasping her hands. 
 
 "I will!" he said, a sullen undertone in his voice. His 
 eyes still dwelt darkly on her. "If he raises an objection, 
 I will fight him — myself!" 
 
 She shrank from him. "All, but I can't ask that!" 
 she cried, trembling. 
 
 "It is that or nothing." 
 
 "That or " 
 
 "There is no other way," he said. He spoke with the 
 same ungraciousness; for, try as he would, and though the
 
 304 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 habit and the education of a life cried to him to treat with 
 her and make conditions, he could not; and he was enraged 
 that he could not. 
 
 The more as her wet eyes, her quick, mounting colour, 
 told of her gratitude. In another moment she might have 
 said a word fit to unlock his lips. And he would have 
 spoken; and she would have pledged herself. But fate, 
 in the person of old Darby, intervened. Timely or 
 untimely, the butler appeared in the distant dorway, 
 cried "Hist!" and, by a backward gesture, warned them 
 of some approaching peril. 
 
 "I fear " she began. 
 
 "Yes, go!" Asgill replied, almost roughly. "He is 
 coming, and he must not find us together." 
 
 The garden gate had barely closed on her skirts before 
 Payton issued from the courtyard. The Englishman 
 paused an instant in the gateway, his sword under his arm 
 and a handkerchief in his hand. Thence he looked up 
 and down the road with an air of confidence that provoked 
 Asgill beyond measure. The sun did not seem bright 
 enough for him, nor the air scented to his liking. Finally 
 he approached the Irishman, who, affecting to be engaged 
 with his own thoughts, had kept his distance. 
 
 "Is he ready?" he asked, with a sneer. 
 
 With an effort Asgill controlled himself. "He is not," 
 he said. 
 
 "At his prayers, is he? Well, he '11 need them." 
 
 "He is not, to my knowledge," Asgill replied. "But he 
 is ill."
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 305 
 
 Payton's face lightened with a joy not pleasant to see. 
 " A coward ! " he said, coolly. " I am not surprised ! Ill, 
 is he ? Ay, I know that illness. It 's not the first time 
 I 've met it." 
 
 Asgill had no wish to precipitate a quarrel. Only in 
 the last resort had he determined to fling off the mask. 
 But at that word "coward," though he knew it to be well 
 deserved, his temper, sapped by the knowledge that love 
 was forcing him into a position which reason repudiated, 
 gave way, and he spoke his true thoughts. 
 
 "What a bully you are, Payton! " he said, in his slowest 
 tone. "Sure, and you insult the man's sister in your 
 drink " 
 
 "WTiat's that to you?" 
 
 "You insult the man's sister," Asgill persisted coolly, 
 "and because he treats you like the tipsy creature you are, 
 you 'd kill him like a dog." 
 
 Payton turned white. "And you, too," he said, "if 
 you say another word! What in heaven's name is amiss 
 with you, man, this morning? Are you mad?" 
 
 "I '11 not hear the word 'coward' used of the family — 
 I '11 soon be one of! " Asgill returned, speaking on the spur 
 of the moment, and wondering at himself the moment he 
 had made the statement. "That 's what I 'm meaning! 
 Do you see ? And if you are for repeating the word, more 
 by token, it '11 be all the breakfast you '11 have, for I '11 
 cram it down your ugly throat!" 
 
 Payton stared, divided between rage and astonishment. 
 But the former was not slow to get the upper hand, and
 
 nor; the wild c k ese 
 
 " ICiioii^li said," lie replied. " If yon arc wiliiii<^ to make 
 it ^ood, you 'II he coming this way." 
 
 "VVilliti^dy!" Asfrill uuswcred. 
 
 " I 'I! Iiav(^ one of my men for witness. Ay, that I will! 
 I don't trnst yon, Mr. Asj^ill, and that's flat. (Jet yon 
 whom yon please! In live niinuh-s, in llie friirdcii, then?" 
 
