The Macdermots of Ballycloran Part 42

"Yes, she was."

"Did she struggle with him at all?"

"No."

"Did any of her friends know she was going with him?"

Before, however, the poor girl could be got to answer this question, she had fainted, and it was found impossible to restore her for a long time; and when she had recovered, it was only to give way to the most distressing cries and hysterical shrieks; she threw herself on the floor of the bedroom to which she had been taken, and Mrs. McKeon was afraid that she would have broken a blood-vessel in the violence of her emotions. As it was, she was for a long time spitting blood, and fell from one fit into another, until the medical man who was now with her was afraid that she would become entirely delirious.

It had long been found impossible to proceed with her examination any further. She had, however, unwittingly, and hardly knowing at the time what she was saying, given evidence against her brother which the facts of the case did not warrant.

For when Thady had first seen her, she was not going willingly with Ussher; she had then fainted, and Ussher was dragging her, apparently with violence, along the road.

When it was found in the inquest room that Feemy Macdermot could not possibly attend again, the coroner gave the jury the substance of the evidence on the case. He pointed out to them that though there could be no doubt that young Macdermot was the man by whom Captain Ussher had been killed, still if they thought there was sufficient ground for them to believe that Ussher was ill-treating his sister, and that the brother had interfered on her behalf, they should not come to the decision that murder had been committed.

The jury, after consulting for a short time, brought in a verdict of wilful murder against Thaddeus Macdermot; and, accordingly, a coroner's warrant was issued for his apprehension and trial, and was handed over to the police, that they might lose no time in endeavouring to take him prisoner.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ESCAPE.

Thady left the house immediately after the last cruel speech his father made to him, with the tears running fast down his face. He leapt down the steps, hurried across the lawn, through the little shrubbery, and over the wall into the road. He did not dare to go alone down the avenue, and by the spot where Ussher's body had lain, and where the ground would still be moist with his blood.

His father's words still rang dreadfully in his ears--"Murdered! of course they'll call it murder! of course they'll be sure to hang you!" And then he thought of all the bearings of the case, and it seemed to him that his father must be right; that there could be no doubt but that all men would call it by that horrid name which sounded so hideously in his ears. If that which he had done was not murder, what manner in which one man could kill another would be thought so? It was now evident to him that Feemy had been with Ussher willingly--that she was there of her own consent and by appointment; and merely because she had fainted in his arms, he had struck him down and killed him. Of course his father was right; of course they would call it murder. And then again, even if he could justify the deed to himself--even if he could make himself believe that the man was at the time using violence to his sister--how could he get that proved? whereas proofs of her having consented to go off with him would no doubt not be wanting. And then again, Thady remembered--and as he did so the cold sweat stood upon his brow--how lately he had sat in company where the murder of this very man whom now he had killed had been coolly canva.s.sed and decided on, and he had been one of those who were to be banded together for its execution. Would all this be forgotten at his trial? Would there not certainly be some one to come forward at that horrid hour, and swear these things against him--ay, and truly swear them? And then he fancied the precision with which he knew each d.a.m.ning word he had lightly uttered would be brought against him. Would not these things surely condemn him?

Would they not surely hang him? It would be useless for him, then, to open his bosom and to declare to them how hateful--even during the feverish hours of that detested evening--the idea of murder had been to his soul. It would be useless for him to tell them that even then, at that same time, he had cautioned Ussher to avoid the danger with which he was threatened. It would be vain for him to declare how soon and how entirely he had since repented of the folly of which he had on that occasion been guilty. The stern faces by whom he would be surrounded at his trial--when he should stand in that disgraceful spot, with his head leaning on that bar so often pressed by murderers, miscreants, and thieves--would receive his protestations very differently from that benign friend who had previously comforted him in his misery. They would neither listen to nor believe his a.s.surances; and he said involuntarily to himself--"Murder! of course they'll call it murder! of course they'll hang me!"

The oftener he thought of this, the more he hurried, for he felt that the police would be soon in search of him, and that at most he had but that night to escape from them. As these ideas crossed his mind he hastened along the lane leading to Drumleesh, sometimes running and sometimes walking, till the perspiration stood upon his brow. If it was murder that he had done--if the world should consider it as murder--then he would most probably soon be in the same condition as that criminal whose trial had so vividly occurred to his recollection a few days ago. At that time the idea had only haunted him; he had only then dreamt of the possibility of his situation being the same as that man's, and the very horror he had then felt at the bare thought had made him determined to avoid those who could even talk of the crime which would lead to that situation. But now he had of his own accord committed that crime; and how had he done it? In such a manner that he could by no possibility escape detection. Then again he tried to comfort himself by reflecting that it was not murder--that his intention had not been to murder the man; but his father's horrid words again rang through his ears, and he felt that there was no hope for him but in flight.

The moon got up when he was about half-way to his destination, and he left the road lest by chance there might be any one out at that hour who would recognise him. He crept on by the hedges and ditches, sometimes running along the bits of gra.s.s between the tillage and fences--sometimes having almost to wade through the wet bottoms which he crossed, often falling, in his hurry and in the imperfect light of the cloudy moon, till at last, tired, hot, and covered with dirt, pale with fear, and nearly overcome by the misery of his own reflections, he reached Corney Dolan's cabin. It was now about eleven o'clock; it had been past ten when he left Ballycloran, and in the interval he had traversed above five Irish miles. There was no light in the cabin, which was a solitary one, standing on the edge of a bog. Now he was there he feared to knock, as he did not know what to say to Corney when he should come to the door. Besides, he was aware that his hands and coat were soiled with blood, and he was unwilling that the inmates of the cabin should see him in that plight.

