The Northern Iron Part 14

Entering the town, he pa.s.sed the recently-erected poorhouse and infirmary, a building designed with a curious s.p.a.cious generosity, as were the buildings in Dublin and elsewhere which Irishmen erected during the short day of their national independence. In Donegall Street he saw the new church--Ann's Church, as the people called it---thinking rather of the lady of Lord Donegall, who interested herself in its building, than the Mother of the Virgin in whose honour good Protestants were little likely to build a church. But the cla.s.sic portico and tall tower did not hold his attention long. He could not but notice that there was an air of anxious excitement in the demeanour of the citizens who pa.s.sed him in the street. They were all hurrying one way, making from one direction or another for the side street whose entrance faced the church. Neal accosted one or two, but received either no answer or words uttered so hurriedly that he could not catch their import. Determined at length to get some intelligible reply to his questions, he pulled his horse across the path of an elderly gentleman of respectable appearance.

"Will you tell me," he said, "the way to North Street? I am a stranger in your town."

"And if you are a stranger you will do well to keep out of North Street the night."

"But I seek a house of entertainment to which I have been directed--Felix Matier's inn at the sign of Dumouriez."

"Who are you, young man, who seek that house? They say----. But let me pa.s.s, let me pa.s.s. I am the secretary of William Bristow, the sovereign of Belfast, and I must see for myself, I must see for myself what these incarnate devils of dragoons are doing in our streets."

"I will not let you pa.s.s," said Neal, "till you give me a civil answer to my question. I think you citizens of Belfast are as uncivil as men say you are, and are all gone mad to-night that you will not direct a stranger on his way."

"A wilful man, a wilful man. Follow me. Or, let me lay my hand on your bridle. The crowd gathers fast. It may be that your horse, if I keep by it, will enable me to push my way through. But blame me not if you come by a broken head through your wilfulness."

Neal's guide, the sovereign's pursy and excited secretary, led the horse down the side street, along which the people were hurrying. Suddenly the crowd hesitated, stopped, began to surge back again. Neal, standing up in his stirrups, saw that the end of the narrow street along which he rode was blocked by another crowd, which fled into it from a larger thoroughfare beyond. There was much trampling and pus.h.i.+ng and shouting.

Neal's guide, clinging desperately to the horse's bridle, was borne back. The horse began to plunge. This was too much for the old gentleman. He loosed his grip.

"Go on," he said, "go on if you can, young man. That's the North Street in front of you."

The reason for the crowd's flight became obvious. A number of dragoons, dismounted, half-clothed, and apparently free from all discipline, came rus.h.i.+ng down North Street. As they swept past the entrance of the side street Neal had a clear view of them over the heads of the crowd. In a moment they had pa.s.sed out of sight again, but the moment was enough.

Running with the soldiers, his arm gripped by a dragoon, but running with his own free will, was James Finlay. Neal was stung to fury by the sight of this man. He had no doubt at all now that he had to do with a traitor. He drove his heels against his horse's side, lashed at the creature's flanks with his rod, and fairly forced his way through the cursing, shouting crowd into North Street.

At the far end of the street he saw the dragoons raging and rioting round a house which stood a storey higher than any other near it. The whole length of the street lay almost empty before him. The soldiers had effectually cleared a way for themselves. He rode towards the scene of the riot. He saw that two civilians were defending the front of the house against the soldiers. They fought with sticks, and Neal recognised one of them as his uncle, Donald Ward. Before he could reach them they were forced into the house, and followed indoors by some of the dragoons. James Finlay had disappeared. Neal hesitated and stopped, uncertain what to do. Some of the soldiers placed a ladder against the wall. One of them mounted, with a sledge hammer in his hand, and battered at the iron supports which held a signboard to the wall. The iron bars bent under his blows, the holdfasts were torn from the wall, and the painted board fell into the street. A yell of triumph greeted the fall. The soldiers stamped on the board with their heavy boots and hacked at it with their swords. Then another man mounted the ladder with a splintered fragment in his hand. He whirled it round his head, and flung it far down the street.

"There's for the rebelly sign," he shouted. "There's for Dumouriez!

There's the way we treat d.a.m.ned French and Irish croppies."

The crowd, which had gathered courage and followed Neal down the street, answered him with a groan and a volley of stones. The man sprang from the ladder, called to his comrades, and in a moment the dragoons drew together and, their swords in their hands, charged the crowd. Neal's horse, terrified by the shouting, became unmanageable. Neal flung himself to the ground, staggered, was knocked down and trampled on, first by the flying people, then by the soldiers who pursued them. He rose when the rush was over. The street around him was empty again. The fragments of the shattered signboard lay around. The windows of the house that had been attacked were all broken, either by the stones of the people or the blows of the soldiers. There was a sound of fighting within the house. Neal ran towards the door. A woman's shriek reached him, and a moment later a soldier came out of the door dragging a girl with him. He had a wisp of her hair gathered in his hand, and he pulled at it savagely. The girl stumbled on the doorstep, fell, was dragged a pace or two, staggered to her feet, clutched at the soldier's hand and fastened her teeth in his wrist. Neal sprang forward at the man's throat, grasped it, and, by the sheer impetus of his spring, bore the dragoon to the ground. He was conscious of being uppermost in the fall, of the fierce struggling of the man he held, of the girl tearing with her hands and writhing in the effort to free her hair, of shouting near at hand, of a rush of men from the house. Then he received a blow on the head which stunned him. He awoke to consciousness a few minutes later, and heard his uncle's voice.