 As^nll n<)d(le<|. Tlie l*'n<r|islimaii look(>d once more .'it 
 him to make sure that he was sober; then he tiu'iied on 
 his heel and went hack (hr()n<^h the courtyard. As<^ill 
 remained alone. 
 
 lie had taken (he stcj) there was no retraein<^. lie had 
 cast (he dice, and (Ik ne\( lew minn((\s would decide 
 whctliei' i( was for life or dea(Ii. The sunshine lost i(s 
 warmdi and jfrew pale, (he hills lost their colour and their 
 l)ean(y, as h<> re(lec(cd (ha( he miifjit never sec tlu* one or 
 (he odier af^ain, mi<^ht never return hy that lak(^-side road 
 by whleli hr had come; as he re mem he red (hat all his [)lans 
 Tor his a;;<;ra,n(li/,emen(, and (hey were many and clever, 
 minli( end (his day, (his inornin;:,', (his hour! I( mii^ht well 
 he, for (he odds were i^ncal a[;ains( him, that it was to this 
 day dial all his life had led nj); (ha( life hy which men 
 would hy and \ty jnd^'c him, recallin<f this chicaiu^ and that 
 cx(,ortion, (ha,ukin<; (Jod that he was dead, or j)crhaj)S one 
 here and (here shru^^in^ his shoulders in <j;o<)d-naturcd 
 re <^ ret. 
 
 "I<\'ii(h, Mr. As<^ill," cried a, voice in his ear, "it's if 
 you 're ill, (he Major 's asking. And, hy the [)o\ver, it 's 
 not very well yon 'vr lookin<i; (his day!" 
 
 As^nll ryvil (he in(errnj»(,er it was Morty O'Jieirnc —
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 307 
 
 with a sternness which his pallor made more striking. 
 "f am coming," he said, "I am going to fight him." 
 
 "The deuce you arc ! " the young man answered. " Now, 
 are you meaning? This morning that ever is?" 
 
 "Ay, now. Where is " 
 
 He stopped on the word, and was silent. Instead, he 
 looked across the courtyard in the direction of the house. 
 If he might see her again. If he might speak to her. 
 But, no, Yet — was it certain that she knew — that she 
 understood ? And if she understood, would she know 
 that he had gone to the meeting well-nigh without hope, 
 aware how large, how very large, were the odds against him ? 
 
 " But, faith, and it 's no jest fighting him, if the least bit 
 in life of what I 've heard be true!" Morty said, a cloud 
 on his face. He looked uncertainly from Asgill to the 
 house and back. "Is it to be doing anything you A^ant 
 me?" 
 
 " I want you to come with me and see it out," Asgill said. 
 He wheeled brusquely to the garden gate, but when he 
 was within a pace of it he paused and turned his head. 
 "Mr. O'Beirne," he said, "I 'm going in by this gate, 
 and it 's not much to be expected I '11 come out any way 
 but feet first. Will you be telling her, if you please, that I 
 knew that same?" 
 
 "I will," Morty answered, genuinely distressed. " But 
 I 'm asking is there no other way?" 
 
 "There is none," ^sgill said. And he opened the gate. 
 
 Payton was waiting for him on the path under the yew 
 trees, with two of his troopers on guard in the background.
 
 308 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 He had removed his coat and vest, and stood, a not 
 ungraceful figure, in the sunshine, bending his rapier and 
 feehng its point with his thumb. He was doing this when 
 his eyes surprised his opponent's entrance, and, without 
 desisting from his employment, he smiled. 
 
 If the other's courage had begun to wane that smile 
 would have restored it. For it roused in him a stronger 
 passion than fear — the passion of hatred. He saw in the 
 man before him, the man with the cruel smile, a demon 
 who, in pure malice, without reason and without cause, 
 would take his life, would rob him of joy and love and 
 sunshine, and hurl him into the blackness of the gulf. 
 And he was seized with a rage at once fierce and deliberate. 
 This man, who would kill him and whom he saw smiling 
 before him, he would kill! He thirsted to set his foot upon 
 his throat and squeeze, and squeeze the life out of him! 
 These were the thoughts that passed through his mind as 
 he paused to throw off the encumbering coat. Then he 
 advanced, drawing his weapon as he moved, and fixing 
 his eyes on Pay ton; who, for his part, reading the other's 
 thoughts in his face — for more than once he had seen that 
 look — put himself on his guard without a word. 
 
