Kitabı oku: «The Landleaguers», sayfa 18
"Here is the morsel of dinner; but I could have dished it in half the time if Captain Clayton had not been there."
"Of course I am the offender," said he, as he sat down. "And now I have forgotten to bring the potatoes." So he started off, and met Florian at the door coming in with them. Mr. Jones carved the mutton, and Captain Clayton was helped first. In a boycotted house you will always find that the gentlemen are helped before the ladies. It is a part of the principle of boycotting that women shall subject themselves.
Captain Clayton, after his first little stir about the potatoes, ate his dinner in perfect silence. That which had taken place upset him more completely than the rifles of two or three Landleaguers. Mr. Jones was also silent. He was a man at the present moment nearly overwhelmed by his cares. And Ada, too, was silent. As Edith looked at her furtively she began to fear that her pet suspected something. There was a look of suffering in her face which Edith could read, though it was not plain enough written there to be legible to others. Her father and Florian had no key by which to read it, and Captain Clayton never allowed his eyes to turn towards Ada's face. But it was imperative on both that they should not all fall into some feeling of special sorrow through their silence. "It is just one week more," she said, "before you men must be at Galway."
"Only one week," said Florian.
"It will be much better to have it over," said the father. "I do not think you need come back at all, but start at once from Galway. Your sisters can bring what things you want, and say good-bye at Athenry."
"My poor Florian," said Edith.
"I shan't mind it so much when I get to England," said the boy. "I suppose I shall come home for the Christmas holidays."
"I don't know about that," said the father. "It will depend upon the state of the country."
"You will come and meet him, Ada?" asked Edith.
"I suppose so," said Ada. And her sister knew from the tone of her voice that some evil was already suspected.
There was nothing more said that night till Edith and Ada were together. Mr. Jones lingered with his daughters, and the Captain took Florian out about the orchard, thinking it well to make him used to whatever danger might come to him from being out of the house. "They will never come where they will be sure to be known," said the Captain; "and known by various witnesses. And they won't come for the chance of a pop shot. I am getting to know their ways as well as though I had lived there all my life. They count on the acquittal of Pat Carroll as a certainty. Whatever I may be, you are tolerably safe as long as that is the case."
"They may shoot me in mistake for you," said the boy.
"Well, yes; that is so. Let us go back to the house. But I don't think there would be any danger to-night anyway." Then they returned, and found Mr. Jones alone in the dining-room. He was very melancholy in these days, as a man must be whom ruin stares in the face.
Edith had followed Ada upstairs to the bedrooms, and had crept after her into that which had been prepared for Captain Clayton. She could see now by the lingering light of an August evening that a tear had fallen from each eye, and had slowly run down her sister's cheeks. "Oh, Ada, dear Ada, what is troubling you?"
"Nothing, – much."
"My girl, my beauty, my darling! Much or little, what is it? Cannot you tell me?"
"He cares nothing for me," said Ada, laying her hand upon the pillow, thus indicating the "he" whom she intended. Edith answered not a word, but pressed her arm tight round her sister's waist. "It is so," said Ada, turning round upon her sister as though to rebuke her. "You know that it is so."
"My beauty, my own one," said Edith, kissing her.
"You know it is so. He has told you. It is not me that he loves; it is you. You are his chosen one. I am nothing to him, – nothing, nothing." Then she flung herself down upon the bed which her own hands had prepared for him.
It was all true. As the assertions had come from her one by one, Edith had found herself unable to deny a tittle of what was said. "Ada, if you knew my heart to you."
"What good is it? Why did you teach me to believe a falsehood?"
"Oh! you will kill me if you accuse me. I have been so true to you." Then Ada turned round upon the bed, and hid her face for a few minutes upon the pillow. "Ada, have I not been true to you?"
"But that you should have been so much mistaken; – you, who know everything."
"I have not known him," said Edith.
"But you will," said Ada. "You will be his wife."
"Never!" ejaculated the other.
Then slowly, Ada got up from the bed and shook her hair from off her face and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. "It must be so," she said. "Of course it must, as he wishes it. He must have all that he desires."
"No, not so. He shall never have this."
