The Northern Iron Part 31

"I think that quite unnecessary," he said, "a much simpler way of arriving at the truth of the story will be to ask my son whether he rescued the prisoner or not. Maurice, did you bind and gag this excellent trooper?"

"Yes."

"Did you subsequently release Neal Ward from the cellar?"

"Yes."

"Now, Maurice, be careful about your answer to my next question. Did you take the clothes off Captain Twinely?"

"Yes."

"And was that part of the scheme entirely your own? Did the idea originate with you or with the prisoner whom you helped to escape?"

"It was my idea."

"I apologise to you, Maurice. I did you an injustice. You have a certain sense of humour. It is not perhaps of the most refined kind, still you have, no doubt, provided a joke which will appeal to the officers' mess in Belfast, Dublin, and elsewhere; which will be told after dinner in most houses in the county for many a year to come. And now, General Clavering, I presume there is no more to be said. I wish you good morning."

"Stop a minute," said General Clavering, "you cannot seriously suppose that your son, simply because he is your son, is to be allowed to interfere with the course of justice?"

"Of justice?" asked Lord Dunseveric in a tone of mild surprise.

"With His Majesty's officers in the execution of their duty--that is, to release prisoners whom I have condemned--I, the general in command charged with the suppression of an infamous rebellion. Your son, my lord, will have to abide the consequences of his acts."

"Maurice," said Lord Dunseveric, "it is evident that you are going to be hanged. General Clavering is going to hang you. It is really providential that you didn't steal his breeches. He would probably have flogged you first and hanged you afterwards if you had."

"d.a.m.n your infernal insolence," broke out General Clavering furiously, "You think that because you happen to be a lord and own a few dirty acres of land that you can sit there grinning like an ape and insulting me. I'll teach you, my lord, I'll teach you. By G.o.d, I'll teach you and every other cursed Irishman to speak civil to an English officer. You shall know your masters, by the Almighty, before I've done with you."

Lord Dunseveric rose to his feet. He fixed his eyes on General Clavering, and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"I ride at once to Dublin," he said. "I shall lay an account of your doings and the doings of your troops before His Majesty's representative there. I shall then cross to England, approach my Sovereign and yours, General Clavering. I shall see that justice is done between you and the people you have outraged and harried. As to my son, I have work for him to do. I shall make myself responsible for his appearance before a court of justice when he is summoned. In the meanwhile, I neither recognise you as my master nor your will as my law. I appeal to the const.i.tutional liberties of this kingdom of Ireland and to the right of every citizen to a fair trial before a jury of his fellow-countrymen. You shall not arrest, try, or condemn my son otherwise than as the law allows."

General Clavering grew purple in the face. He stuttered, cursed, laid his hand on his sword, and took a step forward. Lord Dunseveric, his hands behind his back, a sneer of contempt on his face, looked straight at the furious man in front of him.

"Do you propose," he said, "to stab me and then hang my son?"

This was precisely what General Clavering would have liked to do, but he dared not. He turned instead on Captain Twinely.

"Let me tell you, sir, that you're a d.a.m.ned idiot, an incompetent officer, a besotted fool, and your men are a lot of cowardly loons.

You had this infernal young rebel safe and you let him go. You not only allowed him to walk off, but you actually provided him with a suit of clothes to go in. You're the cause of all the trouble. Get your troop to horse. Scour the country for him. Don't leave a house that you don't search, nor a bed that you don't run your sword through. Don't leave a dung-heap without raking it, or a haystack that you don't scatter. Get that man back for me, wherever he hides himself, or, by G.o.d, I'll have you shot for neglect of duty in time of war, and your d.a.m.ned yeomen buried alive in the same grave with you."

The general was still bent on teaching the Irish to know their masters and making good his boast of reducing them to the tameness of "gelt cats." With Captain Twinely, at least, he seemed likely to succeed.

"I can imagine, Maurice," said Lord Dun-severic, when they were alone together again, "that Captain Twinely and his men have at last got a job to suit them. Sticking swords through old wives feather beds is safer work than sticking them through rebels. Scattering haystacks will be pleasanter than scattering pikemen. Raking dung heaps will, I suppose, be an entirely congenial occupation."

His tone changed, He spoke rapidly and seriously.

"You will ride with me as far as Belfast. From there you must find some means of communicating with the captain of that Yankee brig of which you told me. If necessary, go yourself to Glasgow and find the man. Pay him what he asks and arrange that he lies off Dunseveric and picks up Neal.

You must then go home and see to it yourself that Neal gets safe on board. It may not be easy, for the yeomen will be after him; but it has got to be done. I go to Dublin as I said. I shall have some trouble in settling this business of yours. It really was an audacious proceeding--your rescue of the prisoner. It will take me all my time to get it hushed up. Besides, I must use my influence to prevent bad becoming worse in this unfortunate country of ours. By the way, did you make any arrangement for the return of Captain Twinely's uniform when Neal had finished with it?"

"No, I never thought of that."

"You ought to have thought of it. Poor Captain Twinely looks very odd in the inn-keeper's clothes, which do not fit him in the least."

