Kilgorman: A Story of Ireland in 1798

by Talbot Baines Reed

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  HOW I JOINED THE GOOD SHIP "ARROW."

  It was a still, sultry afternoon, and as I lay on my oars half-a-milefrom shore I made up my mind I had little help to look for from thebreezes; nor, as the tide was then running, could I afford to drift. Imust row steadily, unless I wished to find myself out in the open,without supplies, before nightfall. However, that was no greathardship, and after my idle week in the cave I was glad enough (had mystomach only been a little less empty!) of a little hard work.

  Whether the two men whose boat I had borrowed discovered their losssooner or later I do not know to this day. But they might have left mea handier craft. I knew her of yore, an old Rathmullan tub, usefulenough to ferry market women across to Inch, but ill-suited for a singlerower on a windless sea.

  For all that I was glad enough to have her, and feel myself once more myown master.

  I would fain have put her head to Knockowen had I dared. But there Iknew I could not look for safety. His honour, no doubt thankful to beallowed to consider me dead, would resent my return, and a way wouldsoon be had of handing me over to the League, who by this time were inhue and cry to have my life. Martin, fool as he was, could be trustedto see to that business, while his honour received the compliments ofhis brother magistrates on his loyalty and sacrifices.

  No; if I landed anywhere it must be at Kilgorman, where I should hardlybe looked for, or if I was, should possibly pass for one of the ghostsof the place.

  It was a dark night, without even a moon, before the distant light ofKnockowen far up the lough showed me I must be coming within reach of mydestination. A little breeze was now coming in from the open, whichwould, did I only dare to take it, carry me to my little lady's side inless than an hour. Alas, it was not for me! and I pulled toilfully on.

  It was not without some groping that at last I found the little creekinto which the _Cigale_ was wont to creep on her secret visits; and hereat last, worn-out with fatigue and hunger, and still more with care, Iran my boat and landed.

  What to do next I hardly knew. Food was what I needed most; after that,sleep; and after that, safety. It seemed as if I was to sup off thelast, which was poor comfort to an empty stomach. I felt my way asquietly as I could up the track which led from the creek, and foundmyself presently on the cliff above, close to my dear mother's grave. Imight as well sleep here as anywhere else, and when they found me deadin the morning they would not have far to carry me.

  Was I turning coward all of a sudden--I, who had looked down the barrelof a gun a week ago and not quailed? The gleam of the white cross onthe Gormans' tomb made me start and shiver. I seemed to hear footstepsin the long grass, and detect phantom lights away where the house was.

  Presently I felt so sure that I heard steps that I could stay where Iwas no longer, and hurried back by the way I had come towards the boat.Then gathering myself angrily together, and equally sure I had heardamiss, I turned back again and marched boldly up towards KilgormanHouse.

  Whether it was desperation or some inward calling, I know not, but mycourage rose the nearer I came. What had I to fear? What worse couldhappen to me in the house of my birth than out here on the pitilesshillside?

  Even when I found the avenue-gate locked and barred I did not repent.It was easily climbed.

  Soon I came under the grim walls, and, as if to greet me, a wanderingray of the moon came out and fell on the window above the hall-door. Iteven surprised me how little fear I felt as I now hauled myself up bythe creepers and clambered on to the porch. But here my triumph reachedits limit.

  The window this time was closely barred. His honour had no doubtguessed how, on my former visits, I had found entrance, and had takenthis means to thwart my next. No shaking or pulling was of any avail.Kilgorman, by that way at least, was unassailable.

  Yet I was not to be thwarted all at once. My courage, I confess, was alittle daunted as I clambered down to earth, and proceeded to feel myway carefully round the house for some more likely entry. But entrythere was none. Every window and door was fast. The moonlight, whichswept fitfully over the stagnant swamp, struck only on sullen,forbidding walls, and the breeze, now fast rising, moaned round theeaves to a tune which sent a shudder through my vitals.

  My courage seemed to die away with it. But I determined to make onemore round of the walls before I owned myself beaten. I tried the barof every window. One after another they resisted stiffly, till suddenlyI came on one (that below the room where I had found the strange relicof my mother months ago) which yielded a little in my hand, and seemedto invite me to test it again. The second time it gave more, and aftera while, being eaten through with rust, it broke off.

  The bars on either side of it proved equally yielding, and though somecost more trouble than others, I succeeded in about half-an-hour inbreaking away sufficient to effect an entrance. The window behind thebars was easily forced, and once more I found myself standing insideKilgorman.

