Priscilla's Spies Part 29

"I don't see the good of doing all that," said Frank.

"Why not???"

"The good of it is this. We must keep Aunt Juliet on our side in case of accidents. She's got a most acute mind and will throw all kinds of obstacles in the way of the pursuers. As long as she thinks that Miss Torrington?Lady Isabel, I mean?is really going in for leading a beautiful scarlet kind of life of her own; but if she once finds out that she's gone and got married to a man, any man, even one who can't manage a boat, she'll be keener than any one else to have her dragged back."

"What do you mean to do with her?" said Frank.

"We'll plant her down on Inishbawn. That's the safest place in the whole bay for her to be. Of course Joseph Antony Kinsella will object; but we'll make him see that it's his duty to succor the oppressed, and anyhow we'll land her there and leave her. I don't exactly know what it is that they're doing on that island, though I can guess. But whatever it is you may bet your hat they won't let Lord Torrington or the police or any one of that kind within a mile of it. If once we get her there she's safe from her enemies. Every man, woman and child in the neighbourhood will combine to keep that sanctuary?bother! there's a word which exactly expresses what a sanctuary is kept; but I've forgotten what it is. I came across it once in a book and looked it out in the dict. to see what it meant. It's used about sanctuaries and secrets. Do you remember what it is?"

Frank did not give his mind to the question. He was thinking, with some pleasure, of the baffled rage of Lord Torrington when he was not allowed to land on Inishbawn. Lady Isabel would be plainly visible sitting at the door of her tent on the green slope of the island. Lord Torrington, with violent language bursting from him, would approach the island in a boat, antic.i.p.ating a triumphant capture. But Joseph Antony Kinsella would sally like a rover from his anchorage and tow Lord Torrington's boat off to some distant place. With invincible determination the War Lord would return again. From every inhabited island in the bay would issue boats, Flanagan's old one among them. They would surround Lord Torrington, hustle and push him away. Children from cottage doors would jeer at him. Peter Walsh and Patsy, the drunken smith, would add their taunts to the chorus when at last, baffled and despairing, he landed at the quay. The vision was singularly attractive. Frank ran his hand over his bandaged ankle and smiled with joy.

"I know it's used of secrets as well as sanctuaries," said Priscilla, "because Aunt Juliet used to say it about the Confessional when she was thinking of being a Roman Catholic. I told you about that, didn't I?"

"No," said Frank. "But will they be able to stop him landing, really?"

"Of course they will. That was one of the worst times we ever had with Aunt Juliet. Father simply hated it, expecting the blow to fall every day, especially after she took to fasting frightfully hard with finnan haddocks. That was just after the time she was tremendously down on all religion and wouldn't let him have prayers in the morning, which he didn't mind as much; though, of course, he pretended. Fortunately she found out about uric acid just before she actually did the deed, so that was all right. It always is in the end, you know. That's one of the really good points about Aunt Juliet. All the same I wish I could remember that word."

"I don't quite see," said Frank, "how they'll stop him landing on Inishbawn if he wants to."

"Nor do I; but they will. If Peter Walsh and Joseph Antony Kinsella and Flanagan and Patsy the smith?they're all in the game, whatever it is?if they determine not to let him land on Inishbawn he won't land there."

"But even if they keep him off for a day or two they can't for ever."

"Well," said Priscilla, "he can't stay here for ever either. There's sure to be a war soon and then he'll jolly well have to go back to London and see after it. You told me it was his business to look after wars, so of course he must. Now that we've got everything settled I'll sneak off again and get to bed. If I recollect that word during the night I'll write it down."

Priscilla, leaving Frank to make his own way back to the house as best he could, crept through the laurel bushes to the edge of the lawn. Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius had gone indoors. She could see them through the open window of the long gallery. She stole carefully across the lawn and entered the house by way of the dining-room window. She went very quietly to her bedroom. Before undressing she opened her wardrobe, lifted out two dresses which lay folded on a shelf and took out the store of provisions which she had secured at dinner time. She wrapped up the duck and the fish in paper, nice white paper taken from the bottoms of the drawers in her dressing table. The herrings' roes on toast, originally a savoury, she put in the bottom of the soap dish and tied a piece of paper over the top of it. The caramel pudding rather overflowed the jam pot. It was impossible to press it down below the level of the rim. Priscilla sliced off the bulging excess of it with the handle of her tooth brush and dropped it into her mouth. Then she tied some paper over the top of the jam pot, and wrote, "pudding" across it with a blue pencil. The remainder of her spoil?some rolls, two artichokes and a sweetbread?she wrapped up together.

Then she undressed and got into bed. Half an hour later she woke suddenly. Without a moment's hesitation she got out of bed and lit a candle. The blue pencil was still lying on top of the jam pot which stood on the dressing table. Priscilla took it, and to avoid all possibility of mistake in the morning, wrote word "inviolable" on every one of her parcels.

