Front matter (continued 2)

When he arrived there, the officer in charge—the District Inspector, and an old friend of Philip's, named Fitzgerald—cried out:

'Hullo, young 'un, what have you been doing now?—run in for being drunk and disorderly?' He thought that Philip had dropped in to see him, and that the presence of the sergeant was only a coincidence. Great was his surprise when he heard that the young man was really a prisoner—and upon what charge? He was more angry than Philip had been, and called the sergeant a blundering idiot, only in stronger language. At last he cooled down again and said:

'Well, never mind, you'll have to stop here to-night, but you'll be let loose again to-morrow, and everybody will think it only a good joke.'

'Yes, that's all very well,' replied Philip; 'but Richards, the coroner, has a grudge against me. As you know, he is the town baker; last year he set up a carriage, and heard me call it the bread-cart. He is sure to seize the opportunity of taking the change out of me. And I entirely fail to see where the joke comes in.'

When he arrived in the court next day, everybody was talking and laughing. They thought it an absurd farce that he should be accused of such a crime at all. Even the police-sergeant had been sneered out of his momentary inspiration of shrewdness long ago. Philip alone knew what a hair's-breadth removed from earnest the affair was capable of proving. He was like a man sitting on a powder magazine with people ignorantly letting off crackers all round him, one of which might at any moment blow him into eternity.

The body of the court was crowded as usual with corner-boys—a shiftless race of loafers peculiar to Ireland, who hang about the streets and the corners of the public-houses, and never do a day's work from year's end to year's end. They sponge upon their wives, spending all the money that they can beg upon drink during that short portion of the year that they are not retained in jail at their country's expense. 'God presarve yer ahner, wherever ye may go,' cried one of these as he entered. Philip had given him many a screw of tobacco, and knew that it was not for him, but for the loss of his tobacco that the man feared.

That bit of smartness about the bread-cart cost him an anxious time. The doctor gave his evidence that there were two injuries upon the body of the deceased—a cut upon the back of the head, which had been caused by falling off the car onto a stone, and a very small bruise on the temple. What had occasioned the latter, or if it were connected with the accident, he couldn't say. But neither injury was sufficient to cause death. That had resulted from stoppage of the heart's action, which had long been diseased. Philip paid little attention to this; he was sufficiently honest with himself to recognize that he had committed murder in intention if not in actual fact.

Then the coroner wanted to know could the bruise on the temple have been caused by a blow from a whip or a stick? The doctor thought not. Nevertheless Philip's whip and all his sticks were fetched. The servants gave evidence as to the one he had used that day; it was handed round. Everybody was surprised at its lightness. Philip's heart stood in his mouth. The doctor and the coroner examined it minutely. If either of them had a grain of penetration, he was a lost man; but he could reckon with confidence on their stupidity. The air-gun preserved its secret well; for once it did not betray him. Its lightness proved even in his favor. The doctor decided that it was incapable of inflicting a stunning blow, that it was probably hollow, and would break on slight provocation.

He was acquitted, a verdict of accidental death returned, and the jury remarked severely upon the hasty action of the sergeant in adding to his natural grief at his cousin's death by such an unnatural accusation.

But Philip was in a fever until that wretched air-gun should be safely disposed of. At any moment it might change its mind and inform against him. He hooked his arm in Fitzgerald's directly the inquest was over, and said, 'Come along, and have a bathe after this beastly stuffy court; and as you have the custody of my sticks, I suppose you won't mind letting me have one now?' Fitzgerald laughed, and he took the air-gun. The other wanted to look at it, and see if it was really as light as they all made out. But Philip was not such a fool; the officer's trained eyesight was likely to prove too sharp.

They went to bathe in the river channel, a couple of miles below the town, and about half a mile from its mouth. When they had undressed, Philip threw the stick as far as he could into the middle, under pretence of sending Fitzgerald's retriever in after it. But the tide was on the ebb and the stream ran strong, so, as he knew would be the case, the dog turned back long before he reached the stick. Philip hoped never to see the wretched thing again. Suddenly a terror seized him; he could not leave it to the mercy of blind chance like that. What if the sea gave up its prey?—the next tide might wash it ashore again. Some one might find it and return it again, or worse still, find out the secret. He must get rid of it more effectually at all hazards. He plunged in after it, and quickly reached it; then pretending to put his feet between his hands, while holding the stick at either end he snapped it in two and cast it from him.

Meanwhile he had not noticed that he had rounded the last turn in the channel in its journey seaward. He had got into the strength of the current, and it swept him away like a leaf. He swam against it aslant with all his strength, but could not reach the edge, and in a moment he was among the breakers on the bar.

For a short time he succeeded in swimming over the waves or diving through them, and hoped to be able to get right out to sea. But soon he was seized by a huge roller, the ninth wave, and carried resistlessly back again upon its crest. The edge of the breaker curled thin beneath him like a shaving, dissolving into spray. He looked down as he reached the bar, and suddenly the water seemed to vanish under him. One moment he was ten feet in the air, the next he fell with stunning force upon the sand, covered only with a couple of feet of surf. Before he recovered his senses, the broken water of the next wave was upon him, and the black-surge of the first was fighting with it for him. He was rolled over and over. Sand entered his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and ears. He was conscious of swallowing oceans of water. He struggled blindly for a time; he, at any rate, would not give in until the last gasp. But gradually there stole over him a feeling of drowsiness, of disinclination for further effort, a feeling that Fate had been too much for him. 'It's all that damned air-gun's fault,' he muttered again obstinately; and the waters closed over him.

When he came to himself again, he was lying on the strand, and Fitzgerald was bending over him. He had been washed by chance into the corner of an eddy near the shore, the D.I. had run along the bank, rushed in and rescued him before the life was quite buffeted out of him.

Thanks, old boy,' he said, looking up at his friend; 'you have saved my life, and I won't forget it.'

'Oh, nonsense; you would do as much for me any day.'

They dressed in silence. At last Philip remarked:

'That stick was hollow after all; it snapped like a twig in my hands. I suppose it will fill with sand now and stop at the bottom of the sea.'

'Yes; you will never see it again, and a good job too: it was near being the death of you.'

'Yes,' said Philip, with a slow smile; 'it was very near being the death of me.'

THE GIANTS' CASTLE

'Will you come out with me on revenue duty to-day, and try some still-hunting?'

The speaker was the District Inspector of police at Lisnamore, where I was spending my Long, as usual, some years ago. He was almost the only civilized being within miles of us, and as I discovered he hailed from the same public school as myself, we soon struck up an acquaintance and saw a great deal of each other.

On the present occasion, however, I hesitated a moment before accepting his invitation. The fact was, that it was his duty to search for illicit whisky, and only part of his ordinary routine, so that no one would think any the worse of him for doing it. But it was not mine: I was very good friends with the peasantry all about, and didn't wish to make myself unpopular by interfering with their making 'a sup of putcheen,' when they liked. On the other hand there wasn't the least chance of our finding any just then. The priests had lately taken a dislike to the practice of the illicit trade as having a deteriorating influence on their flock, and had preached a crusade against it, and, what the police had been utterly powerless to effect for years, they had accomplished in a couple of months. To an Irishman it is a positive temptation to break the law—what else is it for? But to disobey the priests, at the risk of his soul's damnation, is quite another thing. So the convictions had dwindled immediately, Fitzgerald told me, from twenty a week to none at all, at which he was not a little chagrined, as besides being a sarcasm on the efficacy of the civil as opposed to the religious arm, the cessation of confiscations had deprived him of a source of income in the royalty upon captures.

Under these circumstances it couldn't be much harm to accompany him upon his rounds. It only meant walking a certain number of miles through the surrounding bogs and mountains with a chance of an occasional shot, so I said, 'All right, wait till I get my gun and some cartridges, and I'm with you,' and we set off.

The construction of these private stills is primitive in the extreme, as they consist almost entirely of a coil of copper piping called a 'worm,' for distilling the fermented barley. This is boiled, and, passing through the 'worm,' which is placed in a tub of cold water, the steam comes out at the other end raw spirit: the operation is repeated a second time to increase the strength of the brew. The potheen thus made, is, like all pure spirit, a colorless liquid. But, when desired, it is colored by the simple process of taking a red-hot poker and a lump of sugar-candy and dropping the burnt sugar into the whisky until the required tinge is reached.

The most usual method of concealing the still when not in use is to choose a lonely part of the mountain, cut a circular piece out of the sod large enough to sink a barrel, containing the plant, and then replace the sod. This hiding-place is called by the peasantry a 'coach,' probably from some corruption of the French cache, and the only means of discovering its secret is that a trained eye can detect the very slight difference between the color of the turf on the circular patch and the grass around it. So, as may be imagined, it is possible to walk a good many miles and pass a good many stills without making any discovery.

