The Wild Geese Part 30

CHAPTER XVII

THE LIMIT

If there was one man more sorry than another that the Morristown rising had been nipped in the bud it was Luke Asgill. It stood to his credit that, though he had never dared to cross Flavia's will, he had tried, and honestly tried, to turn James McMurrough from the attempt. But even while doing this, he had known--as he had once told James with bitter frankness--that his interest lay in the other scale; he had seen that had he attended to it only, he would not have dissuaded The McMurrough, but, on the contrary, would have egged him on, in the a.s.surance that the failure of the plot would provide his one best chance of winning Flavia. A score of times, indeed, he had pictured, and with rapture, the inevitable collapse. In the visions of his head upon his bed he had seen the girl turn to him in the wreck of things--it might be to save her brother's life, it might be to save her tender feet from the stones of foreign streets. And in the same dream he had seen himself standing by her, alone against the world; as, to do him justice, he would have stood, no matter how sharp the stress or great the cost.

He had no doubt that he would be able to save her--in spite of herself and whatever her indiscretion. For he belonged to a cla.s.s that has ever owned inordinate power in Ireland: the cla.s.s of the middlemen with roots in either camp--a grandam, who, perchance, still softens her clay on the old cabin hearth, while a son preens it with his betters in Trinity College. Such men carry into the ruling ranks their knowledge of the modes of thought, the tricks and subterfuges of those from whom they spring; and at once astute and overbearing, hard and supple, turn the needs of rich and poor to their own advantage, and rise on the common loss. Asgill, with money to lend in the town, and protections to grant upon the bog, with the secrets of two worlds in his head or in his deed-box, could afford to await with confidence the day when the storm would break upon Morristown, and Flavia, in the ruin of all about her, would turn to him for rescue.

Keen therefore was his chagrin when, through the underground channels which were in his power, he heard two days after the event, and in distant Tralee, what had happened. Some word of a large Spanish s.h.i.+p seen off the point had reached the mess-room; but only he knew how nearly work had been found for the garrison: only he, walking about with a smooth face, listened for the alarm that did not come. For a wonder he had been virtuous, he had given James his warning; yet he had seen cakes and ale in prospect. Now, not only was the treat vanished below the horizon, but stranger news, news still less welcome, was whispered in his ear. The man whom he had distrusted from the first, the man against whom he had warned The McMurrough, had done this. More, in spite of the line he had taken, the man was still at Morristown, if not honoured, protected, and if not openly triumphant, master in fact.

Luke Asgill swore horribly. But Colonel Sullivan had got the better of him once, and he was not to be duped again by this Don Quixote's mildness and love of peace. He knew him to be formidable, and he took time to consider before he acted. He waited a week and examined the matter on many sides before he took horse to see things with his own eyes. Nor did he alight at the gate of Morristown until he had made many a resolution to be wary and on his guard.

He had reason to call these to mind before his foot was well out of the stirrup, for the first person he saw, after he had bidden his groom take the horses to the stable, was Colonel Sullivan. Asgill had time to scan his face before they met in the middle of the courtyard, the one entering, the other leaving; and he judged that Colonel John's triumph did not go very deep. He was looking graver, sadder, older; finally--this he saw as they saluted one another--sterner.

Asgill stepped aside courteously, meaning to go by him. But the Colonel stepped aside also, and so barred his way. "Mr. Asgill," he said--and there was something of the martinet in his tone--"I will trouble you to give me a word apart."

"A word apart?" Asgill answered. He was taken aback, and do what he could the Colonel's grave eyes discomposed him. "With all the pleasure in life, Colonel. But a little later, by your leave."

"I think now were more convenient, sir," the Colonel answered, "by your leave."

"I will lay my cloak in the house, and then----"

"It will be more convenient to keep your cloak, I'm thinking," the Colonel rejoined with dryness. And either because of the meaning in his voice or the command in his eyes, Asgill gave way and turned with him, and the two walked gravely and step for step through the gateway.

Outside the Colonel beckoned to a ragged urchin who was playing ducks and drakes with his naked toes. "Go after Mr. Asgill's horses," he said, and bid the man bring them back."

"Colonel Sullivan!"

The Colonel did not heed his remonstrance. "And follow us!" he continued. "Are you hearing, boy? Go then."