"Yes, Edith, he must and he shall. Do you not know that you loved him before you ever bade me to do so? But why, oh why did you ever make that great mistake? And why was I so foolish as to have believed you? Come," she said, "I must make his bed for him once again. He will be here soon now and we must be away." Then she did obliterate the traces of her form which her figure had made upon the bed, and smoothed the pillow, and wiped away the mark of her tear which had fallen on it. "Come, Edith, come," said she, "let us go and understand each other. He knows, for you have told him, but no one else need know. He shall be your husband, and I will be his sister, and all shall be bright between you."
"Never," said Edith. "Never! He will never be married if he waits for me."
"My dear one, you shall be his wife," said Ada. Such were the last words which passed between them on that night.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE ROAD TO BALLYGLUNIN
The days ran on for the trial of Pat Carroll, but Edith did not again see Captain Clayton. There came tidings to Morony Castle of the new honours which Mr. O'Mahony had achieved.
"I don't know that the country will be much the wiser for his services," said Captain Clayton. "He will go altogether with those wretched Landleaguers."
"He will be the best of the lot," said Mr. Jones.
"It is saying very little for him," said Captain Clayton.
"He is an honest man, and I take him to be the only honest man among them."
"He won't remain a Landleaguer long if he is honest. But what about his daughter?"
"Frank has seen her down in Cavan, and declares that she is about to make any amount of money at the London theatres."
"I take it they will find it quite a new thing to have a Member of Parliament among their number with an income," said Clayton. "But I'll bet any man a new hat that there is a split between him and them before the next Parliament is half over."
This took place during one of the visits which Captain Clayton had made to Morony Castle in reference to the coming trial. Florian had been already sent on to Mr. Blake's of Carnlough, and was to be picked up there on that very afternoon by Mr. Jones, and driven to Ballyglunin, so as to be taken from thence to the assize town by train. This was thought to be most expedient, as the boy would not be on the road for above half an hour.
After Captain Clayton had gone, Mr. Jones asked after Edith, and was told that she was away in Headford. She had walked into town to call on Mrs. Armstrong, with a view of getting a few articles which Mrs. Armstrong had promised to buy for her. Such was the story as given to Mr. Jones, and fully believed by him; but the reader may be permitted to think that the young lady was not anxious to meet the young gentleman.
"Ada," said Mr. Jones suddenly, "is there anything between Edith and Captain Clayton?"
"What makes you ask, papa?"
"Because Peter has hinted it. I do not care to have such things told me of my own family by the servant."
"Yes, there is, papa," said Ada boldly. "Captain Clayton is in love with Edith."
"This is no time for marrying or giving in marriage."
Ada made no reply, but thought that it must at the same time be a very good time for becoming engaged. It would have been so for her had such been her luck. But of herself she said nothing. She had made her statement openly and bravely to her sister, so that there should be no departing from it. Mr. Jones said nothing further at the moment, but before the girls had separated for the night Ada had told Edith what had occurred.
At that time they were in the house alone together, – alone as regarded the family, though they still had the protection of Peter. Mr. Jones had started on his journey to Galway.
"Papa," said Ada, "knows all about Yorke."
"Knows what?" demanded Edith.
"That you and he are engaged together."
"He knows more than I do, then. He knows more than I ever shall know. Ada, you should not have said so. It will have to be all unsaid."
"Not at all, dear."
"It will all have to be unsaid. Have you been speaking to Captain Clayton on the subject?"
"Not a word. Indeed it was not I who told papa. It was Peter. Peter said that there was something between you and him, and papa asked me. I told papa that he was in love with you. That was true at any rate. You won't deny that?"
"I will deny anything that connects my name with that of Captain Yorke Clayton."
But Ada had determined how that matter should arrange itself. Since the blow had first fallen on her, she had had time to think of it, – and she had thought of it. Edith had done her best for her (presuming that this brave Captain was the best) and she in return would do her best for Edith. No one knew the whole story but they two. They were to be to her the dearest friends of her future life, and she would not let the knowledge of such a story stand in her way or theirs.
The train was to start from the Ballyglunin station for Athenry at 4.20 p.m. It would then have left Tuam for Athenry, where it would fall into the day mail-train from Dublin to Galway. It was something out of the way for Mr. Jones to call at Carnlough; but Carnlough was not three miles from Ballyglunin, and Mr. Jones made his arrangements accordingly. He called at Carnlough, and there took up the boy on his outside car. Peter had come with him, so as to take back the car to Morony Castle. But Peter had made himself of late somewhat disagreeable, and Mr. Jones had in truth been sulky.