Sometimes the barrel is concealed by sinking it at the end of a piece of rope into a mountain lough; to the rope a thick piece of string is attached; to that a thinner piece; to that again a piece of thread, which is fastened round an ordinary bottle-cork. To recover the barrel, it is necessary first to find the cork, and then to haul up the lengths of increasing thickness until the original rope is reached. Of course it is a hopeless task for any one not acquainted with the exact spot of concealment to try and find one of these corks except by tracking the owner.

An instance has even been known, when the barrel was sunk in the middle of a highway, and the road levelled over it to look the same as usual; a quick-eared policeman, however, noticed the hollow sound as he drove over the place, and earned the praises of his superiors and the curses of the owners by unearthing a fine cask of malt.

Fitzgerald and I were not so lucky; the only bag we made was a few hares and snipe, and to get these we walked upwards of thirty miles. We had six of Fitzgerald's policemen with us to help in our search, fine long-legged men like all the members of the force. The D. I. himself was considerably the smallest of the company, for naturally the standard is not so high for the officers as for the ordinary rank and file. So for the first fifteen miles he was clean out of it in walking powers, but every mile after that length of stride told for less and stamina for more, and by the end of the day Fitzgerald with his long back and duck legs had walked us all to a standstill.

Our way lay across wild mountainous slopes clad in heather, varied by swampy patches where the rushes grew thickly, and studded with large boulders. Spread out on either side of us the policemen made a fine line of beaters, which roused every living thing before us that there was to rouse. To tell the truth we did not take the trouble to look for much else, knowing it hopeless, and my adventures did not begin until the business of the day was over.

It was in the evening on our return that we struck the coast a couple of miles from home, near the Giants' Castle. This was an old ruin, built on a projecting headland, concerning which the legends current in the country-side were more numerous than I could mention. That dearest to the minds of children and the simple peasantry about was embodied in its name, and had its origin in the Cyclopean nature of the masonry that yet remained. Another account had it that this was one of the castles of the O'Donnells, the ancient kings of Ulster, while yet later stories described its inhabitants as smugglers, who had run many a valuable cargo at this out-of-the-way spot.

The Castle was built on an immense slab of rock which completely overhung the sea, and a feature in all the legends was the existence of a well at the outermost corner of the building, which was bored clean through the solid rock with a perpendicular drop into the sea beneath. In the legends of the Giants they had used this well as a rubbish hole for the bones of the victims they had devoured; by the O'Donnells it had been employed as a means of escape in time of danger; while it was through its cavity that the smugglers had raised their goods from the boats below. The champions of each account clinched their several legends, with the triumphant argument, 'an' av ye don't believe me, ye can go an' see far yersilf av the well isn't there,' which of course was irrefutable.

Well, to return to my story, I wanted a specimen of the large black-backed gull to stuff, and thought this a good opportunity of getting one. It was their habit to come in round the cliffs at sunset, and the well, which was now choked with rubbish, would make a very good place to lie in wait for them; there was a breach in the walls just at the corner where it was situated, which would afford an opening for a shot when the birds came opposite to me, while I should be completely concealed from them.

Fitzgerald was hungry, so he went on home with his policemen, and left me sitting in the well. I was tired, and my moss-lined resting-place proved so comfortable, that I fell asleep almost immediately, and didn't wake until it was already too dark to be able to see to shoot.

I started up, and was just going to clamber out of the hole, when I heard the sound of voices near me, and presently perceived that just when I least expected it, I had come across the owners of what was probably the last still in the country-side.

There were about a dozen men sitting in a group, evidently waiting to begin operations when it grew darker. It was even then too dark to see their faces, but I could tell by their voices they were all the worst characters of the neighborhood, most of them being fishermen belonging to that part of the coast.

Why I didn't go up to them at once and explain matters I really cannot tell, for I had nothing to fear from them. They all knew 'young Master Harry,' and under ordinary circumstances would not dream of doing me any harm, or think that I should do them any. But I suppose, remembering my occupation during the day, I had an uneasy conscience. Besides, the danger they ran of excommunication might render them rougher than usual. They certainly would not be pleased to see me there, while I could tell by their tones that they had already been partaking rather too freely of their own manufacture. If I stopped where I was they would never be any the wiser, as some scattered stones concealed me from them. I could tell from what they said that the 'coach' where they had their still hidden, was close at hand, and that they were going to fetch it soon; when they did, I could slip out and get away unperceived.

But my plans were upset by an unforeseen accident. Once or twice since I stood up in the well, I had heard a faint splash, as of earth or stones dropping into the sea beneath, and now of a sudden the ground under my feet gave way and disappeared with a sudden rushing sound. Instinctively I dropped my gun, which I have never seen since from that day to this, spread my arms out over each side of the hole, and was left dangling there with my feet over the abyss.

I was in no further danger from that source, as I could easily draw my body up onto the ground, but the sudden shock upset my nerve, and caused me to take the most unwise course possible in my position, one which I should never have chosen had I not been thus startled out of my presence of mind. I scrambled up onto the level ground, and as I saw the men coming towards me I dodged behind the outer wall of the ruin and ran off as hard as I could.

Of course they saw me almost immediately, and in a moment I had the whole crew yelling at my heels, making a clamor that sufficiently attested their condition. I had a pretty fair start, and at first my course lay along level ground. But presently I came to a dip, and I took the slope at a pace that would have made my reputation forever on the 'Varsity running-track.

But when I reached the bottom of the hollow I suddenly received a check. The ground disappeared from under my feet for the second time that day, and at the same instant rose up and hit me on the head. I felt stunned by the shock, which almost rent me in pieces, but had not time to indulge in luxuries just then, so without understanding exactly how I did it, I pulled the ground down over me again, and covered myself up not a moment too soon, as immediately afterwards I heard my pursuers tearing past my place of concealment. It was fortunate for me that the night was so dark, and their brains so muddled, that the fact of their not seeing me when they reached the top of the ridge did not rouse their suspicions, and they would go some way before they found they had lost me.

When I had time for reflection I discovered I was in the same hole with the smugglers' still. I had trod on the lid of the barrel which worked on a swivel in the middle, and as I pitched forward the opposite side had risen and caught me in the face; the wonder was it had not taken the head off me. Besides that my legs had fared badly amongst the smugglers' apparatus in the barrel, and my shins and their 'worm' had done about an equal amount of damage to each other.

As I lay there rubbing my bruises, I bitterly regretted the foolish impulse which had led me to take flight. If I had stood my ground at first, the fishermen's knowledge of me would have preserved me from the suspicion of spying on them and from consequent injury, but now that I had provoked these suspicions and fully roused the latent savagery of their natures, I could expect no better treatment than the merest stranger, if I were caught; while in their drunken state this chase after a human quarry would have such zest for them that they would not easily abandon it.

This thought roused me to action, for soon they would be coming back to the 'coach' for their still, and I should have grave reasons for fear if they found me there in the midst of the débris of their property.

I crawled out of the barrel at once, but even then I was too late, for already they were coming back and caught sight of me, and once again they were in full cry after me.

This time I had a better start, but I was crippled by the injuries I had received, and they gained upon me rapidly; to add to my troubles the shouts of my pursuers were answered by others who had been searching further afield and were now in front of me, and I found I was surrounded on all sides except towards the sea.

For a moment I was in despair, but suddenly a memory of my boyish days flashed across me, and I made straight for the cliffs. My pursuers thought they had me safe, and shouted with drunken glee, for the cliffs were fully two hundred feet in height and quite perpendicular.

I struck the top at almost exactly the spot I intended, and quickly found a narrow funnel-shaped ravine, down which I had often climbed to fish when a boy; but this time there was no leisure to climb. Digging my heels into the loose slack of the crumbling rock, and pressing my elbows against the sides of the chimney, I let myself go with a rush and roar of falling pebbles and slate, and arrived at the bottom minus all the skin on my elbows, ribs, and knees. But this bottom was in reality only a wide platform in a niche of the cliff half-way down its side, which, as it proceeded, dwindled into a narrow ledge on the face of the rock. Along this ledge I made my way, until I finally arrived at a point where there was a gap altogether of two or three feet in width, while the wall of the cliff overhung the place so closely that it was impossible to cross the break without going down on my hands and knees and crawling over it. This peculiarity had earned the ledge the name of 'the dog's pass' amongst the few who knew of its existence, or would dare its perils for the sake of the rock-fishing to be had in the otherwise unapproachable cove below.

Once I had got to the further side of the gap I felt comparatively safe for the present, and, gathering some large stones, sat down a couple of yards from its edge; the break occurred at a projecting corner of the rock in such a position that any one on the other side of it could not see me until he had crawled across it.

