The Northern Iron Part 18

"It's all right," he said, "it's only a lad I keep employed. I sent him out an hour ago to find out what was going on in the streets and to bring me word."

He returned to Hope with a smile on his face, but he had grown very white, and his hands were trembling slightly. A boy burst into the room, followed by the woman who had opened the door for Hope and Neal.

"Master," he cried, "they've brought out Kelso into the High Street. The soldiers are dragging him along. They are going to flog him."

The boy's eyes were wide with excitement. Having delivered his message, he turned and fled. A flogging was too great a treat for Finlay's boy to miss. The woman, without staying to don hat or shawl, went after him.

Finlay called to her to stay. She shouted her answer from the threshold.

"Do you think I'm daft to be sitting my lone in your kitchen and them flogging a clever young man in the next street?"

Then the hall-door slammed. Finlay turned to Hope. He was whiter than ever, and his whole body shook as if with an ague.

"Kelso will tell," he said. "Kelso knows, and they'll flog the secret out of him. He'll tell, I know he will. He must tell; no man could help it."

If Finlay was pretending to be terrified he acted marvellously well. It seemed to Neal that he really was afraid of something, perhaps of some sudden betrayal of his treachery, of vengeance taken speedily by Hope.

"What ails you?" said Hope. "You needn't be frightened."

"The cartridges, the cartridges," wailed Finlay. "Kelso knows they are here."

"If that's all," said Hope, "Neal Ward and I will ease you of them. We came here to take them away."

"You can't, you can't, you mustn't. They'd hang you on the nearest lamp iron if they saw you with the cartridges."

There was a bang on the door and a moment later a knocking on the window of the room, and then a woman's fate was pressed against the gla.s.s. Hope sprang across the room and flung open the window. The servant woman who had gone to see the flogging pushed her head into the room and said--

"They're taking down Kelso, and he's telling all he knows. Major Barber and the soldiers are getting ready to march. It's down here they'll be coming."

"It's time for us to be off, then," said Hope.

"Come along, Neal, down to the cellar, and let us get the cartridges."

James Finlay followed them downstairs, begging them not to attempt to carry off the cartridges. He held Hope by the arm as he spoke.

"Don't do it," he said, "for G.o.d's sake don't do it. The soldiers are coming. They will be here in a minute. They will meet you. They will hang you. I know they will hang you. Oh! for G.o.d's sake go away at once while you have time. Leave the cartridges."

Hope shook off the grip on his arm with a gesture of impatience. He pushed open the cellar door.

"Now, Neal," he said, "pick up as many of the cases as you think you can carry."

James Finlay turned from Hope and seized Neal by the hands. The man was trembling from head to foot; his face was deadly white; the sweat was trickling down his cheeks in little streams.

"Don't let him. Oh! don't let him. He won't listen to me. Stop him. Make him fly."

He fell on his knees on the floor and clasped Neal's legs. He grovelled.

There was no possibility of doubting the reality of his emotion. This was not acting. The terror was genuine. James Finlay was desperately frightened.

"Get out of my way. No one is going to hurt you in any case."

"It's not that," he said. "Believe me if you can. Believe me as you hope to be saved. I can't, I won't see _him_ hanged. I can't bear it."

He was speaking the literal truth. He believed that James Hope would be caught and would then and there be hanged. Finlay had betrayed many men, had earned the basest wages a man can earn--the wages of a spy. He knew that his victims went to flogging and death, but he never watched them flogged, he never saw them die. He even bargained never to stand in a witness box. The results, the inevitable issues of his betrayals, were never immediately before his eyes. Between him and the punishment of his victims there was always some s.p.a.ce of time spent in prison, some appearance of a legal trial, some pretence of a just judgment. He was able, with that strange power of self-deception which most men possess, to conceal from himself that it was his information which led to the brutalities which followed it. If James Finlay had been obliged himself to execute the men whose execution his testimony secured; if he had been forced to lay the lash on quivering flesh or fit the noose round the necks of living men; it is likely that no bribe would have bought him, that sheer cowardice and an instinctive horror of death and pain would have saved him, as no consideration of honour and truth did, from the extreme baseness of an informer's trade. Here lay part of the meaning of his terrified desire for Hope's escape. He could not bear to see men hanged before the door of his own house, or hear with his ears their shrieks under the lash.

