The Northern Iron Part 22

"James Bigger, give me the last letter you had from Finlay. Now put the lantern down on the floor."

He looked steadily at the two papers, and then said--

"In my opinion these two are written in the same hand."

He pa.s.sed them to the man next him. They went from one to another, and the lantern followed them on their round. Each man examined them, and each nodded a.s.sent to Donald's judgment.

"Let me see them," said Finlay.

They were handed to him.

"I wrote neither of them," he said.

"Your name is signed to one," said Donald.

"I did not write it. I had hurt my hand on the day that note was written. I employed another man to write for me. The writing is his, not mine."

"Name the man you employed."

"Kelso, James Kelso."

"Kelso was flogged yesterday," said Donald, "and is in prison now. Do you expect us to believe that he is an informer? Is flogging the wages the Government pays to spies?"

"I tried to save Hope yesterday," said Finlay. "Neal Ward, you have borne witness against me, tell the truth in my favour now."

"I believe," said Neal, "that he did his best to save Hope and me yesterday. I believe that he wanted to save us."

He told his story, and he told of the conversation on the Cave Hill afterwards. Again the flicker of hope crossed Finlay's face.

"You hear," he said. "Would I have done that if I had been a spy? Could I not have handed them over to Major Barber if I had wished?"

"I shall give you credit for wishing to save Hope," said Donald. "Now I shall pa.s.s on to examine the papers found on your person to-night."

Finlay protested eagerly.

"I beg that you do not examine the papers you have taken from me. They are of a very private nature."

"I can believe," said Donald, "that they are of such a kind that you would willingly keep them private."

"I protest against your reading them. You have no right to read them.

They concern others besides myself. I give you my word." Donald smiled slightly. "I swear to you, I will take any oath you like that there is no paper there concerned with politics. You will be sorry if you read them. I a.s.sure you that you will repent it afterwards. You will be doing a base action. You will pry into a woman's secrets. You will bring dishonour on the name of a lady, a n.o.ble lady."

"Do you expect us to believe," said Donald, "that any lady, n.o.ble or other--that any woman, that any soldier's drab even--has written love letters to you?"

He opened the first which came to hand of the pile of papers which lay at his feet on the ground. Finlay suddenly collapsed. His impudence, his ready tongue, deserted him. He had fought hard for his life, had lied--though he lied clumsily in his terror--had twisted, doubled, fought point after point. Whatever the papers were that had been found on him, he recognised that they condemned him utterly and hopelessly.

The game was up for him. He saw death near at hand, as he had seen it earlier when he first realised that he was trapped in Moylin's kitchen.

Donald read paper after paper silently. Some he laid aside, some he pa.s.sed to the man next him to read. Finlay rallied again. He made another effort to save himself.

"Listen," he said, "I have influence with the Government. I don't deny it. Call me an informer, a spy, any name you like, but admit that I have served my masters well. I can claim my reward from them. Let me go, and I swear to obtain pardons for you. I can save you, and I will. I offer you your lives as a ransom for mine."

"Would you make us what you are?" said Donald, sternly. "Would you buy our honour, you that have sold your own?"

Finlay, who had knelt during his last appeal, fell forward. He grasped Neal with his hands. It was impossible in the dim light to see the faces of the men around him, but some instinct told him that Neal alone felt any pity for him, that from Neal alone he could look for mercy.

"Save me, Neal Ward," he cried. "For G.o.d's sake, save me. Plead for me.

They will listen to you. I am not fit to die. Grant me one day, only one day. I will do anything you wish. I will---- Oh G.o.d, Oh Christ, Oh save me, save me now."

Neal felt drops fall on his hands, sweat from Finlay's brow or tears from his eyes. He spoke--

"Spare him," he said. "Who are we to judge and to slay? James Hope said to me last night that we should refrain from taking vengeance. I ask you to respect what he said. Think of it. This man's case to-day may be your's to-morrow. Remember you may take life, but you cannot give it back again. Oh, this is too horrible--to kill him now, like this."