Presently I heard the noise of rattling stones, which told me that one or more of my pursuers were descending the gully, but more cautiously than I had done, and then came the sound of shuffling footsteps along the ledge. There was a pause for a couple of minutes, before a large hand was laid on my side of the gap; I promptly dropped a rock upon it, and with a yell and a volley of curses it was rapidly withdrawn.

After that I knew my citadel was safe from attack in that quarter as there was a drop of over a hundred feet from the ledge onto the naked rocks beneath, which, even in the condition they were in, none of the smugglers would be very anxious to face. But I also knew that it was only a question of time, until they fetched a boat from the adjacent village, and took me in the rear from the side of the sea.

With a view to that event the sooner I was off the ledge the better, lest I should be caught between two fires. From the point I had reached the path sloped rapidly and easily down, and I was soon standing on the rock-strewn shore.

And now what was the next thing to be done? Besides the plan of hiding in one of the holes or caverns of the rocks, which was ignominious, and could only delay my discovery for a short time, there was only one other means of escape I could think of; a desperate hazard it was at the best, but desperate diseases require desperate remedies, so I made my preparations to take advantage of the eventuality should it occur.

I didn't exactly know what I had to fear in the event of capture. I could hardly suppose they would deliberately murder me, but I had no wish to try the experiment. The fishermen on that coast are almost a distinct race; they are incredibly savage for a civilized country in this nineteenth century, and like most semi-barbarous people hold human life in very light esteem, except when it is their own that is in question. I had known more than one instance where a man had been kicked or stoned to death in their drunken brawls. By this time they must be thoroughly enraged with me, and what with drink and the excitement of the chase, it was evident that the dogged pertinacity of their characters was roused to the utmost.

About the middle of the cove in which I was standing, there was a reef of rock running out into the sea, one side of which descended abruptly into deep water, while on the other side it shelved gradually, but the bottom was strewn with boulders, so that the point of the reef was the only spot at which it was possible to land from a boat.

To that point I proceeded; having first taken off my coat and boots, and sunk them in the sea, I let myself gently down into the water, and swam carefully along close under the reef, so that no one could see me from above; then I hid myself close to the point, with everything but my head underneath the water, and that covered with seaweed.

Not long afterwards I saw the boat coming round the next headland, and my heart gave a great leap, as I saw fortune had favored me in the first step in that it was a sailing and not a rowing boat that they had brought.

Quickly she neared the point, and half-a-dozen men leapt out, pushing her off again at once and leaving two men in her, evidently to tack about until they returned. Then I dived beneath the water, came up by the stern of the boat, and before she gathered way I had twisted my handkerchief in one of the iron hinges on which the rudder was hung, and clinging to that, was towed through the water, taking care the while to keep the rudder between me and the party on shore. Happily too, it was not one of the whale boats ordinarily used for fishing on the coast that they had got hold of, but an old-fashioned pleasure-boat, half-decked, and with a projecting stern which hid me from the steersman, so that I was safe from his observation as well.

One of the men remarked once that the boat sailed very heavily and the rudder was very stiff, but the other seemed to think that that was only to be expected of such a tub; so nothing further troubled me beyond the smart of the salt water in my cuts, until the boat reached the end of her stretch and tacked; then I let go my hold, and, diving, rose within the shadow of the cliffs out of sight of my enemies, and near a shelving promontory, where I landed.

After that I made the best of my way home, arriving there with no bones broken indeed, but coatless, bootless, gunless, and in such a state of bruises and abrasions as I believe man never was in before. Since then I have gone on no more still-hunting expeditions.

THE NIGHT OF THE HOME RULE BILL

'Missed again. Here's better luck. Will you have a nip, Fitzgerald?'

'No, thanks; I never drink when I'm out shooting. And if I were you, I wouldn't take any more either. It won't improve your aim.'

'Which is bad enough already. Right you are, my boy. But I admire your cheek in saying so to me, seeing that I'm twenty years your senior. I suppose I ought to be offended, only I'm not. But where's the harm in a flask of whisky in a day?'

'Not the least in life, I suppose, only I've known good men broken in my time through taking less so early in the day as this. Anyway it doesn't make either your hand or your eye any the steadier, and one never knows when he may want all the nerve he's got.'

The speaker was a District Inspector in the Irish Constabulary, the other was his host, one of that race of gentlemen farmers so fast dying out in Ireland, who had offered him a day on his grouse mountain, the only portion of the estate that was not mortgaged up to the hilt.

'It's about time that I was going home in any case,' continued Fitzgerald.

'Nonsense, man,' cried his companion, 'why, the day is yet young, there'll be light enough to shoot for another two hours, it's hardly four o'clock. What's the hurry?'

'Well, you know that the Home Rule Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons last night.'

'Yes, and a nice fuss those blackguards are kicking up over it. A mole couldn't help knowing that.'

'That's just it, on the borderland here between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, the Celtic and Saxon element, party feeling runs extraordinarily high, and the people are so excited that I expect there'll be a row to-night. They're going to have bonfires in the streets and all kinds of games, and we'll be lucky if we get through it without a faction fight. I have to be home and get into uniform before the fun begins, so I hope you don't mind, but I've ordered my man to have the car to meet me at the shebeen by the cross-roads at half-past four.'

'Very well, in that case we'd better be making tracks. Call the dogs to heel, Jimmie.'

The two men turned and strode down the mountain side, the keeper bringing up the rear with the two pointers. The heather rustled stiffly against their iron-shod boots as they went, showing behind them a trail of bruised stalks and nail marks on the naked earth. Every now and then, at the sound of their steps a hare rose out of range and dodged swiftly round the corner of a knoll, shrugging her shoulders at the hail-storm of spent shot that rattled round her. Or a snipe rose with a startling rush and a shrill 'scape, scape' at their feet after being nearly walked over, and zigzagged out of sight. At the foot of the slope came a belt of rushes with bog-holes gaping for the feet of the unwary. Beyond that was the first sign of approaching civilization, a potato field, across the ridges of which they strode to reach a cart-track beyond. A mile along this lay the shebeen they were making for.

'I suppose you'll be very much in evidence to-night with your men,' remarked Trevor idly, after a time, to break the silence.

'Now, my dear fellow, you might know better than that, after living amongst these people all your life. There's nothing that provokes an Irishman to make a row so much as to let him know you're ready for him. Sheer cussedness is a much neglected factor in human nature, and especially Irish nature. No, of course I have an extra contingent of men in town for the occasion in case of emergency, but my chief endeavor is always to confine them to barracks and to keep them in the background as much as possible. Their presence only causes friction. More than one of my friends has suffered before now through an undue display of activity.'

'Do you mean that you don't intend to interfere at all, then?'

'Not if I can possibly help it. If I have to make even one arrest it's all over, it will be a free fight. The wisdom of those in authority is such, that they have placed the new barracks at the far end of the town from the poorest, and therefore the rowdiest, quarter. The consequence is that, to run a man in, as a general rule, my men have to drag him about half a mile through the public streets, and no Irish mob that was ever raked off its native dung-heap could stand such a temptation as that.'

By this time they had reached the shebeen, a small two-roomed cottage with moss and long grasses growing on its weather-beaten thatched roof. The lower half of the door was shut, but over it they could see the room inside with its hard mud floor; it was furnished with a dresser hung with a few tin porringers and delf plates and bowls, a bedstead and a table; on the hearth was burning a turf fire; in the open chimney-place there swung an iron crook, from which a pot had just been lifted and was now set in the middle of the floor; round it the family, consisting of an old man, a girl and a boy, were gathered upon three-legged stools for their evening meal; each was armed with an iron spoon and a bowl of buttermilk; beside them on some embers a tin teapot was stewing. On the left of the entrance was a half-open door leading into the second room, inside which the sight of some large earthenware crocks of milk and the corner of a bedstead showed that it was used conjointly as a dairy and a sleeping chamber. Outside the door was the car, with the groom standing at the horse's head.

As the afternoon sun cast their long shadows across the floor of the cottage the old man looked up and saw the two men standing on the doorstep; he rose and opened the half door, and immediately an Irish terrier barking furiously rushed out and attacked the two pointers, that were behind with the keeper. In a moment the three dogs were rolling together in the road amid a perfect hurricane of yelps.

'Call off your damned mongrel,' shouted Trevor, the veins in his neck purple with rage on behalf of his favorite sporting dogs; but in that rolling mass of liver and white and yellow it was impossible to distinguish one whole animal from another. Pull off your dog, Flannigan, or I'll shoot him,' shouted Trevor again, and with his right thumb he pulled up the hammer of his gun, his finger on the trigger. The old man stooped to separate the dogs; as he did so, Trevor's thumb slipped, the hammer fell, there was a loud report, and the whole charge of shot struck the peasant behind the shoulder at a distance of three yards at most. He fell with a scream in the middle of the road. The horse stood up on his hind legs pawing at the groom. The dogs rolled into the ditch and continued to worry each other there unnoticed. The rest stood still, stupefied.

