The Wild Geese Read online

  CHAPTER II

  MORRISTOWN

  It was not until the Colonel had passed over the shoulder above thestone-walled house that he escaped from the jabber of the crowd and thejeers of the younger members of this savage tribe, who, notingsomething abnormal in the fashion of the stranger's clothes, followedhim a space. On descending the farther slope, however, he found himselfalone in the silence of the waste. Choosing without hesitation one oftwo tracks, ill-trodden, but such as in that district and at thatperiod passed for roads, he took his way along it at a good pace.

  A wide brown basin, bog for the most part, but rising here and thereinto low mounds of sward or clumps of thorn-trees, stretched away tothe foot of the hills. He gazed upon it with eyes which had beenstrained for years across the vast unbroken plains of Central Europe,the sandy steppes of Poland, the frozen marshes of Lithuania; andbeside the majesty of their boundless distances this view shrank tolittleness. But it spoke to more than his eyes; it spoke to the heart,to feelings and memories which time had not blunted, nor could blunt.The tower on the shoulder behind him had been raised by his wildforefathers in the days when the Spaniard lay at Smerwick; and, meanand crumbling, still gave rise to emotions which the stern battlementsof Stralsund or of Rostock had failed to evoke. Soil and sky, the larkwhich sang overhead, the dark peat-water which rose under foot, thescent of the moist air, the cry of the curlew, all spoke of home--thehome which he had left in the gaiety of youth, to return to it a graveman, older than his years, and with grey hairs flecking the black. Nowonder that he stood more than once, and, absorbed in thought, gazed onthis or that, on crag and moss, on the things which time and experiencehad so strangely diminished.

  The track, after zig-zagging across a segment of the basin that hasbeen described, entered a narrow valley, drained by a tolerable stream.After ascending this for a couple of miles, it disclosed a view of awider vale, enclosed by gentle hills of no great height. In the lap ofthis nestled a lake, on the upper end of which some beauty wasconferred by a few masses of rock partly clothed by birch-trees,through which a stream fell sharply from the upland. Not far from theserocks a long, low house stood on the shore.

  The stranger paused to take in the prospect; nor was it until after thelapse of some minutes, spent in the deepest reverie, that he pursuedhis way along the left-hand bank of the lake. By-and-by he was able todiscern, amid the masses of rock at the head of the lake, a grey tower,the twin of that Tower of Skull which he had left behind him; and ahundred paces farther he came upon a near view of the house.

  "Two-and-twenty years!" he murmured. "There is not even a dog to bid mewelcome!"

  The house was of two stories, with a thatched roof. Its back was to theslopes that rose by marshy terraces to the hills. Its face was turnedto the lake, and between it and the water lay a walled forecourt, theangle on each side of the entrance protected by a tower of an olderdate than the house. The entrance was somewhat pretentious, andmight--for each of the pillars supported a heraldic beast--have seemedto an English eye out of character with the thatched roof. But, as ifto correct this, one of the beasts was headless, and one of the gateshad fallen from its hinges. In like manner the dignity of a tolerablyspacious garden, laid out beside the house, was marred by the proximityof the fold-yard, which had also trespassed, in the shape of sundryoffices and hovels, on the forecourt.

  On the lower side of the road opposite the gates half a dozen stonesteps, that like the heraldic pillars might have graced a more statelymansion, led down to the water. They formed a resting-place for as manybeggars, engaged in drawing at empty pipes; while twice as many oldwomen sat against the wall of the forecourt and, with their druggetcloaks about them, kept up a continual whine. Among these, turningherself now to one, now to another, moved the girl whom the Colonel hadseen at the landing-place. She held her riding-skirt uplifted in onehand, her whip in the other, and she was bare-headed. At her elbow,whistling idly, and tapping his boots with a switch, lounged the bigman of the morning.

  As the Colonel approached, taking these things in with his eyes, andmaking, Heaven knows what comparisons in his mind, the man and the maidturned and looked at him. The two exchanged some sentences, and the mancame forward to meet him.

  "Sir," he said, not without a touch of rough courtesy, "if it is forhospitality you have come, you will be welcome at Morristown. But if itis to start a cry about this morning's business, you've travelled onyour ten toes to no purpose, and so I warn you."

  The Colonel looked at him. "Cousin Ulick," he said, "I take yourwelcome as it is meant, and I thank you for it."

  The big man's mouth opened wide. "By the Holy Cross!" he said, "if I'mnot thinking it is John Sullivan!"

  "It is," the Colonel answered, smiling. And he held out his hand.

  Uncle Ulick grasped it impulsively. "And it's I'm the one that's gladto see you," he said. "By Heaven, I am! Though I didn't expect you, nomore than I expected myself! And, faith," he continued, grinning as ifhe began to see something humorous as well as surprising in thearrival, "I'm not sure that you will be as welcome to all, JohnSullivan, as you are to me."

