The Wild Geese

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XV

  FEMINA FURENS

  The Irish of that day, with all their wit and all their courage, hadthe bad habit of looking abroad for leaders. Colonel John had runlittle risk of being wrong in taking for granted that the meeting atthe Carraghalin, mysteriously robbed of the chiefs from over-seas,whose presence had brought the movement to a head, would disperse;either amid the peals of Homeric laughter that in Ireland greet amonster jest, or, in sadder mood, cursing the detested Saxon for onemore added to the many wrongs of a downtrodden land.

  Had Flavia indeed escaped, had the raid which Colonel Sullivan had soaudaciously conceived failed to embrace her, the issue might have beendifferent. Had she appeared upon the scene at the critical moment, hercourage and enthusiasm might have supported the spirits of theassemblage and kept it together. But Uncle Ulick had not the force todo this: much less had old Timothy Burke or Sir Donny. Uncle Ulick, weknow, expected little good from the rising; he was prepared for any,the worst mishap; while the faith of the older men in any change forthe better was not robust enough to stand alone or to resist the firstblast of doubt.

  Their views indeed were more singular than cheerful.

  "Very like," Sir Donny said, with a fallen under-lip, "the ould earth'sopened her mouth and swallowed them. She's tired, small blame to her,with all the heretics burdening her and tormenting her--the cream ofhell's fire to them!"

  "Whisht, man!" the other answered. "Be easy; you're forgetting one's abishop. Small chance of the devil's tackling him, and, like enough theholy water and all ready to his hand!"

  "Then I'm not knowing what it is," the first pronounced hopelessly.

  "There you speak truth, Sir Donny," Tim Burke answered. "Is it they canbe losing their way in the least taste of fog there is, do you think?"

  "And the young lady knowing the path, so that she'd be walking itblindfold in the dark!"

  "I'm fearing, then, it will be the garr'son from Tralee," was UncleUlick's contribution. And he shook his head. "The saints be between usand them, and grant we'll not be seeing more of them than we like, andsooner!"

  "Amen to that same!" replied old Timothy Burke, with an uneasy lookbehind him.

  There was nothing comforting in this. And the messengers sent to learnwhat was amiss and why the expected party did not arrive had as littlecheer to give. They could learn nothing. On which Uncle Ulick and hisfellows rubbed their heads: the small men wondered. A fewpanic-stricken, began to slip away, but the mass were faithful. An hourwent by in this trying uncertainty, and a second and part of a third;and messengers departed and came, and there were rumours and alarms,and presently something like the truth got abroad; and there was talkof pursuit, and a band of young stalwarts was detailed and sent off.Still the greater part of the assemblage, with Irish patience, remainedseated in ranks on the slopes of the hills, the women with theirdrugget shawls drawn over their heads, the men with their frieze coatshanging loose about them. The chill mist which clung to the hillsides,and the atmosphere of doubt which overhung all, were a poor exchangefor the roaring bonfires, the good cheer, the enthusiasm, the merrimentof the previous evening. But the Irish peasant, if he be less staunchat the waiting--even as he is more forward in the hand-to-hand than hisScottish cousins--has the peasant's gift of endurance; and in the mosttrying hours--in ignorance, in doubt, in danger--has often held hisground in dependence on his betters, with a result pitiful in thereading. For too often the great have abandoned the little, the horsehas borne off the rider, and the naked footman, surprised, surrounded,out-matched, and put to the sword, has paid for all.

