Kilgorman Part 35

"Pardon me," said I; "had Tim been dead, I promised him to fight for Ireland. As it is, I am bound to my king."

"Well," said he, with a shrug, "that is no concern of mine. As to your spying on our meeting--all's fair in love and war. You will, no doubt, make use of what you have heard against us."

"That I certainly shall not do," said I. "I am a poor man, but I am at least a gentleman. To protect the lady I love I shall certainly try; but to betray those whose gallantry and chivalry have spared me to do it, I certainly shall not. Besides, apart from my obligations to you, I am already sworn to secrecy." And I told him how I had once been forced to take the oath of the society, and had already got the length of pledging myself to secrecy before a happy diversion saved me from the rest.

"Well, Gallagher," said he, stopping short and extending his hand with that engaging smile which, rebel as he was, knit my soul to him, "I do not say but, were I in your shoes, I should feel compelled to act as you do. It is a delicate position. When we meet again it may be with drawn swords. Meanwhile, luck go with your wooing, and may it turn out as happy as my own."

This kindness quite humbled and abashed me. I had been guilty of meanness and disloyalty, and this n.o.ble way of pa.s.sing it over took all the conceit out of me.

I returned crestfallen, with slow steps, to the captain's hotel. Even the news of Tim's safety failed to inspirit me. "The most charming lady in Ireland," were the words that rang in my ears; and who was I--common seaman, sneak, and cadger--to aspire to such as her? Would she, I wondered, ever care to take a flower from me as she had taken one from Captain Lestrange that morning?

I was half minded to beg Captain Swift for leave to remain behind in Dublin. But then the thought of the peril that threatened her urged me to go forward. At least I could die for her.

At the door of the hotel a person in plain clothes, but evidently a soldier, touched me on the shoulder.

"I see you are a friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald," said he with a smirk.

I did not like the looks of the fellow, and replied shortly,--

"What if I am?"

"Only that you can earn five hundred pounds as easily as you ever earned a s.h.i.+lling," said he.

"Indeed! how?"

"By giving the government some information."

"As to what?"

"The plans of the United Irishmen."

"Who are they?" said I.

"Come, don't pretend to be innocent. The money's safe, I tell you."

"And I tell you," said I, bridling up, "that I know no more of the United Irishmen or their plans than you do. I saw Lord Edward for the first time in my life to-day. Our business had nothing to do with politics; and if it had, I would not sell it to you or your masters for ten thousand pounds. If you want news, go to Lord Edward himself; and wear a thick coat, for he carries a cane."

The man growled out some sort of threat or defiance and disappeared.

But it showed me that, as matters then were, there was no doing anything in a corner, and the sooner I was north the better for every one.

So when next morning my captain and I, on the top of the coach, rumbled out of the gate at which only yesterday my little mistress had waved her hand, I was glad, despite many forebodings, to find myself once more on the wing.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WHAT I FOUND UNDER THE HEARTHSTONE AT KILGORMAN.

Our journey northward was uneventful. Captain Swift and I parted company at Derry. My orders were to join the _Diana_ at Dublin at the end of the month, which allowed me only a little over a fortnight for my business in Donegal.

You may fancy with what mingled feelings I found myself one evening standing once more on the quay at Rathmullan, looking down the lough as it lay bathed in the s.h.i.+fting colours of the spring sunset, trying to detect in the distance the familiar little clump of trees behind which nestled Knockowen House. Was this journey one of peace or of war? Did hope lurk for me behind yonder trees; or had I come all this way to discover that the old comrade was forsaken for the new, and that the humble star of the sailor boy had been snuffed out by the gay sun of the gentleman soldier?

Then as my eye travelled further north and caught the bluff headlands towards the lough mouth, other doubts seized me. My mother's message had burned holes in my pocket ever since I set foot again on Irish soil.

And that sacred duty done, what fate awaited me among the secret rebels from whose clutches, when last I saw the Sw.i.l.l.y, I was fleeing for my life, but who now, if I was to believe what I had heard, counted Tim, my own brother, in their ranks?

Late as it was, I was too impatient to postpone my fate by a night's rest at the inn, and hired a boat for a sail down the lough.

Few men were about, and those who were could never have recognised in the tall, bronzed, bearded boatswain the poor, uncouth lad who four years ago rowed his honour's boat. One or two that I saw I fancied I knew, one particularly, who had changed little since he held his gun to my head that night on the hills when I half took the oath of the society.

It was market day, and many boats were on the water, so that little notice was taken of me as I hoisted my sail and ran down on the familiar tack for the point below Knockowen.

The light soon fell, and I watched eagerly for the window lights. Once or twice on the road north I had heard of the travellers in the private carriage, and knew they had reached home a day or two ago; and to this news one gossip that I encountered on the road to Rathmullan added that Mistress Gorman, my little lady's mother, had died two years ago, and that the maid was now her father's only companion and housekeeper.