 Asgill had no more than the rudimentary knowledge 
 of the sword which was possessed in that day by all who 
 wore it. He knew that, given time and the decent observ- 
 ances of the fencing-school, he would be a mere child in 
 Payton's hands; that it would matter nothing whether 
 the sun were on this side or that, or his sword the longer 
 or the shorter by an inch.
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 309 
 
 The moment he was within reach, therefore, and his 
 blade touched the other's, he rushed in, kmging fiercely at 
 his opponent's breast and trusting to the vigour of his 
 attack and the circular sweep of his point to protect him- 
 self. Not seldom has a man skilled in the subtleties of 
 the art found himself confused and overcome by this 
 mode of attack. 
 
 But Payton had met his man too often on the green to be 
 taken by surprise. He parried the first thrust, the second 
 he evaded by stepping adroitly aside. By the same move- 
 ment he put the sun in Asgill's eyes. 
 
 Again the latter rushed in, striving to get within his 
 opponent's guard; and again Payton stepped aside, and 
 allowed the random thrust to pass wasted under his arm. 
 Once more the same thing happened — Asgill rushed in, 
 Payton parried or evaded with the ease and coolness of 
 long-tried skill. By this time Asgill, forced to keep his 
 blade in motion, was beginning to breathe quickly. The 
 sweat stood on his brow, he struck more and more wildly, 
 and with less and less strength or aim. He was aware — 
 it could be read in the glare of his eyes — that he was being 
 reduced to the defensive; and he knew that to be fatal. 
 
 An oath broke from his panting lips and he rushed in 
 again, even more recklessly, more at random, than before, 
 his sole object now to kill the other, to stab him at close 
 quarters, no matter what happened to himself. 
 
 Again Payton avoided the full force of the rush, but this 
 time after a difYerent fashion. He retreated a step. Then 
 with a flicker and a girding of steel on steel, Asgill's sword
 
 310 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 flew from his hand, and at the same instant — or so nearly 
 at the same instant that the disarming and the thrust might 
 have seemed to an untrained eye one motion — Payton 
 turned his wrist and his sword buried itself in Asgill's body. 
 The unfortunate man recoiled with a gasping cry, stag- 
 gered, and sank sideways to the ground. 
 
 '"By the powers," O'Beirne exclaimed, springing for- 
 ward, "a foul stroke! By heaven, a foul stroke! He 
 was disarmed. It " 
 
 "Have a care what you say!" Payton answered slowly, 
 and in a terrible tone. "You 'd do better to look to your 
 friend — for he '11 need it." 
 
 "It's you that struck him after he was disarmed!" 
 Morty cried, almost weeping with rage. "Not a bit of a 
 chance did you give him! You " 
 
 "Silence, I say!" Payton answered, in a fierce tone of 
 authority. "I know my duty; and if you know yours 
 you '11 look to him." 
 
 He turned aside with that, and thrust the point of his 
 sword twice and thrice into the sod before he sheathed the 
 weapon. Meanwhile Morty had cast himself down 
 beside the fallen man, who, speechless, and with his head 
 hanging, continued to support himself on his hand. A 
 patch of blood, bright-coloured, was growing slowly on 
 his vest , and there was blood on his lips. 
 
 "Oh, whirra, whirra, what '11 I do?" the Irishman 
 exclaimed, helplessly wringing his hands. "Wliat'll I 
 do for him ? He 's murdered entirely! " 
 
 Payton, aided by one of the troopers, was putting on his
 
 BEHIND THE YEWS 311 
 
 coat and vest. He paused to bid the other help the gentle- 
 man. Then, with a cold look at the fallen man, for whom, 
 though they had been friends, as friends go in the world, 
 he seemed to have no feeling except one of contempt, 
 he walked away in the direction of the rear of the house. 
 
 By the time he reached the back door the alarm was 
 abroad, the maids were running to and fro and screaming, 
 and on the threshold he encountered Flavia. Pale as the 
 stricken man, she looked on Pay ton with an eye of horror, 
 and, as he stood aside to let her pass, she drew her skirts 
 away, that they might not touch him. 
 