  But on this day a time came, about high noon, when the assemblage--andthe fog--began at last to melt. Sir Donny was gone, and old Tim Burkeof Maamtrasna. They had slipped homewards, by little-known tracksacross the peat hags; and, shamefaced and fearful of the consequences,the spirit all gone out of them, had turned their minds to oaths andalibis. They had been in trouble before, and were taken to know; andtheir departure sapped the O'Beirnes' resolution, whose uneasy faces asthey talked together spread the contagion. Uncle Ulick and several ofthe buckeens were away on the search; the handful of Spanish seamen hadreturned to the house or to the ship: there was no one to check thedefection when it set in. An hour after Sir Donny had slipped away, themovement which might have meant so much to so many was spent. Theslopes about the ruined gables which they called Carraghalin, and whichwere all that remained of the once proud abbey, had returned to theirwonted solitude; where hundreds had sat a short hour before the eaglehovered, the fox turned his head and scented the wind. Even the houseat Morristown had so far become itself again that a scarcity, ratherthan a plenitude of life, betrayed the past night of orgy; and aquietness beyond the ordinary, the things that had been dreamed. Thegarrison of Tralee, the Protestant Settlement at Kenmare, facts whichhad been held distant and negligible in the first flush of hope andaction, now seemed to the fearful fancy many an Irish mile nearer andmany a shade more real.

  Doubtless, in the minds of some, a secret thankfulness that, after all,they were not required to take the leap, relieved the disappointmentand lessened the shame. They were well out of an ugly scrape, theyreflected; well clear of the ugly shadow of the gallows--alwayssupposing that no informer appeared. It might even be the hand ofProvidence, they thought, that had removed their leaders, and so heldthem back. They might think themselves happy to be quit of it for thefright.

  But there was one--one who found no such consolation; one to whom theissue was pure loss, a shameful defeat, the end of hopes, the defeat ofprayers that had never risen to heaven more purely than that morning.

  Flavia sat with her eyes on the dead peat that cumbered the hearth--forin the general excitement the fire had been suffered to go out--and ina stupor of misery refused to be comforted. Of her plans, of herdevotion, of her lofty resolves, this was the result. She had aspired,God knew how honestly and earnestly, for her race downtrodden and herfaith despised, and this was the bitter fruit. Nor was it only thegirl's devotion to her country and to her faith that lay sore wounded:her vanity suffered, and perhaps more keenly. The enterprise that wasto have glorified the name of McMurrough, that was to have raised thatfallen race, that was to have made that distant province blessed amongthe provinces of Ireland, had come to an end, derisive and contemptible,before it was born. Her spirit, unbroken by experience and untrained todefeat, fearing before all things ridicule, dashed itself against thedreadful conviction, the dreadful fact. She could hardly believe thatall was over. She could hardly realise that the cup was no longer ather lip, that the bird had escaped from the hand. But she looked fromthe window; and, lo, the courtyard which had hummed and seethed wasdead and silent. In one corner a knot of men were carrying out the armsand the powder, and were preparing to bury them. In another, awoman--it was Sullivan Og's widow--sat weeping. It was the _Hic jacet_of the great Rising that was to have been, and that was to haveregenerated Ireland!

  And "You must kill him!" she cried, with livid cheeks and blazing eyes."If you do not, I will!"

  Uncle Ulick, who had heard the story of the ambush, and beyond doubtwas one of those who felt more relief than disappointment, stretchedhis legs uneasily. He longed to comfort her, but he did not know whatto say. Moreover, he was afraid of her in this mood.

  "You must kill him!" she repeated.

  "We'll talk of that," he said, "when we see him."

  "You must kill him!" the girl repeated passionately. "Or I will! If youare a man, if you are an Irishman, if you are a Sullivan, kill him, theshame of your race! Or I will!"

  "If he had been on our side," Uncle Ulick answered soberly, "instead ofagainst us, I'm thinking we should have done better."

  The girl drew in her breath sharply, pierced to the quick by thethought. Simultaneously the big man started, but for another reason.His eyes were on the window, and they saw a sight which his minddeclined to believe. Two men had entered the courtyard--had enteredwith astonishing, with petrifying nonchalance, as it seemed to him. Fo
rthe first was Colonel Sullivan. The second--but the second slunk at theheels of the first with a hang-dog air--was James McMurrough.

