The Northern Iron Read online

  CHAPTER II

  The passenger took his seat in the bow of the boat and stripped off hiscoat in readiness to pull an oar. But no oar was offered to him. MauriceSt. Clair seemed to have entirely forgotten the stranger's presence. Theremarks of the American captain had angered him, and his mind worked onthe insults hurled at him in parting. Neal was angry, too. They pulledviciously at the oars. From time to time Maurice broke out fiercely--

  "An unmannerly brute! I wish I had him somewhere off the deck of hisbrig. I'd teach him how to speak to a gentleman.

  "Is that his filthy tobacco at your feet, Brown-Eyes? Pitch itoverboard.

  "I suppose he's a specimen of the Republican breed. That's what comes ofliberty and equality and French Jacobinism and Tom Paine and the Rightsof Man. Damned insolence I call it."

  "I'd like to remind you, young man------." The words came with a quietdrawl from the passenger in the bow.

  Maurice stopped rowing, and turned round.

  "Well, what do you want to say? More insolence? Better be careful unlessyou want to try what it feels like to swim ashore."

  "I'd like to remind you, young man, that Captain Hercules Getty, of theState of Pennsylvania, who commands the brig 'Saratoga,' belongs to anation which has fought for liberty and won it."

  "What's that got to do with his insolence?"

  "I reckon that an Irishman who hasn't fought and hasn't won ought tosing small when he's dealing with a citizen of the United States ofAmerica."

  Neal turned in his seat. The stranger's reproach struck him as beingunjust as well as being in bad taste. Maurice St. Clair was the son of aman who had done something for Ireland.

  "You don't know who you're talking to," he said, "or what you're talkingabout. Lord Dunseveric, the father of the man in front of you,commanded the North Antrim Volunteers, and did his part in winning theindependence of our Parliament."

  The stranger looked steadily at Neal for sometime. Then he said--

  "Is your name Neal Ward?"

  "Yes. How do you know me?"

  "You're the son of Micah Ward, the Presbyterian minister?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I just guessed as much when I took a good look at your face. Willyou ask your father when you go home whether the Volunteers won libertyfor Irishmen, and what he thinks of the independence of an IrishParliament filled with placemen and the nominees of a corruptaristocracy?"

  "Who are you?" asked Neal.

  "My name's Donald Ward. I'm your father's youngest brother. I'm on myway to your father's house now, or I would be if you two young men wouldtake to your oars again. If you don't I guess the first land we'll touchwill be Greenland. We'd fetch Runkerry quicker if you'd pass forward thetwo thole pins I see at your feet and let me get an oar out in the bow.The young lady in the stern can keep us straight with the helm."

  "Give him the thole pins, Neal," said Maurice, "and then pull away."

  "Just let me speak a word with you, Mr. St. Clair," said Donald Ward, ashe hammered the thole pins into their holes. "You're angry with CaptainHercules Getty, and I don't altogether blame you. The captain's too fondof brag, and that's a fact. He can't hold himself in when he meets aBritisher. He's so almighty proud of the whipping his people gave thescum. But there's no need for you to be angry with me. I'm an Irishmanmyself, and not a Yankee. I fought in North Carolina, under GeneralNathaniel Greene, but I fought with Irishmen beside me, men from CountyAntrim and County Down, and they weren't the worst men in the armyeither. When I fight again it'll be in Ireland, and not in America. If Iriled you I'm sorry for it, for you're an Irishman as well as myself."

  Maurice's anger was shortlived.

  "That's all right," he said. "Here, I say, you needn't pull that oar.Neal and I will put you ashore. We'll show that much hospitality to aCounty Antrim man from over the sea."

  "Thank you," said Donald Ward. "Thank you. You mean well, and I takeyour words in the spirit you speak them; but when I sit in a boat I liketo pull my own weight in her."

  He shoved out his oar as he spoke, and fell into time with the long,steady stroke which Neal set.

  Una leaned forward and spoke in a low voice to Neal, timing her wordsso that they reached him as he bent forward at the beginning of eachstroke.

  "Is'nt it curious, Neal, that Maurice and I are going back to welcome anaunt whom we have never seen, and that you are taking an unknown unclehome with you?"

  Then, after a pause, she spoke again.

  "It's like a kind of fate, Neal, one of the things which happen topeople, and alter all their lives, and they can't do anything to helpthemselves. I wonder will we ever have good times together again, nowthat this aunt of mine and this uncle of yours have come?"

