No Defense Part 6

"It's a poor business-cards," he said at last. "It puts one up in the clouds and down in the ditch all at the same time. I tell you this, Boyne--I'm going to stop. No man ought to play cards who hasn't a fortune; and my fortune, I'm sorry to say, is only my face!" He laughed bitterly.

"And your sword--you've forgotten that, Calhoun. You've a lot of luck in your sword."

"Well, I've made no money out of it so far," Dyck retorted cynically.

"Yet you've put men with reputations out of the running, men like Mallow."

"Oh, that was a bit of luck and a few tricks I've learned. I can't start a banking-account on that."

"But you can put yourself in the way of winning what can't be bought."

"No--no English army for me, thank you--if that's what you mean."

"It isn't what I mean. In the English army a man's a slave. He can neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep without being under command. He has to do a lot of dirty work without having voice in the policy. He's a child of discipline and order."

"And a d.a.m.ned good thing that would be for most of us!" retorted Dyck.

"But I'm not one of the most."

"I know that. Try a little more of this marsala, Calhoun. It's the best in the place, and it's got a lot of good stuff. I've been coming to the Harp and Crown for many years, and I've never had a bad drink all that time. The old landlord is a genius. He doesn't put on airs. He's a good man, is old Swinton, and there's nothing good in the drink of France that you can't get here."

"Well, if that's true, how does it happen?" asked Dyck, with a little flash of interest. "Why should this little twopenny, one-horse place--I mean in size and furnishments--have such luck as to get the best there is in France? It means a lot of trouble, eh?"

"It means some trouble. But let me tell you"--he leaned over the table and laid a hand on Dyck's, which was a little nervous--"let me speak as an old friend to you, if I may. Here are the facts. For many a year, you know as well as I do, s.h.i.+ps have been coming from France to Ireland with the very best wines and liquors, and taking back the very best wool--smuggled, of course. Well, our little landlord here is the d.a.m.nedest rogue of all. The customs never touch him. From the coast the stuff comes up to Dublin without a check, and, as he's a special favourite, he gets the best to be had in la belle France."

"Why is he such a favourite?" asked Dyck.

Erris Boyne laughed, not loudly, but suggestively. "When a lady kisses a man on the lips, of her own free will, and puts her arm around his neck, is it done, do you think, because it's her duty to do it or die? No, it's because she likes the man; because the man is a good friend to her; because it's money in her pocket. That's the case with old Swinton.

France kisses him, as it were, because"--he paused, as though debating what to say--"because France knows he'd rather be under her own revolutionary government than under the monarchy of England."

His voice had resonance, and, as he said these words, it had insistence.

"Do you know, Calhoun, I think old Swinton is right. We suffer here because monarchy, with its cruel hand of iron, mistrusts us, brutalizes us."

He did not see enlightenment come into the half-drunken eyes of Dyck.

He only realized that Dyck was very still, and strangely, deeply interested.

"I tell you, Calhoun, we need in Ireland something of the spirit that's alive in France to-day. They've cleaned out the kings--Louis's and Marie's heads have dropped into the basket. They're sweeping the dirt out of France; they're cleaning the dark places; they're whitewas.h.i.+ng Versailles and sawdusting the Tuileries; they're purging the aristocratic guts of France; they're starting for the world a reformation which will make it clean. Not America alone, but England, and all Europe, will become republics."

"England?" asked Dyck in a low, penetrating voice. "Aye, England, through Ireland. Ireland will come first, then Wales, Scotland, and England. Dear lad, the great day is come--the greatest the world has ever known. France, the spirit of it, is alive. It will purge and cleanse the universe!"

The suspicious, alert look pa.s.sed from Dyck's eyes, but his face had become flushed. He reached out and poured himself another gla.s.s of wine.

"What you say may be true, Boyne. It may be true, but I wouldn't put faith in it--not for one icy minute. I don't want to see here in Ireland the horrors and savagery of France. I don't want to see the guillotine up on St. Stephen's Green."

Boyne felt that he must march carefully. He was sure of his game; but there were difficulties, and he must not throw his chances away. Dyck was in a position where, with his inflammable nature, he could be captured.

"Well, I'll tell you, Calhoun. I don't know which is worse--Ireland b.l.o.o.d.y with shootings and hangings, Ulster up in the north and Cork in the south, from the Giant's Causeway to Tralee; no two sets of feet dancing alike, with the b.l.o.o.d.y hand of England stretching out over the Irish Parliament like death itself; or France ruling us. How does the English government live here? Only by bribery and purchases. It buys its way. Isn't that true?"

Dyck nodded. "Yes, it's true in a way," he replied. "It's so, because we're what we are. We've never been properly put in our places. The heel on our necks--that's the way to do it."

