Part 16 (1/2)
The big man did not smile. ”Then you'll take my word for it,” he replied, ”that I'm not speaking idly when I say you must go.”
Colonel John lifted his eyebrows. ”Go?” he answered. ”Do you mean now?”
”Ay, now, or before noon!” Uncle Ulick retorted. ”More by token,” he continued with bitterness, ”it's not that you might go on the instant that I've brought you out of our own house as if we were a couple of rapparees or horse-thieves, but that you might hear it from me who wish you well, and would warn you not to say nay--instead of from those who may be 'll not put it so kindly, nor be so wishful for you to be taking the warning they give.”
”Is it Flavia you're meaning?”
”No; and don't you be thinking it,” Uncle Ulick replied with a touch of heat. ”Nor the least bit of it, John Sullivan! The girl, G.o.d bless her, is as honest as the day, if----”
”If she's not very wise!” Colonel John said, smiling.
”You may put it that way if you please. For the matter of that, you'll be thinking she's not the only fool at Morristown, nor the oldest, nor the biggest. And you'll be right, more shame to me that I didn't use the prudent tongue to them always, and they young! But the blood must run slow, and the breast be cold, that sees the way the Saxons are mocking us, and locks the tongue in silence. And sure, there's no more to be said, but just this--that there's those here you'll be wise not to see! And you'll get a hint to that end before the sun's high.”
”And you'd have me take it?”
”You'd be mad not to take it!” Uncle Ulick replied, frowning. ”Isn't it for that I'm out of my warm bed, and the mist not off the lake?”
”You'd have me give way to them and go?”
”Faith, and I would!”
”Would you do that same yourself, Ulick?”
”For certain.”
”And be sorry for it afterwards!”
”Not the least taste in life!” Uncle Ulick a.s.severated.
”And be sorry for it afterwards,” Colonel John repeated quietly.
”Kinsman, come here,” he continued with unusual gravity. And taking Uncle Ulick by the arm he led him to the end of the garden, where the walk looked on the lake and bore some likeness to a roughly made terrace. Pausing where the black ma.s.ses of the Florence yews, most funereal of trees, still sheltered their forms from the house, he stood silent. The mist moved slowly on the surface of the water and crawled about their feet. But the sky to eastward was growing red, the lower clouds were flushed with rose-colour, the higher hills were warm with the coming of the sun. Here and there on the slopes which faced them a cotter's hovel stood solitary in its potato patch or its plot of oats.
In more than one place three or four cottages made up a tiny hamlet, from which the smoke would presently rise. To English eyes, to our eyes, the scene, these oases in the limitless brown of the bog, had been wild and rude; but to Colonel John, long familiar with the treeless plains of Poland and the frozen flats of Lithuania, it spoke of home, it spoke of peace and safety and comfort, and even of a narrow plenty. The soft Irish air lapped it, the distances were mellow, memories of boyhood rounded off all that was unsightly or cold.
He pointed here and there with his hand; and with seeming irrelevance.
”You'd be sorry afterwards,” he said, ”for you'd think of this, Ulick.
G.o.d forbid that I should say there are no things for which even this should be sacrificed. G.o.d forbid I should deny that even for this too high a price may be paid. But if you play this away in wantonness--if that which you are all planning come about, and you fail, as they failed in Scotland three years back, and as you will, as you must fail here--it is of this, it is of the women and the children under these roofs that will go up in smoke, that you'll be thinking, Ulick, at the last! Believe me or not, this is the last thing you'll see! It's to a burden as well as an honour you're born where men doff caps to you; and it's that burden will lie the black weight on your soul at the last.
There's old Darby and O'Sullivan Og's wife--and Pat Mahony and Judy Mahony's four sons--and Mick Sullivan and Tim and Luke the Lamiter--and the three Sullivans at the landing, and Phil the crowder, and the seven tenants at Killabogue--it's of them, it's of them”--as he spoke his finger moved from hovel to hovel--”and their like I'm thinking. You cry them and they follow, for they're your folks born. But what do they know of England or England's strength, or what is against them, or the certain end? They think, poor souls, because they land their spirits and pay no dues, and the Justices look the other way, and a bailiffs life here, if he'd a writ, would be no more worth than a woodc.o.c.k's, and the laws, bad and good, go for naught--they think the black Protestants are afraid of them! While you and I, you and I know, Ulick,” he continued, dropping his voice, ”'tis because we lie so poor and distant and small, they give no heed to us! We know! And that's our burden.”
The big man's face worked. He threw out his arms. ”G.o.d help us!” he cried.
”He will, in His day! I tell you again, as I told you the hour I came, I, who have followed the wars for twenty years, there is no deed that has not its reward when the time is ripe, nor a cold hearth that is not paid for a hundredfold!”
Uncle Ulick looked sombrely over the lake. ”I shall never see it,” he said. ”Never, never! And that's hard. Notwithstanding, I'll do what I can to quiet them--if it be not too late.”
”Too late?”
”Ay, too late, John. But anyway, I'll be minding what you say. On the other hand, you must go, and this very day that ever is.”