A little Irish girl

CHAPTER XI

ON DRINANE HEAD

Notwithstanding Manus's valorous undertaking to come and call her in the morning, Norah took the precaution of getting up after he had gone and drawing back the curtains and pulling up the blind, so that the first gleam of the gray dawn might fall into her room and wake her. She had but just huddled back into bed again when she heard the drawing-room door open and good-nights being exchanged. A minute later the handle of her own door was softly turned and Anstace came in, carefully shading her candle with her hand to keep its light from falling on her little sister's face. Norah closed her eyes tight and feigned to be asleep. She was afraid of Anstace questioning her about her unusual wakefulness, but it gave her an uncomfortable sense of deceit to feel Anstace with cautious touch drawing the tumbled bed-clothes straight, and tucking them in comfortably about her. Then she went away as softly as she had come, and Norah fell asleep and started up, as it seemed to herself, but a few minutes afterwards, to find the window opposite her bed a square of pale-grayish light, and the different objects in the room becoming dimly visible.

It was only after a minute or two's partial bewilderment that she could remember what it was which impended that morning, and why she ought to be awake. In a moment, however, it all came back to her mind, and she slipped hastily out upon the floor. Manus had not come to call her as yet, but it would be well, all the same, to know whether it were already three o'clock or not. A strange, ghostly little figure Norah looked as she stole along the passage and down the stairs in her night-gown and bare feet to where the tall old clock in the hall ticked solemnly on, its ticking sounding ever so much louder now in the silence of the house than it did ordinarily during the day-time.

Norah had to mount on a chair so as to bring her face upon a level with that of the clock before she could make out the position of the two hands, and ascertain that it was as yet but half-past two. Back to bed, therefore, she had to journey; but she did not venture to lie down, lest sleep should steal upon her unawares. She sat up straight instead, with her knees drawn up to her chin and the blankets pulled round her shoulders, waiting till, after what seemed to her an interminable time, the clock downstairs told out the hour with three ringing metallic strokes.

There was still no stir from Manus's side of the house, and so she started off on her peregrinations once more. She crept past the door of Roderick's room, which was next to that of Manus, with bated breath. The handle of the door made what seemed an appallingly loud noise as she turned it. Within all was darkness, and the deep, regular breathing, which was the only sound to be heard, betokened that Lanty's peril had not interfered with Manus's slumbers as much as he himself had expected.

"Manus, it has struck three!" whispered Norah from the door.

There was no answer. The breathing continued as regularly as before, and Norah had to make her way across the room in dread of tumbling over some of the furniture and making a clatter, which would arouse half the household.

"Manus, wake up!" she whispered again as she reached the bed. "It's time to dress."

"Eh—ah—hi—what's the matter?" came in indistinct gurglings from amongst the bed-clothes.

"It's three o'clock, Manus—past it. And we're to go up to warn Lanty; don't you remember?"

"Lanty!" in very sleepy accents. "Oh, bother, Norah, we'll leave Lanty alone!"

It was quite evident that the enterprise bore a very different aspect to Manus now, just roused out of his warm sleep, from what it had done a few hours before.

"But the police and Captain Lester are going up to look for him, and they'll take his still away, and carry him and his friends off to prison."

"Nonsense! Not they! Trust old Lanty to look after himself. He'll show them a trick or two if they come making trouble up there. I don't believe they'll find the way, and very likely we shouldn't either."

"But we ought to try," urged Norah, not a little taken aback at this unexpected change of front on Manus's part.

"Oh, it's too great a fag, and I'm tired. Go back to bed, Norah, it'll be all right, you'll see."

And a rustling of the bed-clothes betokened that Manus, after giving this comfortable assurance, had turned over and disposed himself to sleep once more.

Norah retired baffled from the room. It was full daylight by this time, the cold, cheerless light of dawn, and she stood in the lobby window, looking at the gray world outside, and debating with herself what she should do. Perhaps, as Manus had said, it would be all right, and Lanty's hiding-place would remain undiscovered, but on the other hand Captain Lester, for all his jollity and good-humour, did not look like a man who would follow a wild-goose chase, and probably he had made himself well acquainted with the whereabouts of the still before starting on his present enterprise. Norah thought of Lanty's ugly, good-natured face, and of his kindness to her the day of the seal-hunt. She was a little girl who did not forget kindness very readily; and then there were Biddy and Tom and Bride to be thought of. What a disgrace and a sorrow it would be to all of them if Lanty should be marched along the road handcuffed on his way to Ennis jail, as Manus had said he would be! No, the police should not take Lanty if she could help it—that was a determination to which Norah very quickly came, and since Manus would not go with her she would go alone out on Drinane Head, and warn him of his danger. She thought that from Manus's description of the place upon the previous night she could hardly fail to find it.

