Kilgorman Part 15

Could he lock me in there, I should be quiet enough for the rest of the evening.

Happily for me Martin was a dull fool as well as a great villain, and he betrayed his purpose by the glitter of his eye too clearly for any one to mistake him. I strolled carelessly up towards the door, and as I did so he left the horse and came to meet me.

"Come in here," said he, "and let's see how you can rub down a horse."

"I don't need you to show me," said I. "Look at her there, with her mane all in a twist and her fetlock grazed by your clumsy pail."

He turned round to look, and in that moment I had the door shut on him and the key turned on the outside. I knew that the door, which was thick enough to stand a horse's kick, had nothing to fear from his. And as to his noise, there would be no one to heed that. He would be safe there till morning, and there were oats enough in the place to keep him and Juno both from starving.

This business done, I hastened back to the house, and sought Miss Kit, to whom I told everything.

"Father will not be home to-night," said she bravely. "We must do the best we can, Barry."

"We'll do better than that, plaze G.o.d," said I.

Then followed an anxious council of war. Besides our two selves, there were my lady and three maid-servants in the house. Mistress Gorman was too nervous and delicate to count upon for help, but the maids were all three st.u.r.dy wenches. So our garrison was five souls, and, counting the two guns I had brought, there were eight stands of arms and ammunition to match in the house.

The danger to be feared was not so much from the invaders' shooting as from the possibility of their carrying out their threat to fire the house. Our only hope seemed to lie in frightening them off at the onset by as formidable a show of resistance as possible. Failing that, we should have to protect ourselves as best we could.

Fortunately we could at least prevent their surrounding the house; for by closing and barricading the garden doors on either side, all approach would be limited to the water-front, unless a very wide circuit was made outside the grounds. The drawing-room in which the family usually spent their evenings was on the first floor at this side, and here no doubt the enemy would direct their first attack.

I therefore resolved to have the candles lit as usual and to keep the blinds up, so as to give no hint that we were forewarned of their visit.

Below, on the ground-floor, there were two windows on either side of the door, with shutters in which we bored some hasty loopholes, at each of which we could station one of our party. And the more effectively to keep up an appearance of being in force, I placed a loaded gun, pointed towards the door, on the outer wall at each side, which, by an arrangement of string attached to the triggers, I should be able to let off from within, and so give the party the discomfort of believing themselves taken in the rear.

For the rest, we removed everything inflammable, such as curtains and bedding, as far from the windows as possible, and trusted to a supply of well-filled buckets stationed in every room to help us in case of fire.

And as an additional defender against a forcible entry from any unexpected quarter, I brought Con the dog (who seemed to understand all that was going forward) into the house, and stationed him in the hall.

By the time these preparations were all complete it was quite dark, and I knew we might expect our visitors at any moment.

I begged Miss Kit to see her mother disposed of in an apartment as far from the point of danger as possible, while I lit the candles in the drawing-room, and stationed the maids at their posts in the darkened hall below.

My little mistress came to the drawing-room to report her task done.

"If you are not afraid," said I, "it would be well to move about in this room near the window for a little, so as to let ourselves be seen by any one who approaches. They may be in view of us already."

She seated herself boldly at the window, while I, in my livery coat, waited on her with a tray.

"Afraid!" said she, taking up my words; "that would be difficult. I do not forget that afternoon in the boat, or the gap in the cliff."

If anything could have put me more on my mettle, these words and the smile that accompanied them sufficed. I could have received an army single-handed.

We waited silently after that. Presently Con below gave a low growl, and Miss Kit's eyes met mine. "Listen, and you'll hear them," said I.

Sure enough, through the open window there came the steady plash of oars, and the sound of voices across the water.

It was an uneasy moment, especially when we heard the grating of the boat alongside the jetty.

"It's time now we went below," said I. "Leave me here to close the window and pull down the blinds. And, Miss Kit," said I as she rose, "if any one is hurt this night it shall not be you."