'That's what comes of an unsteady hand,' muttered Fitzgerald grimly to himself.

The same instant the girl rushed out of the cottage and threw herself on her father's body. 'Ye've kilt him,' she moaned, 'ye've kilt him.'

At last Trevor recovered himself, and, advancing, laid a hand on her shoulder. 'My good girl,' he said, 'you can't tell how sorry I am that this has occurred. Let us see if we can't help your father. He may not be badly hurt after all.'

'Stan' back,' cried the girl, raising her flushed face and dishevelled hair from the dust and thrusting him violently away. 'Stan' back; don't touch him. Haven't ye done him enough av harrum ahlready?'

'If money's any good,' said Trevor, helplessly making a fresh effort, 'here's all I have with me, and I'll give you—'

'Don't darr to offer me your dirty money,' she interrupted, scattering the coins from his hand with a vehemence of passion that lifted her out of herself. 'It's blood money, so it is, give me back my father's life that ye tuk away. Didn't I hearn ye say ye'd shute him, an' shute him ye did, an' may the curse of the fatherless rist on ye from this day out.'

'Nonsense, girl,' said Fitzgerald hastily, 'it was a pure accident, and Mr. Trevor never threatened to shoot your father, but only the dog, and the gun went off by accident in his hand.'

'An accident was it? An accident?' repeated the girl. 'An' arn't yous a polisman and you stood by and seen it done? Why don't ye arrist him? I'll larn ye if it was an accident or not,' and she stooped down and whispered some words in her brother's ear, her eyes gleaming with all the fierce vindictiveness of the Celtic nature when roused. The boy nodded silently and darted quickly off down the road, looking back from time to time; Fitzgerald gazed uneasily after him for a moment, then turning briskly to the keeper, he said, 'Hurry up to the house and tell Mrs. Trevor to send down some brandy and some linen for bandages. And you, Jackson, run across the fields to Doherty's there behind the hill. The doctor's there now, so bring him back with you. And you,' he continued, laying his hand on the girl's arm, 'must let us carry your father in out of this. He can't be left here any longer or he'll bleed to death.'

The girl stood sullenly on one side while the two men unhinged the door, placed the old man upon it as carefully as possible, carried him in and laid him on the bed. Then Fitzgerald cut the clothes away from the gaping wound, tore up one of the coarse sheets, and bound the injured part up roughly but not unskilfully. The fowls ran in and out of the open door the while and pecked unnoticed at the pot of potatoes upon the floor.

'I think we've done everything that can be done now,' said the D. I. when he had finished, 'and there's no good stopping here. It's time that I was in town, and the doctor'll be round here immediately. I'll send the priest up to you as soon as I get there. I'm afraid I must trouble you, Trevor, to come with me.'

'Why? What's the meaning of this?' stammered the farmer, his face going ashen gray.

'I'm afraid that after what's happened,' answered Fitzgerald formally, looking intently at the ground, and digging a root of grass out of the roadway with his toe, 'that it is my duty not to let you out of my sight.'

'Ha!' ejaculated the girl, her nostrils dilating, and a succession of strange emotions, satisfaction, doubt and anxiety, chasing each other rapidly across her expressive features.

The disgraced man walked towards the car and clambered up on one side like a man in a dream, his companion mounted the other and drove rapidly away. As soon as they were out of earshot of the girl, he said, 'the fact is, that in the present excited state of feeling in the country, you are much safer for a few nights in our barracks than in your own house.' Trevor said nothing. These words explained his companion's attitude, but it did not affect the sudden realization of the outer consequences of his act, which had come upon him like a blow. His senses were stunned for the time being, and only perceived an endless vista of stone walls swiftly hurrying past.

Rounding the first corner, out of sight of the cottage, the D. I. urged his horse to a gallop, which he kept up the whole six miles to the town. The road consisted of a succession of steep hills joining plateau to plateau, and leading always downwards from the higher ground to the valley beneath. Down these the light car rattled and bounced, jolting and swaying as either wheel passed over a larger fragment of rock than usual; often for yards at a time their velocity carried them along upon one wheel, the other spinning violently in the air; the smaller stones flew to every side from the good gray horse's hoof-strokes as he stretched to his work over the flint-strewn road. Soon the poor beast was in a lather, but neither of the men moved or spoke or took note of the rush fields, with the sod walls between, that flitted past, each one so like the last that they appeared to get not a step further on their journey. It was a nightmare of endless sameness. Still they sat fast, the one straining his eyes eagerly over the winding road beneath them, the other looking straight in front of him with eyes that saw nothing and a mind that had no room for wonder at such furious haste upon the part of a man who was proverbially merciful to his cattle.

As they approached the town, Fitzgerald's face grew longer and longer, and he drove ever more and more recklessly, until they had clattered and slithered down the last hill, and sweeping round the curve, came in sight of a figure running laboriously along the dusty road in front of them. Then his eyes lightened, and he muttered to himself: 'I think we can just do it; but it was a narrow squeak, I allowed him too long a start on such a hilly road.' The figure, when they overtook it, proved to be that of the wounded man's son; the blood was streaming from gashes in his naked feet, where they had been cut by the sharp flints upon the rough mountain road, and his breath was coming in deep sobs. As the car drew abreast of him, he caught hold of the step beneath Trevor's feet and ran by his side for a few paces, but the driver leaned across the well of the car and slashed at him savagely with the whip; the long, thin lash lapped itself round the ragged body and bare legs of the lad, nearly spinning him off his feet as it uncurled. He let go his hold with a yell of pain, and dropped behind showing his teeth in a grin of disappointed malevolence; but still he continued doggedly running on.

'That was Flannigan's son, surely,' said Trevor, startled out of his trance.

'I know,' replied Fitzgerald briefly, whipping up his horse afresh, and soon the boy was hidden from them in a rolling cloud of dust. But on turning the next corner they found themselves at the beginning of the long street of the little town, and he had to slacken pace again. The roadway was blocked with heaps of wood and tar-barrels, and behind each pane of glass in the wretched windows the length of the street was fixed a tallow candle, in readiness for the illumination of the evening. Groups of men were lounging about the doorways, amongst whom were seen a few women wearing white aprons, the badge of 'the most ancient profession in the world.'

The car threaded its way with difficulty through these varied obstructions, the police officer and his friend being the recipients of more than one scowling glance or smothered curse; but once clear of them, Fitzgerald urged the horse to his speed again, and galloped up the hill beyond.

'What's all the hurry about?' asked Trevor, now awake to his surroundings.

'That boy is here to tell them about you,' was the reply; and he relapsed into silence again, his position brought home to him more forcibly than ever.

The next moment a shout was heard, followed by a hoarse roar; and looking down the slope they could see, in the gathering dusk, a black mass surging up the hill behind them, the white aprons gleaming in the forefront like the feathering of surf upon a wind-blown billow. But the barrack gates had clanged to behind them before the foremost of their pursuers could come within reach, and the mob swept in a torrent round the base of the building, uttering cries of rage, and leaping up against the walls, like wolves who have been disappointed of their prey.

'Give him up to us,' they shouted. 'We want the murdherer of Pether Flannigan. We'll tear the heart out of the bloody tyrant.'

'The black curse be on the quality,' screamed a woman's strident treble, high above the rest. 'Give us the man that's made orphans of a poor man's childer, or we'll pull the whole place about yer ears.'

'Faith,' said Fitzgerald with a gentle chuckle, 'that was a near thing; and, all things considered, I'm just as well pleased after all that the barracks are not in the middle of their quarter to-night, or there's no knowing what might happen.'

The whole of that night all kinds of rumors were rife in the town, but nothing definite was ascertained. Orators declaimed to excited crowds round the bonfires, rousing them to boiling-point. The Catholics, especially those of the baser sort, were loud in their accusations against Trevor, denouncing the accident as a deliberate cold-blooded murder, and finding in it a political significance as the last act of despairing tyranny on the part of the Saxon in revenge for his overthrow. They swore that the man who had thus dared to insult the hopes of a budding nation should pay for his insolent mockery with his blood. The other party shrugged their shoulders, and declared it would be folly to interfere with the Nationalists in such a mood; it was hard lines on Trevor, no doubt, but it was his own fault for being such a fool. If he were once returned for trial, it would be all up with him; for no Irish jury would be found to acquit him, and the Government would not dare to interfere at such a crisis. The only hope for him was that the man should not die at all, and that could hardly be called a hope.