It must be confessed that it required all Norah's self-command, when she went back to her own little room, to keep her from plunging into bed again, it looked so invitingly warm, and the raw chill of the early morning had penetrated to her very bones. She withstood the temptation bravely, however, and by the time that she had deluged her face abundantly with cold water, and scrubbed it into a glow with a rough towel, and had huddled in all haste into her clothes, the last remnant of sleepiness had disappeared.

It was a strange sensation to step out-of-doors into the freshness of the day which had but just begun. The birds were awake, and twittered loudly in the trees as Norah walked down the avenue, but they and she seemed the only things that were astir as yet. The cattle were still lying down in the fields, as they had lain during the night, and the doors of the few cabins which she passed upon the road were shut, and not even a curl of smoke rose upwards from the chimneys. It was a longer walk than Norah had expected, but she kept the lofty frowning headland for which she was bound well in view, and trudged steadily on. The road grew rougher and steeper as she went, and dwindled down at last into a mere cattle-track which led out upon the open moorland and left her free to make her way in what direction she pleased.

Norah had never been so far from home by herself before, but that did not trouble her much, any more than did the heathery solitude on which she found herself. She had grown used to lonely rambles since they had come to live at Kilshane, and her only fear was that she might miss the snug retreat in which Lanty and his confederates carried on their illegal practices, or that she might not reach it in time to enable them to escape. She found that walking through the deep heather, which reached almost to her waist, was very hard and tiring work, and here and there she came upon soft, swampy places into which her feet sunk with, a squelching sound, and threatened more than once to stick fast altogether. All the same she struggled onwards and upwards valiantly, sometimes helped on her way by a bare slope of limestone which cropped out above the heather, and sometimes having to make a long step to cross a rift or crevice, which seemed to go down into unknown depths, but which was filled almost to the brim with little green ferns and mosses, and trailing brambles, which had established themselves in there out of reach of cutting blasts.

A yellow glow had been spreading gradually higher into the sky, and the tops of the great mountains to her left were bathed in sunlight. Suddenly, as Norah walked along, she saw her own shadow thrown before her on the rocks—the sun, a red, rayless disc, had risen up over the mountains, and in a moment the dull monotony of the landscape broke into sudden life and colour. It was the first sunrise which Norah had ever been out-of-doors to witness, but its beauty awoke little response in her, her only thought being that if the sun had risen it must be getting late—late, that is, for what she had to do, and that it behoved her to hurry on if her expedition was not to fail of its purpose. Panting, she struggled on up the steep heathery incline, till she stopped all at once with a little gasp of wonder and relief—she had reached the end of the long ascent, and almost at her very feet the great cliff sank sheer to the sea, five hundred feet below.

For a brief moment the little girl stood still to recover her breath, whilst the keen salt wind blew her hair and her short skirts about. A sea-gull circled close above her uttering its short, plaintive cry, then with extended wings glided far out over the abyss. No other living thing was in view on all the wide waste of heather and sea, in the midst of which she stood, a little solitary speck.

She could walk faster now, for here, on the edge of the cliffs, exposed to the fierce western gales, not even the heather could grow; there were only a few inches of black peaty soil covering the rocks. The long, level rays of the early sun shone upon her as she hurried along, and far beneath her the great Atlantic surges broke in foam upon the rocks. She had to make more than one detour to avoid yawning clefts that ran far inland, another rise had to be struggled up, and she stood at last on the very summit of Drinane Head.

Immediately below her was a hollow, a little green oasis which seemed scooped out from the surrounding wilderness, and with a great throb of joy Norah recognized the description which Manus had given her, and knew she had arrived at the secluded retreat in which Lanty had deemed that he might securely carry on his lawless trade. The little mountain tarn lay in the centre of the circle of green, its black sullen waters not brightened even by the morning sunshine; a tiny stream flowed out of it and fell over the edge of the cliffs, to be blown away in mist and spray long before the sea was reached. Facing her, midway between the lake and the cliffs, was the thatched hovel of which Manus had spoken, built against a rock, so that the wreaths of blue peat-smoke which curled up from its roof seemed to rise out of the very ground.

No one, police-constable or anyone else, was in sight, and by all appearances she was still in time to accomplish her errand. Slipping, scrambling, jumping from ledge to ledge of the rocks, Norah descended from the height on which she stood into the little dell below. She had to cross the streamlet which purled and gurgled between banks of close mountain turf in its short course to the sea. A large stone, however, had been placed in its bed to facilitate such crossings, and a moment later Norah was knocking boldly at the door of the hovel.

