The Wild Geese

CHAPTER XVIII

A COUNTERPLOT

Luke Asgill rode slowly from the gates, not without a backward glance that raked the house. The McMurrough walked by his stirrup, talking rapidly – he, too, with furtive backward glances. In five minutes he had explained the situation and the Colonel's vantage ground. At the end of those minutes, and when they were at some distance from the house, "I see," Asgill said thoughtfully. "Easy to put him under the sod! But you're thinking him worse dead than alive."

"Sorra a doubt of it!"

"Yet the bogs are deep," Asgill returned, his tone smacking faintly of raillery. "You might deal with him first, and his heir when the time came. Why not?"

"God knows!" James answered. "And I've no taste to make the trial." He did not name the oath he had taken to attempt nothing against Colonel John, nor to be a party to any attempt. He had slurred over that episode. He had dwelt in preference on the fact of the will and the dilemma in which it placed him.

Asgill looked for some moments between his horse's ears, flicking his foot the while with his switch. When he spoke he proved in three or four sentences that if his will was the stronger, his cunning was also the more subtle. "A will is revocable," he said. "Eh?"

"It is."

"And the man that's made one may make another?"

"Who's doubting it?"

"But you're doubting," Asgill rejoined – and he laughed as he spoke – "that it would not be in your favour, my lad."

"Devil a bit do I doubt it!" James said.

"No, but in a minute you will," Asgill answered. And stooping from his saddle – after he had assured himself that his groom was out of earshot – he talked for some minutes in a low tone. When he raised his head again he clapped The McMurrough on the shoulder. "There!" he said, "now won't that be doing the trick for you?"

"It's clever," James answered, with a cruel gleam in his eyes. "It is d – d clever! The old devil himself couldn't be beating it by the length of his hoof! But – "

"What's amiss with it?"

"A will's revocable," James said, with a cunning look. "And what he can do once he can do twice."

"Sorrow a doubt of that, too, if you're innocent enough to let him make one! But you're not, my lad. No; the will first, and then – " Luke Asgill did not finish the sentence, but he grinned. "Anything else amiss with it?" he asked.

"No. But the devil a bit do I see why you bring Flavvy into it?"

"Don't you?"

"I do not."

Asgill drew rein, and by a gesture bade his groom ride on. "No?" he said. "Well, I'll be telling you. He's an obstinate dog; faith, and I'll be saying it, as obstinate a dog as ever walked on two legs! And left to himself, he'd, maybe, take more time and trouble to come to where we want him than we can spare. But, I'm thinking, James McMurrough, that he's sweet on your sister!"

The McMurrough stared. The notion had never crossed his mind. "It's jesting you are?" he said.

"It's the last thing I'd jest about," Asgill answered sombrely. "It is so; whether she knows it or not, I know it! And so d'you see, my lad, if she's in this, 'twill do more – take my word for it that know – to break him down and draw the heart out of him, so that he'll care little one way or the other, than anything you can do yourself!"

James McMurrough's face, turned upwards to the rider, reflected his admiration. "If you're in the right," he said, "I'll say it for you, Asgill, you're the match of the old one for cleverness. But do you think she'll come to it, the jewel?"

"She will."

James shook his head. "I'm not thinking it," he said.

"Are you not?" Asgill answered, and his face fell and his voice was anxious. "And why?"

"Sure and why? I'll tell you. It was but a day or two ago I'd a plan of my own. It was just to swear the plot upon him; swear he'd come off the Spanish ship, and the rest, d' you see, and get him clapped in Tralee gaol in my place. More by token, I was coming to you to help in it. But I thought I'd need the girl to swear to it, and when I up and told her she was like a hen you'd take the chickens from!"

Asgill was silent for a moment. Then, "You asked her to do that?" he said, in an odd tone.

"Just so."

"And you're wondering she didn't do it?"

"I am."

"And I'm thanking God she'd not be doing it!" Asgill retorted.

"Oh!" James exclaimed. "You're mighty particular all in a minute, Mr. Asgill. But if not that, why this. Eh? Why this?"