  "You were always easy, Ulick," the other answered with a smile, "whenyou were big and I was little."

  "Ay? Well, in size we're much as we were. But--Flavia!"

  The girl, scenting something strange, was already at his elbow. "Whatis it?" she asked, her breath coming a little quickly. "Who is it?"fixing her eyes on the new-comer's face.

  Uncle Ulick chuckled. "It's your guardian, my jewel," he said. "Noless! And what he'll say to what's going on I'll not be foretelling!"

  "My guardian?" she repeated, the blood rising abruptly to her cheek.

  "Just that," Ulick Sullivan answered humorously. "Just that, mydarling. It's John Sullivan come back from Sweden. And, as I've toldhim, I'm not sure that all at Morristown will be as glad to see him asI am." At which Uncle Ulick went off into a peal of Titanic laughter.

  But that which amused him did not appear to amuse his niece, She stoodstaring at Colonel Sullivan as if she were far more surprised thanpleased. At length, and with a childish dignity, she held out her hand.

  "If you are Colonel John Sullivan," she said, in a thin voice, "you arewelcome at Morristown."

  He might have laughed at the distance of her tone. But he merely bowed,and with the utmost gravity. "I thank you," he answered. And then,addressing Ulick Sullivan, "I need not say that I had yourcommunication," he continued, "with the news of Sir Michael's death andof the dispositions made by his will. I could not come at once, butwhen I could I did, and I am here. Having said so much," he went on,turning to the girl and looking at her with serious kindness, "may Iadd that I think it will be well if we leave matters of business on oneside until we know one another?"

  "Well, faith, I think we'd better," Ulick Sullivan replied. And hechuckled. "I do think so, bedad!"

  The girl said nothing, and when he had chuckled his fill restraint fellupon the three. They turned from one another and looked across thelake, which the wind, brisk at sea, barely ruffled. Colonel Sullivanremarked that they had a little more land under tillage than heremembered, and Ulick Sullivan assented. And then again there wassilence, until the girl struck her habit with her whip and criedflippantly, "Well, to dinner, if we are to have dinner! To dinner!" Sheturned, and led the way to the gate of the forecourt.

  The man who followed was clever enough to read defiance in the pose ofher head and resentment in her shoulders. When a beggar-woman, moreimportunate than the rest, caught hold of her skirt, and Flavia flickedher with the whip as she would have flicked a dog, he understood. Andwhen the dogs in the court fell upon her in a troop and were kicked toright and left, and when a babe, that, clothed in a single shift, wascrawling on hands and knees upon the threshold, was removed in the samemanner--but more gently--still he understood.

  There were other dogs in the stone-paved hall; a hen too, finding itsfood on the floor and strutting here and there as if it had never knownanother home. On the left
of the door, an oak table stood laid for themid-day meal; on the right, before a carved stone chimney-piece, underwhich a huge log smouldered on the andirons, two or three men wereseated. These rose on the entrance of the young mistress-they weredependants of the better class, for whom open house was kept atMorristown when business brought them thither. And, so far, all waswell. Yet it may be that on the instant eyes which had been blind todefects were opened by the presence of this stranger from the outerworld. For Flavia's voice was hard as she asked old Darby, the butler,if The McMurrough was in the house.

  "Faith, I believe not," said he. "His honour, nor the other quality,have not returned from the fishing."

  "Well, let him know when he comes in," she rejoined, "that Colonel JohnSullivan has arrived from Sweden, and," she added with a faint sneer,"it were well if you put on your uniform coat, Darby."

  The old butler did not hear the last words. He was looking at thenew-comer. "Glory be to God, Colonel," he said; "it's in a field ofpeas I'd have known you! True for you, you're as like the father thatbred you as the two covers of a book! It's he was the grand gentleman!I was beyond the Mahoney's great gravestone when he shot Squire Crosbyin the old church-yard of Tralee for an appetite to his breakfast! Moreby token, he went out with the garrison officer after his second bottlethat same day that ever was--and the creature shot him in the knee--badluck to him for a foreigner and a Protestant--and he limped to hisdying day!"

  The girl laughed unkindly. "You're opening your mouth and putting yourfoot in it, Darby," she said. "If the Colonel is not a foreigner----"

  "And sure he couldn't be that, and his own father's son!" cried thequick-witted Irishman. "And if, bad luck, he's a Protestant, I'll neverbelieve he's one of them through-and-through d----d black Protestantsthat you and I mean! Glory be to God, it's not in the Sullivans to beone of them!"

  The Colonel laughed as he shook the old servant's hand; and Uncle Ulickjoined in the laugh. "You're a clever rogue, Darby," he said. "Yourneck'll never be in a rope, but your fingers will untie the knot! Andnow, where'll you put him?"

  Flavia tapped her foot on the floor; foreseeing, perhaps, what wascoming.