  "Why shouldn't we?" said Neal.

  "Oh, I don't know. But your uncle seems to be one of the people who makea great clatter about liberty and equality and the rights of man. Andyou know Aunt Estelle belonged to the old aristocracy in France. Theywanted to guillotine her in the Terror. I don't think she will loveRepublicans."

  "I suppose not," said Neal, gravely.

  "But that won't prevent our being friends, Neal?"

  "Una, my father is always talking about the struggle that's coming inIreland. I don't know much about politics. I think I hate the wholething. But if there is trouble I suppose that I shall be on one side andyou on the other."

  "Don't look so sad, Neal."

  Then, as his spirits grew depressed, her's seemed to rise buoyantly. Sheraised her voice so that she could be heard in the bow of the boat.

  "Mr. Donald Ward! Mr. Donald Ward! Your nephew, Neal, is telling me thatwhen we have a reign of terror in Ireland you will make him cut off myhead. Please promise me you won't."

  Donald rested on his oar and gazed at the girl as she sat smiling at himin the stern of the boat.

  "Young lady," he said, "don't trouble yourself. We didn't hurt woman orgirl in America. No woman shall die a violent death in Ireland at thehands of the people."

  "And no man, either?" cried Una. "Say it again, Mr. Donald Ward. Say'And no man, either.' Can't we settle everything without killing men?"

  "Men are different," said Donald. "It's right for men to die fighting,or die on the scaffold if need be."

  A silence followed Donald Ward's words. In 1798 talk of death in battleor death on a scaffold moved even the youngest and most careless toserious thought. The world was full then of the kind of ideas for whichmen are well content to die, for the sake of which also they did nothesitate to shed blood. The Americans had set mankind a headline to copyin their Declaration of Independence. The French wrote Liberty with hugered flourishes which set the heart of Europe beating high. Italianswere proclaiming a foreign army the liberators of their country, whileJacobins growled fiercely against the Pope. Kosciusko, in Poland,organised a futile revolution, and fell in the cause of nationalfreedom. Even phlegmatic Englishmen caught the spirit of the times,hated intensely or worshipped enthusiastically that liberty which somesaw as an imperial goddess for the sake of whose bare limbs and pale,noble face death might be gladly met; while others beheld in hera blood-spattered strumpet whirling in abandoned dance roundgallows-altars which reeked with human sacrifice.

  Ireland in those days was intellectually and spiritually alive. Men werequick to feel the influence of world-wide ideas, and in Ireland the loveof liberty glowed brightly; nowhere more brightly than among the farmersand lower middle classes of the north-eastern counties. The position wasa strange one. The landed gentry, who themselves, a few years before,claimed and won from England the independence of their Parliament, grewfrightened and drew back from the path of reform on which alonelay security for what they had got. The wealthier merchants andmanufacturers, satisfied with the trade freedom which brought themprosperity, were averse to further change. The Presbyterians and thelower classes generally were eager to press forward. They had conceivedthe idea of a real Irish nation, of Gael and Gall united, of Churchman,Roman Catholic and Dissenter working together for th
eir country's goodunder a free constitution. But it soon became apparent that the reformsthey demanded would not be won by peaceful means. The natural terror ofthe classes whose ascendancy or prosperity seemed to be threatened, thebribes and cajoleries of British statesmen, turned the hearts of thosewho ought to have been leaders from Ireland to England. The relentlesslogic, the clear-sighted grasp of the inevitable trend of events,and the restless energy of men like Wolfe Tone, changed a party ofconstitutional reformers into a society of determined revolutionaries.Threats of repression were answered by the formation of secretsocieties. Acts of tyranny, condoned or approved by terror-strickenmagistrates, were silently endured by men filled with a grim hope thatthe day of reckoning was near at hand. Far-seeing English statesmenhoped to fish out of the troubled waters an act of national surrenderfrom the Irish Parliament, and were not ill-pleased to see the skygrow darker. Everyone else, every Irishman, looked with dread at thegathering storm. One thing only was clear to them. There was coming aperiod of horror, of outrage and burning, of fighting and hanging, thesowing of an evil crop of fratricidal hatred whose gathering would lastfor many years.