"For a reason you'd not be understanding," Asgill answered coolly. "But I know it myself in my bones. She'll do this if she's handled. But there's a man that'll not be doing it at all, at all, and that's Ulick Sullivan. You'll have to be rid of him for a time, and how I'm not saying."

"I'll be planning that."

"Well, make no mistake about it. He must not get wind of this."

"Ain't I knowing it?" James returned restively. He had been snubbed, and he was sore.

"Well, there was a thing you were not knowing," Asgill retorted, with a look which it was fortunate that the other did not see. "And still there's a thing you've not thought of, my lad. It's only to a Protestant he can leave it, and you must have one ready. Now if I – "

"No!" James cried, with sudden energy. And he drew back a step, and looked the other in the face. "No, Mr. Asgill," he continued; "if it is to that you've been working, I'd as soon him as you! Ay, by G – d, I would! I'd sooner turn myself!"

"I can believe that."

"A hundred times sooner!" James repeated. "And what for not? What's to prevent me? Eh? What's to prevent me?"

"Your sister," Asgill answered.

James's face, which had flamed with passion, lost its colour.

"Your sister," Asgill repeated with gusto. "I'd like fine to see you asking her to help you turn Protestant! Faith, and, for a mere word of that same, I'll warrant she'd treat you as the old gentleman treated you!"

"Anyway, I'll not trust you," James replied, with venom. "Sooner than that I'll have – ay, that will do finely – I'll have Constantine Hussey of Duppa. He's holder for three or four already, and the whole country calls him honest! I'll have him and be safe."

"You'll do as you please about that," Asgill answered equably. If he felt any chagrin, he hid it well. "And that being settled, I wish you luck. Only, mind you, I don't use my wits for nothing. If the estate's to be yours, Flavia's to be mine – if she's willing."

"Willing or unwilling for what I care!" James answered brutally.

Asgill did not hide his scorn. "An excellent brother!" he said. "And so, good-day to you. But have a care of old Ulick."

"Do you think I'm a fool?" James shouted after him.

It was well, perhaps, that the wind carried Asgill's answer across the water and wasted it on the dusk, which presently swallowed his retreating form. The McMurrough stood awhile where the other had left him. He watched the rider go, and twice he shook his fist after him.

"Marry my sister, you dog," he muttered. "Ay, if it will give me my place again! But for helping you to the land first and to her afterwards, as you'd have me, you schemer, you bog-trotter, it would make Tophet's dog sick! You d – d dirty son of an upstart! You'd marry my sister, would you? It will be odd" – he paused – "if I don't jink you yet, when I've made my use of you! I'm a schemer too, Mister Asgill, only – one at a time, one at a time! The Colonel first, and you afterwards! Ay, you afterwards, brother-in-law!"

With a last gesture of defiance – Asgill had long passed out of sight – he returned to the house.

It was two or three days after this interview that Colonel Sullivan, descending at the breakfast hour, found Flavia in the room. He saw her with surprise; with greater surprise he saw that she remained, for during those three days the girl had not sat at meals with him. Once or twice his entrance had surprised her, but it had been the signal for her departure; and he had seen no more of her than the back of her head or the tail of her gown. More often he had found the men alone and had sat down with them. Far from resenting this avoidance, he had found it natural and even proper; and suffering it patiently, he had hoped, though almost against hope, that steering a steady course he would gradually force her to change her opinion of him. He, on his part, must not give way. He had saved the house from a great peril; he had cleared it of – vermin. As he had begun he must continue, and hug, for comfort, the old proverb, Femme souvent varie.

That she was already beginning to change he could scarcely hope; yet, when he saw on this morning that she meant to abide his coming, he was elated – secretly and absurdly elated.

She was at the window, but she turned on hearing his step. "I am wishing to speak to you," she said. But her unforgiving eyes looked out of a hard-cut face, and her figure was stiff as a sergeant's cane.

After that he did not try to compass a commonplace greeting. He bowed gravely. "I am ready to listen," he answered.

"I am wanting to give you a warning," she said. "Your man Bale – I have no reason to wish him ill. But he does not share the immunity which you have secured, and if you'll be taking my advice you will send him away. My uncle is riding as far as Mallow; he will be absent ten days. If you think fit, you will allow your man to go with him. The interval may" – she halted as if in search of a word, but her eyes did not leave his – "I do not say it will, but it may mend matters."

