The Wild Geese

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER V

  THE MESS-ROOM AT TRALEE

  If England had made of Ireland a desert and called it peace, she hadnot marred its beauty. That was the thought in Colonel Sullivan's mindas he rode eastward under Slieve Mish, with the sun rising above thelower spurs of the mountain, and the lark saluting the new-bornradiance with a song attuned to the freshness of the morning. Where hisroad ascended he viewed the sparkling inlet spread far to thesouthward; and where the track dipped, the smooth slopes on either sideran up to grey crags that, high above, took strange shapes, now ofmonstrous heads, now of fantastic towers. As his sure-footed nag fordedthe brown bog-stream, long-shanked birds rose silently from the pools,and he marked with emotion the spots his boyhood had known: the shallowwhere the dog-wolf--so big that it had become a fable--died biting, andthe cliff whence the sea-eagle's nest had long bidden him defiance.

  Bale rode behind him, taciturn, comparing, perhaps, the folds of hisnative Suffolk hills with these greener vales. They reached the hedgetavern, where the mare had been seized, and they stayed to bait theirhorses, but got no news. About eight they rode on; and five long Irishmiles nearer Tralee, though still in a wild and lonely country, theyviewed from the crest of a hill a piece of road stretched ribbon-likebefore them, and on it a man walking from them at a great pace. He hadfor companion a boy, who trotted beside him.

  Neither man nor boy looked back, and it did not seem to be from fear ofthe two riders that they moved so quickly. The man wore a loose druggetcoat and an old jockey-cap, and walked with a stout six-foot staff.Thus armed and dressed he should have stood in small fear of robbers.Yet when Colonel John's horse, the tread of its hoofs deadened by thesod road, showed its head at his shoulder, and he sprang aside, heturned a face of more vivid alarm than seemed necessary. And he crossedhimself.

  Colonel John touched his hat. "I give you good morning, good man," hesaid.

  The walker raised his hand to his cap as if to return the salute, butlowered it without doing so. He muttered something.

  "You will be in haste?" Colonel John continued. He saw that the sweatstood 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 foreignaccent, but in the west of Ireland this was common. "The top of themorning to you."

  Plainly he wished the two riders to pass on, but he did not slacken hisspeed for a moment. So for a space they went abreast, the man, withevery twenty paces, glancing up suspiciously. And now and again, theboy, 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 thesetwo, 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," hepanted. And, seizing the lad in two powerful arms, he swung him to theColonel's stirrup, who, in taking him, knocked off the other'sjockey-cap.

  The man snatched it up and put it on with a single movement. ButColonel John had seen what he expected.

  "You walk on a matter of life and death?" he said.

  "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 dumbfounded. "Sir," he said, "you wear asword! And no son of the Church goes armed in these parts."

  "If I am not one of your Church I am a Christian," Colonel Johnanswered. "Mount, father, and ride in God's name, and when you arethere send the lad back with the beast."

  "The Mother of God reward you!" the priest cried fervently, "and turnyour heart in the right way!" He scrambled to the saddle. "The blessingof 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'sstirrup. The servant looked after the retreating pair, but saidnothing.

  "It's something if a man serves where he's listed," Colonel Johnremarked.

  Bale smiled. "And don't betray his own side," he said. He slipped fromhis saddle.

  "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 eitherside of the horse, master or man punching it when it showed a desire tosample the herbage. A stranger, seeing them, might have thought thatthey were wont to walk thus, so unmoved were their faces.

  They had trudged the better part of two miles when they came upon thehorse tethered by the reins to one of two gate-pillars, which stoodgateless beside the road. Colonel John got to his saddle, and theytrotted on. Notwithstanding which it was late in the afternoon whenthey approached the town of Tralee.

  In those days it was a town much ruined. The grim castle of theDesmonds, scene of the midnight murder which had brought so many woeson Ireland, still elbowed the grey Templars Cloister, and looked down,as it frowned across the bay, on the crumbling aisles and squalidgraves of the Abbey. To Bale, as he scanned the dark pile, it was but akeep--a mere nothing beside Marienburg or Stettin--rising above thehovels of an Irish town. But to the Irishman it stood for many a bittermemory and many a crime, besides that murder of a guest which willnever be forgotten. The Colonel sighed as he gazed.

  Presently his eyes dropped to the mean houses which flanked theentrance to the town; and he recognised that if all the saints had notvouchsafed their company, the delay caused by the meeting with thepriest had done somewhat. For at that precise moment a man was ridinginto the town before them, and the horse under the man was FlaviaMcMurrough's lost mare.

  Colonel John's eye lightened as he recognised its points. With a signto Bale he fell in behind the man and followed him through two or threeill-paved and squalid streets. Presently the rider passed through aloop-holed gateway, before which a soldier was doing sentry-go. The twofollowed. Thence the quarry crossed an open space surrounded by drearybuildings which no military eye could take for aught but a barrackyard. The two still followed--the sentry staring after them. On the farside of the yard the mare and its rider vanished through a secondarchway, which appeared to lead to an inner court. The Colonel, nothingintimidated, went after them. Fortune, he thought, had favoured him.