The next morning, hearing that Flannigan had taken a turn for the worse, Fitzgerald set out with a magistrate, in order to take his deposition before the end should come. Half-way there they met the doctor returning from his visit. He told them that the charge of shot had completely shattered the shoulder-blade—a wound which was not necessarily mortal in the case of a young man of strong constitution; but at his patient's age, the shock to the system alone was bound to prove fatal, and he was rapidly sinking, though he had still some hours of life before him. As he was leaving, the priest had actually arrived to administer the last offices to the dying man.

'I think,' said Fitzgerald, as the doctor drove on upon his way, 'that I'll walk up one or two of these hills. This poor beast of mine got rather a gruelling last night, and I don't want him to have a permanent grudge against this road;' and, to the magistrate's surprise, he walked the whole of the remainder of the journey.

As they came up to the cottage, they could see, as once before, over the half door into its interior. The priest was standing by the bedside holding the vessel of holy oil in his hands; and through the crisp morning air the last words of the sacrament of Extreme Unction rang clear upon their ears:

'Through this holy unction,' and they could see the sweep of the priest's arm, as he made the sign of the cross upon the sick man's forehead, 'and through His most tender mercy the Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed with the senses of thy body and with the thoughts and desires of thy heart. Amen.'

'Amen,' echoed the two men, and swinging open the half door entered the room. The priest turned from bestowing the blessing, and his eyes fell upon the magistrate; he started, and a sudden flame of apprehension leapt into life in his eyes, which was answered by a smile deep down in Fitzgerald's. And then was seen a curious sight: a conflict of religions, of parties, of races, over the dying body of one man. Another human life was the stake.

'I have come to take your deposition,' said the magistrate, advancing into the room to the side of the bed.

'Why, how is this?' interrupted the priest hoarsely, licking his lips with his tongue. 'Why was I not told that this had not been done?'

'Why, what differ does it make?' asked the girl anxiously from the foot of the bed.

The priest's nostrils distended and he opened his mouth to speak, but restrained himself. He turned to the bed and said: 'You wish to depose that Mr. Trevor shot you after having threatened to do so?'

'Ay,' said the man; 'he said he'd shute me, an' shute me he did.'

Anxiety gave way to triumph in the priest's eyes, but prematurely, for the dying man's gaze followed Fitzgerald's significant look to the sacred vessel that the priest still grasped in his hand, and he continued—'But what is all that to me? I'm done with the affairs of this life. I've had my absolution for all my sins thought and done. I'm done with the wurruld an' the wurruld's done with me. I'm nat to ate nor spake more. An' I forgive him.'

'You needn't mind about the absolution,' urged the priest in his eagerness, letting the mask slip, and the glare of fanaticism shine through, 'I'll see that that's made all right: I'll get you a dispensation. But you must make some statement before you die.'

'I tell ye,' said the old man querulously, and raising himself excitedly upon his elbow, 'I forgive him. Foreby, Misther Trevor's bin a good master to me up to now. An' I'll make no statement. An' I won't be stirred from that wurrud by man nor praste.' But the effort was too much for him, and the next moment he fell back upon the pillow gasping, the bed dyed red with his life-blood; his wound had broken out afresh.

With a despairing cry his daughter threw herself on her knees by the bedside, and the two laymen unbaring themselves reverently in the presence of Death, withdrew into the open air to await his advent. Ten minutes afterwards the old man had ceased to breathe, without having again opened his lips.

'It's lucky for our friend Trevor,' said Fitzgerald to his companion, as they drove thoughtfully homeward, 'that the priest made that mistake about the sacrament, and that the Irish peasant has such an ingrained reverence for forms. The old man was evidently set upon his delusion, whether he got it from his daughter or no, and if he had made that statement, you would have had to commit Trevor for trial, and he would equally surely have been hanged. As it is, I don't think any committal is necessary.'

'Now I know why you were so anxious to walk up all those hills,' the magistrate dryly replied; 'but it wouldn't have done to arrive after his death.'

'No; that wouldn't have done at all. The fat would have been in the fire then, with a vengeance. But, as it is, they have no cause for complaint.'

It turned out as Fitzgerald said. When the case was brought before them for a preliminary hearing, the magistrates decided that in the face of his victim's refusal to testify against Trevor there was no case for a jury. At this decision there was agitation in some quarters, and talk about class feeling and the straining of justice on behalf of individuals; but everybody felt that both sides were tarred with the same brush, and the Catholics no doubt perceived that they had sold themselves: the better sort amongst them sympathized with Trevor's misfortune, and held aloof from the more extreme element. The matter was not vigorously pushed, and soon dropped into oblivion.

But the incident left its permanent mark upon Trevor. He was too soft-fibred to pass through such a fiery ordeal unscathed. Added to the fact of having a fellow-creature's life upon his hands, a man of his inoffensive type could not feel a whole community thirsting for his blood and show no sign thereafter. From that day he retired completely into himself, holding aloof from his neighbors, and within a few months had grown old and broken down before his time.

A BORDER WAR

'For God's sake give me a drink of whisky and soda to wash my heart down; it's been in my mouth all day,' said Fitzgerald, clattering into the room in his war panoply, his sword clanking against his spurs, and throwing himself into my favorite easy chair.

'What's the matter?' I asked, as I filled him a three-finger drink and put the decanter and siphon beside him.

'What! Haven't you heard the news, you benighted heathen? Why, the whole country's ringing with it.'

'Cease to praise your own exploits, and trot out your story,' I said firmly, 'or I'll take away the whisky.'

'Well,' he began, after draining his glass at a draught, 'from information received, as they say in the force, I learnt yesterday that there had been the beginnings of a pretty little fight up in the near end of Robertson's district. And I knew that he was due at the Assizes at the other end of the County to-day, so I thought I'd keep my eye on the case for him.

'It seems that up in that part there is a spot where the two counties meet and also the boundaries of two large properties. By a mistake in the survey at some time a strip of field just there was omitted: the county line runs down the middle of it, but it is claimed by neither of the landowners. It is mere rushy land, not worth ten shillings an acre, and of no account to a rich man, but to the half-starved peasant of these parts even that much grass is a perfect treasure-trove.

'Under these circumstances the tenants of the two nearest cabins on either side of the field have been accustomed by tacit agreement to look upon this strip as their own property. Each took the county line as the boundary or marin of his claim, and each mowed his own half. But the one that came first generally encroached a little, and stole as much of his neighbor's grass as he thought he could with safety. Of recent years this habit had increased, and led to considerable jealousy between the two men; and as the land belonged to nobody except by prescriptive right, it became more or less of a public question in the district, and the men of each county espoused the cause of their respective champions.

'Well, yesterday morning, as luck would have it, both men took it into their heads to mow their piece on the same day, and both arrived on the ground together. They eyed each other suspiciously: then they started mowing at the two extremities opposite each other and began to race for the middle of the field, each determined to see that the other did not trespass on his portion.

'The faster mower arrived first, and in his haste appropriated a scytheful of his neighbor's grass, which was easy to do, as nothing but an imaginary line divided the two halves of the field.

'Directly afterwards the other man came opposite him and saw what had occurred, and a black scowl gathered upon his face. He stooped down and picked up a stone against which his scythe-blade had just rasped: he spat on it and put it carefully upon the middle of the imaginary line, then he said:

'"That's the marin, Larry Scanlan, and that's my mark. Stir a fut acrost it agin, if ye darr, an' I'll stretch ye as dacint a corp as ever ye seen."

'"Ah," replied the other, roused by this insult, "give me any more ov yer lip, Con Doherty, an I'll jist dhraw me han' an' hit yous a skelp that ull knock ye endways from here to Ameriky."

'They glared fiercely at each other, and having thus crowed their mutual defiance, there seemed nothing left to do but to fight.

'But each looked at the scythe in the hands of the other, and hesitated to begin the fray. The ideal scythe-blade is not smooth and sharp: such would soon lose its edge and be a cause of bad language to its owner. But the scythe that delights the mower's heart has a ripple like the teeth of a saw ground down, that grips the grass-stalks and shears straight through them. A heavy blade like this would drive through cloth and flesh and bone, and lop off limbs as a pruning-knife lops twigs. It is a formidable weapon in a row. Each man pondered the unknown quantity of how far his neighbor would be prepared to go if his blood were up. Meanwhile the situation lagged.

'Doherty was the smaller man and already regretted his rash procedure. As he gazed round to the earth and sky for inspiration his eye lit upon his brother digging potatoes in the adjoining field, and thoughts of reinforcements came to him.

'"Come over here a minute, Roger," he shouted, "I want ye."

'Roger came with his spade. And a neighbor that was passing by sat upon the wall to watch the fight.