"I am obliged to you," he answered. Then he was silent, reflecting.

"You are not wishing," she said, with a touch of contempt, "to expose the man to a risk you do not run yourself?"

"Heaven forbid!" he answered. "But – "

"If you think he is a protection to you," she continued in the same tone, "do not send him."

"He is not that," he replied, unmoved by her taunt. "But I am alone, and he is a comfort to me."

"As you please," she answered.

"Nevertheless he shall go," he continued. "It may be for the best." He was thinking that if he rejected this overture, she might make no other: and, hard as it would prove to persuade Bale to leave him, he must undertake it. "In any case," he added, "I thank you."

She did not deign to answer, but she turned on her heel and went out. On the threshold she met a serving-boy and she paused an instant, and the Colonel caught a momentary glimpse of her face. It wore a strange look, of disgust or of horror – he was not sure which – that appalled him; so that when the door closed upon her, he remained gazing at it. Had he misread the look? Or – what was its meaning? Could it be that she hated him to that degree! At once the elation which the interview and her thoughtfulness for Bale had roused in him sank; and he was in a brown study when Uncle Ulick, the only person, Bale excepted, to whom he could look for support or sympathy, came in and confirmed the story of his journey.

"You had better come with me," he said, with a meaning look at James and the O'Beirnes, who talked with averted faces, turned their shoulders on their elders and flouted the Colonel as far as they dared. "I shall lie at Tralee one night, and at Ross Castle one night, and at Mallow the third."

But Colonel John had set his course, and was resolved to abide by it. After breakfast he saw Bale, and he had the trouble with him which he had foreseen. But in the end military obedience prevailed and the man consented to go – with forebodings at which his master affected to smile.

"None the less I misdoubt them," the man said, sticking to his point with the east-country doggedness, which is the antipodes of the Irish character. "I misdoubt them, your honour. They were never so careful for me," he added grimly, "when they were for piking me in the bog!"

"The young lady had naught to do with that," Colonel John replied.

"D – n me if I know!"

"Nonsense, man!" the Colonel said sharply. "I'll not hear such words."

"But why separate us, your honour?" Bale pleaded. "Not for good, I swear. No, not for good!"

"For your greater safety, I hope."

"Oh, ay, I understand that! But what of your honour's?"

"I have explained to you," the Colonel said patiently, "why I am safe here."

"For my part, and that's flat, I hate their soft sawder!" the man burst out. "It's everything to please you while they sharpen the pike to stick in your back. If old Oliver, that was a countryman of my own, and bred not so far off, had dealt with a few more of the rogues – "

"Hush!" Colonel John cried sternly. "And, for my sake, keep your tongue between your teeth. Have done with such talk, or you'll not be safe, go or stay; Be more prudent, man!"

"It's my belief I'll never see your honour again!" the man cried, with passion. "That's my belief! That's my belief and you'll not stir it."

"We've parted before in worse hap," Colonel John answered, "and come together again. And, please God, we'll do the same this time."

The man did not answer, but he shook his head obstinately. For the rest of the day he clung to his master like a burr, and it was with an unusual sinking of the heart that Colonel John saw him ride away on the morrow. With him went Uncle Ulick, the Colonel's other friend in the house; and certainly the departure of these two seemed unlucky, if it was nothing worse. But the man who was left behind was not one to give way to vain fears. He thrust down the rising doubt, and chid himself for a presentiment that belittled Providence. Perhaps in the depths of his heart, he welcomed a change, finding cheer in the thought that the smaller the household at Morristown, the more prominently, and therefore the more fairly, he must stand in Flavia's view.

Be that as it might, he saw nothing of her on that day or the following day. But though she shunned him, others did not. He began to remark that he was seldom alone, even in the house. James and the O'Beirnes were always at his elbow – watching, watching, watching, it seemed to him. They said little, and what they said they whispered to one another in corners; but if he came out of his chamber, he found one in the passage, and if he mounted to it, one forewent him! This dogging, these whisperings, this endless watching, would have got on the nerves of a more timid man; it began to disturb him. He began to fancy that even Darby and the serving-boys looked askance at him and kept him in view. Once he took a notion that the butler, who had been friendly within limits – for the sake of that father who had met his man in Tralee churchyard – wished to say something to him. But at the critical moment Morty O'Beirne popped up from somewhere, and Darby sneaked off in silence.