  Fortunately Flavia, whose eyes were glooming on the cold hearth and theextinct ashes, fit image of her dead hopes, had her back to thecasement. Uncle Ulick rose. His thoughts came with a shock against thepossibility 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 weretaking it. They had ceased to work, and were staring with all theireyes. Something in their bearing and their attitudes told Uncle Ulickthat the notion which had occurred to him had occurred to them, andthat they were prepared to run at the least alarm.

  "His blood be on his own head!" he muttered. But he did not say it inthe tone of a man who meant it.

  "Amen!" she cried, her back still turned to the window, her eyesbrooding on the cold hearth. The words fell in with her thoughts.

  By this time Colonel Sullivan was within four paces of the door. In ahandturn he would be in the room, he would be actually in the girl'spresence--and Uncle Ulick shrank from the scene which must follow.Colonel John was, indeed, and plainly, running on his fate. Already theO'Beirnes, awakening from their trance of astonishment, were closing inbehind him with grim faces; and short of the garrison of Tralee the bigman saw no help for him; well-nigh--so strongly did even he feel on thematter--he desired none. But Flavia must have no part in it. In God'sname, let the girl be clear of it!

  The big man took two steps to the door, opened it, slipped through, andclosed it behind him. His breast as good as touched that of ColonelSullivan, who was on the threshold. Behind the Colonel was JamesMcMurrough; behind James were the two O'Beirnes and two others, ofwhose object, as they cut off the Colonel's retreat, no man who sawtheir 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 andfrowning. He had no word of greeting for the Colonel. "You can't comein!" he repeated, staring straight at him.

  The Colonel turned and saw the four men with arms in their handsspreading out behind him. He understood. "You had better let me in," hesaid gently. "James will talk to them."

  "James----"

  "You had better speak to them," Colonel John continued, addressing hiscompanion. "And you, Ulick----"

  "You can't come in," Ulick repeated grimly.

  James McMurrough interposed in his harshest tone. "An end to this!" hecried. "Who the devil are you to bar the door, Ulick! And you, Phelimand Morty, be easy a minute till you hear me speak."

  Ulick still barred the way. "James," he said, in a voice little above awhisper, "you don't know----"

  "I know enough!" The McMurrough answered violently. It went sadlyagainst the grain with him to shield his enemy, but so it must be."Curse you, let him in!" he continued fiercely; they were making histask 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. "Flaviais there and----"

  "Curse the girl!" James answered. "Get out of the road and let the manin! 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 havesaved him. Flavia had heard their voices in altercation--it might be ahalf minute, it might be a few seconds before. She had risen to herfeet, she had recognised the voice of one of the speakers--he hadspoken once only, but that was enough--she had snatched up the nakedsword that since the previous morning had leant 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 soilthat threshold!--she lunged with all the force of her strong young armat his heart.

  With such violence that the hilt struck his breast and hurled himbodily against the doorpost; while the blade broke off, shivered bycontact with the hard wood.

  Uncle Ulick uttered a cry of horror. "My G----d!" he exclaimed, "youhave killed him!"

  "His blood----"

  She stopped on the word. For instead of falling Colonel John wasregaining his balance. "Flavia!" he cried--the blade had passed throughhis 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 thatremained--struck at his face, struck at his breast, with cries of furyalmost 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 nohelp. But Colonel Sullivan mastered her wrists, though not until he hadsustained a long bleeding cut on the jaw. Even then, though fettered,and though he had forced her to drop the weapon, she struggleddesperately with him--as she had struggled when he carried her throughthe mist. "Kill him! kill him!" she shrieked. "Help! help!"