  But as he emerged from the tunnel-like passage he raised his head inastonishment. A din of voices, an outbreak of laughter and revelry,burst in a flood of sound upon his ears. He turned his face in thedirection whence the sounds came, and saw three open windows, and ateach window three or four flushed countenances. His sudden emergencefrom the tunnel, perhaps his look of surprise, wrought an instant'ssilence, which was followed by a ruder outburst.

  "Cock! cock! cock!" shrieked a tipsy voice, and an orange, hurled atrandom, missed the Colonel's astonished face by a yard. The mare whichhad 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 theorange, struck the Colonel sharply on the chin. A shout of laughtergreeted 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! Find him,Ponto!" drowned his remonstrances. Perhaps in the scowling face at hiselbow--for William Bale had followed him and was looking very fierceindeed--the wits of the --th found more amusement than in the master'smild astonishment.

  "Who the devil is he?" cried one of the seniors, raising his voiceabove the uproar. "English or Irish?"
/>   "Irish for a dozen!" a voice answered. "Here, Paddy, where's yourpapers?"

  "Ay, be jabers!" in an exaggerated brogue; "it's the broth of a boy heis, and never a face as long as his in ould Ireland!"

  "Gentlemen," the Colonel said, getting in a word at last. "Gentlemen, Ihave been in many companies before this, and----"

  "And by G--d, you shall be in ours!" one of the revellers retorted. And"Have him in! Fetch him in!" roared a dozen voices, amid much laughter.In a twinkling half as many young fellows had leapt from the windows,and surrounded him. "Who-whoop!" cried one, "Who-whoop!"

  "Steady, gentlemen, steady!" the Colonel said, a note of sternness inhis voice. "I've no objection to joining you, or to a little timelyfrolic, but----"

  "Join us you will, whether or no!" replied one, more drunken or moreturbulent than the rest. He made as if he would lay hands on theColonel, and, to avoid violence, the latter suffered himself to behelped from his saddle. In a twinkling he was urged through thedoorway, leaving his reins in Bale's hand, whose face, for sheer wrathand vindictiveness, was a picture.

  Boisterous cries of "Hallo, sobersides!" and "Cock, cock, cock!"greeted the Colonel, as, partly of his own accord and partly urged byunceremonious hands, he crossed the threshold, and shot forward intothe room.

  The scene presented by the apartment matched the flushed faces and thewandering eyes which the windows had framed. The long table was strewnwith flasks and glasses and half-peeled fruit, the floor with emptybottles. 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 meatsand piled-up dishes, and an overturned card-table beside one of thewindows had strewn the floor with cards. Here, there, everywhere onchairs, 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 toogentle, conducted him towards 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 hadset the younger spirits an example of recklessness. "Hear to him!" Hefilled 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 yourown, and we're listening."

  Colonel John eyed him with a slight contraction of the features. Butthe announcement, if ill-meant, availed to procure silence. The moresober had resumed their seats. He raised his head and spoke.

  "Gentlemen," he said--and it was strange to note the effect of his lookas his eyes fell first on one and then on another, fraught with adignity which insensibly wrought on them. "Gentlemen, I have been inmany companies, and I have found it true, all the world over, that whata man brings he finds. I have the honour to speak to you as a soldierto soldiers----"

  "English or Irish?" asked a tall sallow man--sharply, but in a newtone.

  "Irish!"

  "Oh, be jabers!" from the man with the wineglass.

  But the Colonel's eye and manner had had their effect, and "Let himspeak!" the sallow man said. "And you, Payton, have done with yourfooling, will you?"

  "Well, hear to him!"

  "I have been in many camps and many companies, gentlemen," the Colonelresumed, "and those of many nations. But wherever I have been I havefound that if a man brought courtesy with him, he met with courtesy atthe hands of others. And if he brought no offence, he received none. Iam a stranger here, for I have been out of my own country for a scoreof years. On my return you welcome me," he smiled, "a littleboisterously perhaps, but I am sure, gentlemen, with a good intent. Andas I have fared elsewhere I am sure I shall fare at your hands."

  "Well, sure," from the background, "and haven't we made you welcome?"

  "Almost too freely," the Colonel replied, smiling good-humouredly. "Apeaceable man who had not lived as long as I have might have foundhimself 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 ofthat. My name, gentlemen, is Sullivan, Colonel John Sullivan of Skull,formerly of the Swedish service, and much at your service. I shall bestill more obliged if any of you will be kind enough to inform me whois the purchaser----"

  Payton interrupted him rudely. "Oh, d--n! We have had enough of this!"he cried. "Sink all purchasers, I say!" And with a drunken crow hethrust his neighbour against the speaker, causing both to reel. How ithappened no one saw--whether Payton himself staggered in the act, orflung the wine wantonly; but somehow the contents of his glass flewover the Colonel's face and neckcloth.

