The Northern Iron Part 20

"But I know the singer too. I heard Peg Macllrea sing it once, Matier's Peg, and I'm not likely to forget her voice."

"If you're sure of that, Neal, I'll let her know we're here. Anyway it can do no harm. There isn't a farm la.s.s in the whole country would betray us to the soldiers. Wait now till she sings it again."

By the firesides of Irish cottages when songs are sung during the long winter evenings the listeners often "croon" an accompaniment, droning in low voices over and over again a few simple notes which harmonise with the singer's voice. When the girl began her tune again Hope sang with her, repeating "Ochone, ochone" down four notes from the octave of the keynote through the mediate to the keynote again. When she reached the end of the last line his voice rose suddenly to an unexpected seventh, which struck sharply on the ear. Prolonging the note after the girl's voice died away, he rose to his feet and waved his arms. Soon Peg Macllrea was beside them.

"I tell't the master where ye were," she said, "and I tell't Mr. Donald.

They couldn't come theirsells, and they were afeard to let me out my lone. But I knew finely I could find you. I knew Neal here would mind my song. I brought you a bite and a sup so as you wouldn't be famished out here on the hillside."

She took a basket from her arm and laid it at Neal's feet.

"Sit down, Peg," said Hope, "sit down and eat with us. You're a good girl to think of bringing us the food, and you'll be wanting some yourself after your walk."

"I canna bide with you, and I ate my supper before I made out. I must be gettin' back now. But I've a word to give you from your uncle, Neal. He bid me tell you that you're trysted with him for Aeneas Moylin's house the morrow night at eight o'clock."

CHAPTER X

Early next morning Neal bade farewell to Hope and started on his walk to Donegore. For a while he kept along the side of the hill above the homesteads that cl.u.s.tered on the lower slopes. Nearing Carnmoney he descended and entered a small inn in order to obtain some breakfast. He found the master and his wife in a state of great excitement at the news which had just reached them that their son had been arrested in Belfast.

It was some time before Neal could persuade the poor people to attend to his wants, and it was a wretched breakfast which he obtained in the end.

Leaving the inn, he walked along the high road through Molusk. He felt tolerably safe, though bodies of troops and yeomen occasionally pa.s.sed him. His appearance was known to very few, and the people of the district through which he was going were either United Irishmen or in strong sympathy with the society. It was unlikely that any small body of troops would venture to make an arrest unless the officer in command was perfectly certain of the ident.i.ty of his prisoner. So bold and determined were the people that Neal, stopping opposite a forge, saw the smith fashioning pike heads openly, and apparently fearlessly. A number of men stood round the forge door talking earnestly together. Among them was Phelim, the blind piper, whom Neal had seen in the street of Antrim.

They did not care to be silent or to lower their tones when Neal came within earshot.

"The place of the muster," said the piper, "is the Roughfort. Mind you that now, and let them that has guns or pikes bring them."

"And will M'Cracken be there?"

"Ay, he will. Did you no see the proclamation?"

"Will Kelso," said some one to the smith, "are you working hard, man?

We'll be needing a hundred more of them pike heads by the morrow's morn."

The smith let his hammer fall with a clang on the anvil, and wiped his brow.

"If you do as good a day's work the morrow with what I'm working on the day there'll be no cause to complain of you."

For the first time since he left Dunseveric Neal felt a glow of hope for the success of the movement. He knew what kind of men these farmers and weavers of Carnmoney and Templepatrick were--austere, cold men, difficult to stir to violent action; much more difficult to cow into submission when once roused. And it appeared to him that they were effectually roused now. He recalled his father's fanciful application of the verse from the prophet Jeremiah. He felt, as he listened to the men round the forge, the hardness of "the northern iron and the steel." Was there among the bl.u.s.tering yeomen and the disciplined troops of the King iron strong enough to break this iron?

He left the forge and pa.s.sed on. His thoughts wandered from the enterprise to which he had pledged himself, and went back, as time after time during the last week they had gone back, to Una. He walked slowly, wrapped in a delicious day dream. Neglecting all fact, driving from his mind the pressing realities which separated him hopelessly from the girl he loved, he imagined himself walking with her hand-in-hand in some fair place far from strife and the oppression which engendered strife.

A feeling of fierce anger succeeded his day dream. The sun shone around him, the fields were fair to see. Life ought to be like the sun and the fields--simple and good and beautiful. Instead it was difficult and cruel. He was being dragged into a vortex of hate and battle. He loathed the very thought of it. He wanted peace and love. And yet, what escape was there for him? Did he even want to escape if he could? The wrong and tyranny he was to resist were real, insistent, horrible. He would be less than a man, unworthy of the love and peace he longed for, if he failed to do his part in the struggle for freedom and right.