  The men would have killed him twice and thrice if The McMurrough, withvoice and blade and frantic imprecations and the interposition of hisown body, had not kept the O'Beirnes and the others at bay--explaining,deprecating, praying, cursing, all in a breath. Twice a blow was struckat the Colonel through the doorway, but one fell short and the otherJames 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 wentout of her suddenly, she ceased to fight, and but for ColonelSullivan's grasp she would have fallen her length on the floor. He knewthat she was harmless then, and he thrust her into the nearest chair.He kicked the broken sword under the table, staunched the blood thattrickled fast from his cheek; last of all, he looked at the men whowere contending with James in the doorway.

  "Gentlemen," he said, breathing a little quickly, but in no other waybetraying the strait through which he had passed, "I shall not runaway. I shall be here to answer you to-morrow, as fully as to-day. Inthe meantime I beg to suggest"--again he raised the handkerchief to hischeek and staunched the blood--"that you retire now, and hear what TheMcMurrough has to say to you: the more as the cases and the arms I seein the courtyard lie obnoxious to discovery and expose all to riskwhile they remain so."

  His surprising coolness did more to check them than The McMurrough'sefforts. They gaped at him in wonder. Then one uttered an imprecation.

  "The McMurrough will explain if you will go with him," Colonel Johnanswered patiently, "I say again, gentlemen, I shall not run away."

  "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 hairof her head be hurt----" he growled, pushing himself forward, "I tellyou, sir----"

  "And I tell you!" James McMurrough retorted, repelling him. "What arethe hairs of her head to you, Phelim O'Beirne? Am I not him that's herbrother? A truce to your prating, curse you, and be coming with me. Iunderstand him, and that is enough!"

  "But His Reverence----"

  "His Reverence is as safe as you or me!" James retorted. "If it werenot so, are you thinking I'd be here? Fie on you!" he went on, pushingPhelim through the door; "you are good at the talking now, when it'slittle good it will be doing! But where were you this morning when agood blow might have saved all?"

  "Could I be helping it, when----?"

  The voices passed away, still wrangling, across the courtyard. UncleUlick stepped to the door and closed it. Then he turned and spoke hismind.

  "You were wrong to come back, John Sullivan," he said, the hardness ofhis tone bearing witness to his horror of what had happened. "Shame onyou! 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 wordfor it, there are a score of men, whose hands are surer than thischild's, who will not rest till they have had your life! And after whathas happened, can you wonder? Be bid and go then; be bid, and go whilethe breath is firm in you!"

  Colonel John did not speak for a moment, and when he did answer, it waswith a severity that overbore Ulick's anger, and in a tone of contemptthat was something new to the big man. "If the breath be firm in thosewhom you, Ulick Sullivan," he said--"ay, you, Ulick Sullivan--and yourfellows would have duped, it is enough for me! For myself, whom shouldI fear? The plotters whose childish plans were not proof against thesimplest stratagem? The conspirators"--his tone grew more cutting inits scorn--"who took it in hand to pull down a throne and were routedby a Sergeant's Guard? The poor puppets who played at a game too highfor them, and, dreaming they were Sarsfields or Montroses, danced intruth to others' piping? Shall I fear them," he continued, the tail ofhis eye on the girl, who, sitting low in her chair, writhedinvoluntarily under his words--"poor tools, poor creatures, only alittle less ignorant, only a little more guilty than the clods theywould have led to the crows or the hangman? Is it these I am to fear;these I am to flee from? God forbid, Ulick Sullivan! I am not the manto flee from shadows!"

  His tone, his manner, the truth of his words--which were intended toopen the girl's eyes, but did in fact increase her burningresentment--hurt even Uncle Ulick's pride. "Whisht, man," he saidbitterly. "It's plain you're thinking you're master here!"

  "I am," Colonel John replied sternly. "I am, and I intend to be. Nor aday too soon! Where all are children, there is need of a master! Don'tlook at me like that, man! And for my cousin, let her hear the truthfor once! Let her know what men who have seen the world think of thevisions, from which she would have awakened in a dungeon, and the poorfools, her fellow-dupes, under the gibbet! A great rising for a greatcause, if it be real, man, if it be earnest, if it be based onforethought and some calculation of the chances, God knows I hold it afine thing, and a high thing! But the rising of a child with a bladderagainst an armed man, a rising that can ruin but cannot help, I knownot whether to call it more silly or more wicked! Man, the devil doeshis choicest work through fools, not rogues! And, for certain, he neverfound a choicer morsel or fitter instruments than at Morristownyesterday."