 He went on, with rage in his heart. "Very good, my 
 lady," he muttered, "very good! But I 've not done with 
 you yet. I know a way to pull your pride down. And 
 I '11 go about it!" 
 
 He might have spoken less confidently had he, before 
 he retired from the scene of the fight, cast one upward 
 glance in the direction of the house; had he marked an 
 opening high up in the wall of yew, and noticed through 
 that opening a window, so placed that it alone of all the 
 windows in the house commanded the scene of action. 
 For then he would have discovered at that casement a face 
 he knew, and a pair of stern eyes that had followed the 
 course of the struggle throughout, noted each separate 
 attack, and judged the issue — and the man. 
 
 And he might have taken warning.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE PITCHER AT THE WELL 
 
 THE surgeon of that day was better skilled in letting 
 blood than in stanching it. It was well for 
 Luke Asgill, therefore, that none lived nearer 
 than Tralee. It was still more fortunate for him that there 
 was one in the house to whom the treatment of such a 
 wound as his was an every-day matter, and who was guided 
 in his practice less by the rules of the faculty than by those 
 of common sense. 
 
 Even under his care Asgill's life hung for many hours in 
 the balance. There was a time when his breath, in the 
 old phrase, would not raise a feather. The servants were 
 ready to raise the "keen," the cook sought the salt for the 
 death-plate. Colonel John, mindful of many a man found 
 living on the field hours after he should, by all the rules, 
 have died, did not despair; and little by little the Colonel's 
 skill and patience prevailed. The breathing grew stronger 
 and, though the end must remain uncertain, death, for the 
 moment, was repelled. 
 
 Now, he who, when others are distraught and wring 
 their hands, knows both what to do and how to do it, 
 cannot fail to impress the imagination. Unsupported by 
 Flavia, Colonel John might have done less: yet she who 
 
 312
 
 PITCHER AT THE WELL 313 
 
 fetched and carried for him, and shrank from no sight of 
 blood or wound, was also the one who succumbed the most 
 completely to his ascendancy. Flavia's feelings toward 
 her cousin had been altering hour by hour, and this 
 experience of him hastened her tacit surrender. 
 
 Having seen how high he could rise in adversity, she now 
 saw also how naturally he took the lead of others, how 
 completely he dominated the crowd. While she no longer 
 marvelled at the skill with which he had thwarted plans 
 which she began to appraise at their value, she found her- 
 self relying upon him to an extent which startled and 
 frightened her. 
 
 Was it only that morning that she had trembled for her 
 brother's life ? Was it only that morning that she had 
 opened her eyes and known him craven, unworthy of his 
 name and race ? Was it only that morning that she had 
 sent into peril the man who lay dying before her? For 
 if that were so why did she now feel so different? Why 
 did she now feel inexplicably relieved, inconceivably at 
 ease, almost happy ? Why, with the man whom she had 
 thrust into peril lying in extremis before her, did she find 
 her mind straying to another? To one whose hands 
 touched hers in the work of tendance, who, low-toned, 
 ordered her hither and thither, and was obeyed ? 
 
 She asked herself the question as she sat in the darkened 
 room, watching. And in the twilight she blushed. Once, 
 at a crisis. Colonel John had taken her roughly by the 
 wrist and forced her to hold the bandage so, while he 
 twisted it. She looked at the wrist now, and, fancying she
 
 314 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 could see the imprint of his fingers on it, she blushed more 
 deeply. 
 
 Presently there came, as they sat listening to the 
 fluttering breath, a low scratching at the door. At a sign 
 from Colonel Sullivan, who sat on the inner side of the bed, 
 she stole to it and found MortyO'Beirne on the threshold. 
 He beckoned to her, and, closing the door, she followed 
 him downstairs, to where, in the living-room, she found the 
 other O'Beirne standing sheepishly beside the table. 
 
 "It 's not knowing what to do, we are," Morty said. 
 
 He did not look at her, nor did his brother. Her heart 
 sank. "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "The fiend 's in the man," Morty replied, tapping with 
 his fingers on the table. " But — it 's you will be telling 
 her, Phelim." 
 
 "It 's he that 's not content," Phelim muttered. "The 
 thief of the world!" 
 
