The Northern Iron Part 15

"We were just talking about the riot," said Donald. "What's your opinion about it, Mr. Bigger?"

"There are five houses wrecked," said Bigger, "and every one of them the house of a man in sympathy with reform and liberty and the Union."

Donald and Matier exchanged glances.

"They were well informed," said Donald. "They knew what they were at, and where to go."

"They say," said Bigger, "that the leaders of the different parties had papers in their hands with directions on them. They were seen looking at them in the streets."

"I'd like to put my hand on one of those papers," said Donald.

"Zipperty, zipperty, zand,"

quoted Matier,

"I wish I'd a bit of that in my hand."

"You know the old rhyme."

Neal lay quiet, but wide awake. The conversation interested him too much to allow him to sleep. Twice he tried to speak, but each time Peg Macllrea, determined now that he was under her care to keep him quiet, put her hand over his mouth. At last he succeeded in a.s.serting himself in spite of her.

"I saw James Finlay," he said, "along with a party of the soldiers going up this street."

The three men at the table turned to him. Donald seemed about to cross-question him when Peg Macllrea spoke.

"Is it a bit of the soger's paper you're wantin'? Here's for you."

She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt and drew out a crumpled sc.r.a.p of paper.

"I snapped it out of his hand in the kitchen. It was for grabbing it that he catched me by the hair o' the head. I saw him glowerin' at it as soon as ever he came intil the light."

Donald Ward took it from her hand and read--

"The house of Felix Matier, an inn at the far end of North Street, to be known easily by the sign of Dumouriez which hangs before the door. Felix Matier is + + +."

He pa.s.sed it without comment to Matier, who read it and laughed.

"They have me marked with three crosses," he said. "I'm dangerous. But what do they mean by it. How do they come to know so much about me?

"'Ken ye aught of Captain Grose Igo and ago.

Is he amang friends or foes? Iram, coram, dago.'

"Who set the dragoons on you?" said Donald. "That's the question."

"By G.o.d, then, it's easily answered," said Matier. "I'll give it to you in the words of the poet--

"'Letters four do form his name.

He let them loose and cried Halloo!

To him alone the praise is due.'

"P.I.T.T. Does that content you?"

"Pitt," said Donald. "Oh, I see. That's true, no doubt. But I want some one nearer hand than Pitt. Who gave them this paper? Whose is the writing on it?"

"I can tell you that," said James Bigger. "I have a note in my pocket this minute from the man who wrote that. It's a summons to a meeting for important business at the house of Aeneas Moylin, on the hill of Donegore, next week."

"Have you?" said Donald.

"Ay, and the man's name is James Finlay."

A dead silence followed the statement. It was Donald who broke it.

"I reckon, friend Bigger, that I'll go with you to that meeting. We'll take Neal here along, too. He knows the man. There'll be some important business done that night, though maybe not quite the same as what James Finlay has planned."

CHAPTER VIII

Neal Ward was awakened next morning by the noise which Peg Macllrea made sweeping and tidying the room where he slept. He lay for a few minutes watching the girl. Her red hair was coiled up now in a neat roll at the back of her head. Her freckled face was clean, and had apparently escaped bruising in her conflict with the dragoon. She wore a short grey skirt of woollen homespun. The sleeves of her bodice were rolled up, and displayed a pair of muscular red arms. The girl was more than commonly tall, and anyone listening to her heavy footfall, and noting her thick figure and broad shoulders, would have understood that she was well able to carry a young man, even of Neal's height, up a flight of stairs. The dragoon might easily have come to the worst in single combat with such a maiden if he had not obtained an advantage over her at the start by twisting her hair round his hand.

It was not very long before she noticed that Neal was awake. She came over to him smiling.

"You've had a brave sleep," she said. "It's nigh on eleven o'clock. The master and Mr. Ward are out this twa hours. They bid me not stir you.

I was just readying up the room a bit, and I went about it as mim as a mouse."

"I'm thinking," said Neal, "that I'll be getting up now."

"'Deed, then, and you'll no. The last word the master said was just that you were to lie in the day. I'm to give you tea and toasted bread, and an egg if you fancy it."

"But," said Neal, "I can't lie here in bed all day."

"Whisht, now, whisht. Be good and I'll get you them twa graven images the master's so set on and let you glower at them. Maybe you never seen the like."

She spoke precisely as if she had a sick child to humour; as if she were the nurse in charge, determined at any sacrifice to keep the peevish little one from crying. She crossed the room to a book-case and took down two bronze busts. With the utmost care she carried them over and laid them on the bed in front of Neal.

"The master's one of them that goes neither to church nor ma.s.s nor meeting," she said. "If ever he says his prayers at all, at all, it's to them twa graven images he says them, and the dear knows they're no so eye-sweet."

She left the room, well satisfied apparently that she had provided her patient with playthings which would keep him good till she returned with his breakfast. Neal took up the busts and examined them. He would not have known whose faces were represented had not an inscription on the pedestal of each informed him. "Voltaire," he read on one, "Rousseau" on the other. These were strange household G.o.ds for a Belfast innkeeper to revere. Neal, gazing at them, slowly grasped their significance. He had heard talk of French ideas, had seen his father shake his head over the works of certain philosophers. He knew that there was an intellectual freedom claimed by many of those who were most enthusiastic in the cause of political reform. He had not previously met anyone who was likely to accept the teaching of either Voltaire or Rousseau. His eyes wandered from the busts to the book-case on which they had stood. It was well filled, crammed with books. Neal could see them standing in close rows, books of all sizes and thicknesses, but he could not read the names on their backs. Peg Macllrea returned with his breakfast on a wooden tray.

She put it down in front of him and then set herself to entertain him while he ate.

"Thon was a brave coup you gave the soger in the street," she said. "You gripped him fine, the ugly devil. But you did na hurt him much. He was up and off when they got us dragged from him, as hard as ever he could lift a foot. You'll be fond of fighting?"

"So far," said Neal, "I have generally got the worst of it when I have fought."

"Ay, you would. Your way of fighting is no just the canniest, but I like you no the worse for it. You might have got off without thon b.l.o.o.d.y clout on the top of your head if ye'd just clodded stones and then run like the rest of them. But that's no your way of fightin'. Did ye ever fight afore?"

"Just two nights ago," said Neal, "and I got the sc.r.a.pe on the side of my face then."