The Northern Iron Part 27

"It's no that bad, only I canna walk. It's bled a power, my stocking's soaked with the blood. Maybe if we could tie it up better we might stop it and I'd get strength to go again."

Neal dragged the lining from his coat, and tore it into strips. He cut the stocking from the boy's leg with his pocket-knife, and bandaged a long flesh wound as best he could.

"Rest now," he said, "and after a while we'll try and get on a bit."

They lay in the deep, cool gra.s.s. There was pure air round them, and they drew deep breaths of it into throats and lungs parched by the fumes of sulphurous smoke. A delicious silence wrapped them, folded them as if in a tender, kind embrace. A faint breeze stirred the gra.s.s, waved the white plumes of the meadow sweet, shook the blue vetch flowers and the purple spears of lusmor. In the hedge the reddening blooms of faded hawthorn still lingered. The honeysuckle fragrance filled the air.

Groups of merry-faced dog-daisies nodded in the ditch, and round their stalks were b.u.t.tercups, and beyond them the rich yellow of marsh marigolds. Neal fancied himself awaking from some hideous nightmare. It became impossible to believe in the reality of the battle, the fierce pa.s.sion of it, the smoke, the sweat, the wounds, the cries. He was lulled into delicious ease. Rest was for the time the supreme good of life. His eyes closed drowsily. He was back in Dunseveric again, and in his ears the noise of a gentle summer sea.

He was roused by a touch of his companion's hand.

"I'm afraid there's a wheen o' sogers coming up the road."

Neal rose to his hands and knees and peered cautiously through the hedge. He saw mounted men riding slowly along the road from the direction of Antrim. They were still about half a mile off. Every now and then they halted and peered about them. They rode as if they feared an ambush, or as if they sought something or some one in the fields at each side of the road.

"They're yeomen," said Neal, "and they're coming towards us. We must lie as still as we can. Perhaps they may pa.s.s without seeing us."

"They willna," said the boy, "they'll see us. We'll be kilt at last."

Neal peered again. The yeomen had reached the spot where Donald and his pikemen had made their stand. They halted and dismounted to examine, perhaps to plunder, the bodies. Neal could see their uniforms plainly.

He s.h.i.+vered. They were men of the Kilulta yeomenry, of Captain Twinely's company.

"Neal Ward, there's something I want to say to you before they catch us."

"Well, what is it? Speak at once. They'll be coming on soon, and then it won't do to be talking."

"Ay, but you mustn't look at me while I tell you."

Neal turned away and waited. He was impatient of this making of mysteries in a moment of extreme peril.

"I would I were in Ballinderry, I would I were in Aghalee, I would I were in bonny Ram's Island Trysting under an ivy tree-- Ochone, Ochone!"

The words were sung very softly, but Neal recognised the voice at once.

He turned at the second line and gazed in open-eyed astonishment at the singer.

"Ay, it's just me, just Peg MacIlrea." She smiled up at him as she spoke.

"But, Peg, how could you do it? Peg, if I'd only known. Why did you come?"

"It wasna right. It wasna maidenly. If that's what you want to be saying to me, Neal Ward. The other la.s.sie wouldna have done it. Maybe not. But a' the lads I knew well were turning out and going to the fight, and what was to hinder a poor, wild la.s.sie, that n.o.body cared about, from going, too? Ay, and being there at the break, the sore, sore break, in Antrim town?"

Neal heard the tramp of the yeomen's horses on the road. He heard their voices, their laughter, their oaths.

"Neal," said Peg, "you're a brave lad and a kind. I aye said it of ye from thon night when you throttled the dragoon. Do you mind it? D'you mind how I bit him?"

The yeomen were almost opposite their hiding-place now.

"Neal," whispered Peg, "will ye no gie me a kiss? The other la.s.sie wouldna begrudge it to me now, I'm thinking."

He bent over her, put his arms round her neck, raised her head, and kissed her lips.

"Hush, Peg, hush," he whispered.

"There's a musket on the road in front of you, sergeant." Neal recognised Captain Twinely's voice. "There might be some d.a.m.ned croppy lurking in the meadow there. Dismount and beat him up. Hey! but we'll have some sport hunting him across country if he runs. The earths are all stopped. We'll have a fine burst, and kill the vermin in the end."

Neal stood upright.

"I surrender to you, Captain Twinely. I surrender as a prisoner of war."

It seemed to him the only chance of saving Peg MacIlrea. It was just possible that the yeomen would be satisfied with one prisoner.

"By G.o.d," said the captain, "if it isn't that d.a.m.ned young Ward again.

Come, croppy, come, croppy, I'll give you a run for your life. I'll give you two minutes start by my watch, and I'll hunt you like a fox. It's a better offer than you deserve."

Neal stood still, and made no answer.

"To him, sergeant, p.r.i.c.k him with your sword. Set him running."

The sergeant came blundering through the hedge. Neal stepped forward to meet him, in the hope of keeping Peg concealed, but the sergeant caught sight of her.

"There's another of them, Captain, lying in the gra.s.s."

"Rout him out, rout him out," said Captain Twinely, "we'll run the two.

We'll have sport."

The sergeant stepped forward and kicked Peg. Neal flew at the man and knocked him down.

"Ho, ho," laughed Captain Twinely, "he's a game cub. Get through the hedge, men, and take a hold of him. We'll hunt the other fellow first."

"The other seems to be wounded, sir," said one of the men. "He has his leg bandaged."

"Then slit his throat," said the captain, "he can't run, and I've no use for wounded men."

Neal, his arms tightly gripped by two troopers, made a last appeal.

"It's a girl," he said, "would you murder a girl?"

Captain Twinely rolled in his saddle with mirth.

"A vixen," he cried. "d.a.m.n your soul, Neal Ward, but you're a sly one.

To think of a true blue Presbyterian like you, a minister's son, G.o.d rot you, lying and cuddling a girl in a field. A vixen, by G.o.d. Strip her, sergeant, till we see if he's telling the truth."

Neal, with the strength of a furious man, tore himself from the grasp of his guards. He plunged through the hedge and leaped at Captain Twinely.

He gripped the horse's mane with his left hand, and made a wild s.n.a.t.c.h at the throat of the man above him in the saddle. A blow on the face from the hilt of Twinely's sword threw him to the ground. He fell half stunned. He heard Peg shriek wildly, and then lost consciousness of what was happening.

He was roused again by a prod of a sword, and bidden to stand up. His hands were tied and the end of the rope made fast to the stirrup iron of one of the trooper's horses.

"We're going to take you back into Antrim," said Captain Twinely. "I don't deny that I'd rather deal with you here myself, but you're a fifty-pounder, my lad, and my men won't hear of losing their share of the reward. It'll come to the same thing in the end, any way. Clavering isn't the man to be squeamish about hanging a rebel. Mount men and march."