 "Curse him!" cried his brother. 
 
 " Not content ? " she echoed. " After what he 's done ? " 
 Then the downcast demeanour of the two told the story, 
 and she gasped. "He's for — fighting my brother?" 
 she whispered. 
 
 "He '11 be content with no less," Morty answered, with 
 a groan. "Bad cess to him! And The McMurrough — 
 sure he 's no stomach for it. And whirra, whirra, on that 
 the man says he '11 be telling it in Tralee that he 'd not 
 meet him, and as far as Galway City he '11 cut his comb 
 for him! Ay, bedad, he says that!" 
 
 She listened, despairing. The house was quiet, as
 
 PITCHER AT THE WELL 315 
 
 houses in the country are of an afternoon. Her thoughts 
 were no longer with the injured man, however, but in that 
 other room, where her brother lurked in shameful fear that 
 in a nameless man might have been pardoned, but in him, 
 head of his race, last of his race, never! She came of 
 heroes. To her the strain had descended pure and 
 untainted, and she would rather have seen him dead. 
 The two men before her, she was very sure, would have 
 taken up the glove, unwillingly and perforce, but they 
 would have fought! While her brother. The McMur- 
 
 rough But even while she thought of it, she saw 
 
 through the open door the figure of a man saunter slowly 
 past the courtyard gates, his sword under his arm. It 
 was the Englishman. She felt the added sting. Her 
 cheek, that had been pale, burned darkly. 
 
 "St. Patrick fly away with the toad and the ugly smile 
 of him!" Morty said. "I 'm thinking it 's between the 
 two of us, Phelim, my jewel ! And he that 's killed will 
 help the other." 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" Flavia cried, pale with horror at the 
 thought. "Not another!" 
 
 "But sure, and I 'm not seeing how else we '11 be rid of 
 him handsomely," Phelim replied. 
 
 "No!" she repeated firmly. "No! I forbid it!" 
 
 Again the man sauntered by the entrance, and again he 
 cast the same insolent, smiling look at the house. They 
 watched him pass, an ominous shadow in the sunshine, 
 and Flavia shuddered. 
 
 "But what will you be doing, then?" Morty asked.
 
 316 THE WILD GEESE 
 
 rubbing his chin in perplexity. " He 's saying that if The 
 McMurrough '11 not meet him by four o'clock, and it 
 is n't short of it, he '11 be riding this day! And him once 
 gone he 's a bitter tongue, and 't will be foul shame on the 
 house!'* 
 
 Flavia drew in her breath sharply — she had made up 
 her mind. "1 know what I will do," she said. "I will 
 tell him all." And she turned to go. 
 
 "It's not worth the shoe-leather!" Morty cried after 
 her, letting his scorn of James be seen. 
 
 But when she returned a minute later she was 
 followed, not by James McMurrough, but by Colonel 
 Sullivan. The Colonel's face had lost the brown 
 of health; but he trod firmly, and his eyes were clear 
 and kind. 
 
 " I am willing to help if I can," he said. " What is your 
 trouble?" 
 
 "Tell him," Flavia said, averting her face. 
 
 They told him in almost the same words in which they 
 had broken the news to her. "And the curse of Cromwell 
 on me, but he 's parading up and down now," Morty con- 
 tinued, "and cocking his eye at the sundial whenever he 
 passes, as much as to say, ' Is it coming, you are ? ' till the 
 heart 's fairly melted in me with the rage!" 
 
 "And it 's shame on us we let him be!" cried Phelim. 
 
 Colonel John did not answer. He was silent even when, 
 under the eyes of all, the ominous shadow passed again 
 before the entrance gates — came and went. He was so 
 long silent that Flavia turned to him, and held out her
 
 PITCHER AT THE WELL 317 
 
 hands. "What shall we do?" she cried — and in that 
 cry she betrayed her new dependence on him. 
 
 "It is hard to say," Colonel John answered gravely. 
 His face was very gloomy, and to hide it or his thoughts he 
 turned from them and went to one of the windows. 
 
 They waited, Flavia with a growing sense of disappoint- 
 ment. She did not know what she had thought that he 
 would do; but she had been confident that he could help; 
 and it seemed that he could do no more than others. 
 