"Look here, Peter," he had said, speaking from one side of the car to the other, "if you are afraid to come to Ballyglunin with me and Master Flory, say so, and get down."
"I'm not afeared, Mr. Jones."
"Then don't say so. I don't believe you are afeared as you call it."
"Then why do you be talking at me like that, sir?"
"I don't think you are a coward, but you are anxious to make the most of your services on my behalf. You are telling everyone that something special is due to you for staying in a boycotted house. It's a kind of service for which I am grateful, but I can't be grateful and pay too."
"Why do you talk to a poor boy in that way?"
"So that the poor boy may understand me. You are willing, I believe, to stick to your old master, – from sheer good heart. But you like to talk about it. Now I don't like to hear about it." After that Peter drove on in silence till they came to Carnlough.
The car had been seen coming up the avenue, and Mr. Blake, with his wife and Florian, were standing on the door-steps. "Now do take care of the poor dear boy," said Mrs. Blake. "There are such dreadful stories told of horrible men about the country."
"Don't mention such nonsense, Winifred," said her husband, "trying to frighten the boy. There isn't a human being between this and Ballyglunin for whom I won't be responsible. Till you come to a mile of the station it's all my own property."
"But they can shoot – " Then Mrs. Blake left the rest of her sentence unspoken, having been checked by her husband's eye. The boy, however, had heard it and trembled.
"Come along, Florian," said the father. "Get up along with Peter." The attempt which he had made to live with his son on affectionate paternal relations had hardly been successful. The boy had been told so much of murderers that he had been made to fear. Peter, – and other Peters about the country, – had filled his mind with sad foreboding. And there had always been something timid, something almost unmanly in his nature. He had seemed to prefer to shrink and cower and be mysterious with the Carrolls to coming forward boldly with such a man as Yorke Clayton. The girls had seen this, and had declared that he was no more than a boy; but his father had seen it and had made no such allowance. And now he saw that he trembled. But Florian got up on the car, and Peter drove them off to Ballyglunin.
Carnlough was not above three Irish miles from Ballyglunin; and Mr. Jones started on the little journey without a misgiving. He sat alone on the near side of the car, and Florian sat on the other, together with Peter who was driving. The horse was a heavy, slow-going animal, rough and hairy in its coat, but trustworthy and an old servant. There had been a time when Mr. Jones kept a carriage, but that had been before the bad times had begun. The carriage horses had been sold after the flood, – as Ada had called the memorable incident; and now there were but three cart horses at Morony Castle, of which this one animal alone was habitually driven in the car. The floods, indeed, had now retreated from the lands of Ballintubber and the flood gates were mended; but there would be no crop of hay on all those eighty acres this year, and Mr. Jones was in no condition to replace his private stud. As he went along on this present journey he was thinking bitterly of the injury which had been done him. He had lost over two hundred tons of hay, and each ton of hay would have been worth three pounds ten shillings. He had been unable to get a sluice gate mended till men had been brought together from Monaghan and parts of Cavan to mend them for him, and he had even to send these men into Limerick to buy the material, as not a piece of timber could be procured in Galway for the use of a household so well boycotted as was Morony Castle. There had been also various calls on Mr. Jones from those relatives whose money had been left as mortgages on his property. And no rent had as yet come in, although various tenants had been necessarily evicted. Every man's hand was against him; so that there was no money in his coffers. He who had chiefly sinned against him, – who was the first to sin, – was the sinner whom he was about to prosecute at Galway. It must be supposed, therefore, that he was not in a good humour as he was driven along the road to Ballyglunin.
