Lord Kilgobbin Part 50

'So, then, it is that you will not tell me?' said she angrily. He made no answer, but went on packing the plates in the basket. 'Leave those there, and go and fetch me some water from the spring yonder.' And she gave him a jug as she spoke, and now she reseated herself on the gra.s.s. He obeyed at once, and returned speedily with water.

'Come now, Larry,' said she kindly to him. 'I'm sure you mean to be a good boy. You shall breakfast with me. Get me a cup, and I'll give you some milk; here is bread and cold meat.'

'Yes,' muttered Larry, whose mouth was already too much engaged for speech.

'You will tell me by-and-by what they were doing at the village, and what that shouting meant--won't you?'

'Yes,' said he, with a nod. Then suddenly bending his head to listen, he motioned with his hand to keep silence, and after a long breath said, 'They're coming.'

'Who are coming?' asked she eagerly; but at the same instant a man emerged from the copse below the hill, followed by several others, whom she saw by their dress and equipment to belong to the constabulary.

Approaching with his hat in his hand, and with that air of servile civility which marked him, old Gill addressed her. 'If it's not displazin' to ye, miss, we want to ax you a few questions,' said he.

'You have no right, sir, to make any such request,' said she, with a haughty air.

'There was a man with you, my lady,' he went on, 'as you drove through Cruhan, and we want to know where he is now.'

'That concerns you, sir, and not me.'

'Maybe it does, my lady,' said he, with a grin; 'but I suppose you know who you were travelling with?'

'You evidently don't remember, sir, whom you are talking to.'

'The law is the law, miss, and there's none of us above it,' said he, half defiantly; 'and when there's some hundred pounds on a man's head, there's few of us such fools as to let him slip through our fingers.'

'I don't understand you, sir, nor do I care to do so.'

'The sergeant there has a warrant against him,' said he, in a whisper he intended to be confidential; 'and it's not to do anything that your ladys.h.i.+p would think rude that I came up myself. There's how it is now,'

muttered he, still lower. 'They want to search the luggage, and examine the baskets there, and maybe, if you don't object, they'd look through the carriage.'

'And if I should object to this insult?' broke she in.

'Faix, I believe,' said he, laughing, 'they'd do it all the same. Eight hundred--I think it's eight--isn't to be made any day of the year!'

'My uncle is a justice of the peace, Mr. Gill; and you know if he will suffer such an outrage to go unpunished.'

'There's the more reason that a justice shouldn't harbour a Fenian, miss,'

said he boldly; 'as he'll know when he sees the search-warrant.'

'Get ready the carriage, Larry,' said she, turning contemptuously away, 'and follow me towards the village.'

'The sergeant, miss, would like to say a word or two,' said Gill, in his accustomed voice of servility.

'I will not speak with him,' said she proudly, and swept past him.

The constables stood to one side, and saluted in military fas.h.i.+on as she pa.s.sed down the hill. There was that in her queenlike gesture and carriage that so impressed them, the men stood as though on parade.

Slowly and thoughtfully as she sauntered along, her thoughts turned to Donogan. Had he escaped? was the idea that never left her. The presence of these men here seemed to favour that impression; but there might be others on his track, and if so, how in that wild bleak s.p.a.ce was he to conceal himself? A single man moving miles away on the bog could be seen. There was no covert, no shelter anywhere! What an interest did his fate now suggest, and yet a moment back she believed herself indifferent to him. 'Was he aware of his danger,' thought she,' when he lay there talking carelessly to me? was that recklessness the bravery of a bold man who despised peril?'

And if so, what stuff these souls were made of! These were not of the Kearney stamp, that needed to be stimulated and goaded to any effort in life; nor like Atlee, the fellow who relied on trick and knavery for success; still less such as Walpole, self-wors.h.i.+ppers and triflers. 'Yes,'

said she aloud,' a woman might feel that with such a man at her side the battle of life need not affright her. He might venture too far--he might aspire to much that was beyond his reach, and strive for the impossible; but that grand bold spirit would sustain him, and carry him through all the smaller storms of life: and such a man might be a hero, even to her who saw him daily. These are the dreamers, as we call them,' said she. 'How strange it would be if _they_ should prove the realists, and that it was _we_ should be the mere shadows! If these be the men who move empires and make history, how doubly ign.o.ble are we in our contempt of them.' And then she bethought her what a different faculty was that great faith that these men had in themselves from common vanity; and in this way she was led again to compare Donogan and Walpole.

She reached the village before her little carriage had overtaken her, and saw that the people stood about in groups and knots. A depressing silence prevailed over them, and they rarely spoke above a whisper. The same respectful greeting, however, which welcomed her before, met her again; and as they lifted their hats, she saw, or thought she saw, that they looked on her with a more tender interest. Several policemen moved about through the crowd, who, though they saluted her respectfully, could not refrain from scrutinising her appearance and watching her as she went. With that air of haughty self-possession which well became her--for it was no affectation--she swept proudly along, resolutely determined not to utter a word, or even risk a question as to the way.

Twice she turned to see if her pony were coming, and then resumed her road.