'"Now," said Con triumphantly, "quit the groun', or we'll scarify ye."

'But Scanlan scented an opportunity to base his private quarrel on the grounds of public principle, and said to the neighbor, who fortunately lived on the same side of the marin as himself:

'"Shure now, Father, ye wudn't stan' by an say a man av yer own county putt upon by them dhirty land-grabbin' furriners."

'Peter looked at the group and saw that Larry was the biggest of the three. He was not above having "a bit ov fun," so long as he was likely to be on the winning side. He had his spade with him also. So he spat on his hands, grasped the handle, and ranged himself on the side of his county, saying briefly:

'"I'll stan' by ye, Larry."

'So once more the situation had arrived at a deadlock. The advantage lay with neither side. But the delay had allowed the blood of the two original combatants to cool, and their thoughts turned upon strategy. After a few more mutual recriminations they separated by tacit consent, and each went his way, muttering darkly to himself:

'"Wait till the morra, an' we'll see what yous ull luke like thin."

'But when two men hit upon a plan, whose methods of life and grooves of thought have been the same from their birth upward, it is likely that the ideas of both will be very similar. So that night the fiery cross, as it were, ran through the surrounding district on both sides of the border ... This morning at the hush of dawn a murmur arose on each side of the field in dispute. And the sun shed its first rays upon a hundred men sitting upon the stone ditch on one side of the field, and a hundred upon the other. Each side gazed in blank surprise to find its idea anticipated. And all through the forenoon men came dropping in by twos and threes, armed with their scythes, to reinforce their own party and reap the grass for their county.

'About twelve o'clock two boys came to me within a few minutes of each other with a message to "Come up to Doherty's marin at wanst, or there'll be could murther done."

'I thought two messengers argued great urgency, and set off in hot haste with my four-and-twenty policemen. When we arrived upon the ground we found a full couple of thousand men sitting on each ditch facing each other. I drew up my forces in the middle of the field between them, facing both ways, felt like Leonidas, and wished myself somewhere else.

'But neither party took the slightest notice of our presence. They sat on their respective walls and went on shouting their challenges across our heads as though we did not exist. One man would shout:

'"Ah, come over here, Tim Daly, an' I'll put a face on ye that yer own mother wudn't know ye."

'And the other side would reply:

'"Wait till I come te you, ye yelpin' cub, an' I'll stritch yer mouth both ways roun' yer head."

'Both parties waited and nothing occurred.

'At last the situation began to dawn upon me. Neither of them cared a damn for me and my policemen, but each faction had too healthy a respect for the strength of the other to take the first step. And then the meaning of the two messengers also became plain—one had been despatched by either side at the same time both desiring an honorable retreat from the difficult position into which they had got themselves. For nowadays even Irishmen are not used to a faction fight in which the combatants upon either side number two thousand strong and are armed with scythes. The situation was too big for their stomachs, and each man said to himself, as he gazed upon the black mass gathered at the other side of the field, "This job is a bit too thick. I wish I was safe at home."

'Now a novice, as soon as he discovered the position of affairs, would have thought everything quite safe, and would consequently have made a mess of it. But I know these people thoroughly: I have lived—'

'Cut the cackle,' I said, 'and continue the story. We'll take all your perfections as read.'

'Well, as I was saying, when you interrupted me so rudely, I knew that because I had fathomed the situation we were not necessarily safe out of it. If but a spark were added to their combativeness, we were in for the biggest fight that I had seen in my time, and between the two we police would be the first to suffer.

'So I walked warily. I waited until one of the men came to a well near us for a drink of water. Then I called him, and after several other questions about the condition of affairs, I asked him the name of the leader upon the other side.

'Directly he had gone back to his fellows, I walked towards the opposite crowd and asked for Larry Scanlan.

'He came out to meet me, and I said to him,

'"I've done my best, but Doherty's men are simply raging for a fight, and I can't keep them in hand a minute longer. For God's sake, draw off your party, or I won't answer for the consequences: they'll eat you up body and bones."

'The man went a grayish green, shaking with terror, and said, "For the luv of Mary, sir, don't let us be murthered. What will we do at ahl?"

'Then I said that if they were out of sight of their opponents my task would be easier: if they withdrew in a body to the next ditch when I waved my handkerchief I would reason with Doherty's men, and would be able to bring him their proposals for an agreement.

'Scanlan consented, and I went over to the opposite side, drew an equally terrifying picture of the bloodthirsty eagerness of their adversaries, and made the same arrangement.

'Then I returned to my devoted corps, waved my handkerchief, and Hey, Presto! not a man was to be seen anywhere.

'I waited patiently for five minutes, and then sent a couple of my men to reconnoitre. They returned and reported that when they arrived at the second ditch in each direction not a figure was to be seen on the whole countryside. As soon as they had got out of sight of the enemy both armies had fled swiftly, every man to his own home.

'Well, I wasn't going to leave the occasion of offence behind me, so I drew a line down the centre of the field from marin stone to marin stone, sent into the surrounding parts and hired a dozen mowers, and in three hours I had that field mown and the grass gathered upon either hand with a space of twelve yards between; and if they like to go back and fight over it now, they can fight: for I'm not going to interfere again. I've had enough of them.'

'And what are you going to get out of all this heroism and astuteness?' I asked.

'I? Oh if it ever comes to the ears of the authorities, I shall get a slating for interfering outside my own district, and I consider I richly deserve it. As it is I have already got out of it a beautiful thirst, that I wouldn't sell for half-a-crown. Give us another drink, old man.'

'And how much of that story is true?' I asked, 'and how much is your tropical imagination?'

'That,' said he, 'is for you to decide, my boy,' and he deliberately winked his left eye at me.

A NIGHTMARE CLIMB

'No, I like you very much, but there can never be anything of that kind between us.'

'I expected this. But I think you are very foolish,' replied the young man slowly, twisting his moustache.

The girl was too astonished at this superior way of taking a rejection to say anything. It was beyond her experience entirely.

'Of course,' he continued, 'Elsie—Miss Derwent, I have seen that you do not love me as I love you, I have only opened the subject to set my case before you. You know me very well, and you say that you like me. You are quite aware that I have been in love with you for the last five years, though I have not spoken until I had a position to offer you. That position I have made for myself. You were my guiding star. All the hours that I have labored, till my work tasted bitter in my mouth, it was for the hope of you I persevered. And now I am not to be lightly cheated of my reward. It is best that most of the love should be on the man's side, and I am content to wait for your love till after marriage. I know that I can win it. You are a woman and no longer a girl, so you should be above romantic notions on the subject.'

She flushed, and he saw immediately that he had made a false move. By those last few words he had lost all the ground that he had won. So he began over again.

'You know my family, too, and like them. And you must see, though I say it, who shouldn't, that my two sisters idolize me. The man who makes a good brother or son is likely to make a good husband. I would make you a good husband, the best you are ever likely to get. You will never find any one who will understand you so thoroughly as I do after all these years, any one with so many tastes in common, or who will love you so entirely for your real self, and not for any impossible ideal of womanhood you may represent to the imagination.'

'You can blow your own trumpet well, at any rate,' she said with a smile.

'Why not? If I don't blow it myself nobody else is likely to do so for me. Shakespeare says something somewhere to the effect that a man is a poor creature who can't persuade a woman to love him. I think it runs:

And I quite agree with him. I am not going to risk my life's happiness now for the sake of a few scruples of delicacy. I am no braggart. Ask any of my men friends, and they will tell you, that they have never known me to boast. But I will boast now—I am not a coward, and I tell you I would lay down my life for your sake. I only wish the occasion might occur, that I might prove my words.'

'The occasion never does occur nowadays. The age of knight-errantry is past. And in any case it is a very poor thing to do. To die only requires a moment's resolution after all. What we women want is, not a man who will die for us, but one who will live for us.'

'Well, there too I am ready to fulfil your wants. You have lived for the last month in the same house with me, and tell me if I have ever been anything but charming. The man whose temper can stand the ordeal of continual companionship for a month in a country-house in this God-forsaken place, can stand anything. Therefore marry me. Is not that common-sense?'

'Yes,' she said with a little spite, feeling that she was illogical. 'That is just what I object to. You are so sensible, so horridly, vulgarly successful, self-confident, good-natured, and altogether admirable. You are too perfect. If I ought not to admire you so much, I might perhaps—like you more.'

'You are frank at any rate,' said he ruefully.

'Yes. It will do you good to hear for once in a way, that you are too conceited and philosophical. You have too much common-sense. What business has a lover to talk common-sense, I should like to know. Any one can do that. However it is useless to argue any further, Mr. Travers. My mind is made up. I will never marry a man I do not love. And I do not—care for you, as you would have me.'

