Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 25

"Or perhaps some men about the gas," said Lady Devereux. "I hope they won't want to come in here."

The pleasant quiet life in Lady Devereux' house was occasionally broken by visits from plumbers and gas men. No one, however wealthy or easygoing, can altogether escape the evils which have grown up with our civilization.

"It's not plumbers, my lady," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "nor it isn't gas men. It's Sinn Feiners."

"Dear me, I suppose they want a subscription. My purse is on my writing table, Mrs. O'Halloran. Will five s.h.i.+llings be enough? I think I ought to give them something. I'm always so sorry for people who have to go round from house to house collecting."

"I have the three of them in the cloakroom downstairs and the key turned on them," said Mrs. O'Halloran.

It is quite possible that Lady Devereux might have expressed some surprise at this drastic way of treating men, presumably well-meaning men, who came to ask for money. Before she spoke again she was startled by the sound of several rifle shots fired in the street outside her house. She was not much startled, not at all alarmed. A rifle fired in the open air at some distance does not make a very terrifying sound.

"Dear me," she said, "I wonder what that is. It sounds very like somebody shooting."

Mrs. O'Halloran went over to the window and opened it. There was a narrow iron balcony outside. She stepped on to it.

"It's soldiers, my lady," she said. "They're in the square."

"I suppose it must be on account of the war," said Lady Devereux.

She had learned--before Easter, 1916, everybody had learned--to put down all irregularities to the war. Letters got lost in the post. The price of sugar rose. Men married unexpectedly, "on account of the war."

"But I don't think they ought to be allowed to shoot in the square," she added. "It might be dangerous."

It was dangerous. A bullet--it must have pa.s.sed very close to Mrs.

O'Halloran--buried itself in the wall of the morning room. A moment later another pierced a mirror which hung over Lady Devereux' writing table. Mrs. O'Halloran came into the room again and shut the window.

"You'd think now," she said "that them fellows were shooting at the house."

"I wish you'd go down and tell them to stop," said Lady Devereux. "Of course I know we ought to do all we can to help the soldiers, such gallant fellows, suffering so much in this terrible war. Still I do think they ought to be more careful where they shoot."

Mrs. O'Halloran went quietly down the two flights of stairs which led from the morning-room to the ground floor of the house. She had no idea of allowing herself to be hustled into any undignified haste either by rebels or troops engaged in suppressing the rebellion. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Her attention was held by two different noises. The Sinn Feiners were battering the door of their prison with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles. Molly, the kitchenmaid and Lady Devereux' two other servants were shrieking on the kitchen stairs. Mrs.

O'Halloran dealt with the rebels first. She opened the baize-covered door and put her mouth to the keyhole of the other.

"Will yous keep quiet or will yous not?" she said. "There's soldiers outside the house this minute waiting for the chance to shoot you, and they'll do it, too, if you don't sit down and behave yourselves. Maybe it's that you want. If it is you're going the right way about getting it. But if you've any notion of going home to your mothers with your skins whole you'll stay peaceable where you are. Can you not hear the guns?"

The three rebels stopped battering the door and listened. The rifle fire began to slacken. No more than an occasional shot was to be heard. The fighting had died down. It was too late for the prisoners to take any active part in it. They began to consider the future. They made up their minds to take the advice given them and stay quiet.

Mrs. O'Halloran went to the head of the kitchen stairs. The four maids were huddled together. Mrs. O'Halloran descended on them. She took Molly, who was nearest to her, by the shoulders and shook her violently.

The housemaid and Lady Devereux' maid fled at once to the coal cellar.

The kitchenmaid sat down and sobbed.

"If there's another sound out of any of yous," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "it'll be the worse for you after. Isn't it enough for one day to have three young fellows in the house trying to get shot, and soldiers outside trying to shoot them, and every sort of divilment in the way of a row going on, without having a pack of girls bellowing and bawling on the kitchen stairs? It's mighty fond you are, the whole of you, of dressing yourselves up, in pink blouses and the like" (she looked angrily at the kitchenmaid) "and running round the streets to see if you can find a man to take up with you. And now when there's men enough outside and in, nothing will do but to be screeching. But sure girls is like that, and where's the use of talking?"

