The Landleaguers Part 19

"It will all come right with him now," said the Captain. But the father frowned and shook his head. "How many were there with him?"

asked the Captain, intent on the main business.

But Florian feeling that it would be as good to be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and feeling also that he had at last cast aside all the bonds which bound him to Pat Carroll and Father Brosnan,--feeling that there was nothing left for him but the internecine enmity of his old friends,--got up from the floor, and wiping away the tears from his face, spoke out boldly the whole truth as he knew it. "It was dark, and I didn't see them all. There were only six whom I could see, though I know that there were many others round about among the meadows whose names I had heard, though I do not remember them."

"We will confine ourselves to the six whom you did see," said the Captain, preparing to listen quietly to the boy's story. The father took out a pen and ink, but soon pushed it on one side. Edith again got hold of the boy's hand, and held it within her own till his story was finished.

"I didn't see the six all at once. The first whom I did see was Pat Carroll, and his brother Terry, and Tim Brady. They were up there just where the lane has turned down from the steamboat road. I had gone down to the big sluice gates before anyone had noticed me, and there were Tim and Terry smashing away at the gate hinges, up to their middles in mud; and Pat Carroll was handing them down a big crowbar. Terry, when he saw me, fell flat forward into the water, and had to be picked out again."

"Did they say anything to threaten you?" said the Captain.

"Tim Brady said that I was all right, and was a great friend of Father Brosnan's. Then they whispered together, and I heard Terry say that he wouldn't go against anything that Father Brosnan might say.

Then Pat Carroll came and stood over me with the crowbar."

"Did he threaten you?"

"He didn't do it in a threatening way; but only asked me to be hand and glove with them."

"Had you been intimate with this man before? asked the Captain.

"He had been very intimate with him," said the father. "All this calamity has come of his intimacy. He has changed his religion and ceased to be a gentleman." Here the boy again sobbed, but Edith still squeezed his hand.

"What did you say?" asked the Captain, "when he bade you be hand and glove with him?"

"I said that I would. Then they made the sign of a cross, and swore me on it. And they swore me specially to say nothing up here. And they swore me again when they met down at Tim Rafferty's house in Headford. I intended to keep my word, and I think that you ought to have let me keep it."

"But there were three others whom you saw," urged the Captain.

"There was Con Heffernan, and a man they call Lax, who had come from Lough Conn beyond Castlebar."

"He's not a man of this county."

"I think not, though I had seen him here before. He has had something to do with the Landleaguers up about Foxford."

"I think I have a speaking acquaintance with that Mr. Lax," said the Captain; and everybody could perceive that the tone of his voice was altered as he spoke about Mr. Lax. "And who was the sixth?"

"There was that old man, papa, whom they call Terry. But he wasn't doing anything in particular."

"He is the greatest blackguard on the estate," said the father.

"But we will confine ourselves to the five," said the Captain, "not forgetting Mr. Lax. What was Mr. Lax doing?"

"I can't remember what they were all doing. How is a fellow to remember them all? There were those two at the hinges, and Pat Carroll was there pulling his brother out of the water."

"Terry was Pat's brother?"

"They are brothers," said the father.

"And then they went on, and took no notice of me for a time. Lax came up and scowled at me, and told me that if a word was said I should never draw the breath of life again."

"But he didn't do anything?" asked the Captain.

"I don't remember. How is a fellow to remember after so many months?"

"Why didn't you tell the truth at the time?" said his father angrily.

Another tear stood in each of the poor boy's eyes, and Edith got closer to him, and threw her left arm round his waist. "You are spoiling him by being so soft with him," said the father.

"He is doing the best he can, Mr. Jones," said the Captain. "Don't be harsh with him now. Well, Florian, what came next?"

"They bade me go away, and again made me swear another oath. It was nearly dark then, and it was quite dark night before I got up to the house. But before I went I saw that there were many others standing idle about the place."

"Do you remember any particularly?"

"Well, there was another of the Carrolls, a nephew of Pat's; and there was Tony Brady, Tim's brother. I can't at this moment say who else there were."

"It would be as well to have as many as we do know, not to prosecute them, but to ask them for their evidence. Three or four men will often contradict each other, and then they will break down. I think we have enough now. But you must remember that I have only questioned you as your friend and as your father's friend. I have not taken down a word that you have said. My object has been simply that we might all act together to punish a vindictive and infamous outrage. Pat Carroll has had nothing to get by flooding your father's meadows. But because your father has not chosen to forgive him his rent, he has thought fit to do him all the injury in his power. I fear that there are others in it, who are more to blame even than Pat Carroll. But if we can get hold of this gentleman, and also of his friend Mr. Lax, we shall have done much."

Then the meeting was over for that evening, and Captain Clayton retired to his own room. "You needn't mind following me here, Hunter," he said to the policeman.

