The Northern Iron Part 17

The fact was that Donald Ward was nervous about Neal, not at all on account of his cut head, which was nothing, but because Captain Twinely and his yeomen had returned to Belfast. It leaked out that the military authorities were not pleased with Captain Twinely. He had brought back three prisoners and the cannon, but he had not brought back Micah Ward, who was particularly wanted. Captain Twinely, angry at his cold reception, and furious at the hanging of his trooper, was anxious to revenge himself upon some one. Lord Dun-severic was too great a man to be attacked. The Government could not afford to interfere with his methods of executing justice in North Antrim. Captain Twinely was given a broad hint that he must hawk at lower game, and keep his mouth shut about the hanging of his trooper. There was no objection to the yeomen outraging women so long as they confined themselves to farmers' wives, but an insult offered to Lord Dunseveric's sister and daughter, under Lord Dunseveric's own eyes, was a different matter. The less said the better about the hanging of the man who had distinguished himself by that exploit. Captain Twinely, growing savage at this second snub, and afraid lest perhaps he himself might be sacrificed when Lord Dunseveric's story of his raid came to be told, sought to ingratiate himself with the authorities by offering them a fresh victim. He gave an exaggerated version of Neal Ward's attack on the troopers outside the meeting-house, and drew an imaginary picture of the young man as a deep and dangerous conspirator. He even managed to shift the responsibility for the hanging of the trooper from Lord Dunseveric's shoulders to Neal's. He knew that Neal had left Dunseveric, and he a.s.sured Major Fox, the town major, that Neal was at that moment in Belfast arranging for the outbreak of the rebellion. Major Fox was worried by the complaints which respectable citizens were making about the dragoons' riot. He was anxious to prove, if possible, that the soldiers' conduct had been provoked by the violence of the United Irishmen. He produced the man whom Peg Macllrea and Neal had mangled and set him before the public as an object of pity, his wrist tied up and his head elaborately bandaged.

A great idea flashed on him. He allowed it to be understood that he was on the track of a most dangerous rebel--a young man who had hanged a yeoman in Dunseveric and nearly murdered a dragoon in Belfast. In reality he was too busy just then with more important matters to make any real search for Neal Ward. But a week later he offered a reward of fifty pounds for such information as would lead to his apprehension.

But the rumours of Captain Twinely's sayings were sufficient to frighten Donald Ward. He did not shrink from danger himself, and, had his own life been threatened, would have taken measures to protect himself without any feeling of panic, but his apprehension of peril for Neal was a different matter. He felt responsible for his nephew, and did not intend to allow him to be captured if caution could save him. Therefore, he insisted on Neal's remaining indoors, and plied him with the most alarming accounts of the danger of his wound. He hoped in a few days to get Neal out of Belfast to the comparative safety of some farmhouse. He was particularly anxious that Finlay, who would certainly recognise the young man, should not see him.

News reached Belfast that the United Irishmen in Wexford were in arms and had taken the field against the English forces. The northern leaders became eager to move at once and to strike vigorously. Everything seemed to depend on their obtaining the command of Antrim and Down, and opening communications with the south. James Hope arrived in Belfast. Henry Joy M'Cracken was there. Henry Monro rode in every day from Lisburn.

Meeting after meeting was held in M'Cracken's house in Rosemary Lane, in Bigger's house in the High Street, in Felix Matier's shattered inn, or in Peggy Barclay's. Robert Simms, the general of the northern United Irishmen, resigned his position. His heart failed him at the critical moment, and when pressed by braver men to take the field at once he hung back and gave up his command. He forgot his oath on MacArt's Fort, where he stood side by side with Wolfe Tone. Henry Joy M'Cracken, a man of another spirit, was appointed in his place. With extreme rapidity and an insight into the conditions of the struggle, marvellous in a man with no military training, he laid his plans for simultaneous attacks upon a number of places in Down and Antrim.

The Government was not idle. The northern United Irishmen were the best organised and most formidable body to be dealt with. During the pause before the outbreak of hostilities spies went busily to and fro. Reports were carried to the authorities of every movement made, of almost every meeting held. Men were arrested, imprisoned, flogged in the streets of Belfast. Information was forced from prisoners under the lash. Parties of yeomen rode through the country burning, ravishing, and hanging as they went.

James Finlay earned his pay with the best of his kind, denouncing men whom he knew to be United Irishmen, and giving information about their whereabouts. He was settled in Bridge Street, and, strangely blind to the fact that he was no longer trusted, invited the leaders to confer with him, and allowed his house to be used as a store for ammunition.

Donald Ward, grimly determined that this man should get his deserts, insisted that nothing should be said or done to alarm him.