The Colonel disdained to ask what was afoot, but he thought that he would give Morty a chance of speaking. "Are you looking for your brother?" he asked suavely.

"I am not," Morty answered, with a gloomy look.

"Nor for The McMurrough?"

"I am not. I am thinking," he added, with a grin, "that he has his hands full with the young lady."

Colonel John was somewhat startled. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, two minds in a house. Sorrow a bit more than that. It's no very new thing in a family," Morty added. And he went out whistling "'Twas a' for our rightful King." But he went, as the Colonel noted, no farther than the courtyard, whence he could command the room through the window. He lounged there, whistling, and now and again peeping.

Suddenly, on the upper floor, Colonel John heard a door open, and the clamour of a voice raised in anger. It was James's voice. "Tell him? Curse me if you shall!" Colonel John heard him say. The next moment the door was sharply closed and he caught no more.

But he had heard enough to quicken his pulses. What was it she wished to tell him? Souvent femme varie? Was she already seeking to follow up the hint which she had given him on Bale's behalf? And was the special surveillance to which he had been subjected for the last two days aimed at keeping them apart, that she might have no opportunity of telling him – something?

Colonel John suspected that this might be so. And his heart beat, as has been hinted, more quickly. At the evening meal he was early in the room, on the chance that she might appear before the others. But she did not descend, and the meal proved unpleasant beyond the ordinary, James drinking more than was good for him, and taking a tone, brutal and churlish, if not positively hostile. For some reason, the Colonel reflected, the young man was beginning to lose his fears. Why? What was he planning? How was he, even if he had no respect for his oath, thinking to evade that dilemma which ensured his guest's safety?

"Secure as I seem, I must look to myself," Colonel John thought. And he slept that night with his door bolted and a loaded pistol under his pillow. Next morning he took care to descend early, on the chance of seeing Flavia before the others appeared. She was not down: he waited, and she did not come. But neither did his watchers; and when he had been in the room five minutes a serving-girl slipped in at the back, showed him a scared face, held out a scrap of paper and, when he had taken it, fled in a panic and without a spoken word.

He hid the paper about him and read it later. The message was in Flavia's hand; he had seen her write more than once. But if he had not, he knew that neither James nor the O'Beirnes were capable of penning a grammatical sentence. Colonel John's spirits rose as he read the note.

"Be at the old Tower an hour after sunset. You must not be followed."

"That is more easily said than done," he commented.

Nor, if he were followed through the day as closely as on previous days, did he see how it was to be done. He stood, cudgelling his brains to evolve a plan that would enable him to give the slip to the three men and to the servants who replaced them when they were called away. But he found none that might not, by awakening James's suspicions, make matters worse; indeed, it seemed to him that James was already suspicious. He had at last to let things take their course, in the hope that when the time came they would shape themselves favourably.

They did. For before noon he gathered that James wanted to go fishing. The O'Beirnes also wanted to go fishing, and for the general convenience it became him to go with them. He said neither No nor Yes; but he dallied with the idea until it was time to start and they had made up their minds that he was coming. Then he declined.

James swore, the O'Beirnes scowled at him and grumbled. Presently the three went outside and held a conference. His hopes rose as he sat smiling to himself, for their next step was to call Darby. Evidently they gave him orders and left him in charge, for a few minutes later they went off, spending their anger on one another, and on the barefoot gossoons who carried the tackle.

Late in the afternoon Colonel John took up his position on the horse-block by the entrance-gates, where the June sun fell on him; there he affected to be busy plaiting horse-hair lines. Every two or three minutes Darby showed himself at the door: once in a quarter of an hour the old man found occasion to cross the court to count the ducks or rout a trespassing beggar. Towards sunset, however, he came less often, having to busy himself with the evening meal. The Colonel smiled and waited, and presently the butler came again, found him still seated there, and withdrew – this time with an air of finality. "He's satisfied," the Colonel muttered, and the next moment – for the sun had already set a full hour – he was gone also. The light was waning fast, night was falling in the valley. Before he had travelled a hundred yards he was lost to view.