From the excited air and rapid gestures of the police, as they hurried from place to place, she could guess that up to this Donogan had not been captured. Still, it seemed hopeless that concealment in such a place could be accomplished.

As she gained the little stream that divided the village, she stood for a moment uncertain, when a countrywoman, as it were divining her difficulty, said, 'If you'll cross over the bridge, my lady, the path will bring you out on the highroad.'

As Nina turned to thank her, the woman looked up from her task of was.h.i.+ng in the river, and made a gesture with her hand towards the bog. Slight as the action was, it appealed to that Southern intelligence that reads a sign even faster than a word. Nina saw that the woman meant to say Donogan had escaped, and once more she said, 'Thank you--from my heart I thank you!'

Just as she emerged upon the highroad, her pony and carriage came up. A sergeant of police was, however, in waiting beside it, who, saluting her respectfully, said, 'There was no disrespect meant to you, miss, by our search of the carriage--our duty obliged us to do it. We have a warrant to apprehend the man that was seen with you this morning, and it's only that we know who you are, and where you come from, prevents us from asking you to come before our chief.'

He presented his arm to a.s.sist her to her place as he spoke; but she declined the help, and, without even noticing him in any way, arranged her rugs and wraps around her, took the reins, and motioning Larry to his place, drove on.

'Is my drawing safe?--have all my brushes and pencils been put in?' asked she, after a while. But already Larry had taken his leave, and she could see him as he flitted across the bog to catch her by some short cut.

That strange contradiction by which a woman can journey alone and in safety through the midst of a country only short of open insurrection, filled her mind as she went, and thinking of it in every shape and fas.h.i.+on occupied her for miles of the way. The desolation, far as the eye could reach, was complete--there was not a habitation, not a human thing to be seen. The dark-brown desert faded away in the distance into low-lying clouds, the only break to the dull uniformity being some stray 'clamp,' as it is called, of turf, left by the owners from some accident of season or bad weather, and which loomed out now against the sky like a vast fortress.

This long, long day--for so without any weariness she felt it--was now in the afternoon, and already long shadows of these turf-mounds stretched their giant limbs across the waste. Nina, who had eaten nothing since early morning, felt faint and hungry. She halted her pony, and taking out some bread and a bottle of milk, proceeded to make a frugal luncheon. The complete loneliness, the perfect silence, in which even the rattling of the harness as the pony shook himself made itself felt, gave something of solemnity to the moment, as the young girl sat there and gazed half terrified around her.

As she looked, she thought she saw something pa.s.s from one turf-clamp to the other, and, watching closely, she could distinctly detect a figure crouching near the ground, and, after some minutes, emerging into the open s.p.a.ce, again to be hidden by some vast turf-mound. There, now--there could not be a doubt--it was a man, and he was waving his handkerchief as a signal. It was Donogan himself--she could recognise him well. Clearing the long drains at a bound, and with a speed that vouched for perfect training, he came rapidly forward, and, leaping the wide trench, alighted at last on the road beside her.

'I have watched you for an hour, and but for this lucky halt, I should not have overtaken you after all,' cried he, as he wiped his brow and stood panting beside her.

'Do you know that they are in pursuit of you?' cried she hastily.

'I know it all. I learned it before I reached the village, and in time--only in time--to make a circuit and reach the bog. Once there, I defy the best of them.'

'They have what they call a warrant to search for you.'

'I know that too,' cried he. 'No, no!' said he pa.s.sionately, as she offered him a drink, 'let me have it from the cup you have drank from. It may be the last favour I shall ever ask you--don't refuse me this!'

She touched the gla.s.s slightly with her lips, and handed it to him with a smile.

'What peril would I not brave for this!' cried he, with a wild ecstasy.

'Can you not venture to return with me?' said she, in some confusion, for the bold gleam of his gaze now half abashed her.

'No. That would be to compromise others as well as myself. I must gain Dublin how I can. There I shall be safe against all pursuit. I have come back for nothing but disappointment,' added he sorrowfully. 'This country is not ready to rise--they are too many-minded for a common effort. The men like Wolfe Tone are not to be found amongst us now, and to win freedom you must dare the felony.'

'Is it not dangerous to delay so long here?' asked she, looking around her with anxiety.

'So it is--and I will go. Will you keep this for me?' said he, placing a thick and much-worn pocket-book in her hands. 'There are papers there would risk far better heads than mine; and if I should be taken, these must not be discovered. It may be, Nina--oh, forgive me if I say your name! but it is such joy to me to utter it once--it may be that you should chance to hear some word whose warning might save me. If so, and if you would deign to write to me, you'll find three, if not four, addresses, under any of which you could safely write to me.'

'I shall not forget. Good fortune be with you. Adieu!'

She held out her hand; but he bent over it, and kissed it rapturously; and when he raised his head, his eyes were streaming, and his cheeks deadly pale. 'Adieu!' said she again.

He tried to speak, but no sound came from his lips; and when, after she had driven some distance away, she turned to look after him, he was standing on the same spot in the road, his hat at his foot, where it had fallen when he stooped to kiss her hand.