 He came back to them presently, his face sad. "I will 
 deal with it," he said — and he sighed. "You can leave 
 it to me. Do you," he continued, addressing Morty, 
 "come with me, Mr. O'Beirne." 
 
 He was for leaving them with that, but Flavia put her- 
 self between him and the door. She fixed her eyes on his 
 face. "What are you going to do?" she asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 II - 
 
 I will tell you all — later," he replied gently. 
 No! now," she retorted, controlling herself with dif- 
 ficulty. "Now! You are not going — to fight him ? " 
 
 "I am not going to fight," he answered slowly. 
 
 But her heart was not so easily deceived as her ear. 
 " There is something under your words," she said. " What 
 is it?" 
 
 "I am not going to fight," he replied gravely, "but to 
 punish. There is a limit." Even while he spoke she 
 remembered in what circumstances those words had been 
 used. " He has the blood of four on his head, and another 
 lies at death's door. And he is not satisfied. Once I
 
 318 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 warned him. To-day the time for warning is past, the 
 hour for judgment is come. God forgive me if I err, 
 for vengeance is His and it is terrible to be His hand." 
 He turned to Phelim. "My sword is broken," he said. 
 "Fetch me the man's sword who Hes upstairs." 
 
 Phehra went, awe-stricken, and marvelhng. Morty 
 remained, marvelhng also. And Flavia — but, as she 
 tried to speak, Payton's shadow came into sight at the 
 entrance gates and went slowly by, and she clapped her 
 hand to her mouth that she might not scream. Colonel 
 Sullivan saw the action, understood, and touched her 
 softly on the shoulder. "Pray," he said, "pray!" 
 
 "For you!" she cried in a voice that, to those who had 
 ears, betrayed her heart. "All, I will pray!" 
 
 "No, for him," he replied. "For him now. For me 
 when I return." 
 
 She dropped on her knees before a chair, and, shudder- 
 ing, hid her face in her hands. And almost at once she 
 knew that they were gone, and that she was alone in the 
 room. 
 
 Then, whether she prayed most or listened most, or the 
 very intensity of her listening was itself prayer, she never 
 knew; but only that, when in the agony of her suspense 
 she raised her head from the chair to hear if there was 
 news, the common sounds of afternoon life lashed her with 
 a dreadful irony. The low whirr of a spinning-wheel, a 
 girl's distant chatter, the cluck of a hen in the courtyard, 
 the satisfied grunt of a roving pig, all bore home to her 
 the bitter message that, whatever happened, and though
 
 PITCHER AT THE WELL 319 
 
 nightfall found her lonely in a dishonoured home, hfe 
 would proceed as usual, the men and the women about her 
 would eat and drink, and the smallest things would stand 
 where they stood now. 
 
 WTiat was that? Only the fall of a spit in the kitchen. 
 Would they never come ? Would she never know ? That 
 surely was something. They were returning! In a 
 moment she would know. She rose to her feet and stared 
 with stony eyes at the door. But when she had listened 
 long — it was nothing. Nothing! And then — ah, that 
 surely was something! They were coming now. In a 
 moment she would know. Yes, they were coming. In 
 a moment she would know. She pressed her hands to 
 her breast. 
 
 She might have known already, for, had she gone to the 
 door, she would have seen who came. But she could 
 not go. 
 
 And he, when he came in, did not look at her. He 
 walked from the threshold to the hearth, and — strange 
 coincidence — he set the unsheathed blade he carried in 
 the self-same angle, beside the fire-back, from which she 
 had once taken a sword to attempt his life. And still he 
 did not look at her, but stood with bowed head. 
 
 At last he turned. "God forgive us all," he said. 
 
 She broke into wild weeping. And what her lips, 
 babbling incoherent thanksgiving, did not tell him, the 
 clinging of her arms, as she hung on him, conveyed.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 PEACE 
 
 UNCLE ULICK, with the mud of the road on his 
 boots, and the curls still stiff in the wig which 
 the town barber at Mallow had dressed for him, 
 rubbed his chin with his hand and owned himself 
 puzzled. Had his absence run into months instead of 
 weeks the lapse of time had not sufficed to explain 
 the change which he felt, but could not define, in his 
 surroundings. 
 