CHAPTER XVI

It was obvious to Captain Twinely that Neal Ward's instinct would be to make for Dunseveric. He spread the men under his command, and the members of a couple of corps similar to his own, in bands of five or six, across a broad belt of country. He arranged what he called a "drive," and pushed slowly northward, searching every possible hiding-place as he went. It seemed to him totally impossible that Neal could escape. Sooner or later he was sure to come on him, and then--Captain Twinely chuckled grimly at the thought that he would leave no chance of a fourth escape.

This excellently-planned search resulted in the discovery of Captain Twinely's clothes, damp and somewhat muddy, in a ditch about a mile out of the town. It did not end in the capture of the fugitive, because it was founded on a miscalculation. Neal did not make straight for Dunseveric. When he got out of the town and changed his clothes he went to Donegore Hill. M'Cracken and Hope were there with the remains of their army, and Neal was most anxious to join them. The murder of Peg MacIlrea had made him so furiously angry that he cared nothing about his own safety. His escape from Antrim was a matter of satisfaction mainly because it seemed to afford him another opportunity for fighting. He neither attempted to weigh the chances of success nor considered the uselessness of continuing the struggle. He wanted vengeance taken on men whom he hated, and he wanted to have some share himself in taking it.

He found the roads round Donegore Hill guarded by sentries. The camp on the top of the old rath had all the appearance of being held by disciplined troops. There was little sign of the disorganisation and panic which often follow defeat. The men were calm, self-possessed, and reasonable, but they were hopeless. Neal realised that this army, at least, would do no more serious fighting. The men were anxious to make terms for themselves and for their leaders. They were perfectly well aware that they were beaten, and could not expect to make any head against their enemies.

Neal found James Hope, and was warmly greeted by him.

"When I discovered that we'd left you behind," said Hope, "I made up my mind that you must have been shot down along with your uncle and the fine fellows who made a stand with him. Ah, Neal, we've lost many--your uncle, Felix Marier, poor Moylin, and many another. One killed here, another there, but all of them in doing their duty. But we mustn't talk of these things, lad. Tell me, what brings you here?"

"Need you ask?" said Neal. "I am come to fight it out to the last."

"Take my advice and slip off home. There's no good to be done by stopping with us. Things are desperate. Most of our people are going home to-day. M'Cracken and a handful--not more than a hundred--are going to Slievemis in the hope of being able to join Monro in County Down, or perhaps to get through to the Wexford men."

"I will go with you."

"No, no, lad, you've done enough. You've done a man's part. Go home now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I? Oh, I'm only a poor weaver. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm going on with M'Cracken."

"So am I. Listen to me, James Hope, till I tell you what is in my mind--till I tell you what has happened to me since yesterday."

They sat on the gra.s.sy slope of the old rath. The wide plain stretched before them--green, well wooded, beautiful. There lay Adair's plantations, the Six Mile Water winding like a serpent among the fields, the woods of Castle Upton, and the young trees on Lyle Hill, with the distant water of Lough Neagh glistening in the sunlight. Nearer at hand thatched farmhouses smoked, signs that the yeomen were enjoying the fruits of victory. Hope pointed to Farranshane, where William Orr's house was burning--a witness to a malignity so bitter that it wreaked the vengeance from which the dead man was safe on his widow and his orphans.

Neal told his story, and spoke of the pa.s.sionate desire for revenge which burned in him. Hope listened patiently to every word. Then he spoke.

"If I were to tell you now, Neal, as I told you once before, that vengeance belongeth only unto the Lord, you would turn away and listen to me no more. Therefore, I shall not speak to you in that way at all, or appeal to those higher feelings which the great G.o.d has planted in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of even the humblest of His servants. I will, instead, appeal to that which is lower and smaller than the religion of Christ, and which yet may be in its way a n.o.ble thing. I will speak to you as to a man of honour. I am not fond of the t.i.tle of gentleman, but I think I know what is meant by honour. Sometimes it is no more than a fantastic image bred of prejudice and pride; but sometimes it is high and holy, next to G.o.d. I think, Neal, that you would like to reckon yourself a man of honour."

Already James Hope's words were producing an effect on Neal's mind. The extreme bitterness of his pa.s.sion was dying away from him.

"You are right," he said, "I wish to act always as a man of honour, but my honour is engaged----"

"That is not what you said before. Before, you spoke of revenge and not of honour. But let that pa.s.s. I will try to show you, as a truly n.o.ble man would, as your friend, Lord Dunseveric, would if he were here to advise you, how your honour really binds you. You were rescued from your imprisonment last night and from death this morning by your friend, Maurice St. Clair, and he bid you go home. He set you free in order that you might go home. I think he would not have done what he did unless he had believed that you would go home. You are in honour bound to him. You are in reality still a prisoner--a prisoner released on parole, although no formal promise was required of you. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes, I understand; but you are advising me to do a cowardly thing--to desert you, whom I reckon my friend, in the time of your extremity."

"Maurice St. Clair was your friend before I was, Neal. You are bound to him by earlier ties. Besides, he has given you your life."

"But he is in no danger."