A shuffling of feet was heard within, a subdued muttering of voices, then the door was cautiously opened a little way, and a fierce-looking man with unkempt red hair and beard appeared. Norah recognized him at once as the steersman of the boat which they had encountered down below on their return from Ballintaggart Cave.

"Is Lanty Hogan here, please?" she enquired, whilst he stared in speechless amazement at his unlooked-for visitor.

"An' what wud Lanty be doin' up here on the bare mountain, an' him wid his father's good house to shtop in?" the man returned in true Irish fashion, answering one question by asking another.

"But Lanty has been here, I know," Norah said earnestly, "and if he's here still will you tell him, please, that Norah O'Brien is here and wants to see him about something very important?"

"An' what ailed ye, Miss Norah, to be runnin' up here afther me an' it scarce cockshout yit? Shure there's nothin' gone amiss down in Kilshane?"

And there was genuine anxiety in Lanty's face as he unceremoniously thrust the first speaker to one side and appeared in the doorway himself. He was only in his shirt and trousers, and his face had a sodden, smoke-bleared look.

"There is nothing wrong at Kilshane, thank you, Lanty," Norah began rather nervously, for two or three other men in similar attire had clustered at the door, all gazing at her and evidently curious to learn her errand. "Captain Lester, the resident magistrate, stayed at our house last night, and he and Mr. Roderick are coming up here this morning with a lot of policemen to search for your still. Master Manus heard them talking about it after dinner last night, so I came up to tell you."

"Tare an' ages!"

Lanty almost knocked Norah over as he dashed out of the house, and in another minute was bounding like a cat up the rocky knoll from which she had just descended. Screening himself behind a block of limestone which topped the summit, he crouched for a moment, gazing about him, his eyes shaded from the sun, then came springing down again as actively as he had gone up.

"The child's i' the right!" he ejaculated breathlessly, as he got back, "an' sorra moment to lose! The peelers is movin' up to take us back-ways an' front-ways an' all sides at wanst, but wid the help o' goodness we'll sarcumvint thim theer boys yit."

The men drew away from the door into the centre of the floor, speaking in hoarse, excited murmurs; and Norah, impelled by curiosity, stepped inside, where she could see the interior of the hovel and what was going on there.

A roaring turf-fire burnt at the farther end, making the heat of the room almost unendurable, and a skinny, wrinkled old woman, with locks of grizzled hair escaping from under the red handkerchief round her head, was engaged in tending it. On a tripod above the fire stood a tall, strangely-shaped vessel, closed at the top save for a pipe that issued from it and wound in many spiral coils round the inside of a large tub filled with cold water and placed upon the hearth. The pipe passed out again at the bottom of the tub, discharging the freshly-distilled spirits which had been condensed within it in its passage through the cold water into a large earthenware pan which acted as receiver. Norah had hardly had time, however, to contemplate this strange and rude apparatus when, at an order given in Irish by the red-bearded man who had opened the door to her, two of the other men lifted the still off the fire, and carrying it outside the door, poured the boiling liquor within it into the little stream; another caught up the earthenware pan and emptied it in similar fashion.

"A sin an' shame to be sendin' the good potheen over the racks to the fishes," muttered the red-bearded man, whom the others called Malachy, and who seemed to exercise some sort of authority over the lawless crew. "Stir yerselves, boys," he went on louder, "or they'll be on ye afore all's done."

The still itself, and the tripod on which it had stood, the tub with the "worm" still coiled within it, and all the other portions of the apparatus were carried up to the tarn and sunk in its dark, peat-stained water, so also were two kegs of whisky which were brought out from the inner room of the hovel. Malachy himself seized a broken spade, which formed part of an accumulation of rubbish in one corner, and carried spadeful after spadeful of blazing peats out of the house, flinging them, hissing and spluttering, into the stream, till the furnace on the hearth had been reduced to the limits of an ordinary domestic fire. A big black pot was suspended over it, in the place where the still had been; water and meal were hastily poured in, and the old woman took her stand before it, an iron spoon in her hand, stirring as composedly as if she had never assisted in any more dubious enterprise than preparing stirabout for the breakfast of her son and his friends.

"Now, thim theer boys may come as soon as plazes thim, an' we'll be ready to bid thim the top o' the marnin'," chuckled Malachy, when the preparations indoors were completed and the men who had gone to sink the still and the other appliances in the tarn had straggled back to the hovel again. Then, as his eye fell on Norah, whom in the bustle everyone had forgotten, but who had remained standing just within the door watching all these proceedings with the keenest interest, he exclaimed, "Murdher alive, what'll we do wid the child at all, at all?"

