The Wild Geese Part 29

James frowned. "That would not suit us at all," he said. "Not at all!

We could do that for ourselves. Faith," with a sudden laugh, "you didn't lack much of doing it, Flavvy! No; but a stone box and a ring round his leg, and four walls to talk to--until such time as we have a use for him, would be mighty convenient for everybody. He'd have leisure to think of his dear relations, and of the neat way he outwitted them, the clever devil! But for taking his life--I'm seeing my way there too," with a grin--"it was naming his dear relations made me think of it. They'd not bear to be informing without surety for his life, to be sure! No!" with a chuckle. "And very creditable to them!"

Flavia stared across the water. She was very pale.

"We'll be wanting one or two to swear to it," he continued, "and the rest to be silent. Sorra a bit of difficulty will there be about it!"

"But if," she said slowly, "he gets the first word? And tells the truth?"

"The truth?" James McMurrough replied scornfully. "The truth is what we'll make it! I'll see to that, my jewel."

She s.h.i.+vered. "Still," she said, "it will not be truth."

"What matter?" James answered. "It will cook his goose. Curse him," he continued with violence, "what right had he to come here and thrust himself into other folks' affairs?"

"I could have killed him," she said. "But----"

"But you can't," he rejoined. "And you know why."

"But this"--she continued with a shudder, "this is different."

"What will you be after?" he cried impatiently. "You are not turning sheep-hearted at this time of day?"

"I am not sheep-hearted."

"What is it then, my girl?"

"I can't do this," she said. She was still very pale. Something had come close to her, had touched her, that had never approached her so nearly before.

He stared at her. "But he'll have his life," he said.

"It's not that," she answered slowly. "It's the way. I can't!" she repeated. "I've tried, and I can't! It sickens me."

"And he's to do what he likes with us?" James cried.

"No, no!"

"And we're not to touch him without our gloves?"

She did not answer, and twice her brother repeated the taunt--twice asked her, with a confidence he did not feel, what was the matter with the plan. At last, "It's too vile!" she cried pa.s.sionately. "It's too horrible! It's to sink to what he is, and worse!" Her voice trembled with the intensity of her feelings--as a man, who has scaled a giddy height without faltering, sometimes trembles when he reaches the solid ground. "Worse!" she repeated.

To relieve his feelings, perhaps to hide his shame, he cursed his enemy anew. And "I wish I had never told you!" he added bitterly.

"It's too late now," she replied.

"Asgill could have managed it, and no one the wiser!"

"I believe you!" she replied quickly. "But not you! Don't do it, James," she repeated, laying her hand on his arm and speaking with sudden heat. "Don't you do it! Don't!"

"And we're to let the worst happen," he retorted, "and O'Hara perhaps be seized----"

"G.o.d forbid!"

"That's rubbis.h.!.+ And this man be seized, and that man, as he pleases!

We're to let him rule over us, and we're to be good boys whatever happens, and serve King George and turn Protestants, every man of us!"

"G.o.d forbid!" she repeated strenuously.

"As well turn," he retorted, "if we are to live slaves all our days! By Heaven, Cammock was right when he said that he would let no woman knit a halter for his throat!"

She did not ask him who had been the life and soul of the movement, whose enthusiasm had set it going, and whose steadfastness maintained it. She did not say that whatever the folly of the enterprise, and however ludicrous its failure, she had gone into it whole-hearted, and with one end in view. She did not tell him that the issue was a hundred times more grievous and more galling to her than to him. Her eyes were beginning to be opened to his failings, she was beginning to see that all men did not override their womenfolk, or treat them roughly. But the habit of giving way to him was still strong; and when, with another volley of harsh, contemptuous words, he flung away from her, though her last interjection was a prayer to him to refrain, she blamed herself rather than him.

Now that she was alone, too, the priest's safety weighed on her mind.

If Colonel John betrayed him, she would never forgive herself.

Certainly it was unlikely he would; for in that part priests moved freely, the authorities winked at their presence, and it was only within sight of the walls of Tralee or of Galway that the law which proscribed them was enforced. But her experience of Colonel Sullivan--of his activity, his determination, his devilish adroitness--made all things seem possible. He had been firm as fate in the removal of the Bishop and Cammock; he had been turned no jot from his purpose by her prayers, her rage, her ineffectual struggles--she sickened at the remembrance of that moment. He was capable of everything, this man who had come suddenly into their lives out of the darkness of far Scandinavia, himself dark and inscrutable. He was capable of everything, and if he thought fit--but at that point her eyes alighted on a man who was approaching along the lake-road. It was Father O'Hara himself. The priest was advancing as calmly and openly as if no law made his presence a felony, or as if no Protestant breathed the soft Irish air for a dozen leagues about.

Her brother's words had shaken Flavia's nerves. She was courageous, but she was a woman. She flew to meet the priest, and with every step his peril loomed larger before her fluttered spirits. The wretch had said that he would be master, and a master who was a Protestant, a fanatic----

She did not follow the thought to its conclusion. She waved a warning even before she reached the Father. When she did, "Father!" she cried eagerly, "you must get away, and come back after dark!"

The good man's jaw fell. He had been looking forward to good cheer and a good bed, to a rare oasis of comfort in his squalid life. He cast a wary look round him. "What has happened, my daughter?" he stammered.

"Colonel Sullivan!" Flavia gasped. "He is here, and he will certainly give you up."

"Colonel Sullivan?"

"Yes. You were at the Carraghalin? You have heard what happened! He will surely give you up!"

"Are the soldiers here?" the priest asked, with a blanched face.

"No, but he is here! He is in the house, and may come out at any moment," Flavia explained. "Don't you understand?"

"Did he tell you----"

"What?"

"That he would inform?"

"No!" Flavia replied, thinking the man very dull. "But you wouldn't trust him?"

The priest looked round to a.s.sure himself that the landscape held no overt signs of danger. Then he brought back his eyes to the girl's face, and he stroked his thin, brown cheek reflectively. He recalled the scene in the bog, Colonel John's courage, and his thought for his servant. And at last, "I am not thinking," he said coolly, "that he will betray me. I am sure--I think I am sure," he continued, correcting himself, "that he will not. He is a heretic, but he is a good man."

Flavia's cheek flamed. She started back. "A good man!" she cried in a voice audible half a hundred yards away.

Father O'Hara looked a little ashamed of himself; but he stood by his guns. "A heretic, of course," he said. "But, I'm thinking, a good man.

At any rate, I'm not believing that he will inform against me."

As quickly as it had come, the colour fled from Flavia's face, and left it cold and hard. She looked at the priest as she had never looked at a priest of her Church before. "You must take your own course then," she said. And with a gesture which he did not understand she turned from him, and leaving him, puzzled and disconcerted, she went away into the house.

A good man! Heaven and earth and the sea besides! A good man! Father O'Hara was a fool! A fool!