  The boat reached the little bay under the Black Rock. There was no needto drag her far up the beach now, for the tide was full. Working insilence, the three men laid her beside the broad-bottomed cobble usedfor working the salmon-net, and pushed her bow up against the coarsegrass which fringed the edge of the rocks. They carried the oars andsails into a fisherman's shelter perched on a rock beside the bay. ThenDonald Ward turned to Maurice and said--

  "I am going to my brother's house. I shall walk by the path along thecliffs, and my nephew will go with me. Your way home, unless I haveentirely forgotten the roads, is not our way. We part here, therefore. Ibid you good night, and thank you heartily."

  "We had intended," said Maurice, "to walk home with Neal. We have timeenough."

  His sister, quicker than he to take a hint, pulled him by the arm, andwhispered to him. Then she spoke aloud.

  "Good night, Mr. Donald Ward. Good night, Neal. Perhaps we shall see youto-morrow."

  The uncle and nephew climbed the hill which led to the top of the cliffstogether. For a time neither of them spoke. The elder man seemed to beabsorbed in picking out the landmarks which had once been very familiarto him. At last he spoke to Neal.

  "Does your father wish you to have Lord Dun-severic's son and daughterfor your friends?"

  Neal hesitated for a moment, and then answered.

  "He knows that they are my friends."

  "It would be better if they were not your friends. I have heard ofLord Dunseveric, a strong man and an able man, a good friend of his ownclass, not a good friend of the people."

  He paused. Neal wished to speak, to say some good of Lord Dunseveric; todeclare the strength of his friendship for Maurice. He could not speakas he wished to speak. An unfamiliar feeling of oppression tied histongue. His uncle's will dominated his.

  "What is the girl's name?" asked Donald.

  "Una."

  "Yes, and what did her brother call her?"

  "Brown-Eyes." Neal felt as if the words were dragged from him.

  "Are you the lover of this Una Brown-Eyes?"

  Neal flushed. "You have no right to ask any such question," he said,"and I shall not answer it. I will just say this to you. Do you supposethat Lord Dunseveric would accept me, a penniless man, the son of aPresbyterian minister, a member of a Church he despises, and connectedwith a party he hates--do you suppose he would accept me as a suitor forhis daughter's hand?"

  "You have answered my question, though you said you would not answerit. You have told me that you love the girl. I have watched her smileat you, and seen her eyes while she talked to you, and I can tell yousomething more, something that perhaps you do not know--the girl lovesyou."

  Again Neal flushed. His uncle had put into words what he had never yetdared to think. He loved Una. His uncle had assured him of somethingelse, something so glorious as to be incredible. Una loved him. Then hebecame conscious that Donald Ward's eyes were on him--cold, impassive,unpitying; that Donald Ward was waiting till the throbs of joy andexcitement calmed in him, waiting to speak again.

  "Put the thought of the girl from you. She is not for you, nor you forher. Forget her. It will be better for you and for her. You shall havework to do soon. Work is for men. Seeing babies in brown eyes is onlyfor boys."

  They left the path which skirted the tops of the cliffs, crossed a fieldor two, and joined the road which led to Micah Ward's manse. The soundof the sea died away, though the smell of it and the feeling of itsneighbourhood were still with them. The savage grandeur of ocean andcliff no longer oppressed their spirits. It seemed natural to talk ofcommon things and to leave high themes behind them in the lonely placesthey had left. Donald Ward gazed with interest at the white-walledthatched cottages on the roadside. He commented on the disappearance ofsome homestead he remembered, or the building of a new one where nonehad been before. It was evident that, in spite of his twenty-five years'absence, he cherished a clear and accurate recollection of the districthe was passing through. He inquired after the families who had livedin the different houses, naming them. He learned how one or another haddisappeared, how old men were gone, and sons reigned in their stead. Heeven supplied Neal with information now and then about some young man orgirl who had gone to America.

  They arrived at the manse. Neal led his uncle through the yard, meaningto enter as usual by the kitchen door. On the threshold the housekeepermet him.

  "Is that you, Master Neal? You're queer and late. You've had a bravetime gadding with your fine friends and never thinking how you wereleaving your old father to eat his dinner his lone. And who's thisyou have with you? What sort of behaviour is this, to be coming herebringing a stranger with you to a decent, quiet house, and he maybe----"

  "Whisht, now, Hannah. Will you hold your whisht (tongue?)?" said Neal."It's my uncle I have with me. You ought to be able to remember him."

  The old woman came forward to the place where Donald Ward stood, andpeered at his face.