"I wouldn't be too sure, sir."

"You may be sure in Mr. Jones's house. And no one in the country has any idea of committing murder on his own behalf. I am safe till they would have had time to send for someone out of another county. But we shall be back in Galway to-morrow." So saying, Hunter left his master alone, and the Captain sat down to write an account of the scene which had just taken place. In this he gave every name as the boy had given it, with accuracy; but, nevertheless, he added to his little story the fact that it had been related from memory.

Edith took her brother away into her own room, and there covered him with kisses. "Why is papa so hard to me?" said the boy sobbing. Then she explained to him as gently as she could, the grounds which had existed for hardness on his father's part. She bade him consider how terrible a thing it must be to a father, to have to think that his own son should have turned against him, while the country was in such a condition.

"It is not the flood, Flory, nor the loss of the meadows being under water. It is not the injury that Pat Carroll has done him, or any of the men whom Pat Carroll has talked into enmity. That, indeed, is very dreadful. To these very men he has been their best friend for many years. And now they would help in his ruin, and turn us and him out as beggars upon the world, because he has not chosen to obey the unjust bidding of one of them." Here the boy hung down his head, and turned away his face. "But it is not that. All that has had no effect in nigh breaking his heart. Money is but money. No one can bear its loss better than our papa. Though he might have to starve, he would starve like a gallant man; and we could starve with him. You and I, Frank and Ada, would bear all that he could bear. But--" The boy looked up into her face again, as though imploring her to spare him, but she went on with her speech. "But that a son of his should cease to feel as a gentleman should feel,--and a Christian! It is that which moves him to be hard, as you call it. But he is not hard; he is a man, and he cannot kiss you as a woman does;--as your sister does;"

here she almost smothered the boy with kisses, "but, Florian, it is not too late; it is never too late while you still see that truth is G.o.dlike, and that a lie is of all things the most devilish. It is never too late while you feel what duty calls you to do." And again she covered him with kisses, and then allowed him to go away to his own room.

When Edith was alone she sat back in an easy-chair, with her feet on the fender before the turf fire, and began to consider how things might go with her poor brother. "If they should get hold of him, and murder him!" she said to herself. The thought was very dreadful, but she comforted herself with reflecting that he might be sent out of the country, before the knowledge of what he had done should get abroad. And then by means of that current of thought, which always runs where it listeth, independent of the will of the thinker, her ideas flew off to Captain Yorke Clayton. In her imagination she had put down Captain Clayton as a possible lover for her sister. She possessed a girlish intuition into her sister's mind which made her feel that her sister would not dislike such an arrangement. Ada was the beauty of the family, and was supposed, at any rate by Edith, to be the most susceptible of the two sisters. She had always called herself a violent old maid, who was determined to have her own way.

But no one had ever heard Ada speak of herself as an old maid. And then as to that danger of which Ada had spoken, Edith knew that such perils must be overlooked altogether among the incidents of life. If it came to her would she refuse her hand to a man because his courage led him into special perils? She knew that it would only be an additional ground for her love. And of Ada, in that respect, she judged as she did of herself. She knew that Ada thought much of manly beauty, and her eyes told her that Captain Yorke Clayton was very handsome. "If he were as black as Beelzebub," she said to herself, "I should like him the better for it; but Ada would prefer a man to be beautiful." She went to work to make a match in her own mind between Ada and Captain Clayton; but the more she made it, the more she continued to think--on her own behalf--that of all men she had ever seen, this man had pleased her fancy most. "But Captain Yorke Clayton, you were never more mistaken in all your life if you think that Edith Jones has taken a fancy to your handsome physiognomy."

This she said in almost audible words. "But nevertheless, I do think that you are a hero. For myself, I don't want a hero--and if I did, I shouldn't get one." But the arrangements made in the house that night were those which are customary for a favoured young man's reception when such matters are left to the favouring young lady in the family.

When Mr. Jones found himself alone in his study, he began to think of the confession which Florian had made. It had gradually come to pa.s.s that he had been sure of the truth for some months, though he had never before heard it declared by his son's lips. Since the day on which he had called on Mr. Blake at Carnlough, he had been quite sure that Edith was right. He was almost sure before. Now the truth was declared exactly as she had surmised it. And what should he do with the boy? He could not merely put him forward as a witness in this case. Some reason must be given, why the truth had not been told during the last six months. As he thought of this, he felt that the boy had disgraced himself for ever.

And he thought of the boy's danger. He had rashly promised that the boy should be sent to England out of harm's way; but he now told himself that the means of doing so were further from him than ever; and that he was daily becoming a poorer, if not a ruined man. Of the rents then due to him, not a penny would, he feared, be paid.

END OF VOL. I.

Charles d.i.c.kens And Evans, Crystal Palace Press.

THE LANDLEAGUERS