'But will you not try and love me?'

'Love does not come by trying,' quoth the maiden sententiously.

'Nevertheless I will not despair. But meanwhile I hope you will not let this interfere with our arrangements for this last day, or with your stay here. I cannot get a telegram summoning me on urgent business till the morning. But I will go then. This afternoon you know you promised to come on an expedition to see our Donegal cliffs, and the Pigeons' Cave especially; while I am to get you those cormorant's eggs you wished for.'

'Very well, I will go.'

At the appointed time they set out on an Irish car. In the well Travers, who was driving, took a stake with a pulley at the end and a coil of rope, a relic of his boyhood's days, when he used to be great at bird's-nesting. The party consisted to all intents and purposes of himself and Miss Derwent. The other three, two men and a girl, were mere nonentities, who had been invited as make-weights. Travers, with still unsubdued pride of intellect, had christened them in his own mind as the Fool, the Idiot, and the Inane Girl.

When they arrived at Kilcross, the other four went down a winding path on the side of the cliff, and proceeded along the shore in the direction of the Pigeons' Cave. Travers went across the headlands to the same spot, and fixed his stake in the turf above some crevices in the rock, where he knew of old he would find the cormorant's eggs he was in search of. He would first join the rest of the party, he thought, in their sight-seeing. Afterwards they would all come up to the top and lower him down in search of his prey.

By the time he had finished arranging the stake, the others were underneath him. So he shouted to them he would come the shortest way down. Lowering the rope until the bight at the end touched the rocks below, he fastened the upper end by twisting it a couple of times round the stake, and thrusting the slack carelessly, as he afterwards remembered, under the part of the rope between the top round and the pulley. There would only be a very slight strain for a few moments in sliding down, and he had often before descended a rope fastened like that.

He lowered himself gently over the edge of the cliff, and this time, as usual, slid safely down, landing at the feet of the four below.

'How quickly you came down, Mr. Travers,' simpered the Inane Girl.

'Oh! I'm used to climbing, and it comes as naturally to me as sliding down the banisters did to you, when you were a small girl.'

'I never slid down banisters,' she replied austerely.

'The Queen of Spain has no legs,' quoted Travers to himself.

Then they went on to the Pigeons' Cave, which was close at hand. As they reached the entrance, Travers said:

'Take care you don't fall into that pool, ladies, this green seaweed is very slippery.'

Once inside they found themselves in a huge rock cavern of a hard yellow stone, which was formed by petrifaction, and which was still in process of growth around them. The sides were covered with moisture which was gradually turning into stone. From the roof depended clusters of giant stalactites, formed by the ceaseless drip of ages, giving the cave the appearance of the fretted aisles of some huge cathedral. From these festooned arches there flew forth at the clapping of their hands a blue cloud of rock-pigeons, flitting like shadows, or like 'squealing bats,' in the dusky twilight of the cavern, till for a moment they obscured the daylight at the entrance. These made their nests in the lofty roof, and gave the cave its name.

Travers, laughing, regretted he could not get some of their eggs too. But that could not be done by any means short of bringing a fire-escape upon the scene.

'But come along to the inner end of the cave, girls, and I'll give you a drink from the Wishing Well,' he said. 'As its name implies, it has power to ensure you anything you may desire as you drink its waters, from your lover's fidelity to the quenching of your thirst.'

So saying he got the other two men to hoist him up to a ledge which he could just reach with his hands; then drawing himself up onto it, he filled the silver cup of his flask from a recess at the back, and handed it down to the ladies.

'It's very nice and cool,' said the Inane Girl, 'but how does it come up there?'

'I believe it is merely the drippings from the rock collected in a small hollow. It is to be hoped it won't petrify inside you.'

'Oh! yes,' said she, 'I hear it dripping, now you mention it. Why, it's trickling quite fast.'

'Trickling! Good heavens! We must get out of this at once. Quick! Help me down.'

'Why, what's the matter? Anything wrong?' they all chorussed.

'Yes, everything. That trickling is the tide coming into the pool at the mouth of the cave, and it will soon be too late for us to escape, if it is not already.'

When they reached the mouth of the cave, one glance was sufficient. The breakers were already beating against the rocks at the extremity of either horn of the bay. No one would round those corners until the next tide.

The others wished to run and see if escape was hopeless. But Travers prevented them. It would only be waste of time and energy.

'Then I suppose we must just wait in the cave till the tide goes down again,' said Miss Derwent, while the Inane Girl bleated, 'Oh! we'll all be drowned, I'm sure we will.'

'No,' said Travers sternly; 'we cannot remain in the cave. The tide washes right up to the end of it. I have got you into this scrape, and I'm bound to get you out of it.' He spoke to the other girl but he looked at Miss Derwent.

'The ledge,' he continued, 'where the Wishing Well is situated is above high-water mark, but I doubt whether you could get up to it, and in any case it would only hold one. Then it is a mile and a half to swim round those rocks to any landing-place, and by the time I could return with a boat, you would be past praying for. No! I see nothing for it but the rope.'

'The rope? What do you mean?'

'The rope here that I came down by. I will climb up it, and then haul you up after me one by one. Fortunately it swings clear of the cliff the whole way up.'

'Isn't it very dangerous?' said the Inane Girl.

'Oh! not at all. It's only a hundred feet or so. I'm used to gymnastics, and have always been fond of climbing. So it will be all right.'

'Oh! I wasn't thinking of you,' she replied. 'I was thinking I shouldn't like to be pulled up all that way by a rope.'

'You'll be lucky if you get the chance,' growled Travers grimly to himself. 'And now girls, I must trouble you to go into the cave again for a minute, as I have to take off some of my clothes. Keep them there as long as you can', he whispered to one of the men. 'I don't want to have them underneath when I'm going up.'

'Do you think you can do it?' said the other man, who remained behind with him.

'I'm sure I don't know. It's a good two hundred feet, and I have never done so much before. Then this rope is very thin for climbing. But what troubles me most—but there, it's no good talking about it. I must do it. Say good-bye to them for me if I don't come back—or rather, if I do, as I suppose you can hardly spread a blanket to catch me by yourself. In that case the only thing to do is to go back into the cave as far as possible, and pray that it may not be a high tide.'

He stripped to his knickerbockers and stockings, for every ounce would tell against him in the struggle before him, tied a handkerchief round his waist and began the ascent slowly, hand over hand, the muscles standing out like cords on his uncovered arms and chest.

When half the distance was done, he stopped for a rest. Half the remainder, and once again he paused. Soon after the terrible doubt, that he had hinted at, recurred to his mind with fresh force. He was not progressing as fast as he ought. The rope must be slipping off the stake. He stopped again, and watched the cliff opposite him. No, it was only his imagination. He was quite steady. The last few yards were a terrible struggle, but he managed them somehow, and, reaching the top, dropped upon the turf, his head swimming, his limbs trembling, and his muscles twitching with the prolonged tension they had undergone.

After a time he rose and went to the stake, when he received a shock which made him feel sick and faint with fear, unnerving him even more than his climb itself. A cold sweat broke out all over him. His throat grew dry and parched, and a scum gathered on his lips and the roof of his mouth. When he tied the rope originally there were several yards over. Now there was only a single foot left protruding. As he had thought at the time, the rope had been gradually unreeling itself from the stake, all the while he was ascending. When he remained still, the steady strain did not affect it. But the post being of polished wood, the movement he made in climbing caused the rope to slip round its smooth surface in jerks. Another dozen jerks and he would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

He nearly fainted at the thought. But the recollection of those below came to him and revived him. He could not afford to give way just yet. But when he had hauled one of the other men up and asked him to do the same by the rest, he lay down again on the grass, and when Miss Derwent came up, she found that the strong man had swooned away.

When Travers regained consciousness his head was lying on her lap, and she was forcing some brandy between his teeth.

'You are safe, then,' he said, 'so I did not fall after all.'

When he had dressed himself they all went back to the car. But Travers said he was too unnerved to drive, and asked the Idiot, though he called him so no longer even in his own mind, to take the reins and his seat in the middle. The other man and the girl had already taken their places on one side. So that left the remaining side to him and Miss Derwent.

She will never forget that drive to her dying day.

She had him practically to herself, for the others' backs were all turned upon them. For a good opportunity for love-making commend me to an Irish outside car. It is solitude in the midst of a crowd.

But they were not thinking of love-making now. At first Travers made a few disjointed remarks, but gradually he became silent. She saw the white dazed look stealing over his face, which she had first noticed at the top of the cliff. He began muttering to himself. Then suddenly he burst out:—

'That's half-way, only a hundred feet more.' It was evident that he was living over again that terrible climb of his. But this time he was conscious of his danger. She listened spellbound.