Mrs. O'Halloran might have said more. She felt inclined to say a good deal more but she was interrupted by a loud knocking at the hall door.

"I dursent go to it." said Molly. "I dursent You wouldn't know who might be there nor what they might do to you."

"n.o.body's asking you to go," said Mrs. O'Halloran.

She went to the door herself and opened it. A sergeant and eight men were on the steps.

"And what may you be wanting?" said Mrs. O'Halloran. "What right have you to come battering and banging at the door of her ladys.h.i.+p's house the same as if it was a public-house and you trying to get in after closing time? Be off out of this, now, the whole of you. I never seen such foolishness."

"My orders are to search the house," said the sergeant; "rebels have been firing on us from the roof."

"There's no rebels been firing out of this house," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "and what's more----"

"My orders," said the sergeant.

"There's no orders given in this house," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "only mine and maybe her ladys.h.i.+p's at odd times."

She need scarcely have mentioned Lady Devereux. An order from her was a very exceptional thing.

"Our officer----" said the sergeant "Private Beggs, go and report to the officer that we are refused admission to this house."

Private Beggs turned to obey the order. The officer in charge of the party came out of the door of a house half-way along the side of the square. Mrs. O'Halloran recognised him. It was Second Lieutenant Harry Devereux.

"Master Harry," she called, "Master Harry, come here at once. Is it you that's been raising ructions about the square? Shooting and destroying and frightening decent people into fits? Faith, I might have known it was you. If there's divilment going you'd be in it."

Harry Devereux, intensely conscious of his responsibility as commander of men in a real fight, reached the bottom of the steps which led to his aunt's door.

"Enter the house, sergeant," he said, "and search it."

Mrs. O'Halloran stood right in the middle of the doorway. The sergeant looked at her doubtfully and hesitated.

"Come up out of that, Master Harry," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "and don't be trying to hide behind the sergeant. It's no wonder you're ashamed of yourself, but I see you plain enough. Come here now till I talk to you."

The sergeant grinned. Private Beggs, who was behind his officer, laughed openly.

"Was there nowhere else in the world for you to have a battle--if a battle was what you wanted," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "only in front of your aunt's house? Many and many's the time I've smacked you for less than what you've done to-day. Isn't there bullets in her ladys.h.i.+p's morning-room? Isn't there a grand looking-gla.s.s in a gold frame gone to smithers with your shooting? Isn't Molly and the other girls screeching this minute down in the coal cellar, for fear you'll kill them, and now nothing will do you seemingly only to be tramping all over the house.

Search it, moya, search it! But you'll not be let, Master Harry; neither you nor the sergeant nor any of the rest of you."

Second Lieutenant Harry Devereux pulled himself together and made an effort to save what was left of his dignity. He had led his men across the square under a shower of rebel bullets from the roofs of the houses.

He had taken cool advantage of all possible cover. He had directed his men's fire till he drove the rebels from their shelters. No one could say of him that he was other than a gallant officer. But his heart failed him when he was face to face with his aunt's cook.

"I think we needn't search this house, sergeant," he said. "I know it."

"If you'd like to come back in an hour or two, Master Harry," said Mrs.

O'Halloran, "I'll have a bit of dinner ready for you, and I wouldn't say but there might be something for the sergeant and his men. It's what her ladys.h.i.+p is always saying that we ought to do the best we can for the lads that's fighting for us against the Germans--so long as they behave themselves. But mind this now, sergeant, if you do look in in the course of the evening there must be no carrying on with the girls. The Lord knows they're giddy enough without you upsetting them worse."

That night, after dark, three young Sinn Feiners climbed the wall at the end of Lady Devereux' back yard and dropped into a narrow lane beyond it. A fortnight later Mrs. O'Halloran received a large parcel containing three suits of clothes, the property of Second Lieutenant Devereux, left by him in his aunt's house when he first put on his uniform. They were carefully brushed and folded, in no way the worse for having been worn by strangers for one night.

In the bottom of Mrs. O'Halloran's trunk there are three rebel uniforms.

And on the top of the cupboard in her room are three rifles, made in Germany.

XIV -- CIVILIZED WAR