 Certainly old Darby looked a thought more trim, and 
 the room a trifle better ordered than he had left them. 
 But the change did not stop there — perhaps did not begin 
 there. Full of news of the outer world as he was, he caught 
 himself pausing in mid-career to question himself, and his 
 eyes scanned his companions' faces for the answer his mind 
 refused to give. 
 
 An insolent Englishman had come, and, after running 
 Luke Asgill through the body, had paid the penalty — in 
 fight so fair that the very troopers who had witnessed it 
 could make no complaint nor raise trouble. So much 
 Uncle Ulick had learned. But he had not known Payton, 
 and, exciting as the episode sounded, it did not explain the 
 difference in the atmosphere of the house. Where he had 
 
 320
 
 PEACE 321 
 
 left suspicion, and a silent table, he found smiles, and 
 easiness, and a cheerful sense of well-being. 
 
 Again he looked about him. "And where will James 
 be?" he asked. 
 
 "He has left us," Flavia said, with her eyes on Colonel 
 
 Sullivan. 
 
 "It's away to Galway City he is," Morty O'Beirne 
 explained with a chuckle. 
 
 "The saints be between us and harm!" Uncle Ulick 
 exclaimed in astonishment. "And why 's he there?" 
 
 "The story is long," said Colonel Sullivan, 
 
 "But I can tell it in a few words," Flavia continued with 
 dignity. "And the sooner it is told the better. He has 
 not behaved well. Uncle Ulick. And at his request and 
 •^ith — the legal owner's consent — it 's I have agreed to 
 pay him one-half of the value of the property." 
 
 "The deuce you have!" Uncle Ulick exclaimed, in 
 greater astonishment. And, pushing back his seat and 
 rubbing his huge thigh with his hand, he looked from one 
 to another. "By the powers! if I may take the liberty 
 of saying so, young lady, you 've done a vast deal in a very 
 little time — faith, in no time at all, at all!" he added. 
 
 "It was done at his request," Flavia answered, gravely. 
 
 Uncle Ulick continued to rub his thigh and to stare. 
 These things were very surprising. "And they 're telling 
 me," he said, "that Luke Asgill's in bed upstairs?" 
 "He is." 
 
 "And recovering?" 
 "He is, glory be!"
 
 322 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 "Nor that same's not the best news of him," Morty said 
 with a grin. "Nor the last." 
 
 "True for you!" PheHm cried, "if it was the last word 
 you spoke!" 
 
 "What are you meaning?" Uncle Ulick asked. 
 
 "He's turned," said Morty. "No less! Turned! 
 He 's what his father was before him, Mr. Sullivan — 
 come back to Holy Church, and not a morning but Father 
 O'Hara's with him." 
 
 "Turned!" Uncle Ulick cried. "Luke Asgill, the 
 justice? Boys, you've making fun of me!" And, 
 unable to believe what the O'Beirnes told him, he looked 
 to Flavia for confirmation. 
 
 "It is true," she said. 
 
 "Bedad, it is?" Uncle Ulick replied. "Then I '11 not 
 be surprised in all my life again ! More by token, there 's 
 only one thing left to hope for, my jewel, and that 's cer- 
 tain. Cannot you do the same to the man that 's beside 
 you?" 
 
 Flavia glanced quickly at Colonel John, then, with a 
 heightened colour, she looked again at Uncle Ulick. 
 "That 's what I cannot do," she said. 
 
 But the blush, and the smile that accompanied it, and 
 something perhaps in the way she hung toward her 
 neighbour as she turned to him, told Uncle Ulick all. 
 The big man smacked the table with his hand till the 
 platters leaped from the board. 
 
 "Holy poker!" he cried, "is it that you're meaning? 
 And I felt it, and I did n't feel it, and you sitting there
 
 PEACE 323 
 
 forenent me, and prating as if butter would n't melt in 
 your mouth! It is so, is it? But there, the red of your 
 cheek is answer enough!" 
 