He felt, while he spoke, Finlay's clasp tighten on him. He felt the wretched man cover his hands with kisses, mumble, and s...o...b..r over them.

There was silence for a while when Neal ceased speaking. Then Donald Ward said--

"Neal, you had better go outside. This is no work for a boy. It is, as you say, horrible. To inflict death is horrible, but it is sometimes just. If ever it is just for man to shed the blood of his brother man it is just to shed James Finlay's. He has broken oaths, has brought death on men, has made women widows and children fatherless; has wrecked the happiness of homes. He has done these things for the sake of gain, for money counted out to him as the priests counted money out to Judas."

It was impossible to plead his cause any more. Moylin pushed open the iron door of the vault. Neal dragged his hands from Finlay's grasp, and crawled out. He heard the door clang behind him, shut fast again upon the broken, terrified wretch and his judges--relentless men of iron, the northern iron.

No sound reached him from the vault. Save for the occasional belated cawing of some rooks in the trees which shadowed the graveyard, no sound reached him at all. He sat down among the nettles, the brambles, and the rank gra.s.s and burst into tears.

CHAPTER XI

The paroxysm of tears swept Neal as the Atlantic waves sweep foaming and furious over Rackle Roy. Then it pa.s.sed and left him panting, shaking with recurrent sobs, and a prey to an hysterical dread of hearing some sound from the vault beside him. He sat absolutely motionless. He hardly dared to breathe. He waited in horrible expectation of hearing something. He listened intent, agonised, feeling that if a sound reached him he would cry aloud and on the instant become a raving madman. The scene inside the vault rose to his imagination. Far more really than he saw the dim church and the trees, he saw Finlay grovelling on the ground and the stern men crouching over him. He saw a knife gleam in the lantern's light. He shut his eyes, as if by shutting them he could blot out the pictures of his imagination. He waited to hear a shriek, a smothered cry, a groan, the laboured breath of struggling men, the splash of blood. The suspense became an agony. He rose to his feet and fled.

He stumbled over a grave, and fell headlong, bruising his outstretched hands against a tombstone. He rose instantly and fled again. Stumbling again, he struck his head against the wall of the church. Dizzy and bewildered, he hastened on, driven forward by the terror of hearing some death noise from the vault. Tripping, staggering, rushing blindly, he reached the stile at last, and stood beyond it on the road. Before him was Moylin's house. The window was lighted up, the door was open. He saw men seated within, and heard them laugh aloud. They seemed to him not men, but fiends making merry over murder, and the winning for their h.e.l.l of a new d.a.m.ned soul. He fled from them as he had fled from the sound he dreaded. He rushed down the steep lane. Loose stones rolled under his feet. Sparks started into sudden brightness where the nails in his boot soles struck flints. The hedges rose high on each side of him, making the lane, even in the pale June night, intolerably dark. He fled on, blind, reckless, for the moment mad.

Suddenly he was stopped short. Strong arms were round him. He was flung to the ground. A man knelt on his chest. Rough hands grasped his throat.

"Who have you there, Tarn?"

"A d.a.m.ned fool for certain, whoever he is. What brings him down a hill like this in the dark, as if the devil was after him?"

"Loose his throat; do you want to choke him. Let him speak. Now, then, man, tell us who you are, and what you're doing here."

Neal's powers of reasoning and thought returned to him. With the presence of real danger his fear vanished. He saw the forms of the men above him, discerned against the dull grey of the sky that they were armed and in uniform. He understood at once that he had fallen into the hands of soldiers, perhaps of yeomen.

"Who are you?" said the voice again.

Then the man who knelt on him added a word of warning--

"If you won't speak, we're the boys who know how to loose your tongue.

We've made many a d.a.m.ned croppy glad to speak when we'd dealt with him."

Neal remained silent.