At midday he reached Templepatrick village, and found the inn occupied by a company of yeomen. He sought the house of the weaver with whom he had dined, in company with James Hope, on his way to Belfast. The door was closed, which struck Neal as strange, for the day was hot and bright. Coming near, he was surprised not to hear the rattle of the loom. Birnie was a diligent man; it was not like him to leave his loom idle. And the house was not empty; he could hear a woman's voice within.

He tapped at the door, intending to ask for a meal and for leave to rest awhile in the kitchen. There was no answer, and yet he heard the woman still speaking in low, even tones. He tapped again, and then, despairing of attracting attention, raised the latch, half opened the door, and looked in.

In the centre of the room, before the table, a young woman knelt motionless, her hands stretched out before her. Neal heard her words distinctly. She was praying aloud, steadily, quietly, but with intense earnestness, repeating pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion for her husband's safety.

Very softly Neal withdrew, and closed the door. He might go dinner-less, but he would not interrupt the woman's prayer. He turned, to find a little girl gazing at him. He recognised her as the Birnies' child.

"Were you wanting my da?"

"Yes, little girl, but I see he's gone away."

"Ay, but if any stranger come for him I was to tell my mammy."

"Never mind," said Neal, "you mustn't disturb her now."

"Will I no, then, when I was bid? Mammy I Mammy!"

In answer to the child's cry, the mother opened the door.

"What ails you, Jinny? I beg pardon, sir, were you waiting long on me?"

"You don't know me, Mrs. Birnie. You don't remember me, but I came here one day before with James Hope."

"I mind you rightly, now," she said. "Come in and welcome, but if it's my Johnny you're wanting to see, he's abroad the day."

"I won't disturb you," said Neal.

"You'll come in. You'll no be disturbing me. There's time enough for me to do what I was doing when the wean called me."

Neal entered the house and sat down.

"You'll be wanting a bite to eat," said Mrs. Birnie. "It's little I have to set for you. The wee bit of meat we had I cooked for him to take with him. It's no much Jinny and I will be wanting while he's awa from us.

Ay, and it's no much Jinny and I will get if he doesna come back to us."

"Where has he gone?" said Neal.

"He's gone to the turn-out," she said, "to the turn-out that's to be the morrow. It's more goes to the like, I'm thinking, than comes back again.

He's taken the pike with him that lay in the thatch over our bed this year and more. But the will of the Lord be done."

"May G.o.d bring him safe home to you," said Neal.

"Ay, for G.o.d can do it, G.o.d can do it. I take no shame to tell you, young as you are, that I was just beseeching the Lord to do that very thing the now while you were standing at the door with Jinny. But the Lord's ways are not our ways."

She set a plate of oatcake and a jug of b.u.t.termilk on the table before Neal, and bade him eat. When he had finished, he sat and talked with her awhile, trying to cheer her. But she was not a woman to whom it was easy to speak comfortable plat.i.tudes. She knew the risks her husband ran--the risk of battle, and the worse risks which would follow defeat. Neal rose at last and bid her farewell.

"When you are saying a prayer for your husband," he said, "say one for me; I'll be along with him. I'm going to fight, too."

"And will you be for the turn-out, then, with the rest of them? Ay, I'll say a prayer for you, And--and, young man, will you mind this? When you're killing with your pike and your gun, even if it's a yeo that's forninst you, gie a thought to the woman that's waiting at home for him, and, maybe, praying. What would hinder her to pray for her husband even if he's a yeoman itself?"

It was seven o'clock when Neal reached Aeneas Moylin's house, after climbing the steep lane that led to Donegore Hill. He found six men seated in the kitchen--Donald Ward, Felix Matier, James Bigger, Moylin, and two others whom he did not know.

"It's Neal Ward," said Donald. "It's my nephew. Sit you down, Neal."

No one else spoke, though all nodded a welcome to Neal, and room was made for him at the table round which they sat. Aeneas Moylin rose and fetched another chair from the next room. Neal noticed that all six men were armed with swords and pistols. Donald Ward sat at the head of the table, and had the air of presiding over the a.s.sembly. There was dead silence in the room, save for the ticking of a clock which stood in a dark corner out of reach of the rays of the lamp. No man looked at any of his fellows. They stared fixedly at the ceil-ing, the table, or the walls of the room. After about ten minutes, Felix Marier rose, crossed the room, and peered at the face of the clock. He went to the door and looked down the lane. Then, with a sharp in drawing of the breath, he took his seat again. The movement roused Donald Ward. He fumbled in his pocket and took out his tobacco box and pipe. He held up the box--a round metal one--between his finger and thumb. Neal, watching, noticed with surprise that his uncle's hand trembled. Donald held the box without opening it for perhaps two minutes. Then, when he was satisfied that his hand had become quite steady, he filled his pipe. He rose, took a red peat from the hearth, and pressed it into the bowl of the pipe.

He did not sit down again, but stood with his back to the fire, smoking slowly.

Aeneas Moylin spoke in a harsh, constrained voice.