Part 23 (1/2)
”Now, the question is shall we turn to the right or the left, for we have not the faintest idea as to the points of the compa.s.s. What do you say, Mr. Fitzgibbon?”
”I should say that it is an even chance; but at any rate whichever way we go we are sure to come in time upon a hut or village, and be able to find out where we are.”
”Very well, then; we will take the right,” Ralph said. ”Form fours, sergeant. We shall get on better by keeping in step. Now, sergeant, if any of the men can sing let him strike up a tune with a chorus. That will help us along.”
There was a little hesitation, and then one of the men struck up a song, and with renewed life and energy they all marched along. It was nearly an hour before they heard the welcome sound of voices close by.
Ralph halted his men and proceeded toward this sound, and then discovered what the fog had prevented them from seeing before, that they were pa.s.sing through a village, the voices being those of some women who were brought to their doors by the sound of music, and who were somewhat puzzled at the, to them, mysterious sounds.”
”What place is this?” Ralph asked.
”It is Kilmaknocket.”
”Bless me!” Mr. Fitzgibbon exclaimed, ”we are twenty miles away from Ballyporrit if we are an inch.”
”Then it's evident we can't get there to-day,” Ralph said. ”We must have come more than that distance since we halted in the night. Now, my good woman, I have a party of twenty men here, and we have lost our way in the hills, and must stop here for the night. How many houses are there in the village?”
”There are ten or twelve, sir.”
”That is all right, then. We must quarter two men on each. I will pay every one for the trouble it will give, and for something to eat, which we want badly enough, for we have come at least twenty-five or twenty-six miles, and probably ten more than that, and have had nothing but a bit of bread since we started.”
”It's heartily welcome you will be, sir,” the woman said, ”and we will all do the best we can for you.”
The men were now ordered to fall out. The sergeant proceeded with them through the village, quartering two men on each house, while Ralph went round to see what provisions were obtainable. Potatoes and black bread were to be had everywhere, and he also was able to buy a good-sized pig, which, in a very few minutes, was killed and cut up.
”We have reason to consider ourselves lucky indeed,” Ralph said, as he sat down with the excise officer half an hour later to a meal of boiled potatoes and pork chops roasted over a peat fire. ”It's half-past four now, and will be pitch dark in another half-hour. If we had not struck upon that stream we should have had another night out among the hills.”
Ralph's first measure after seeing his men quartered in the village was to inquire for a boy who would carry a message to Ballyporrit, and the offer of half a crown produced four or five lads willing to undertake it. Ralph chose one of them, an active-looking lad of about fifteen, tore out a leaf from his pocketbook, and wrote an account of what had happened, and said that the detachment would be in by two o'clock on the following day. Then directing it to Captain O'Connor or Lieutenant Desmond, whichever might be in the village, he gave it to the lad, who at once started at a trot along the road in the direction from which they had come.
”He will be there in four hours,” Mr. Fitzgibbon said. ”It's a regular road all the way, and he can't miss it even in the dark. It's lucky we turned the way we did, for although it was taking us further from home it was but two miles along the road here, while, if we had gone the right way, it would have been six or seven before we arrived at the next village.”
”I think we are lucky all round,” Ralph said. ”An hour ago if any one told us we were going to sit down at half-past four to a hot dinner of pork and potatoes we should have slain him as a scoffer. It would have seemed altogether too good to be true.”
Ralph had no difficulty in purchasing whisky, and be ordered the sergeant to serve out a tot to each man with his dinner and another half an hour later, and by seven o'clock there was scarcely one of the tired men who was not already asleep. The next morning they started at eight o'clock, having had a breakfast of potatoes before they fell in.
Ralph rewarded the peasants generously for their hospitality, and the men set off in high spirits for their tramp, and reached Ballyporrit at half-past two in the afternoon.
”You gave us a nice scare yesterday, Conway,” was Captain O'Connor's greeting as they marched in. ”When twelve o'clock came and you didn't come back I began to think you must have lost yourselves; and a nice time we had of it till your messenger arrived at eight. It was no use sending out to look for you on the hills. But I went out with a party, with two or three men to guide us, to the end of a valley, up which a path went; beyond that there was no going, for one couldn't see one's hand. I stayed there an hour, firing off guns once a minute, and as there was no reply was sure that you must be a good distance off, wherever you were; so there was nothing to do but to come back and hope you had found shelter somewhere. Come in, lad; I have got some hot lunch waiting for you. Come in, Mr. Fitzgibbon. It's lucky I didn't catch you yesterday, or I should have considered it my duty to have hung you forthwith for decoying his majesty's troops among the hills.”
”Well, Conway, you didn't bargain for all this when you offered to change places with me,” Lieutenant Desmond said when they were seated at table.
”No; but now it's all over I am glad I did change, in spite of the tramp we had. It has been an adventure, and beside, it was a good thing to learn how best to get out of a fog.”
”How did you manage, Conway?” Captain O'Connor asked; ”for once lost in such a fog as that on those hills there really does not seem anything to be done.”
Ralph related the various steps he had taken, and how, eventually, they had come upon running water and followed it down to a road.
”Well, I really think you have done remarkably well, youngster. I shouldn't be surprised if we have some more tramps before us, for I had a letter this morning from the colonel saying that the fellow known as the red Captain, a notorious scoundrel who has been with his gang committing all sorts of atrocities in Galway, has made the place too hot for him at last, and is reported to have made his way down to the south coast, somewhere in this direction; and we are ordered to keep a sharp lookout for him. He is an unmitigated ruffian, and a desperate one. He has shot several constables who have tried to capture him, and as he has three or four men with him nearly as bad as himself I expect we shall have some trouble with him. There has been a reward of a hundred pounds for his capture for a long time, but so far without success. One man, whom he suspected rightly or wrongly of intending to betray him, he killed by fastening the door of his cottage and then setting the thatch alight; and the man, his wife, and four children were burned to death.”
That evening, just as dinner was over, the sergeant came in and said that a woman wished to speak to the captain.
”What does she want, sergeant?”