CHAPTER III
A SCION OF KINGS
The family at Morristown had been half an hour at table, and in theinterval a man of more hasty judgment than Colonel Sullivan might havemade up his mind on many points. Whether the young McMurrough wasoffensive of set purpose, and because an unwelcome guest was present,or whether he merely showed himself as he was--an unlicked cub--such aman might have determined. But the Colonel held his judgment insuspense, though he leaned to the latter view of the case. He knew thateven in England a lad brought up among women was apt to develop aquarrelsome uncouthness, a bearishness, intolerable among men of theworld. How much more likely, he reflected, was this to be the case whenthe youth belonged to a proscribed race, and lived, a little chieftainamong his peasants, in a district wild and remote, where for a leagueeach way his will was law. The Colonel made allowances, and, where needwas, he checked his indignation. If he blamed any one, he let hiscensure rest on the easy temper of Uncle Ulick. The giant could haveshaken the young man, who was not over robust, with a single finger;and at any time in the last ten years might have taught him a lifelonglesson.
At their first sitting down the young man had shown his churlishness.Beginning by viewing the Colonel in sulky silence, he had answered hiskinsman's overtures only by a rude stare or a boorish word. Hiscompanions, 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 away as to make it plain that the stranger was the butt of the jest.Presently, overcoming the reluctant impression which Colonel John'smanners made upon him, the young man found his tongue, and, glancing athis companions to bring them into the joke, "Much to have where youcome from, Colonel?" he asked.
"As in most places," the Colonel replied mildly, "by working for it, orearning it after one fashion or another. Indeed, my friend, country andcountry are more alike, except on the outside, than is thought by thosewho stay at home."
"You've seen a wealth of countries, I'm thinking?" the youth asked witha 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 loudlaugh, in which his companions joined. "You'll mind the song"--and witha 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 thelad good-humouredly--he was not blind to the flush of indignation whichdyed Flavia's cheeks--"I'll take the wit for welcome. To be sure, todie in Ireland is an Irishman's hope, all the world over."
"True for you, Colonel!" Uncle Ulick said. And "For shame, James," hecontinued, speaking with more sternness than was natural to him."Faith, and if you talked abroad as you talk at home, you'd be forhaving a pistol-ball in your gizzard in the time it takes you to sayyour prayers--if you ever say them, my lad!"
"What are my prayers to you, I'd like to know?" James retortedoffensively.
"Easy, lad, easy!"
The young man glared at him. "What is it to you," he cried still morerudely, "whether I pray or no?"
"James! James!" Flavia pleaded under her breath.
"Do you be keeping your feet to yourself!" he cried, betraying herkindly 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 didthis morning, or you'll smart for it. What is it to you if O'SullivanOg takes our dues for us--and a trifle over? And, sorra one of youdoubt it, if Mounseer comes jawing here, it's in the peat-hole he'llfind himself! Or the devil 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'll soak him for you."
"So do you be taking a lesson, Miss Flavvy," the young Hectorcontinued, "and don't you go threatening honest folk with your whip, orit'll be about your own shoulders it'll fall! I know what'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.
"To the devil with your robbery!" he retorted, casting a defiant eyeround the table. "They'll pay our dues, and what they get back will betheir own!"
"And it's rich they'll be with it!" Phelim chuckled.
"Ay, faith, it's the proud men they'll be that day!" laughed Morty, hisbrother. "Sure, when it comes!" with a wink.
"Fine words, my lad," Uncle Ulick replied quietly; "but it's my opinionyou'll fall on trouble, and more than'll please you, with Crosby ofCastlemaine. And why, I'd like to know? 'Tis a grand trade, and hasserved us well since I can remember! Why can't you take what's fair outof it, and let the poor devil of a sea-captain that's supplied many anhonest man's table have his own, and go his way? Take my word for it,it's ruing it you'll be, when all's done."
"It's not from Crosby of Castlemaine I'll rue it!" James McMurroughanswered arrogantly. "I'll shoot him like a bog-snipe if he's sorra aword to say to it! That for him, the black sneak of a Protestant!" Andhe snapped his fingers. "But his day will soon be past, and we'll bedealing with him. The toast is warming for him now!"
Phelim slapped his thigh. "True for you, McMurrough! That's the talk!"
"That's the talk!" chorussed Morty.
The Colonel opened his mouth to speak, but he caught Flavia's look ofdistress, and he refrained. And "For my part," Morty continuedjovially, "I'd not wait--for you know what! The gentleman's way's thebetter; early or late, Clare or Kerry, 'tis all one! A drink of thetea, a peppered devil, and a pair of the beauties, is an Irishman'smorning!"
"And many's the poor soul has to mourn it--long and bitterly," theColonel said. His tender corn being trod upon, he could be silent nolonger. "For shame, sir, for shame!" he added warmly.
Morty stared. "Begorra, and why?" he cried, in a tone which proved thathe asked the question in perfect innocence.