"We can't deal with him here," he said. "Wait, wait till we get him down to Donegore next week. If we frighten him now he won't go."

Of all these doings Neal heard only vague rumours. Sometimes Peg Macllrea, crimson with horror and rage, came to him and told him of a flogging, sparing him no details of the brutality. Sometimes his uncle sat an hour with him and talked of the fight that was coming. He seemed neither impatient nor excited. He looked forward with calm satisfaction to the day when he would have a gun in his hand and an opportunity of shooting at the men who were harrying the country.

"We have a couple of bra.s.s cannons, Neal. They're not much to boast of, but if they are properly served they will do some mischief. I have a little experience of artillery, though it wasn't in my regular line of fighting. I think I'll perhaps get charge of one of them."

Felix Matier came often to see Neal. As things grew darker outside he became more and more extravagantly cheerful. His talk was all of liberty, of the dawn of the new era, of the breaking of old chains, and the rising of the peoples of the world in unconquerable might.

"We're to do our share in the grand work, Neal Ward, you and me; we'll have our hands in it in a day or two now.

"'May liberty meet with success!

May prudence protect her from evil!

May tyrants and tyranny tine in the midst And wander their way to the devil.'

"Ora, but fighting's the work for a man after all. Here am I that have spent my life making up reckonings and seeing to drink and men's dinners and the beds they were to sleep in. But I never was contented with such things, and the money I made didn't content me a bit more. _They_ taught me better, boy." He put his hand on the pile of books which lay on the table in front of Neal. "They taught me that there was something better than making money and eating full and living soft, something in the world a man might fight for. Eh, but I wasn't meant for an innkeeper--I was meant for a fighter.

"'I'd fight at land, I'd fight at sea; At hame I'd fight my auntie, O!

I'd meet the devil and Dundee On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O!'"

James Hope also came to see Neal. His talk was very different from the flamboyant exultation of Felix Matier; very different also from Donald Ward's cool delight in the prospect of battle. James Hope seemed to realise the awful gravity of taking up arms against established government. He alone understood the very small chance there was of victory for the United Irishmen. Yet Neal never for an instant doubted Hope's courage. He felt that this man had argued out the whole matter with himself and thought deeply and prayed earnestly and had made up his mind.

"I do not think that we are sure to win, Neal, but I hope that our fighting will enable those coming after us to obtain by other means the liberty and security which will surely be withheld from them unless we fight. I do not say these things to every one, but I feel safe in saying them to you. You will not fear to die, if death is to be the end of it for us."

Neal felt convinced that Hope himself would go calmly, steadfastly on if he were quite sure that the gallows waited for him. It was to Hope, more than to either of the others, that he complained about his confinement in Matier's house.

"I cannot bear," he said, "to be shut up here. I am not ill. The cut on my head is cured now. There must be some other reason for keeping me here. Am I not to be trusted? You say that you believe I will not shrink. Why keep me here as if you were all afraid of my turning coward or traitor?"

Hope parried these complaints as well as he could, telling Neal that a soldier's first duty was obedience, that in good time he would be given something to do; that in the meanwhile he must show himself brave by being patient!

"It is harder," he said, "to conquer yourself than to conquer your enemy."

One day, when Neal had been a week in captivity, he broke out pa.s.sionately to Hope--

"I cannot bear this any longer. I hear of you and my uncle and the others risking your lives. I hear of the brutality of the soldiers.

I hear of great plans on foot. I claim my share of the danger that surrounds us. I understand now why you all combine to keep me here. You are afraid of my running risks. I claim, I claim as a right, that I be allowed to take the same risks as the rest."

James Hope sat silent. His fingers played with the dark lock of hair which hung over his forehead. Neal knew the gesture well. It was common with Hope when he thought deeply and painfully. His fine dark eyes were fixed on Neal's, and there was the same curiously gentle expression in them which had attracted Neal the first time he noticed it.

"I admit your claim," said Hope, slowly, at last. "I shall speak to your uncle. To-morrow, I think I may promise this; to-morrow you shall come with me, and we shall do something which will be difficult, and I think a little dangerous too."

CHAPTER IX

James Hope kept his promise. About noon the next day he came to the inn and found Neal waiting for him impatiently.

"We are going," he said, "to James Finlay's house. Before we start I think I ought to tell you that in any case you could not stay here any longer. I saw this morning a proclamation offering a reward of fifty pounds for your capture, and I have no doubt that Finlay will earn it if he can, even if the soldier you mauled does not trace you here."

"I am ready," said Neal.