  "Aye, I mind you well, Donald Ward. I mind you well. You hadna' just toomuch of the grace of God about you when you went across the sea, andI'm doubting by the looks of you now that you've done more fighting thanpraying where you were."

  "Hannah Keady," said Donald Ward.

  "Hannah Macaulay," said the housekeeper, "and forbye the old ministerand Master Neal here, they call me Mistress Macaulay that have any talkwith me. I'm married and widowed since you crossed the sea."

  "Mistress Hannah Macaulay," said Donald, "you were a slip of a girl witha sharp tongue when I mind you first, and a woman with a sharp tonguewhen I said good-bye to you. You have lost your bonny looks and yourshining red hair; you've lost a husband, so you tell me, but you haven'tlost your tongue."

  The old woman smiled. The compliment pleased her.

  "Come in," she said, "come in. The minister'll be queer and glad to seeyou. You know that fine. But have done with your old work. We've no morecall for Hearts of Oak boys, nor Hearts of Steel boys, nor for burningricks, nor firing guns."

  She led the way through the kitchen, up a narrow flight of stone stairs,and opened the door of the room where the minister sat over his bodes.

  "Here's Master Neal home again," she said, "and he's brought yourbrother Donald Ward along with him."

  Micah Ward rose to his feet and met his brother with outstretched hands.

  "Is it you, Donald? Is it you, indeed? I've been thinking long for youthis many a time, my brother, and wearying for you. We want you, Donald,we need you sore, sore indeed."

  "Why, Micah," said Donald, "you've grown into an old man."

  The contrast between the two brothers was striking, more striking thanthe likeness of their faces, though that was obvious. Micah was stoopedand pallid. He walked feebly. His limbs were shrunken. His hair was thinand white. Donald stood upright, a well-knit, vigorous man. The point ofhis beard and the hair over his ears were
touched with iron grey, butno one looking at him would have doubted his energy and capacity forphysical endurance.

  "Grey hairs are here and there upon us, and we know it not--Hosea,7th and 9th," said the minister. "But there's fifteen years atween us,Donald. It makes a difference. Fifteen years age a man, but I'm suppleand hearty yet."

  "Will I cook the salmon for your supper?" said the housekeeper. "You'llnot be contenting yourselves with the stirabout now that you have yourbrother back again with you."

  "Cook the salmon, Hannah; plenty of it, and some of the ham and theeggs. And, Neal, do you take the key of the cellar and get us a bottleof wine and the whisky that old Maconchy brought in from Rathlin lastsummer. It's not often I take the like, Donald, but it is meet that weshould make merry and be glad."

  Mistress Hannah Macaulay was a competent cook and housekeeper. It isnoticeable that women with sharp tongues are generally more efficientthan their gentler sisters. Solomon, who knew a good many things, seemsalso to have known this. He was of opinion that a peaceful dinner ofherbs is better than a stalled ox and contention therewith. He knew thathe could not have both. It is the shrew who succeeds in giving the malesdependent on her stalled oxen and such like dainties to eat.

  The caressing wife and the sweet-tempered cook accomplish no morethan dinners of herbs, and generally even they are not particularlyappetising. The fact is, that the management of domestic affairs isthe most trying of all occupations. Cooking, washing, cleaning, andgenerally doing for men in a house means continuous irritation andworry. A woman, however sweet-natured originally, who is condemned tosuch work must either lose her temper over it, in which case shemay cook stalled oxen, but will certainly serve them with sauce ofcontention, or she may give up the struggle and preserve her gentleness.Then she will accomplish no more than dinners of herbs, boiled cabbages,from which tepid water exudes, and dishes of pallid turnips, supposedto be mashed but full of lumps. Solomon preferred, or said he preferred,kisses and cauliflowers. On questions of taste there is no usedisputing.

  Mistress Hannah Macaulay's salmon steaks came to the table with anappetising steam rising from their dish. Her slices of fried ham formedan attractive nest for the white-skinned poached eggs. She had plates ofcurly oatcake and powdery farles. She had yellow butter in saucers. Shebrought the porridge to table in well-scoured wooden bowls with hornspoons in them.

  "The stirabout is good," she said. "I thought you'd like to sup thembefore you ate the meat."

  Neal poured the wine into an old cut-glass decanter, and set Maconchy'sbottle of whisky, distilled, no doubt, by Maconchy himself among theRathlin Hills, beside his father's plate.