She laughed a brave little laugh, and replied, "You want too much for yourself, Barry. We'll share and share alike."

Then with her cheeks somewhat pale, and her eyes very bright, she went below, and groped her way to her station in the hall.

Meanwhile, as ostentatiously as I could, I closed the window and lowered the blinds; and after moving from one place to another between them and the candles so as to throw as many shadows as possible, I slipped from the room, and ran down the stairs.

At first nothing could be seen, and we only had Con's growing uneasiness to warn us of the danger approaching. Then through my loophole I saw among the trees a moving light, evidently a lantern, and presently seven or eight dark forms moving doubtfully along the little jetty.

They halted at a little distance to reconnoitre, and perhaps to wonder why Martin, on whom they depended to conduct them, did not appear.

At last we could discern a movement and the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel. My orders were that no sign should be given by any of us in the house till they had expended their first shot. And this, as it happened, turned out to be good advice.

Presently we could see them ranged in a row, about twenty yards from the house. Then one stepped forward cautiously, and rapped at the door behind which we stood.

His only answer was a growl from Con.

"Boys," whispered he, "there's not a sound stirring. You'll need to rap at yon window to find if his honour's at home. All together now."

Whereupon, with a hideous noise, seven guns were let off, and we heard the bullets crash into the room overhead.

One of the maids lost her nerve, and shrieked. But if they heard it, they thought nothing of it.

"Are you a goose?" cried Miss Kit angrily. "Stand steady now, like a woman."

This rea.s.sured the girl, and at the same time I gave the order to fire.

Our object was not to kill but to frighten. And I knew well enough the women would aim wild. But for myself, I confess I had no scruples in covering the man who carried the lantern.

The effect of our volley was amazing. The villains had barely grounded their arms, and were proceeding leisurely, with their eyes still upturned to the shattered windows, to reload, when we let fly.

My man fell back with a yell, so did one of the others. The rest yelled in chorus, and stood a moment stupified. Quick as thought I pulled my strings right and left, and completed their consternation by a flank fire, which, had it been aimed by a marksman, could not have been more decisive. For one other of the party fell without even a cry, and at the same moment the rest rushed gasping and stumbling over one another down to the boat.

It was the shortest battle I ever took part in. Within three minutes of the first attack the invaders were flying for their lives across the lough. Three of their number were left on the field senseless, and for all we knew stone dead.

I confess that victory is sometimes more terrible than defeat, and any relief our little garrison felt in the danger averted was lost in the counting of the cost. My little mistress, especially, was not to be held till the door was opened, and she could go out to where the victims lay.

Of the three, one--he who had caught the fire of the gun on the wall-- was dead. The other two were senseless, but only slightly wounded. The one, whom I had brought down, was bleeding from a wound in the forearm; and the other, who was shot with no will of her own by the frightened servant-maid, was deeply grazed on the cheek.

We had scarcely carried the two wounded men inside, when a clatter of hoofs in the avenue warned us that the sergeant, true to his promise, had come to our succour, and not alone. He was not well pleased to find himself too late for the fighting, and only in time to tend a couple of bruised men, and carry off the body of another. But for this duty he might at least have given chase to the fugitives, and gained a little credit to himself by their capture. As it was, my lady, who in her husband's absence, and then only, spoke with his authority, would hear of no such attempt, and ordered the immediate removal of the body to Fahan, pending the necessary inquiry, while two of the soldiers were to be left in the house to protect it and see to the wounded.

As for these, a little whisky and bandaging soon set them right; and when next morning his honour, who had already been met by the news of the night's adventure, reached home, he was able to send them off to jail in the custody of the soldiers.

"There'll be trouble enough to us out of all this," said he to me that day, as we followed to the court of inquiry. "I wish to G.o.d I had left you where I found you."

That was the least I expected of his honour. His grat.i.tude counted for very little beside the look Miss Kit had given me the night before, when the danger was yet to come.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.