"Why?" Colonel John repeated. And for a moment, in face of prejudicesso strong, and of prepossessions so deeply rooted, he paused. Then,"Why?" he repeated. "Can you ask me when you know how many a life asyoung as yours--and I take you to be scarcely, sir, in yourtwenties--has been forfeit for a thoughtless word, an unwitting touch,a look; when you know how many a bride has been widowed as soon aswedded, how many a babe orphaned as soon as born? And for what? Forwhat, sir?"
"For the point of honour!" The McMurrough cried. Morty, for his part,was dumb with astonishment. What talk was this!
"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 thetenth--the desire to wipe out a stain that blood leaves as deep asbefore!"
"Faith, and you surprise me!" Phelim cried with a genuine _naivete_that at another time would have provoked a smile. "You do indeed!"
"And Kerry'll more than surprise you," quoth The McMurrough rudely, "ifit's that way you'll be acting! Would you let Crosby of Castlemainecall you thief?"
"I would not thieve!" the Colonel replied.
There was a stricken silence for a moment. Then The McMurrough sprangto his feet, his querulous face flushed with rage, his arm raised. ButUlick's huge hand dragged him down. "Easy, lad, easy," he cried,restraining the young man. "He's your guest! He's your guest; rememberthat!"
"And he spoke in haste," the Colonel said. "I withdraw my words," hecontinued, rising and frankly holding out his hand. "I recognise that Iwas 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 theColonel sat down again. His action, to say nothing of his words, leftPhelim and Morty in a state of amazement so profound that the two satstaring 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 onothers unasked. I think that is so! It should be enough to act uponthem one's self, and refrain from judging others."
No one answered. But one thing was certain: whether he judged them ornot, they were all judging him, with such of their faculties asremained to them. True, Flavia, save by a single frightened glance whena quarrel seemed imminent, had not betrayed what she thought--nor nowbetrayed what she was thinking. Her eyes were glued to her plate. Butthe impression made on the others, not excepting the dependent buckeenswho sat at the board a little apart and took no part in the talk, wasso apparent that an onlooker must have laughed at their bewilderment.Even Uncle Ulick, whom a steady good humour had steered clear of many abrawl--so that a single meeting on Aghrim racecourse made up the taleof his exploits--stared vacantly at his kinsman. Never before had heheard any one question the right of an Irish gentleman to fight atpleasure; and for the others whose blood was hotter and younger, forthe three Kerry Cocks, the Conclave had not been more surprised if aCardinal had risen and denounced the Papacy, nor an assembly ofhalf-pay captains been more astonished if one of their number haddenounced the pension system. The Colonel was a Sullivan and anIrishman, and it was supposed that he had followed the wars. Whence,then, these strange words, these unheard-of opinions? Morty felt hischeek flush with the shame which Colonel John should have felt; andPhelim grieved for the family. The gentleman might be mad; it wascharitable 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 than hiscompanions, felt more contempt than wonder. The man had insulted himgrossly, and had apologised as abjectly; that was his view of theincident. And he was the first to break the silence. "Sure, it's verywell for the gentleman it's in the family," he said dryly. "Tail up,tail down, 's all one among friends. But if he'll be so quick with histongue in Tralee Market, he'll chance on one here and there that he'llnot blarney so easily! Eh, Morty?"
"I'm fearing so, too," said Phelim pensively. Morty did not answer."'Tis a queer world," Phelim added.
"And all sorts in it," The McMurrough cried, his tone more arrogantthan 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. Theair he chose was one well known at that day, and when he had whistled afew bars, one of the buckeens at the lower end of the table began tosing 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'll be doing well to be careful!" The McMurroughsaid, in a jeering tone, with his eye on the Colonel.
"Pho!" the man replied. "And I that have heard the young mistress singit 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 saidat my host's table, no matter who he is, is safe for me. Moreover, I'velived long enough to know, gentlemen, that most said is least meant,and that the theme of a lady's song is more often--sunset thansunrise!" And he bowed in the direction of the girl.
The McMurrough's lip curled. "Fair words," he sneered. "And easy tospeak them, when you and your d--d Protestant Whigs are on top!"
"We won't talk of Protestants, d--d or otherwise!" Colonel Johnreplied. And for the first time his glance, keen as the flicker ofsteel, crossed The McMurrough's. The younger man's eyes fell. A flushof something that might have been shame tinged his brow: and though noone at table save Uncle Ulick understood the allusion, his consciencesilenced him. "I hope," the Colonel continued more soberly, "that agood Protestant may still be a good Irishman."
"It's not I that have seen one, then!" The McMurrough mutteredchurlishly.
"Just as a bad Protestant makes a bad Irishman," the Colonel returned,with another of those glances which seemed to prove that the old manwas not quite put off.
The McMurrough was silenced. But the cudgels were taken up in anunexpected quarter. "I know nothing of bad or good," Flavia said, in avoice vibrating with eagerness, "but only, to our sorrow, of those whothrough centuries have robbed us! Who, not content, shame on them! withshutting 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 itlaw----"
"Heaven be between us and it!" old Darby groaned.