"Is the girl inside and the man? Have you got him? Then for the door.

They'll hardly venture into the house again after the reception we gave them. It was a mighty nice fight while it lasted. Now a light, a light.

Let us see if anyone's hurt."

Someone brought a light. Neal tried to rise, but was too giddy. The girl whom the soldier had dragged into the street stood beside him.

Her hair--bright red hair--hung about her shoulders. Her dress was in tatters, she was spitting blood, and wiping it off her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Hullo, Meg, Peg, whatever your name is," said Donald Ward, "you're bleeding. Where are you cut? Let me see to it?"

"Thon's no my blood," said the girl. "It's his. I got my teeth intil him. Ay, faith, it's his blood that I'm spitting out of my mouth. I did hear tell that it was black blood was in the likes of him, but I see now it's red enough. I'm glad of it, for I've swallowed a gill of it since I gripped his wrist, and I wouldna' like to swallow poison."

"Well, then, Peg, my wench, since you're not hurt, let's take a look at the man that helped you. He's lying there mighty quiet. I'm afraid there's some harm done to him."

Donald Ward took the light and bent over Neal.

"By G.o.d," he said, "it's Neal, and he's hurt or killed."

"It's all right," said Neal, feebly, "I'm only dizzy. I got a bang on the head. I'll be all right in a minute."

"Matier," said Donald, "come and help me with the boy. I must get him to bed. Where can I put him?"

"There's not a room in the house with a whole pane of gla.s.s in the window," said Felix Matier, "except my own. It looks out on the back, and the villains never came at it. We'll take him there. I'll lift his shoulders, and go first."

He approached Neal and was about to lift him when the girl pushed him aside and stooped over Neal herself.

"Come now, what's the meaning of this, Peg Macllrea? Are you so daft with your fighting that you hustle your master aside?"

"Master or no master," said Peg, "you'll not carry him. It was for me that he got hurted, and it's me that'll carry him."

She put her arms under Neal and lifted him. He was a big man, but she carried him up a flight of stairs and laid him on her master's bed.

The long matted tresses of her red hair hung over his face, and an occasional drop of the blood which still dripped from her fell on him.

Donald Ward and Matier followed her.

"Let's have a look at him," said Donald. "Ah! here's a scalp wound and a cut on the head the length of my finger. This must be seen to. Run, Peg, get me linen and a basin of cold water. It must have been a boot did this. A kick from one of the rascally dragoons as they pa.s.sed over him when we chased them. Now, Neal, are you hurt anywhere else?"

"I'm bruises from head to foot. Half the people in Belfast have trampled over me this night, and when they wear boots they wear mighty heavy ones."

Donald, with wonderful gentleness, took Neal' clothes off him, put on him a night s.h.i.+rt of Felix Matier's, and laid him between cool sheets.

"Sit you here, Peg," he said, when he had bandaged the cut head, "with the jug of water beside you, and keep the bandage wet. The other bruises are nothing, but a broken head needs to be minded. Now, Neal, don't you talk."

Matier fetched a bottle of wine and set it with the light on the table which stood near the window.

"We'll have to sit here," he said, "if we don't disturb your nephew.

Every other room in the house is in a state of scatteration. I have set the girls to clean up a bit, and after a while they'll have beds for us to sleep in. It's a devil of a business, but as poor Tone used to say when things went wrong with him--

'Tis but in vain For soldiers to complain.'"

"What started the riot?" asked Donald. "The Lord knows. Those dragoons only marched into the town this afternoon. I suppose the devil entered into them, if the devil's ever out of them at all."

"I guess," said Donald, "those were the lads that marched through Antrim this morning."

"The very same."

"They're strangers to the town, then?"

"Ay; I don't suppose one of them ever saw Belfast before."

"Tell me this, then. How did they know what house to attack? They came straight here."

"It was my sign angered them. They couldn't abide the sight of Dumouriez' honest face in a Belfast street.

"Then let us fight about, Dumouriez; Then let us fight about, Dumouriez; Then let us fight about, Till freedom's spark is out, Then we'll be d.a.m.ned no doubt--Dumouriez."

"You miss the point, man; you miss my point. How did they know about your sign or you either, unless someone told them?"

There was a knocking, gentle at first, and then more confident, at the street door. Donald looked inquiringly at his host.

"It's all right," said Matlier, "I know that knock. It's James Bigger, a safe man."

He left the room and returned with a young man whom he introduced to Donald Ward.