 For Flavia was blushing more brightly than before, and 
 Colonel John was smiling, and the two young men were 
 laughing openly. 
 
 "You must get Flavia alone," Colonel John said, "and 
 perhaps she '11 tell you." 
 
 " Bedad, it 's true, and I felt it in the air," Ulick 
 Sullivan answered, smiling all over his face. "Ho, ho! 
 Ho, ho! Indeed you've not been idle while I've been 
 away. But what does Father O'Hara say, eh?" 
 
 "The Father " Flavia began in a small voice. 
 
 "Ay, what does the Father say?" 
 
 "He says," Flavia continued, looking down demurely, 
 "that it 's a rare stick that 's no bend in it, and — and 
 *t is very little use looking for it on a dark night. Besides, 
 
 he " she glanced at her neighbour, "he said he 'd be 
 
 master, you know, and what could I do?" 
 
 "Then it 's the very wrong way he 's gone about it!" 
 Uncle Ulick cried, with a chuckle. "For there 's no 
 married man that I know that 's master! It 's you, my 
 jewel, have put the comether on him, and I '11 trust you to 
 keep it there!" 
 
 But into that we need not go. Our task is done. 
 Whether Flavia's high spirit and her husband's gravity 
 travelled the road together in unbroken amity, or with 
 no more than the jars which the accidents of life occasion, 
 it does not fall within this story to tell. Probably the two
 
 324 THEWILDGEESE 
 
 had their bickerings which did not sever love. But one 
 thing may be taken for granted : in that part of Kerry the 
 King over the Water, if his health was sometimes drunk of 
 an evening, stirred up no second trouble. Nor, when the 
 '45 convulsed Scotland, and shook England to its centre, 
 did one man at Morristown raise his hand or lose his life. 
 For so much at least that windswept corner of Kerry, 
 beaten year in and year out by the Atlantic rollers, had to 
 thank Colonel Sullivan. 
 
 Nor for that only. In many unnamed ways his know- 
 ledge of the world blessed those about him. And, above 
 all, his neighbours owned the influence of one who, with a 
 reputation gained at the sword's point, stood resolutely, 
 at fairs and cockfights as on his own hearth, for peace. 
 More than a century was to elapse before private war 
 ceased to be the amusement of the Irish gentry. But in 
 that part of Kerry, and during a score of years, the name 
 and weight of Colonel Sullivan of Morristown availed to 
 quiet many a brawl and avert many a meeting. 
 
 To follow the mean of spirit beyond the point where their 
 fortunes cease to be entwined with those of better men is a 
 profitless task. James McMurrough, found wanting 
 where all favoured him, was not likely to rise above his 
 nature where the odds were equal and all men his rivals. 
 What he did in Galway City, how long he tarried there, 
 and whither he went afterward, in the vain search for a 
 place where a man could swagger without courage and 
 ruffle it without consequences, it matters not to inquire. 
 
 Luke Asgill, who could rise as much above The McMur-
 
 PEACE 325 
 
 rough as he could fall below him, was redeemed, one may 
 believe, by the good that lurked in him. He lay many 
 weeks on a sick-bed, and returned to every-day life another 
 man. For, whereas he had succumbed a passionate lover 
 of Flavia, he rose wholly cured of that passion. It had 
 ebbed from him with his blood, or waned with his fever. 
 And where as he had before sought both gain and power, 
 restrained by as few scruples as the worst men of a bad 
 age, he rose a pursuer of both, but within bounds. Close- 
 fisted, at Father O'Hara's instance he could open his hand. 
 Hard, at the Father's prayer he would at times remit a 
 rent or extend a bond. Ambitious, he gave up, for his 
 soul's sake, the office which endowed him with power to 
 oppress. 
 
 There were some who scoffed behind his back, but in 
 truth, as far as the man's reformation went, it was real. 
 The hours he had passed in the presence of death, the 
 thoughts he had had while life was low in him, were not 
 forgotten in his health. The strong nature, slow to take 
 an impression, was stiff to retain it. A moody, silent man, 
 going about his business with a face to match the sullen 
 bogs of his native land, paid one tribute only to the woman 
 he had loved and forgotten — he died a bachelor.
 
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