  It would be a lie to say that I felt no fears. Indeed every step I tookalong the dark passage helped to chill my blood, and long before I hadreached the door of the great kitchen I wished myself safe outsideagain.

  But shame, and the memory of that pathetic message from my dead mother,held me to my purpose. And, as if to encourage me, the candle stoodwhere I had found it once before on the little ledge, and beside it, tomy astonishment, a small crust of bread. It must have stood there aweek, and was both stale and mouldy. But to my famishing taste it was arepast for a king, and put a little new courage into me.

  It surprised me to find the great apartment once again crowded witharms, stacked all along the sides and laid in heaps on the centre of thefloor. What perplexed me was not so much the arms themselves as themarvel how those that brought them entered and left the house.

  But just now I had no time for such speculations. I was strung up to acertain duty, and that I must perform, and leave speculation for later.My mother's letter, if it meant anything, meant that I was to seek forsomething below or behind the great hearth; and as I peered carefullyround it with my candle I could not help recalling the ghost which Timand I had both heard, years ago, advance to this very spot and therehalt.

  Save the deep recess of the fireplace itself, there was no sign above orbelow of any hiding-place. The flagstones at my feet were solid andfirm, and the bricks on either side showed neither gap nor crack. Ipushed the candle further in and stepped cautiously over the crumbledembers into the hollow of the deep grate itself.

  As I did so a blast from above extinguished the light, and at the samemoment a sound of footsteps fell on my ear, not this time from the outerpassage, but apparently from some passage on the other side of the wallagainst which I crouched.

  I felt round wildly with my hands for the opening by which I hadentered. Instead of that I found what felt like a step in the angle ofthe wall, and above it another. An instinct of self-preservationprompted me to clamber up here, and ensconce myself on a narrow ledge inthe chimney, some six feet above the level of the ground.

  Here I waited with beating heart as the footsteps came nearer. I couldjudge by the sound that they belonged not, like the last I had heard, toa wandering woman, but to two men, advancing cautiously but with setpurpose, and exchanging words in whispers.

  Presently, to my amazement, a ray of light shot through the blackness ofthe recess below me, followed by a creaking noise as a part of the floorof the hearth swung slowly upwards, and revealed to my view a dimly-lit,rocky passage below, slanting downwards, and leading, as I could judgeby the hollow sound that came through it, towards the shore of thelough.

  I could now understand how it came that a house so closely barred andbolted was yet so easily frequented. And, indeed, the whole mystery ofthe smuggled arms became clear enough.

  The two men who now clambered up, carrying a lantern, which illuminatedthe whole of the recess, and (had they only thought of looking up) thevery ledge on which I sat, were sailors; and in one I
recognised theforeign-looking fellow who, years ago, had commanded the _Cigale_ andattended my mother's wake. I knew from what I had overheard at hishonour's that, since my father had given himself up to the smuggling ofarms, and received charge of the _Cigale_, this worthy fellow had left,that ship and devoted himself to the more perilous occupation of robbinghis Majesty's subjects indiscriminately on the high seas. His companionwas evidently, by his villainous looks, a desirable partner in the samebusiness.

  "I told you so," said the latter, turning his lantern into the room."Guns enough for a regiment. Luck for us."

  "We have room enough for the lot," growled the Frenchman in pretty plainEnglish. "Monsieur Gorman shall find that two can play at one game. Hesmuggles the guns in in the _Cigale_, I smuggle them out in the _Arrow_._Parbleu_! we are quits."

  And he laughed a loud laugh at his own jest. Then they proceeded tocount their booty, and while so engaged it seemed to me that I hadbetter escape before my position became more exposed, as it would besure to be as soon as the business of carrying the guns through therecess began. So I took advantage of the darkness, when they wereengaged at the far end of the kitchen, to drop from my perch and slipthrough the trap-door.

  The peril of this movement only dawned on me when I found myself in thenarrow, rocky cave. If this secret passage were guarded at the otherend, as was most likely, by sentinels from the ship, what was to becomeof me? However, there was no retreating now. So I groped my wayforward, down the ever-widening passage, till at last I found myself ina great wide-mouthed cave, full of water, in the middle of which ran asmooth causeway of stones, forming a kind of natural pier and landing-place. The rocky ledges running out beyond on either side formed alittle harbour, in which, in the roughest weather, the water was fairlycalm; and a further tongue of rock beyond that, rising some thirty orforty feet, and seeming to any one approaching it from without to bepart of the cliffs, offered a safe riding-place for a ship of moderatedraught.