  Uncle Ulick swore impatiently. "We may be fools," he growled. "Yetspare the girl! Spare the girl!"

  "What? Spare her the truth?"

  "All! Everything!" Uncle Ulick cried, with unusual heat. "Cannot yousee that she at least meant well!"

  "Such do the most ill," Colonel John retorted, with sententiousseverity. "God forgive them--and her!" He paused for a moment and then,in a lighter tone, he continued, "As I do. As I do gladly. Only theremust be an end of this foolishness. The two men who knew in what theyworked and had reason in their wrong-doing are beyond seas. We shallsee their faces no more. The McMurrough is not so mad as to wish to actwithout them. He"--with a faint smile--"is not implacable. You, Ulick,are not of the stuff of whom martyrs are made, nor are Mr. Burke andSir Donny. But the two young men outside"--he paused as if hereflected--"they and three or four others are--what my cousin nowlistening to me makes them. They are tow, if the flame be brought nearthem. And therefore--and therefore," he repeated still more slowly, "Ihave spoken the truth and plainly. To this purpose, that there may bean end."

  Flavia had sat at first with closed eyes, in a state next door tocollapse, her head inclined, her arms drooping, as if at any moment shemight sink to the floor. But in the course of his speaking a change hadcome over her. The last heavings of the storm, physical and mental,through which she had passed, still shook her; now a quiver distortedher features, now a violent shudder agitated her from head to foot. Butthe indomitable youth in her, and the spirit which she had inheritedfrom some dead forefather, were not to be long gainsaid. Slowly, as shelistened--and mainly under the influence of indignation--her colour hadreturned, her face grown more firm, her form more stiff. In truthColonel John had adopted the wrong course with her. He had beenhard--knowing men better than women--when he should have been mild; hehad browbeaten where he should have forgiven. And so at his lastdeclaration, "There must be an end," she rose to her feet, and spoke.And speaking, she showed that neither the failure of her attempt onhim, nor the bodily struggle with him, horribly as it humiliated her inthe remembrance, had quelled her courage.

  "An end!" she said, in a voice vibrating with emotion. "Yes, but itwill be an end for you! Children, are we? Well, better that, a thousandtimes better that, than be so old before our time, so cold of heart andcunning of head that there is naught real for us but that we touch andsee, nothing high for us but that our words will be measuring, nothingworth risk but that we are safe to gain! Children, are we?" shecontinued, with deep passion. "But at least we believe! At least we ownsomething higher than ourselves--a God, a Cause, a Country! At least wehave 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 inus----"

  "Flavia!"

  "I say the blood runs in us!" she repeated. "And if we are foolish, asyou say, we are wiser yet than one"--she looked at him with a strangeand almost awful steadfastness--"who in his wisdom thinks that atraitor can walk our Irish soil unharmed, or one go back and forth insafety who has ruined and shamed us! You have escaped my hand! But Iknow that all your boasted wisdom will not lengthen your life till themoon wanes!"

  He had tried to interrupt her once--eagerly, vividly, as one who woulddefend himself. He answered her now after another fashion: perhaps hehad learnt his lesson. "If God wills," he said simply, "it will be so;it will be as you say. And the road will lie open to you. Only while Ilive, Flavia, whether I love this Irish soil or not, or my country, ormy honour, the storm shall not break here, nor the house fall fromwhich we spring!"

  "While you live!" she repeated, with a dreadful smile. "I tell you, Itell you," and she extended her hand towards him, "the winding-sheet ishigh upon your breast, and the salt dried that shall lie upon yourheart."