CHAPTER XVII

It was ten o'clock in the forenoon. Peter Walsh, having breakfasted, strolled down the street towards the quay. When he reached it he surveyed the boats which lay there with a long, deliberate stare. The _Blue Wanderer_ was at her moorings. The _Tortoise_, with a new iron on her rudder, had gone out at seven o'clock. There were three boats from the islands and one large hooker lying at the quay. Peter Walsh made quite sure that there was nothing which called for comment or investigation in the appearance of any of these. Then he lit his pipe and took his seat on one of the windows of Brannigan's shop. Four out of the six habitues of this meeting place were already seated. Peter Walsh made the fifth. The sixth man had not yet arrived.

At half past ten Timothy Sweeny left his shop and walked down to the quay. Timothy Sweeny, though not the richest, was the most important man in Rosnacree. His public house was in a back street and the amount of business which he did was insignificant compared to that done by Brannigan. But he was a politician of great influence and had been made a Justice of the Peace by a government anxious to popularise the administration of the law in Ireland. The law itself, as was recognised on all sides, could not possibly be made to command the respect of any one; but it was hoped that it might excite less active hostility if it were modified to suit the public convenience by men like Sweeny who had some personal experience of the unpleasantness of the penalties which it ordained.

It was seldom that Timothy Sweeny left his shop. He was a man of corpulent figure and flabby muscles. He disliked the smell of fresh air and walking was a trouble to him. The five loafers on Brannigan's window sills looked at him with some amazement when he approached them.

"Is Peter Walsh here?" said Sweeny.

"I am here," said Peter Walsh. "Where else would I be?"

"I'd be glad," said Sweeny, "if you'd step up to my house with me for two minutes the way I could speak to you without the whole town listening to what we're saying."

Peter Walsh rose from his seat with quiet dignity and followed Sweeny up the street.

"You'll take a sup of porter," said Sweeny, when they reached the bar of the public house.

Peter finished the half pint which was offered to him at a draught.

"They tell me," said Sweeny, "that the police sergeant was up at the big house again this morning. I don't know if it's true but it's what they're after telling me."

"It is true," said Peter. "I'll say that much for whoever it was that told you. It's true enough. The sergeant was off last night after dark.

He thinks he's d.a.m.ned smart that sergeant, and it was after dark he went the way n.o.body would see him; but he was seen, for Patsy the smith was on the side of the road, mortal sick after the way that Joseph Antony Kinsella made him turn to making a rudder iron and him as drunk at the time as any man ever you seen. It was him told me about the sergeant and where he went last night."

"Well," said Sweeny, "and what did he tell you?"

"He told me that the sergeant went along the road till he met with the gentleman that does be going about the country and has the two ladies with him, the one of them that might be his wife and the other has Jimmy Kinsella engaged to row her round the bay while she'd be bathing."

"There's too many going round the country and the bay and that's a fact.

We could do with less."

"We could, surely. But there's no harm in them ones. What the sergeant said to the gentleman Patsy the smith couldn't hear but it was maybe half an hour after when the sergeant went home again and he had a look on him like a man that was middling well satisfied. Patsy the smith saw him for he was in the ditch when he pa.s.sed, terrible sick, retching the way he thought the whole of his liver would be out on the road before he'd done. Well, there was no more happened last night; but it wasn't more than nine o'clock this morning before that same sergeant was off up to the big house and I wouldn't wonder but it was to tell the strange gentleman that's there whatever it was he heard him last night. He had that kind of a look about him anyway."

"I don't like the way things is going on," said Sweeny. "What is it that's up at the big house at all?"

"They tell me," said Walsh, "that he's a mighty high up gentleman whoever he is."

"He may be, but I'd be glad if I knew what he's doing here, for I don't like the looks of him."

Patsy the smith, pallid after the experience of the night before, walked into the shop.

"If Peter Walsh is there," he said, "the sergeant is down about the quay looking for him."

"You better go to him," said Sweeny, "and mind now what you say to him."

"You'll not say much," said Patsy the smith, "for he'll have you whipped off into one of the cells in the barrack before you've time to speak.

He's terrible determined."

Patsy's face was yellow?a witness to the fact that his liver was still in him?and he was inclined to take a pessimistic view of life. Peter Walsh paid no attention to his prophecy. Sweeny looked anxious.

The sergeant was standing outside the door of Bran-nigan's shop. He accosted Peter Walsh as soon as he caught sight of him.

"Sir Lucius bid me tell you," he said, "that you're to have the _Tortoise_ ready for him at twelve o'clock, and that his lords.h.i.+p will be going with him, so he won't be needing you in the boat."

"It would fail me to do that," said Peter, "for she's out, Miss Priscilla and the young gentleman with the sore leg has her."

"Sir Lucius was partly in doubt," said the sergeant, "but it might be the way you say, for I told him myself that the boat was gone. But his lords.h.i.+p wouldn't be put off, and you're to hire another boat."

"What boat?"

"It was Joseph Antony Kinsella's he mentioned," said the sergeant, "when I told him it was likely he'd be in with another load of gravel. But sure one boat's as good as another so long as it is a boat. His lords.h.i.+p wouldn't be turned aside from going."

"Them ones," said Peter Walsh, "must have their own way whatever happens. It's pleasure sailing they're for, I'm thinking, among the islands?"