  "Put his honour?" Darby repeated, rubbing his bald head. "Ay, sure,where'll we put him? May it be long before the heavens is his bed!There's the old master's room, a grand chamber fit for a lord, butthere's a small matter of the floor that is sunk and lets in therats--bad cess to the dogs for an idle, useless pack. And there's theCount's room would do finely, but the vagabonds have never mended thethatch that was burned the last drinking, and though 'twas no more thanthe width of a flea's leap, the devil of a big bowl of water has it letin! The young master's friends are in the South, but the small roombeyond that has the camp truckle that Sir Michael brought from the ouldwars: that's dry and snug! And for the one window that's airy, sure,'tis no drawback at this sayson."

  "It will do very well for me, Darby," the Colonel said, smiling.

  "Well," Darby answered, rubbing his head, "the Cross be between us andharm, I'm not so sure where's another. The young masther----"

  "That will do, Darby!" the girl cried impatiently. And then, "I amsorry, Colonel Sullivan," she continued stiffly, "that you should be sopoorly lodged--who are the master of all. But doubtless," with anirrepressible resentment in her voice, "you will be able presently toput matters on a better footing."

  With a formal curtsey she left them then, and retreated up the stairs,which at the rear of the hall ascended to a gallery that ran right andleft to the rooms on the first floor.

  Colonel Sullivan turned with Uncle Ulick to the nearest window andlooked out on the untidy forecourt. "You know, I suppose," he said, ina tone which the men beside the fire, who were regarding him curiously,could not hear, "the gist of Sir Michael's letters to me?"

  Uncle Ulick drummed with his fingers on the window-sill. "Faith, themost of it," he said.

  "Was he right in believing that her brother intended to turn Protestantfor the reasons he told me?"

  "It's like enough, I'm thinking."

  "Does she know? The girl?"

  "Not a breath! And I would not be the one to tell her," Uncle Ulickadded, with some grimness.

  "Yet it may be necessary?"

  Uncle Ulick shook his fist at a particularly importunate beggar who hadventured across the forecourt. "It's a gift the little people nevergave me to tell unpleasant things," he said. "And if you'll be told byme, Colonel, you'll travel easy. The girl has a spirit, and you'll notpersuade her to stand in her brother's light, at all, at all! She hasit fast that her grandfather wronged him--and old Sir Michael wasqueer-tempered at times, God forbid I should say the other! The gift toher will go for nothing, you'll see!"

  "She must be a very noble girl."

  "Devil a better has He made!"

  "But if her grandfather was right in thinking so ill of his grandson?"

  "I'm not saying he wasn't," Uncle Ulick muttered.

  "Then we must not let her set the will aside."

  Ulick Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. "Let?" he said. "Faith! it's butlittle it'll be a question of that! James is for taking, and she's forgiving! He's her white swan, and to her mind, sleeping or waking, asDarby says, he'd tread on eggs and sorra a chick the less! Let? Who'sto hinder?"

  "You."

  "It's easiness has been my ruin, and faith! it's too late to change."

  "Then I?"

  Uncle Ulick smiled. "To be sure," he said slily, "there's you,Colonel."

  "The whole estate is mine, you see, in law."

  "Ay, but there's no law west of Tralee," Uncle Ulick retorted. "That'swhere old Sir Michael made his mistake. Anywhere through the length andbreadth of old Ireland, if 'twas in the Four Courts themselves, and allthe garrison round you, you'd be on honour, Colonel, to take noadvantage. But here it would not be the cold shoulder and a littleunpleasantness, and a meeting or two on the ground, that's neither herenor there--that you'd be like to taste. I'd not be knowing what wouldhappen if it went about that you were ousting them that had the right,and you a Protestant. He's not the great favourite, James McMurrough,and whether he or the girl took most 'd be a mighty small matter. Butif you think to twist it, so as to play cuckoo--though with the heightof fair meaning and not spying a silver penny of profit for yourself,Colonel--I take leave to tell you, he's a most unpopular bird."

  "But, Sir Michael," the Colonel, who had listened with a thoughtfulface, answered, "left all to me to that very end--that it might besecured to the girl."

  "Sorrow one of me says no!" Ulick rejoined. "But----"

  "But what?" the Colonel replied politely. "The more plainly you speakthe more you will oblige me."

  But all that Ulick Sullivan could be brought to say at thatmoment--perhaps he knew that curious eyes were on their conference--wasthat Kerry was "a mighty queer country," and the thief of the worldwouldn't know what would pass there by times. And besides, there werethings afoot--faith, and there were, that he'd talk about at anothertime.

  Then he changed the subject abruptly, asking the Colonel if he had seena big ship in the bay.

  "What colours?" the Colonel asked--the question men ask who have beenat sea.

  "Spanish, maybe," Uncle Ulick answered. "Did you sight such a one?"

  But the Colonel had seen no big ship.