  Half a dozen men rose from their seats. "Shame!" an indignant voicecried.

  Among those who had risen was the sallow man. "Payton," he saidsharply, "what did you do that for?"

  "Because I chose, if you like!" the stout man answered. "What is it toyou? I am ready to give him satisfaction when he likes, and where helikes, 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 orafter dinner, drunk or sober, Jack Payton's your man. D--n me, it shallnever be said in my time that the --th suffered a crop-eared Irishmanto preach to them in their own mess-room! You can send your friend tome when you please. He'll find me!"

  The Colonel was wiping the wine from his chin and neckcloth. He hadturned strangely pale at the moment of the insult. More than one ofthose who watched him curiously--and of such were all in the room,Payton excepted--and who noted the slow preciseness of his movementsand the care with which he cleansed himself, albeit his hand shook,expected some extraordinary action.

  But no one looked for anything so abnormal or so astonishing as thecourse he took when he spoke. Nothing in his bearing had prepared themfor it; nor anything in his conduct which, so far, had been that of aman of the world not too much at a loss even in the unfavourablecircumstances in which he was placed--circumstances which would haveunnerved many a one.

  "I do not fight," he said. "Your challenge is cheap, sir, as yourinsult."

  Payton stared. He had never been more astonished in his life. "GoodL--d!" he cried. "You do not fight? Heaven and earth! and you asoldier!"

  "I do not fight."

  "After that, man! Not--after----" He did not finish the sentence, butlaughed with uplifted chin, as at some great joke.

  "No," Colonel John said between his teeth.

  And then no one spoke. A something in Colonel John's tone and manner, asomething in the repression of his voice, sobered the spectators, andturned that which might have seemed an ignominy, a surrender, into atragedy. And a tragedy in which they all had their share. For theinsult had been so wanton, so gross, so brutal, that there was not oneof the witnesses who had not felt shame, not one whose sympathy had notbeen for a moment with the victim, and who did not experience a pang onhis account as he stood, mild and passive, before them.

  Payton alone was moved only by contempt. "Lord above us, man!" hecried, finding his voice again. Are you a Quaker? If so, why the devildo 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 itdry my neckcloth or clean my face?"

  "No!" Payton retorted with a sneer, "but it would clean your honour!"He had felt the reprehension in the air, he had been conscious for afew seconds that he had not the room with him; but the perception madehim only the more arrogant now that he felt his feet again. "It wouldprove, man, that, unlike the beasts that perish, you valued somethingmore than your life!"

  "I do."

  "What?" Payton asked with careless disdain.

  "Among other things, my duty." Payton laughed brutally. "Why, by thepowers, you _are_ a preacher!" he ret
orted. "Hang your duty, sir, andyou for a craven! Give me acts, not words! It's a man's duty to defendhis honour, and you talk of your neckcloth! There's for a newneckcloth!" He pulled out a half-crown and flung it, with an insultinggesture, upon the table. "Show us your back, and for the future givegentlemen of honour--a wide berth! You are no mate for them!"

  The act and the words were too strong for the stomachs of the moregenerous among his hearers. A murmur, an undoubted murmur rose--for ifPayton was feared he was not loved; and the sallow-faced man, whosename 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 doneenough! 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?" Paytonrepeated 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 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, who had stood silent during thealtercation of which he was the subject, spoke--and in a tone somewhataltered. "I am much obliged to you, sir," he said, addressing thesallow-faced man, "but I will cause no further trouble. I crave leaveto say one word only, which may come home to some among you. We areall, at times, at the mercy of mean persons. Yes, sir, of meanpersons," the Colonel repeated, raising his voice and speaking in atone so determined--he seemed another man--that Payton, in the act ofseizing a decanter to hurl at him, hesitated. "For any but a meanperson," Colonel John continued, drawing himself up to his full height,"finding that he had insulted one who could not meet him on eventerms--one who could not resent the insult in the mannerintended--would have deemed it all one as if he had insulted aone-armed man, or a blind man, and would have set himself right by anapology."

  At that word Payton found his voice. "Hang your apology!" he criedfuriously.

  "By an apology," the Colonel repeated, fixing him with eyes ofunmeasured contempt, "which would have lowered him no more than anapology to a woman or a child. Not doing so, his act dishonours himselfonly, 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 tothe door, and opened it, none gainsaying him. On the threshold hepaused and looked back. Something, possibly some chord of superstitionin his breast which his adversary's last words had touched, held Paytonsilent: and silent the Colonel's raised finger found him.

  "I believe," Colonel John said, gazing solemnly at him, "that we shallmeet again." And he went out.

  Payton turned to the table, and, with an unsteady hand, filled a glass.He read disapprobation in the eyes about him, but he had shaken themomentary chill from his own spirits, and he stared them down. "Sinkthe old Square-Toes!" he cried. "He got what he deserved! Who'll throwa main with me?"

  "Thirty guineas against your new mare, if you like?"

  "No, confound you," Payton retorted angrily. "Didn't I say she wasn'tfor sale?"