But there was more behind this feeling than utter cowardice. He knew James Hope, knew him intimately, though he had known him only for a short time. Like Neal Ward he had walked with Hope along the roads and lanes of County Antrim, had heard him talking, had seen--as no man, even the basest, could fail to see--the wonderful purity and unselfishness of Hope's character. James Finlay had sold his own honour, but there remained this much good in him, he refused to sell Hope's life. G.o.d, reckoning all the evil and baseness of James Finlay's treachery and greed, will no doubt set on the other side of the account the fact that even Finlay recognised high goodness when he saw it, that he did not betray Hope, that he grovelled on the floor before a man whom he hated for the chance of saving Hope from what seemed certain death.

Neal pushed Finlay aside and stepped forward. He took five of the cases of cartridges--three under his right arm two under his left. Hope raised the other three. Then, picking up a bundle from a corner, he said--

"There is more gear here, which we may as well take with us. There is a green jacket which some of our young fellows may like to wear, and a flag; we ought to have a flag to fight under."

They turned to leave the house. Neal cast one glance behind him and saw Finlay lying curled up on the ground, his face covered with his hands, as if he were already trying to shut away from his eyes the sight of Hope's body dangling from a lamp iron.

Reaching the street, Hope stood for a moment and glanced up and down it. A party of soldiers was marching towards them. Hope looked at them carefully.

"These are not the men whom the woman warned us of. Major Barber, if he were coming here from High Street, would be marching the opposite way.

This is some company of yeomen."

A band played at the head of the approaching company, and the men stepped out briskly to the tune of "Croppies Lie Down." Their uniforms were gay, their arms and accoutrements in good order, the officer in command was well mounted; a crowd of idle young men and some women were walking beside and behind the soldiers, attracted by the music and the unusually smart appearance of the men.

"I know these," said Hope, "they are the County Down Yeomanry. They have just marched in, and are no doubt going to report themselves. Come, Neal, this is our chance."

He joined the crowd which walked with the soldiers. Neal followed him closely. Hope, as if feeling the weight of the boxes he carried, walked slowly until he found himself in that part of the crowd which followed the regiment. Then, pushing forward briskly, he and Neal came close behind the last soldiers. The ranks were not well kept, nor the march orderly. Hope made his way forward until he and Neal were walking amongst the yeomen. As they swung out of the street they were met by another body of troops.

"These are regulars," whispered Hope, "and Major Barber is in command of them. That is he."

The two bodies of troops halted. There was a brief conversation between their commanding officers. Then an order was given. The yeomen, their band playing briskly again, marched on. Hope and Neal, now in the very middle of the ranks, marched with them. The royal troops presented arms as they pa.s.sed. Major Barber watched them critically.

"It's a pity these volunteers won't learn their drill," he said to a young officer beside him. "Look at that for marching. The ranks are as ragged as the shirt of the fellow we've just been flogging; but they're fine men and well armed. By Jove, they have two country fellows with them carrying spare ammunition. I'll bet you a bottle of claret there are cartridges in those cases."

He pointed to Hope and Neal.

"Ought to have a baggage waggon," said the officer, "or ought to put the fellows into uniform. They might be d.a.m.ned rebels for all any one could tell by looking at them."

"I'd expect to meet a rebel pretty near anywhere," said Major Barber, "but, by G.o.d, I would not expect to find one marching in the middle of a company of yeomen."

The yeomen pa.s.sed and the infantry marched again towards Finlay's house.

Hope turned to Neal. Laughter was dancing in his eyes, but, except for his eyes, his face was grave.

"Now," he whispered, "we've got to slip out of the ranks and make our way into North Street."

As he spoke he lurched against the yeoman next to him and allowed the bundle he carried to slip from his arm. The soldier cursed him for a clumsy drunkard. Hope, in return, abused the soldier for knocking the parcel out of his arms, and then called to Neal--

"Wait for me, mate, wait till I gather up my goods again."

He deposited his cartridge cases on the ground, went after the bundle which had rolled into the gutter, and then, arranging his load slowly, allowed the yeomen to march past.

"Did you hear Major Barber say that he'd be ready to bet that these cases held cartridges? A sharp man, Major Barber! But there are more men than him about with eyes in their heads. The next officer we meet will be wanting to know where we are taking the cartridges. We won't have another company of yeomen to vouch for our characters. I think, Neal, we'd better get something to cover these up. There's a man here in charge of a carman's yard who is sure to have a couple of sacks which will suit us very well."

He pa.s.sed under an archway, followed by Neal, and entered a small yard.