"Can you call it law," she continued with passion, "which denies us allnatural rights, all honourable employments; which drives us abroad,divides son from father, and brother from brother; which bans ourpriests, and forbids our worship, and, if it had its will, would leaveno Catholic from Cape Clear to Killaloe?"
The Colonel looked sorrowfully at her, but made no answer; for to muchof what she said no answer could be made. On the other hand, a murmurpassed round the board; and more than one looked at the stranger withcompressed lips. "If you had your will," the girl continued, withgrowing emotion; "if your law were carried out--as, thank God! it isnot, no man's heart being hard enough--to possess a pistol were to bepilloried; to possess a fowling-piece were to be whipped; to own ahorse, above the value of a miserable garron, were to be robbed by thefirst rascal who passed! We must not be soldiers, nor sailors," shecontinued; "nay"--with bitter irony--"we may not be constables norgamekeepers! The courts, the bar, the bench of our fatherland, are shutto us! We may have neither school nor college; the lands that were ourfathers' must be held for us by Protestants, and it's I must have aProtestant guardian! We are outlaws in the dear land that is ours; wedwell on sufferance where our fathers ruled! And men like you,abandoning 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 seatwith eyes that flashed anger through tears, "we exist, and shall exist!And the time is coming, and comes soon--ay, comes perhaps to-day!--whenwe who now suffer for the true faith and the rightful King will raiseour heads, and the Faithful Land shall cease to mourn and honest men topine! And, ah"--with upraised face and clasped hands--"I pray for thatday! I pray for that day! I----"
She broke off amid cries of applause, fierce as the barking of wolves.She struggled for a moment with her overmastering emotion, then, unableto continue or to calm herself, she turned from the table and fledweeping up the stairs.
Colonel John had risen. He watched her go with deep feeling; he turnedto his seat again with a sigh. He was a shade paler than before, andthe eyes which he bent on the board were dark with thought. He wasunconscious of all that passed round him, and, if aware, he washeedless of the strength of the passions which she had unbridled--untila hand fell on his arm.
He glanced up then and saw that all the men had risen, and were lookingat him--even Ulick Sullivan--with dark faces. A passion of angerclouded their gaze. Without a word spoken, they were of one mind. Thehand that touched him trembled, the voice that broke the silence shookunder the weight of the speaker's feelings.
"You'll 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. But you'll be leavinghere."
The Colonel, his first wonder subdued, looked from one to another. "Iam sure you wish me no harm," he said.
"None, but to see your back," the man repeated, while his companionslooked down at the Colonel with a strange fixedness. The Celtic nature,prone to sudden rage, stirred in them. The stranger who an hour beforehad been indifferent to them now wore the face of an enemy. The lakeand the bog--ay, the secret grave yearned
for him: the winding-sheetwas high upon his breast. "Stay, and it's but once in your life you'llbe sorry," the man growled, "and faith, that'll be always!"
"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. Andthe man who is in his duty can suffer nothing."
"He can die," the man replied, breathing hard. The men who were on theColonel's side of the table leant more closely about him.
But he seemed unmoved. "That," he replied cheerfully, "is nothing. Todie is but an accident. Who dies in his duty suffers no harm. And werethat not enough--and it is all," he continued slowly, "what harm shouldhappen to me, a Sullivan among Sullivans? Because I have fared far andseen much, am I so changed that, coming back, I shall find no welcomeon 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 waythrough the group. "The man says well!" he continued. "He's aSullivan----"
"He's a Protestant!"
"He is a Sullivan, I say!" Uncle Ulick retorted, "were he the blackestheretic on the sod! And you, would you do the foul deed for a woman'swet eye? Are the hearts of Kerry turned as hard as its rocks? Make anend of this prating and foolishness! And you, James McMurrough, theseare your men and this is your house? Will you be telling them at oncethat you will be standing between him and harm, be he a heretic tentimes over? For shame, man! Is it for raising the corp of old SirMichael from his grave ye are?"
The McMurrough looked sombrely at the big man. "On you be the risk," hesaid 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! Anddo you, John Sullivan, give no thought to these omadhauns, but comewith me and I'll show you to your chamber. A woman's tear is ever nearher smile. With her the good thought treads ever on the heel of the badword!"
"I have little knowledge of them," Colonel John answered quietly.
But when he was above with Uncle Ulick, he spoke. "I hope that this isbut 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 torisk! 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 fromtoo many roofs, I have heard the wail of the homeless too often, I haveseen too many frozen corpses stand for milestones by the road, I havewakened to the creak of too many gibbets--to face these things in myown land!"
Uncle Ulick was looking from the little casement. He turned and showeda face working with agitation. "And you, if you wore no sword, nordared wear one? If you walked in Tralee a clown among gentlefolk, ifyou lived a pariah in a corner of pariahs, if your land were thehandmaid 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 onethatch go up in smoke that is not paid for a hundredfold."
"Ay, but when? When?"
"When the time is ripe."
The Wild Geese Page 3