They had not yet passed the boundary fence between Carnlough and the property of one of the numerous race of Bodkins, when Mr. Jones saw a mask, which he supposed to be a mask worn by a man, through a hole in the wall just in front of him, but high above his head. And at the same moment he could see the muzzles of a double-barrelled rifle presented through the hole in the wall. What he saw he saw but for a few seconds; but he could see it plainly. He saw it so plainly as to be able afterwards to swear to a black mask, and to a double-barrelled gun. Then a trigger was pulled, and one bullet – the second – went through the collar of his own coat, while the first had had a more fatal and truer aim. The father jumped up and turning round saw that his boy had fallen to the ground. "Oh, my God!" said Peter, and he stopped the horse suddenly. The place was one where the commencement had been made of a cutting in the road during the potato failure of 1846; so that the wall and the rifle which had been passed through it were about four or five feet above the car. Mr. Jones rushed up the elevation, and clambered, he did not know how, into the field. There he saw the back of a man speeding along from the wall, and in the man's hand there was a gun. Mr. Jones looked around but there was no one nigh him but Peter, the old servant, and his dying boy. He could see, however, that the man who ran was short of stature.
But though his rage had sufficed to carry him up from the road into the field, the idea that his son had been shot caused him to pause as he ran, and to return to the road. When he got there he found two girls about seventeen and eighteen years of age, one sitting on the road with Florian's head on her lap, and the other kneeling and holding the boy's hands. "Oh, yer honour! sorrow a taste in life do we know about it," said the kneeling girl.
"Not a sight did we see, or a sound did we hear," said the other, "only the going off of the blunderbuss. Oh, wirra shure! oh, musha, musha! and it's dead he is, the darling boy." Mr. Jones came round and picked up poor Florian and laid him on the car. The bullet had gone true to its mark and had buried itself in his brain. There was the end of poor Florian Jones and all his troubles. The father did not say a word, not even in reply to Peter's wailings or to the girls' easy sorrow; but, taking the rein in his own hands, drove the car with the body on it back to Carnlough.
We can hardly analyse the father's mind as he went. Not a tear came to his relief. Nor during this half hour can he hardly have been said to sorrow. An intensity of wrath filled his breast. He had spent his time for many a long year in doing all in his power for those around him, and now they had brought him to this. They had robbed him of his boy's heart. They had taught his boy to be one of them, and to be untrue to his own people. And now, because he had yielded to better teachings, they had murdered him. They had taught his boy to be a coward; for even in his bereavement he remembered poor Florian's failing. The accursed Papist people were all cowards down to their backbones. So he said of them in his rage. There was not one of them who could look any peril in the face as did Yorke Clayton or his son Frank. But they were terribly powerful in their wretched want of manliness. They could murder, and were protected in their bloodthirstiness one by another. He did not doubt but that those two girls who were wailing on the road knew well enough who was the murderer, but no one would tell in this accursed, unhallowed, godless country. The honour and honesty of one man did not, in these days, prompt another to abstain from vice. The only heroism left in the country was the heroism of mystery, of secret bloodshed and of hidden attacks.
He had driven back methodically to Carnlough gates, but he hesitated to carry his burden up to the hall-door. Would it not be better for him at once to go home, and there to endure the suffering that was in store for him? But he remembered that it would behove him to take what steps might be possible for tracing the murderer. That by no steps could anything be done, he was sure; but still the attempt was necessary. He had, however, paused a minute or two at the open gate when he was rebuked by Peter. "Shure yer honour is going up to the house to get the constables to scour the counthry."
"Scour the country!" said the father. "All the country will turn out to defend the murderer of my boy." But he drove up to the front, and Peter knocked at the door.
"Good heaven, Jones!" said Mr. Blake, as he looked at the car and its occupant. The poor boy's head was supported on the pillow behind the driver's seat, on which no one sat. Peter held him by both his feet, and Mr. Jones had his hand within his grasp.
"So it is," said the father. "You know where they have cut the road just where your property meres with Bodkin's. There was a man above there who had loop-holed the wall. I saw his face wearing a mask as plain as I can see yours. And he had a double-barrelled gun. He fired the two shots, and my boy was killed by the first."
"They have struck you too on the collar of your coat."
"I got into the field with the murderer, and I could have caught the man had I been younger. But what would have been the use? No jury would have found him guilty. What am I to do? Oh, God! what am I to do?" Mrs. Blake and her daughter were now out upon the steps, and were filling the hall with their wailings. "Tell me, Blake, what had I better do?" Then Mr. Blake decided that the body should remain there that night, and Mr. Jones also, and that the police should be sent for to do whatever might seem fitting to the policemen's mind. Peter was sent off to Morony Castle with such a letter as Miss Blake was able to write to the two Jones girls. The police came from Tuam, but the result of their enquiries on that night need not be told here.