Presently the well-known twinkle of light shot out, and towards it, with a heart that throbbed more restlessly than my boat, I turned my keel.

When I came up level with the house it was all I could do to refrain from running my boat alongside the landing-place as of yore. I lowered my sail and let her drift as close under the bank as possible. No one was stirring. There were lights in the upper room, and one above the hall-door. Towards the former I strained my eyes longingly for a glimpse even of her shadow. How long I waited I knew not--it might have been a minute or an hour--but presently she came, her figure, more womanly than when I last saw it, dark against the light within, and her hair falling in waves upon her shoulder. She stood for a moment at the closed window, then opened it and looked out. The night was cold and dark; but she braved it, and sat humming a tune, her hand playing with the ivy that crept up to the window-sill.

The air was one I knew. Many a time had she crooned it in the old days as I rowed her in the boat. Once, on a specially happy evening, she had sung it in the attic on the Quai Necker in Paris, and had laughed when I put in a rough ba.s.s.

I could not help, as I stood and listened, repeating the experiment, first very softly, then less so, and finally loud enough for her to hear.

What fools we men are! At that instant, with a savage howl, a dog--my own dog Con--rushed down the garden to the spot. The window closed abruptly; there was a sound of voices in the yard and a drawing of bolts at the hall-door, and a hurrying of lights within. I had barely time to cast off from the stake by which I held, and let my boat into the rapid ebb, when footsteps sounded on the gravel, and a shot fired into the night woke the echoes of the lough.

So much for my serenading, and so much for the life of security and peace my little mistress was doomed to live in her father's house.

I cared not much where the tide took me after that, till presently the tossing of my boat warned me that I must be on the reef off Kilgorman cliffs. In the darkness I could see nothing, but my memory was strong enough to serve for moon and compa.s.s both. On this tide and with this wind ten minutes would bring me into the creek.

Why not? Why not now as well as any other time? I was a man, and feared ghosts no longer. Love had been warned away from Knockowen; duty should welcome me at Kilgorman. So I put down my helm, let out my sheet, commended myself to my Maker, and made for the black rocks.

I was determined to avoid the creek and make for the house by the narrow cave which, as I had discovered at my last visit, led up from the sh.o.r.e to the great hearth in the kitchen of the house, and which, as it then seemed, was a secret pa.s.sage known only to his honour and the smugglers in his employ. It needed some groping about in the dark to find the ledge of rock behind which was the small crack in the cliff that marked the entrance; but I hit on it after a little, and, shoving through, found myself inside the cave. I moored my boat beside the rocky ledge, and then clambered up to the entrance of the narrow gallery. Once there my course was clear; only I wished I had a light, for I knocked first my head, then my knees, then my elbows, and finally had to complete the journey in humble fas.h.i.+on on my hands and knees.

It surprised me greatly, when after long groping I supposed myself close to my destination, to perceive the glimmer of a light at the end of the pa.s.sage, still more to hear the sound of voices. Were they ghosts or smugglers, or what?

If ghosts, I was disposed to venture on. That they were smugglers I could hardly believe, for there had been no sight of a s.h.i.+p anywhere near, nor of a boat in the cave. Whoever they were, they must have entered the place by the ordinary way above ground, and if so were probably unaware of the secret pa.s.sage. At any rate, I had come so far, and would not turn back till I saw good reason. I had a pistol in my pocket and a tolerably handy knife, with which, even if surprised, I could give a good account of myself. So I crawled on, and presently came to a place where I could stand upright, and crept close under the corner of the upright stones that flanked the great hearth.

The mystery of the light and voices was soon explained. About a dozen men were a.s.sembled in the kitchen, lit up by the glare of a common candle, engaged in earnest consultation. Among the few faces which the light revealed to me I recognised some of my old foes of the secret society, and in the voices of others whose faces were hidden I recognised more.

The subject under discussion was twofold, and as its meaning gradually dawned on me I felt no compunction in listening.

The first matter was a letter, which had evidently been read before I arrived, from the leaders of the United Irishmen in Dublin, calling for a return of the members and officers and arms in each district. From what I could gather, Donegal was not a hopeful region. It numbered, indeed, a few branches of the society scattered up and down the county like that now in session, and was supposed to possess a few arms, and to be able when called upon to put into the field a few drilled men; but compared with other districts it was ineffective, and more given over to smuggling and unorganised raids than to disciplined work for the cause of Irish liberty.

This, as far as I could gather, was the subject of the somewhat upbraiding letter which had arrived from headquarters.

"Arrah, thin, and it's the truth they're spakin'," said one voice, "and we'll need to be moving."

"Move, is it? How'll you move when only the half of yez--and that's some of yez as are not here the night--come to the meetings? Sure we could move fast enough if all the boys that's sworn would jine us."

"Anyhow, here's the paper. It 'ud be a shame if Donegal was not to have a hand in the turn-out when it comes. Bedad, I'd move across to Antrim if it came to that."