The fishing-party had started the contrary way, so that he had nothing to fear from them. But that he might omit no precaution, when he had gone a quarter of a mile he halted and listened, with his ear near the ground, for the beat of pursuing footsteps. He heard none, nor any sounds but the low of a cow whose calf was being weaned, the "Whoo! hoo! hoo!" of owls beginning to mouse beside the lake, and the creak of oars in a boat which darkness already hid. He straightened himself with a sigh of relief, and hastened at speed in the direction of the waterfall.

He gave Flavia credit for all the virtues, if for some of the faults of a proud, untamed nature. Therefore he believed her to be fearless. Nevertheless, before he stood on the platform and made out the shape of the Tower looming dark and huge above him, he had come to the conclusion that the need which forced her to such a place at such an hour must be great. The moon would not rise before eleven o'clock, the last shimmer of the water had faded into unfathomable blackness beneath him; he had to tread softly and with care to avoid the brink.

He peered about him, hoping to see her figure emerge beside him. He did not, and, disappointed, he coughed. Finally, in a subdued voice, he called her by name, once and twice. Alas! only the wind, softly stirring the grass and whispering in the ivy, answered him. He was beginning to think – with a chill of disappointment, excessive at his age and in the circumstances – that she had failed to come, when, at no great distance before him, he fancied some one moved. He groped his way forward half a dozen paces, found a light break on his view, and stood in astonishment.

The movement had carried him beyond the face of the Tower, and so revealed the light, which issued from a doorway situate in the flank of the building. He paused; but second thoughts, treading on the heels of surprise, reassured him. He saw that in that position the light was not visible from the lake or the house; and he moved quickly to the open door, expecting to see Flavia. Three steps led down to the basement room of the Tower; great was his surprise when he saw below him in this remote, abandoned building – in this room three feet below the level of the soil – a table set handsomely with four lighted candles in tall sticks, and furnished besides with a silver inkhorn, pens, and paper. Beside the table stood a couple of chairs and a stool. Doubtless there was other furniture in the room, but in his astonishment he saw only these.

He uttered an exclamation, and descended the steps. "Flavia!" he cried. "Flavia!" He did not see her, and he moved a pace towards that part of the room which the door hid from him.

Crash! The door fell to, dragged by an unseen hand. Colonel John sprang towards it; but too late. He heard the grating of a rusty key turned in the lock; he heard through one of the loopholes the sound of an inhuman laugh; and he knew that he was a prisoner. In that moment the cold air of the vault struck a chill to his bones; but it struck not so cold nor so death-like as the knowledge struck to his heart that Flavia had duped him. Yes, on the instant, before the crash of the closing door had ceased to echo in the stone vaulting above him, he knew that, he felt that! She had tricked him. She had deceived him. He let his chin sink on his breast. Oh, the pity of it!

CHAPTER XIX

PEINE FORTE ET DURE

For many minutes, fifteen, twenty perhaps, Colonel John sat motionless in the chair into which he had sunk, his eyes fixed on the flames of the candles that, so still was the night, burned steadily upwards. His unwinking gaze created about each tongue of flame strange effects of vapour, halo-like circles that widened and again contracted, colours that came and went. But he saw these things with his eyes without seeing them with his mind. It was not of them, it was not of the death-cold room about him, in which the table and chairs formed a lighted oasis out of character with the earthen floor, the rough walls, and the vaulted roof – it was not of anything within sight he was thinking; but of Flavia!

Of Flavia, who had deceived him, duped him, cajoled him. Who, for all he knew – and he thought it likely – had got rid of Uncle Ulick. Who had certainly got rid of Bale by playing on his feeling for the man. Who, by affecting a quarrel with her brother, had thrown him off his guard, and won his confidence, only to betray it. Who, having lured him thither, had laughed – had laughed! Deep sighs broke at long intervals from Colonel John's breast as he thought of her treachery. It cut him to the heart. He looked years older as he sat and pondered.