Boyne looked at the flushed, angry face. In spite of Dyck's words, he felt that his medicine was working well.

"Listen to me, Calhoun," he said softly. "You've got to do something.

You're living an idle life. You're in debt. You've ruined your independent fortune at the tables. There are but two courses open to you. One is to join the British forces--to be a lieutenant, a captain, a major, a colonel, or a general, in time; to shoot and cut and hang and quarter, and rule with a heavy rod. That's one way."

"So you think I'm fit for nothing but the sword, eh?" asked Dyck with irony. "You think I've got no brains for anything except the army."

Boyne laughed. "Have another drink, Calhoun." He poured out more wine.

"Oh, no, not the army alone; there's the navy--and there's the French navy! It's the best navy in the world, the freest and the greatest, and with Bonaparte going at us, England will have enough to do--too much, I'm thinking. So there's a career in the French navy open. And listen--before you and I are two months older, the French navy will be in the harbours of Ireland, and the French army will land here." He reached out and grasped Dyck's arm. "There's no liberty of freedom under the Union Jack. What do you think of the tricolour? It's a great flag, and under it the world is going to be ruled--England, Spain, Italy, Holland, Prussia, Austria, and Russia--all of them. The time is ripe.

You've got your chance. Take it on, dear lad, take it on."

Dyck did not raise his head. He was leaning forward with both arms on the table, supporting himself firmly; his head was bowed as though with deep interest in what Boyne said. And, indeed, his interest was great--so great that all his manhood, vigour, all his citizens.h.i.+p, were vitally alive. Yet he did not lift his head.

"What's that you say about French s.h.i.+ps in the harbours of Ireland?" he said in a tone that showed interest. "Of course, I know there's been a lot of talk of a French raid on Ireland, but I didn't know it was to be so soon."

"Oh, it's near enough! It's all been arranged," replied Boyne. "There'll be s.h.i.+ps-war-s.h.i.+ps, commanded by Hoche. They'll have orders to land on the coast, to join the Irish patriots, to take control of the operations, and then to march on--"

He was going to say "march on Dublin," but he stopped. He was playing a daring game. If he had not been sure of his man, he would not have been so frank and fearless.

He did not, however, mislead Dyck greatly. Dyck had been drinking a good deal, but this knowledge of a French invasion, and a sense of what Boyne was trying to do, steadied his shaken emotions; held him firmly in the grip of practical common sense. He laughed, hiccuped a little, as though he was very drunk, and said:

"Of course the French would like to come to Ireland; they'd like to seize it and hold it. Why, of course they would! Don't we know all that's been and gone? Aren't Irishmen in France grown rich in industry there after having lost every penny of their property here? Aren't there Irishmen there, always conniving to put England at defiance here by breaking her laws, cheating her officers, seducing her patriots? Of course; but what astounds me is that a man of your standing should believe the French are coming here now to Ireland. No, no, Boyne; I'm not taking your word for any of these things. You're a gossip; you're a d.a.m.ned, pertinacious, preposterous gossip, and I'll say it as often as you like."

"So it's proof you want, is it? Well, then, here it is."

Boyne drew from his pocket a small leather-bound case and took from it a letter, which he laid on the table in front of Dyck.

Dyck looked at the doc.u.ment, then said:

"Ah, that's what you are, eh?--a captain in the French artillery! Well, that'd be a surprise in Ireland if it were told."

"It isn't going to be told unless you tell it, Calhoun, and you're too much of a sportsman for that. Besides:

"Why shouldn't you have one of these if you want it--if you want it!"

"What'd be the good of my wanting it? I could get a commission here in the army of George III, if I wanted it, but I don't want it; and any man that offers it to me, I'll hand it back with thanks and be d.a.m.ned to you!"

"Listen to me, then, Calhoun," remarked Boyne, reaching out a hand to lay it on Dyck's arm.

Dyck saw the motion, however, and carefully drew back in his chair. "I'm not an adventurer," he said; "but if I were, what would there be in it for me?"

Boyne misunderstood the look on Dyck's face. He did not grasp the meaning behind the words, and he said to him:

"Oh, a good salary--as good as that of a general, with a commission and the spoils of war! That's the thing in the French army that counts for so much--spoils of war. When they're out on a country like this, they let their officers loose--their officers and men. Did you ever hear tell of a French army being pinched for fodder, or going thirsty for drink, or losing its head for poverty or indigence?"

"No, I never did."

"Well, then, take the advice of an officer of the French army resident now in Dublin," continued Boyne, laughing, "who has the honour of being received as the friend of Mr. Dyck Calhoun of Playmore! Take your hand in the game that's going on! For a man as young as you, with brains and ambition, there's no height he mightn't reach in this country. Think of it--Ireland free from English control; Ireland, with all her dreams, living her own life, fearless, independent, as it was in days of yore.