The Northern Iron Part 3

His sister, quicker than he to take a hint, pulled him by the arm, and whispered to him. Then she spoke aloud.

"Good night, Mr. Donald Ward. Good night, Neal. Perhaps we shall see you to-morrow."

The uncle and nephew climbed the hill which led to the top of the cliffs together. For a time neither of them spoke. The elder man seemed to be absorbed in picking out the landmarks which had once been very familiar to him. At last he spoke to Neal.

"Does your father wish you to have Lord Dun-severic's son and daughter for your friends?"

Neal hesitated for a moment, and then answered.

"He knows that they are my friends."

"It would be better if they were not your friends. I have heard of Lord Dunseveric, a strong man and an able man, a good friend of his own cla.s.s, not a good friend of the people."

He paused. Neal wished to speak, to say some good of Lord Dunseveric; to declare the strength of his friends.h.i.+p for Maurice. He could not speak as he wished to speak. An unfamiliar feeling of oppression tied his tongue. His uncle's will dominated his.

"What is the girl's name?" asked Donald.

"Una."

"Yes, and what did her brother call her?"

"Brown-Eyes." Neal felt as if the words were dragged from him.

"Are you the lover of this Una Brown-Eyes?"

Neal flushed. "You have no right to ask any such question," he said, "and I shall not answer it. I will just say this to you. Do you suppose that Lord Dunseveric would accept me, a penniless man, the son of a Presbyterian minister, a member of a Church he despises, and connected with a party he hates--do you suppose he would accept me as a suitor for his daughter's hand?"

"You have answered my question, though you said you would not answer it. You have told me that you love the girl. I have watched her smile at you, and seen her eyes while she talked to you, and I can tell you something more, something that perhaps you do not know--the girl loves you."

Again Neal flushed. His uncle had put into words what he had never yet dared to think. He loved Una. His uncle had a.s.sured him of something else, something so glorious as to be incredible. Una loved him. Then he became conscious that Donald Ward's eyes were on him--cold, impa.s.sive, unpitying; that Donald Ward was waiting till the throbs of joy and excitement calmed in him, waiting to speak again.

"Put the thought of the girl from you. She is not for you, nor you for her. Forget her. It will be better for you and for her. You shall have work to do soon. Work is for men. Seeing babies in brown eyes is only for boys."

They left the path which skirted the tops of the cliffs, crossed a field or two, and joined the road which led to Micah Ward's manse. The sound of the sea died away, though the smell of it and the feeling of its neighbourhood were still with them. The savage grandeur of ocean and cliff no longer oppressed their spirits. It seemed natural to talk of common things and to leave high themes behind them in the lonely places they had left. Donald Ward gazed with interest at the white-walled thatched cottages on the roadside. He commented on the disappearance of some homestead he remembered, or the building of a new one where none had been before. It was evident that, in spite of his twenty-five years'

absence, he cherished a clear and accurate recollection of the district he was pa.s.sing through. He inquired after the families who had lived in the different houses, naming them. He learned how one or another had disappeared, how old men were gone, and sons reigned in their stead. He even supplied Neal with information now and then about some young man or girl who had gone to America.

They arrived at the manse. Neal led his uncle through the yard, meaning to enter as usual by the kitchen door. On the threshold the housekeeper met him.

"Is that you, Master Neal? You're queer and late. You've had a brave time gadding with your fine friends and never thinking how you were leaving your old father to eat his dinner his lone. And who's this you have with you? What sort of behaviour is this, to be coming here bringing a stranger with you to a decent, quiet house, and he maybe----"

"Whisht, now, Hannah. Will you hold your whisht (tongue?)?" said Neal.

"It's my uncle I have with me. You ought to be able to remember him."

The old woman came forward to the place where Donald Ward stood, and peered at his face.

"Aye, I mind you well, Donald Ward. I mind you well. You hadna' just too much of the grace of G.o.d about you when you went across the sea, and I'm doubting by the looks of you now that you've done more fighting than praying where you were."

"Hannah Keady," said Donald Ward.

"Hannah Macaulay," said the housekeeper, "and forbye the old minister and Master Neal here, they call me Mistress Macaulay that have any talk with me. I'm married and widowed since you crossed the sea."

"Mistress Hannah Macaulay," said Donald, "you were a slip of a girl with a sharp tongue when I mind you first, and a woman with a sharp tongue when I said good-bye to you. You have lost your bonny looks and your s.h.i.+ning red hair; you've lost a husband, so you tell me, but you haven't lost your tongue."

The old woman smiled. The compliment pleased her.