"You are not afraid? I see you are not, and we are not going to run into any unnecessary danger. Finlay will not betray you at once. He will not run out and call soldiers to take you the moment he sees you. He has a deeper plan. He has arranged that a meeting of our leaders will be held in Aeneas Moylin's house to-morrow night. He is to be there himself, and he has received a.s.surance that most of our chief men will be there. We have little doubt that he has given information about the meeting, and made his arrangements for capturing us all. We shall tell him that you are to be there, too. Then he will not want to risk exposing himself by betraying you at once. He will wait for you till to-morrow. But when to-morrow comes he will not find our leaders at Donegore. I have not asked, and I do not wish to know, what he will find when he gets there."

"I understand," said Neal. "When we meet I am to pretend that I trust him thoroughly."

Hope smiled.

"You are a good soldier. You are prepared to obey, and you do not ask too many questions. But I am going to trust you fully, and tell you why we are going to Finlay's house to-day. Some time ago we stored some cases of ball cartridges there. They are in a cellar, and I have no doubt that Major Fox knows all about them, and thinks them as safe as if they were in the munition room of the barrack. You and I are going to carry off those cases. We want the cartridges badly, and we cannot wait for them. We shall be using them, I hope, the day after to-morrow, and if we leave them there till Finlay goes to Donegore to-morrow evening I fear they may be seized by the soldiers. We must take them at once, and it seems to me that our best chance will be to walk off with them in broad daylight without an attempt at concealment. We shall bring them here."

"How many cases are there?" asked Neal.

"Eight," said Hope. "We must manage to carry four each, but the distance is not very great."

Neal drew a deep breath of relief when he reached the street. Any service, however dangerous, any form of activity in the open air, was a joy to him after his long confinement in the house.

The streets, as he and Hope pa.s.sed through them, were full of soldiers.

Companies of yeomen marched and countermarched in indifferent order through every thoroughfare. Pickets of regulars, their bayonets fixed, stood at the street corners and in front of the princ.i.p.al buildings.

Troops of dragoons, rattling and jingling, trotted briskly in one direction or another. Orderlies cantered their horses from place to place. Business in the town was almost suspended. Many of the shops were shut. Grave citizens, engaged in pressing affairs, hurried, with downcast eyes, along the causeways, seldom stopping to speak to each other, greeting acquaintances with hasty nods. Women of the better sort, if they ventured out at all, walked quickly, heavily cloaked and veiled.

The trollops and street walkers of a garrison town emerged from their lairs even at midday, and stood in little groups at the corners exchanging jests with the soldiers on picket duty, or shouted ribaldries to the yeomen and dragoons who pa.s.sed them. Idle maid servants, s.l.u.ttish and dishevelled, leaned far out of the upper windows of the houses to gaze at the pageant beneath them. In the High Street a crowd of loafers--coa.r.s.e women and soldiers off duty--was gathered in front of an iron triangle where, it was understood, some prisoners were to be flogged. Town, Major Fox, Major Barber, and some other officers in uniform, strolled up and down in front of the Exchange, rudely jostling such merchants as ventured to enter or leave the building.

James Hope walked slowly through the streets, chatting cheerfully to Neal as he went. Now and then he even stopped to watch a troop of dragoons go by or to gaze at the uniforms of the soldiers who stood on guard. In crowded places he waited quietly until he saw a way of pa.s.sing on without pushing or attracting attention to his movements. The trial was a severe one for Neal's nerves. It was hard to pose as a curious sightseer within a few feet of men who could have earned fifty pounds by arresting him.

At last, after many pauses, and what seemed an interminable walk, Hope stopped at the door of a respectable looking house and knocked. A woman half opened the door and eyed them suspiciously. Then, recognising a whispered pa.s.s-word of some sort from Hope, she admitted them and ushered them into a room on the ground floor. James Finlay sat at a table with writing materials spread before him. He started slightly when he saw Neal, but recovered himself instantly. He came forward, shook hands with Hope, and then said to Neal--

"You and I know each other, Mr. Ward. I trust your father is in good health, and that all is well at Dunseveric?"

Neal, though he had schooled himself beforehand to greet Finlay cordially, shrank back. He felt a violent loathing for the man. It became physically impossible for him to take Finlay's hand in his, to speak smooth words to this hypocrite who inquired of the good health of the very people he had betrayed. Hope saw the hesitation and tried to cover it with a casual remark. Finlay also saw it and misinterpreted it.

"I hope," he said, "that you do not bear me any malice on account of the little trouble there was between us long ago in the north. You ought to forgive and forget, Mr. Ward. We are both workers in the same cause now.

At least, I suppose you are a United Irishman like your father or you wouldn't come here with James Hope to-day."

"Neal Ward," said Hope, "is going to the meeting at Donegore to-morrow evening."

Neal recovered himself and held out his hand to Finlay.

There was another knock at the door of the house. Finlay started violently and ran to the window.