  Micah Ward said a long grace, in which he thanked the Almighty for thefish, the ham, the eggs, the porridge, and his brother's return fromAmerica. As a kind of supplement, he added a prayer for the peace ofhis household, in which Hannah Macaulay, appropriately enough under thecircumstances, was especially named.

  After supper the two brothers drew their chairs to the fire. It was latein May, but the air was still chilly in the evenings. Hannah took downfrom the mantel-piece two well-polished brass candlesticks, fitted themwith tall dipt candles, and set them on the table she had cleared ofplates and dishes. Donald took a tobacco-box from his pocket, and filleda pipe.

  "Neal," said his father, "you may go to your own room and complete thetranscription of the passages of Josephus which you left unfinished thismorning."

  "Let the lad stay," said Donald.

  "Neal knows nothing of the matters about which we must talk, brother,nor do I think it well that he should know; not yet, at least."

  "Let the lad stay," repeated Donald. "I've seen younger men than he isdoing good work. Neal ought to be working, too. We cannot do anythingwithout the young men."

  Micah Ward yielded to his brother.

  "Draw your chair to the fire, Neal," he said. "You may stay and listento us."

  At first the talk was of old days. An hour went by. Donald filled hispipe more than once, and finished his tumbler of punch. Story followedstory of the doings of the Hearts of Steel and Hearts of Oak. Donald,as a boy, had taken his part--and that a daring part--in the fiercestruggle by which the northern tenant-farmers gained fuller securityand a chance of prospering a whole century before their brethren in thesouth and west, with the aid of the English Parliament, won the sameprivileges. Then Donald, speaking oftener and smoking less, told ofhis own share in the American War of Independence. Neal, listening, wasthrilled with the stories of unequal battles between citizen soldiersand trained troops. He glowed with excitement as he came to understandthe indomitable courage which faced reverse after reverse and snatchedcomplete victory in the end. Donald dwelt much on the part whichIrishmen had taken in the struggle, especially on the work of Ulstermen, Antrim men, men of the hard northern breed, of the Presbyterianfaith.

  "There's no breaking our people, Micah; men of iron, men of steel."

  "Shall iron break the northern iron, and the steel?" quoted Micah Ward,and then, with that wonderful Puritan accuracy of reference to theBible, gave chapter and verse for the words--Jeremiah the 15th and 12th.

  "And the spirit's not dead in you at home, is it, Micah? The breed ispure still."

  It was Micah's turn to speak. Neal sat in astonishment while his fathertold of the wrongs which the northern Presbyterians and the southernRoman Catholics suffered. Never before had he heard his father speakwith such passion and fierceness. There was a pause at last, and Donaldrose to his feet. He re-filled his glass from the punch-bowl, raised italoft, and said:--

  "I give you a toast. Fill your glass, brother. No, that will not do.Fill it full, and fill a glass for Neal. Stand now. I will have thistoast drunk standing. 'Here's to America and here's to France, thepioneers of human liberty, and may Ireland soon be as they are now!'"

  "Amen," said Mica h Ward solemnly.

  "Drink, Neal, drink. Drain your glass, boy. I will have it," saidDonald.

  "The northern iron, the northern iron, and the steel," muttered Micah.

  Then the brothers drew their chairs closer together, and Micah, speakinglow, as if he dreaded the presence of some unseen listener, began totell of the plans of the United Irishmen. He mentioned the names of oneleader and another; told how the Government, vigilant and alert, hadalready struck at the organisation; of the general dread of spies andinformers. He entered into details; told how the cannon, once given bythe Government to the Volunteers, were hidden in one place, how musketswere stored in another, how the smiths in every village were fashioningpike heads, how many men in each locality were sworn, how every maleinhabitant of Rathlin Island had taken the oath. Donald interrupted himnow and then with sharp questions. The talk went on and on. The tonesof the speakers grew lower still. Neal lost much of what was said. Hisinterest slackened. His eyes closed at last, and he fell fast asleep.

  It was late, close on midnight, when his uncle shook him intoconsciousness again. The candles were burned down. The fire was out. Theatmosphere of the room was heavy with tobacco smoke. The punch-bowl wasempty, and the two bottles, empty also, stood beside it. It seemed toNeal that his uncle spoke thickly in bidding him good night, and walkedunsteadily across the room. But Micah Ward's voice was clear and hissteps were firm. Only, as Neal thought, his eyes shone more brightlythan usual, and he held himself upright. The stoop was gone from hisshoulders, and the peering, peaked look from his eyes.