Part 19 (1/2)

”She will be guided by us in this,” the Bishop rejoined with asperity.

”Let what I have said be done.”

Flavia, very pale, holding the Colonel's sword as if it might sting her, did not speak. Colonel Sullivan, after a moment's hesitation, followed one of the O'Beirnes from the room, the other bringing up the rear.

When the door had closed upon them, Flavia's was not the only pale face in the room. The scene had brought home to more than one the fact that here was an end of peace and law, and a beginning of violence and rebellion. The Rubicon was pa.s.sed. For good or for ill, they were committed to an enterprise fraught, it might be, with success and glory, fraught also, it might be, with obloquy and death. Uncle Ulick stared at the floor with a lowering face, and sighed, liking neither the past nor the prospect. The McMurrough, the Squireens, Sir Donny, and Burke, secretly uneasy, put on a reckless air to cover their apprehensions. The Bishop and Cammock, though they saw themselves in a fair way to do what they had come to do, looked thoughtful also. And only Flavia--only Flavia, shaking off the remembrance of Colonel John's face, and Colonel John's existence--closed her grip upon his sword, and in the ardour of her patriotism saw with her mind's eye not victory nor acclaiming thousands--no, nor the leaping line of pikemen charging for _his_ glory that her brother saw--but the scaffold, and a death for her country. Sweet it seemed to her to die for the cause, for the faith, to die for Ireland! To die as young Lord Derwent.w.a.ter had died a year or two before; as Lady Nithsdale had been ready to die; as innumerable men and women had died, lifted above common things by the love of their country.

True, her country, her Ireland, was but this little corner of Kerry beaten by the Atlantic storms and sad with the wailing cries of seagulls; the rudest province of a land itself provincial. But if she knew no more of Ireland than this, she had read her story; and naught is more true than that the land the most down-trodden is also the best beloved. Wrongs beget a pa.s.sion of affection; and from oppression springs sacrifice. This daughter of the windswept sh.o.r.e, of the misty hills and fairy glens, whose life from infancy had been bare and rugged and solitary, had become, for that reason, a dreamer of dreams and a wors.h.i.+pper of the ideal Ireland, her country, her faith. The salt breeze that lashed her cheeks and tore at her hair, the peat reek and the soft shadows of the bogland--ay, and many an hour of lonely communing--had filled her breast with love; such love as impels rather to suffering and to sacrifice than to enjoyment. Nor had she yet encountered the inevitable disappointments. Her eyes had not yet been opened to the seamy side of patriotism; to the sordid view of every great adventure that soon or late saddens the experienced and dispels the glamour of the dreamer.

For one moment she had recoiled before the shock of impending violence, the clash of steel, the reality of things. But that had pa.s.sed; now her one thought, as she stood with dilated eyes, unconsciously clutching the Colonel's sword, was that the time was come, the thing was begun--henceforth she belonged not to herself, but to Ireland and to G.o.d.

Deep in such thoughts, the girl was not aware that the others had got together and were discussing the Colonel's fate until mention was made of the French sloop and of Captain Augustin. ”Faith, and let him go in that!” she heard Uncle Ulick urging. ”D'ye hear me, your reverence?

'Twill be a week before they land him, and the fire we'll be lighting will be no secret at all at all by then.”

”May be, Mr. Sullivan,” the Bishop replied--”may be. But we cannot spare the sloop.”

”No, by the Holy Bones, and we'll not spare her!” The McMurrough chimed in. ”She's heels to her, and it's a G.o.dsend she'll be to us if things go ill.”

”And an addition to our fleet anyway,” Cammock said. ”We'd be mad to let her go--just to make a man safe, we can make safe a deal cheaper!”

Flavia propped the sword carefully in an angle of the hearth, and moved forward. ”But I do not understand,” she said timidly. ”We agreed that the sloop and the cargo were to go free if Colonel Sullivan--but you know!” she added, breaking off and addressing her brother. ”You were there.”

”Is it dreaming you are?” he retorted contemptuously. ”Is it we'll be taking note of that now?”

”It was a debt of honour,” she said.

”The girl's right,” Uncle Ulick said, ”and we'll be rid of him.”

”We'll be rid of him without that,” The McMurrough muttered.

”I am fearing, Mr. Sullivan,” the Bishop said, ”that it is not quite understood by all that we are embarked upon a matter of the utmost gravity, upon a matter of life and death. We cannot let bagatelles stand in the way. The sloop and her cargo can be made good to her owners--at another time. For your relative and his servant----”

”The shortest way with them!” some one cried. ”That's the best and the surest!”

”For them,” the Bishop continued, silencing the interruption by a look, ”we must not forget that some days must pa.s.s before we can hope to get our people together, or to be in a position to hold our own. During the interval we lie at the mercy of an informer. Your own people you know, and can trust to the last gossoon, I'm told. But the same cannot be said of this gentleman--who has very fixed ideas--and his servant. Our lives and the lives of others are in their hands, and it is of the last importance that they be kept secure and silent.”

”Ay, silent's the word,” Cammock growled.

”There could be no better place than one of the towers,” The McMurrough suggested, ”for keeping them safe, bedad!”

”And why'll they be safer there than in the house?” Uncle Ulick asked suspiciously. He looked from one speaker to another with a baffled face, trying to read their minds. He was sure that they meant more than they said.

”Oh, for the good reason!” the young man returned contemptuously.

”Isn't all the world pa.s.sing the door upstairs? And what more easy than to open it?”

Cammock's eyes met the Bishop's. ”The tower'll be best,” he said.

”Devil a doubt of it! Draw off the people, and let them be taken there, and a guard set. We've matters of more importance to discuss now. This gathering to-morrow, to raise the country--what's the time fixed for it?”

But Flavia, who had listened with a face of perplexity, interposed.