He had, however, no time to spare, and as it was necessary that he should do something, after pausing a few minutes, he knocked at the door. No one answered, and he had to knock two or three times before he was asked in a woman's voice who he was, and what he wanted there at that hour of the night. He stated that he wanted to see Corney Dolan. The woman told him that Corney Dolan wasn't at home, and that he couldn't see him. Thady knew that he lived alone with his mother, an aged woman, nearly eighty years old, and that it was she who was speaking to him now.

"Nonsense, mother," said he; "he's at home I know, and I must see him. Don't you know me?"

"Faix, then, I don't--and I don't want," said the old hag. "At any rate, Corney's not here; so you may jist go back agin, whoever you call yerself."

"But where is he, then? Can you tell me where I'll find him?"

"I can't tell you thin. What should I know myself? So now you know as much about it as I do."

"Well, then, get up and let me in. Don't you know me? I'm Corney's landlord, Thady Macdermot. I'll wait here till he comes; so get up and let me in."

There was a silence for some time; then he heard the old woman say to some one else,

"The Lord be praised! It can't be him--it can't be Mr. Thady coming here at this time of night. Don't stir I tell ye--don't stir, avick!"

"Oh! but it wor him, mother. Shure, don't I know his voice?" answered the child that the old woman had spoken to.

"I tell you it is me," shouted Thady. "Open the door, will you! and not keep me here all night!"

The child now got up and opened the door, and let him into the single room which the cabin contained. There were still a few embers of turf alight on the hearth, but not sufficient to have enabled Thady to see anything had not the moon shone brightly in through the door. There was but one bed in the place,--at the end of the cabin farthest from the door, standing between the hearth and the wall, and in this the old woman was lying. The child, about eight years, had jumped out of bed, stark naked, and now in this condition was endeavouring with a bit of stick to poke the hot embers together, so as to give out a better heat and light. But Thady was in want of neither, and he therefore desired the boy to get into bed, and upsetting with his foot the little heap which the urchin had so industriously collected together for his benefit, so as to extinguish the few flickering flames which it afforded, he sat down to try and think what it would now be best for him to do.

"Where's Corney, then," he said, "at this hour? Will he be long before he's here?"

"Not a one of me rightly knows, yer honer; maybe it 'll not be long afore he's here, and maybe it 'll not be afore the morning," said the child.

"And, maybe, not then," added his grandmother. "There's no knowing when he 'll be here; maybe not for days. I don't know what's come to them at all now--being out night skirring through the counthry; it can't come to no good, any ways."

"When Corney's at home, where does he sleep?" said Thady, looking round the cabin for a second bed, but seeing none.

"He mostly takes a stretch then down there afore the fire; but Corney's not over partickler where he sleeps. For the matter of that, I b'lieve he sleeps most out in the bog at day time."

Thady now sat down on one of the two rude stools with which the place was furnished, either to wait for Corney, or to make up his mind what other steps he would take. He had closed and bolted the door, and was just in the act of asking the old woman whether Joe Reynolds was at present living on his bit of land, or if not, where he was, when he heard footsteps coming up to the little path to the door, and the woman, sitting up in bed, said,

"There's both on 'em thin; get up, Terry, and open the door."

One of the men outside rattled the latch quietly, to let the inmates know who it was that desired admittance; and the naked boy again jumped out of bed, and opening the door, ran back and jumped in again.

Two men now entered, whom Thady, as they appeared in the moonlight through the open door, at once recognised as Joe Reynolds and Corney Dolan. He was seated close to the fire, and in the darkness and obscurity of the cabin, they did not at first perceive him.

A few moments since he had been longing for these two men who now stood before him, as the only persons on whom he could depend for security and concealment, and now that they were there he almost wished them back again, so difficult did he find it to tell them what he had to say, and to beg of them the a.s.sistance he required.

"Who the divil are you?" said Corney; "who's this you've got here, mother?--and what made you let him in here this time of night?"

"Shure it's the young masther, Corney, and he axing afther you; you wouldn't have me keeping him out in the cowld, and he waiting there to see you that ought to have been at home and asleep two hours since."

"Faix, Mr. Thady, and is that yerself?" said Corney; "well, anyway you're welcome here."

"I'm glad to see you here, Mr. Thady," said Joe; "didn't I tell you you'd be coming? though it's a quare time you've chosen. Didn't I tell you you'd be changing your mind?"

"But was yer honer wanting me, Mr. Thady," said Corney; "'deed but this is a bad place for you to come to; sorrow a light for ye or the laste thing in life; what for did you not get a light, you ould hag, when the masther came in?"

"A light is it, Corney; and how was I to be getting a light, when there's not been a sighth of a bit of candle in the place since last winter, nor likely to be the way you're going on now."

"Whisht there now," said Joe; "we'll be doing very well without a light; but why wasn't you down here earlier, Mr. Thady?--We two have just come from mother Mulready's, an' by rights, as you've come round agin, you should have been there with us."

"Never mind that, Joe, but come out; I want to spake to you."

"Did you hear the news about Ussher?" continued Joe without moving, and in a whisper which the old woman could not hear. "That blackguard Ussher has escaped out of the counthry afther all, without paying any of us the debt that he owed us, for all the evils he's done. He went away out of Mohill this night, an' he's not to be back agin; av I'd known it afore he started I'd have stopped him in the road, an' by G----d he should niver have got alive out of the barony."

"But did you hear he was gone?" said Corney.

"I did," replied Thady: "but Joe I want to spake to you, and there's no time to spare; come here," and Joe followed him to the door. "Come further; I don't want him to hear what I've to say to you;" and he walked on some little way before he continued,--"you were wis.h.i.+ng just now that you had shed Ussher's blood?"