'I wonder if I can last it out. I must. Those rocks looked very hard. Fifty feet more. My God! The rope is slipping. No, it is only my imagination. The cliff opposite me is quite still. Twenty feet more. I must pass that tuft of grass. I didn't reach it as quick as I ought. The rope is slipping. Every jerk brings me nearer to destruction. It is cutting into my hands. My arms are coming out of their sockets. My legs are numbed. I must let go. Only two yards more. For her sake! I wonder if she is watching me. I must look down and see. Oh! it has come away in my hand. I am falling, falling through the air. There is nothing to catch hold of. G—r—r—r! Keep her away, you fool. Why did you let her see such a mess as that?'

As in a nightmare she listened to the slow progress of that horrible struggle. The sentences were jerked one by one from his tongue, as from the tongue of the mesmerized dead man in Poe's terrible story. There was a pause between each. He drew his breath in gasps, as though in mortal conflict. His face became more and more drawn and ghastly, and drooped till it was completely hidden from her sight. His body grew limp. At every jolt of the car it sagged further downwards, as though about to dive into the road at their feet.

Terrified, she shook him, screamed 'Percy' in his ear; but he did not hear. Then in desperation she softly nipped the fleshy part of his arm. The pain brought him to himself. He sat bolt upright with a start, like one that has been nodding, and is suddenly awakened.

'Have I been saying anything?' he inquired, anxiously.

'Ah! I am glad. I thought perhaps I might have been talking nonsense.' They did not speak again for the remainder of the drive. The others had noticed nothing,—all their attention was taken up with the perennial Irish rain, which was driving in their faces.

The next morning he was ill, and unable to leave his room. But when they met in the afternoon, he said with a wan smile, 'I am sorry to have broken my promise. And I am afraid I must ask you to excuse my presence here this evening as well. I have lost my nerve. I daren't travel in a train. I am afraid.' He made the confession with a burst, as though it were wrung from him.

'If you like, I will go away instead,' she replied slowly, drooping her head.

'No, please don't,' he said imploringly. 'I feel safer when you are near me.'

The boyish pathos and abandonment of his tone joined to his utter weakness and prostration did for him what his previous confident strength, and even the fact of his having risked his life for hers, had failed to effect. Her experience of the day before upon the car had shown her what he had gone through to thus jangle his nerves. It was in her service this stroke had come upon him. She could not blame him for it, nor to her could it bear the aspect of cowardice. For no woman can forgive that. Her woman's heart was melted. The requisite touch of tenderness was added to her feeling for him. The tears gushed to her eyes.

'You know I said yesterday, you were too perfect,' she murmured.

'Yes, well?'

'I don't think you so perfect now.'

'My darling.'

They kissed each other passionately.

Under her care Travers' nerves soon recovered their normal tone. But since that day he has never boasted again of his courage. His wife says, that the next lover she has shall be philosophical too. For that kind make the best husbands after all.

A PEASANT TRAGEDY

PART I

THE LOVERS

A group of peasants were straggling along the hilly road returning from the fair in the summer twilight. It was composed of about an equal number of men and women; the women trudged along on their naked feet, with their heavy market-baskets over one arm, and their boots slung by the laces over the other; the men lazily dragged their heavily shod feet after them, with the trailing gait born of much walking in ploughed fields and clinging soil, they carried one hand in their trousers' pocket, the other twirling an ash plant, with which they switched off the heads of all the thistles they met.

In front of them wandered a few young bullocks, badly bred and unkempt, mooing pitifully from time to time. In their midst was a donkey-cart with four sheep and a couple of pigs confined between its cribs; the sheep were tied together in pairs with twisted hay-bands round their necks, their legs also were hobbled with hay-bands; the pigs ran about loose and routed ceaselessly among the straw at the bottom of the cart. The donkey plodded patiently along by himself, for the most part unnoticed; but when it was necessary to turn aside into a by-road or avoid one of the huge stones that had tumbled off a neighboring ditch, one of the men guided him by the simple but effective means of seizing the tail-pieces and levering round both cart and staggering donkey together.

'A bad fair agin the day,' said one of the elder men in a high querulous tone, directed impartially to the group at large.

'Ay, deed so,' replied another, 'times is main bad the now. Bastes is gone clane to nothin'; two pun I was bid the day for a year-ould heifer; that's her runnin' in front wi' the white patch 'roun' her tail; I min' the time when I wouldn't have luked at sivin for her; two pun, min' that now,' and he spat disgustedly. 'Pigs is the on'y thing as fetches any price at ahl, an' who's to be at the cost of fattenin' thim?'

'Michael Dolan wudn't be overly well plazed at yon sight,' interjected the first speaker, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hindmost of the group.

The couple thus alluded to were the youngest of those present. They were in the stage known as 'coortin',' and ever since leaving town some half hour before they had been unobtrusively dropping in the rear of their party. They were walking along with their arms round each other's waists, and her head drooped upon his shoulder. Contrary to the rule among the Northern peasantry, who are for the most part hard-featured and uncomely, perhaps owing to the admixture of Scotch blood in their veins, the girl had the true Celtic type of beauty, straight features with black hair, and large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, a tall figure, and a firm and well-developed bust. But the young man beside her overtopped her by a head, straight-limbed, with a broad sun-tanned face and a wide laughing mouth; the damp of the plough-land had not yet got into his bones nor the bend of the scythe into his knee-joints. They walked in silence, content to be together; your rustic has not too many words to spare to waste any even in his courting. But the blood coursed none the less hotly in the veins of both.

The rich, who have more room in their houses, and fewer constraints to trouble them, do most of their love-making indoors. The poor have to do theirs in the open air, chiefly, as now, in the long evenings coming home together from market. The middle classes are more restricted by space and convention on both these sides, which perhaps partly accounts for their higher morality.

An Irish laborer's cottage of two rooms has to accommodate a whole family, the younger children often sleeping in the same bed with their parents. From thus herding together, and from the necessities of country life in connection with animals, the children are brought up in familiarity with aspects of life which never come under the notice of those bred in towns. And yet the Irish women have a high reputation for chastity; and justly, for they rarely take a lover outside of their own class. Within that class they are protected by their religion; if anything goes wrong between a man and a maid, the priest always hears of it, and marries them on the spot before worse can happen. Generations of this restraint have bred an ingrained habit of continence among the people, so that now in the Roman Catholic districts of Northern Ireland an illegitimate child is an almost unknown disgrace.

'What did ye buy in town the day, Paddy?' asked the girl, with the intonation of a tender speech. The limits of her vocabulary did not admit of a nearer approach to lovers' talk than the practical details of housekeeping that bore on their projected marriage.

'Them two pigs in the ass-cart, an' the Saints alone knows whether I'll be fit to kape thim through the winter. A shillin' a day, an' not ivery day at that, isn't enough to kape a man, let alone a wife an' two suckin' pigs. I only git two shillin' when I'm ploughin' or mowin', an' them machines is cuttin' us all out; they git all the wurruk these times. I'm thinkin' I'll jine to larn the use av them be next year; there's no man hereabouts as knows the thrick av it, an' I've a consate that siveral av the farmers would jine an' buy a mowin' machine right out instead av hirin' them thramp wans, av they had a man as cud use it.'

'But yous is the boy as has the head,' said the girl admiringly. 'I'm glad I'm to be married to yous. I'll niver want for bit nor sup, I'll hold ye.'

'It's that same that's botherin' me this minit, Norah darlin'. Whin are we to be married? It ud be ahl right wi' the house an' the wee bit farrum; but me brother Mick is that set agin you I don't know what's kim over him. An' I'd as lave not ang-er him. For Mick's right fond av me the whole time, whin ahl's said an' done.'

'Ay, troth is he; he thinks the sun rises an' sets an yer elbow whin yous is not by.'

'I'm clane moidhered what to do. What did you buy, swateheart?'

'I'm worse agin nor yous. I on'y got five shillin' for spriggin' an' stockins as tuk me a fair fortnight. But I scraped enough ha'pence together for a churn; an' I said as how yous wud bring it home the nixt time ye had the ass-cart in town.'

In these marriages it is the woman's part, where possible, to supply the household utensils necessary to set up house together, the man's to find the live-stock and keep a roof over their heads by his labor.

'It's comin' on saft, let's take shelther,' said Paddy presently.

'Ah, what signifies that dhrap? It'll on'y be a shower.'

'An' yous in yer new jacket an' hat wi' the red feather till it; it'll be ahl shpoilt. As it isn't goin' to last, it's ahl the more raison not to git wet to the pelt for nothin'. Let's git in behin' this ould wall for a wee taste; it's gran' shelther, an' the brackens right saft to set an.'