"Colonel Sullivan," Asgill repeated, his face both darker and paler--for there could be no doubt about the other's meaning--"I'm thinking this is a strange liberty you're taking. And I beg to say I don't understand the meaning of it."

"You wish to know the meaning of it?"

"I do."

"It means, sir," Colonel John replied, "that the sooner you start on your return journey the better!"

Asgill stared. "The better you will be pleased, you mean!" he said. And he laughed harshly.

"The better it will be for you, I mean," Colonel John answered.

Asgill flushed darkly, but he commanded himself--having those injunctions to prudence fresh in his mind. "This is an odd tone," he said. "And I must ask you to explain yourself further, or I can tell you that what you have said will go for little. I am here upon the invitation of my friend, The McMurrough----"

"This is not his house."

Asgill stared. "Do you mean----"

"I mean what I say," the Colonel answered. "This is not his house, as you well know."

"But----"

"It is mine, and I do not propose to entertain you, Mr. Asgill,"

Colonel John continued. "Is that sufficiently plain?"

The glove was down. The two men looked at one another, while the knot of beggars, gathered round the gate and just out of earshot, watched them--in the dark as to all else, but aware with Irish shrewdness that they were at grips. Asgill was not only taken by surprise, but he lay under the disadvantage of ignorance. He did not know precisely how things stood, much less could he explain this sudden attack. Yet if the tall, lean man, serious and growing grey, represented one form of strength, the shorter, stouter man, with the mobile face and the quick brain, stood for another. Offhand he could think of no weak spot on his side; and if he must fight, he would fight.

He forced a laugh. And, truly to think of this man, who had not seen Morristown for a score of years, using the experience of a fortnight to give him notice to quit, was laughable. The laugh he had forced became real.

"More plain than hospitable, Colonel," he said. "Perhaps, after all, it will be best so, and we shall understand one another."

"I am thinking so," Colonel Sullivan answered. It was plain that he did not mean to be drawn from the position he had taken up.

"Only I think that you have overlooked this," Asgill continued smoothly. "It is one thing to own a house and another to kick the logs on the hearth; one thing to have the deeds and another--in the west--to pa.s.s the punch-bowl! More, by token, 'tis a hospitable country this, Colonel, none more so; and if there is one thing would annoy The McMurrough and the young lady, his sister, more than another, it would be to turn a guest from the door--that is thought to be theirs!"

"You mean that you will not take my bidding?" the Colonel said.

"Not the least taste in life," Asgill answered gaily, "unless it is backed by the gentleman or the lady."

"Yet I believe, sir, that I have a means to persuade you," Colonel John replied. "It is no more than a week ago, Mr. Asgill, since a number of persons in my presence a.s.sumed a badge so notoriously treasonable that a child could not doubt its meaning."

"In the west of Ireland," Asgill said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that is a trifle, my dear sir, not worth naming."

"But if reported in the east?"

Asgill averted his face that its smile might not be seen. "Well," he said, "it might be a serious matter there."

"I think you take me now," Colonel John rejoined. "I wish to use no threats. The least said the soonest mended."

Asgill looked at him with half-shut eyes and a lurking smile--in truth, with the amus.e.m.e.nt of a man watching the transparent scheming of a child. "As you say, the least said the soonest mended," he rejoined.

"So--who is to report it in the east?"

"I will, if necessary."

"If----"

"If you push me to it."

Asgill raised his eyebrows impertinently. "An informer?" he said.

Colonel John did not flinch. "If necessary," he repeated.

"That would be serious," Asgill rejoined, "for many people. In the first place for the young lady, your ward, Colonel. Then for your kinsman--and Mr. Ulick Sullivan. After that for quite a number of honest gentlemen, tolerably harmless and tolerably well-reputed here, whose only fault is a tendency to heroics after dinner. It would be so serious, and for so many, Colonel, that for my part I should be glad to suffer in such good company. Particularly," he continued, with a droll look, the droller for his appreciation of the Colonel's face of discomfiture, "as being a Protestant and a Justice, I should, ten to one, be the only person against whom the story would not pa.s.s. Eh, Colonel, what do you think? So that, ten to one, I should go free, and the others go to Geordie's prison!"