  As good luck would have it, the cave was empty. The _Arrow_ must havecome in after I had crossed the lough that evening. And the Frenchskipper and his mate had evidently left their crew to anchor and clearthe vessel in the roads while they reconnoitred the house.

  I could see very little of the ship through the darkness, and, indeed,was too busy making myself scarce to heed her.

  Nor had I much time to spare. For almost before I had got round theledge and clambered partly up the cliff at the top of the cave mouth, Iheard a boat putting off and voices making for the little harbour.

  After that, fatigue and hunger did their work with me, and despite theperil of my position I fell asleep, and never woke till the sun was highand hot in the heavens.

  Then, when I looked out, I saw as pretty a little schooner as I had everset eyes on lying in the roads. I used to think it hard to beat the_Cigale_ for looks, but the _Arrow_ was her superior in every way. Shewas a bigger vessel, and armed at every port. Her lines were both lightand strong, and by the cut of her rigging I could fancy she had thespeed of a greyhound.

  The sight of her set all my old sea-longing aflame. Pirate as she was,it would be good, I thought, to be on her and face the open sea, faraway from my persecutors and enemies--away from Knockowen, andKilgorman, and--

  Here I stopped short. Knockowen, next to the _Cigale_ where Tim was,held what counted most to me of this world's good. Kilgorman held thespirit of my dead mother, waiting to be relieved of its trouble. Howcould I desert the one or the other and call myself a brave man?

  What I could not decide, fate decided for me. The cave below me wasguarded by the pirate's men, who clattered their muskets on the stonesand kept a keen look-out on all sides for any chance intruder. To quitmy present perch would be certain death. So I lay and watched the boatas she plied backwards and forwards with the guns, and wondered how soonthe task of loading would be done.

  It went on all the day, and every hour I felt myself grow fainter andmore sick with hunger. For nearly two days, except last night's crust,I had tasted nothing; and before that, sea-weed had been the chiefarticle of my diet. The scene presently seemed to swim before me, andat last, what with the heat and famine, I fairly swooned away.

  When I came to, two curious faces were bent over me, and my bed was nolonger the rocky cliff side, but the hard floor of a boat as it dancedover the waves.

  "He looks a likely lad," said one voice.

  "He's safer with us than ashore," said another. "I warrant he was putthere to spy on us."

  "Come, lad," said the first speaker, shaking me not altogether roughly;"we have you safe this time."

  "'Deed, sir," said I, "as long as you give me some food you may do whatyou like with me."

  And with this I rolled over again and all grew dim. When I opened myeyes next it was dark, and by the motion under me I guessed I was on theship. A lantern swung dimly overhead, and a loud snoring below meshowed me I was not alone in my bunk. What was of more interest justthen, a piece of a loaf and some salt meat stood within reach of where Ilay, and had evidently been put there for my use. You may guess if Ilet them stand long.

  This refreshment, with the sleep I had had, and a few drops of rum inthe tail of a bottle that stuck from my messmate's pocket, made a newman of me. And I sank back to my rest with a sense of comfort I haverarely known the like of since.

  In the morning a rough hand roused me.

  "Come, you have had enough coddling, my hearty. The captain wants you.And, if you'll take my advice, you'll say your prayers before you go ondeck, as he'll likely drop you overboard."

  This failed to frighten me, as it was meant to do; and I gathered myselftogether and climbed the hatchway, feebly enough, I confess, but withgood cheer, and stood on the deck of the _Arrow_.

  The coast of Donegal was clear over our stern, and a smart breeze fromthe east filled our sails and sent us spanking through the water.

  The skipper was sitting aft, pipe in mouth, and waiting for me. Iresolved to take the bold course and not wait to be spoken to.

  "The top of the morning to you, captain," said I, saluting; "and it'swell you're looking since you were at my mother's wake."

  He stared at me, and then seemed to understand.

  "You--you are Gallagher's boy, then?"

  "The same, captain," said I; "and I'm obliged to you for this day'sfood."

  "Gallagher was no friend of mine," said he; "but since he is dead, thatshall not be against you, if you sail with me."

  "Dead!" I exclaimed. "Is my father dead?"

  "The _Cigale_ went down off Foreland Head a month since."

  "And Tim, my brother, was he drowned?"

  "Likely enough, if he was aboard. Only two of the crew escaped.--So yousail under my orders?"

  "I have nothing else to do," said I.

  "You may swing at the yard-arm, if you prefer it," said he.

  "Thanking you all the same, I'll sail where I am," said I.

  So, with a very heavy heart, I found myself one of the crew of the_Arrow_.