"Come in," she said, "come in. The minister'll be queer and glad to see you. You know that fine. But have done with your old work. We've no more call for Hearts of Oak boys, nor Hearts of Steel boys, nor for burning ricks, nor firing guns."

She led the way through the kitchen, up a narrow flight of stone stairs, and opened the door of the room where the minister sat over his bodes.

"Here's Master Neal home again," she said, "and he's brought your brother Donald Ward along with him."

Micah Ward rose to his feet and met his brother with outstretched hands.

"Is it you, Donald? Is it you, indeed? I've been thinking long for you this many a time, my brother, and wearying for you. We want you, Donald, we need you sore, sore indeed."

"Why, Micah," said Donald, "you've grown into an old man."

The contrast between the two brothers was striking, more striking than the likeness of their faces, though that was obvious. Micah was stooped and pallid. He walked feebly. His limbs were shrunken. His hair was thin and white. Donald stood upright, a well-knit, vigorous man. The point of his beard and the hair over his ears were touched with iron grey, but no one looking at him would have doubted his energy and capacity for physical endurance.

"Grey hairs are here and there upon us, and we know it not--Hosea, 7th and 9th," said the minister. "But there's fifteen years atween us, Donald. It makes a difference. Fifteen years age a man, but I'm supple and hearty yet."

"Will I cook the salmon for your supper?" said the housekeeper. "You'll not be contenting yourselves with the stirabout now that you have your brother back again with you."

"Cook the salmon, Hannah; plenty of it, and some of the ham and the eggs. And, Neal, do you take the key of the cellar and get us a bottle of wine and the whisky that old Maconchy brought in from Rathlin last summer. It's not often I take the like, Donald, but it is meet that we should make merry and be glad."

Mistress Hannah Macaulay was a competent cook and housekeeper. It is noticeable that women with sharp tongues are generally more efficient than their gentler sisters. Solomon, who knew a good many things, seems also to have known this. He was of opinion that a peaceful dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox and contention therewith. He knew that he could not have both. It is the shrew who succeeds in giving the males dependent on her stalled oxen and such like dainties to eat.

The caressing wife and the sweet-tempered cook accomplish no more than dinners of herbs, and generally even they are not particularly appetising. The fact is, that the management of domestic affairs is the most trying of all occupations. Cooking, was.h.i.+ng, cleaning, and generally doing for men in a house means continuous irritation and worry. A woman, however sweet-natured originally, who is condemned to such work must either lose her temper over it, in which case she may cook stalled oxen, but will certainly serve them with sauce of contention, or she may give up the struggle and preserve her gentleness.

Then she will accomplish no more than dinners of herbs, boiled cabbages, from which tepid water exudes, and dishes of pallid turnips, supposed to be mashed but full of lumps. Solomon preferred, or said he preferred, kisses and cauliflowers. On questions of taste there is no use disputing.

Mistress Hannah Macaulay's salmon steaks came to the table with an appetising steam rising from their dish. Her slices of fried ham formed an attractive nest for the white-skinned poached eggs. She had plates of curly oatcake and powdery farles. She had yellow b.u.t.ter in saucers. She brought the porridge to table in well-scoured wooden bowls with horn spoons in them.

"The stirabout is good," she said. "I thought you'd like to sup them before you ate the meat."

Neal poured the wine into an old cut-gla.s.s decanter, and set Maconchy's bottle of whisky, distilled, no doubt, by Maconchy himself among the Rathlin Hills, beside his father's plate.

Micah Ward said a long grace, in which he thanked the Almighty for the fish, the ham, the eggs, the porridge, and his brother's return from America. As a kind of supplement, he added a prayer for the peace of his household, in which Hannah Macaulay, appropriately enough under the circ.u.mstances, was especially named.

After supper the two brothers drew their chairs to the fire. It was late in May, but the air was still chilly in the evenings. Hannah took down from the mantel-piece two well-polished bra.s.s candlesticks, fitted them with tall dipt candles, and set them on the table she had cleared of plates and dishes. Donald took a tobacco-box from his pocket, and filled a pipe.

"Neal," said his father, "you may go to your own room and complete the transcription of the pa.s.sages of Josephus which you left unfinished this morning."

"Let the lad stay," said Donald.

"Neal knows nothing of the matters about which we must talk, brother, nor do I think it well that he should know; not yet, at least."

"Let the lad stay," repeated Donald. "I've seen younger men than he is doing good work. Neal ought to be working, too. We cannot do anything without the young men."

Micah Ward yielded to his brother.