Strangely enough, this question had not occurred to any of the band before, and at that moment four black dots came into view upon the heathery skyline above the little lake. They were the heads of men moving steadily down upon the cabin. A minute or two later two more dark figures appeared high up on the rocky crest which Lanty had scaled to get a view. Clearly the house was surrounded and escape from it cut off.

"Hoide her in theer, quick!" suggested one of the men, pointing towards the inner room.

"An' if it's minded to sarch the house they'd be," retorted Malachy contemptuously, "sure the little darlin' wud be desthroyed for comin' to bring us warnin', an' us desthroyed along of her."

"'Tis the born gomeral that y'are!" exclaimed the old woman, who had hitherto continued to stir the black pot assiduously, but who seemed now to wake up suddenly to the emergency of the situation. Still grasping the iron spoon in one hand, she caught the terrified Norah by the other, and dragged her unceremoniously towards the fire.

"Tak' the cheer an' sit down," she said authoritatively.

Malachy obeyed his mother, as Norah took her to be, by bringing forward the solitary wooden chair of which the establishment boasted, and seating himself upon it by the fire. With a sudden grab the old woman pulled Norah's hat off and flung it amongst the lumber in the corner, then snatching up an old tartan shawl which lay on the window-ledge, she put it over the little girl's head and wrapped it hastily about her.

"Stand her beside ye an' she'll pass for wan o' yer own," she said, giving Norah a push towards her son as she spoke.

"Niver fear, 'cushla, nayther hurt nor harm shall come to ye," whispered Malachy encouragingly, as he drew her to stand at his knee. "Stand still an' kape yer mouth shut, that's all that's for you to do."

CHAPTER XII

DISCOMFITED

A couple of minutes of breathless silence followed. Norah stood motionless, with Malachy's arm round her, his bristling red beard close beside her face, and the heavy shawl, saturated with the reek of peat smoke, weighing her down and dragging backwards off her head. Lanty and the other men were endeavouring to stare out over each other's shoulders through the square foot of greenish glass which served as a window. The brush of feet on the short grass outside became audible, someone's iron-shod boot-heel struck with a metallic click upon a stone, and the next moment there came a loud, imperative knock against the half-closed door.

It was opened wide instantly. Captain Lester stood outside, with Roderick beside him, and four policemen closing in behind. The hot, red blood mounted up into Norah's face as Roderick, stooping his tall head to look under the low doorway, gazed straight at her. It seemed impossible that he should not recognize her, but she had forgotten that to him, standing outside in the bright morning sunshine, the interior of the cabin appeared to be in almost total darkness, and if he was able to distinguish her at all, it was only as a little country girl, frightened by the sudden appearance of the police, and keeping close to her father's side.

"Malachy Flanagan," said Captain Lester, "I have come up here with a search-warrant, having received information that you are in the habit of carrying on illicit distillation in these premises."

"Innicint dissitation!" returned Malachy, scratching his head in much apparent perplexity. "An' what wud yer honour be manin' by that?"

"Nonsense, my man!" Captain Lester answered sharply. "You know what I mean well enough; there is no use in pretending ignorance. You are suspected of manufacturing whisky up here, or potheen if you prefer to call it so."

"Arrah, Mither, did iver ye hear the likes o' that?" said Malachy, turning in well-feigned astonishment to the old woman. "Mannifacterin' potheen, an' up here on Drinane Head, av all places on this mortial airth! But shtep in, yer honour, an' mak' yer resarches."

This last with a lofty air and a sweep of his arm, which implied that there was nothing within the four corners of his cabin which the forces of the law were not entirely welcome to inspect.

Captain Lester did not hesitate to avail himself of the permission so magnificently given—at least he stood without at the door with Roderick whilst two of the policemen went in and ransacked the house, searching everywhere, in the heap of rags which was the nearest approach to a bed, amongst the litter heaped up in the corner, even in the thatch of the roof, but naturally without finding anything to reward them for their labours. Norah had another pang of apprehension when her hat was tossed out with the rest of the lumber, and rolled right across the floor almost to Roderick's feet. She thought he could not fail to know it again, but, fortunately for her and for those she had come to warn, Roderick had the common masculine lack of observation where articles of female apparel were concerned. Often as he had seen that hat with its bow of discoloured ribbon, which bore witness to much battling with wind and weather, upon his little sister's head, it woke no recollection in his mind. Malachy had lighted his pipe, and was puffing away with ostentatious indifference as he watched the efforts of the search-party; the other men looked on either with a malicious grin, or with an expression of sullen ill-will.

"Wudn't yez tak' a look into the pot theer?" enquired Malachy, with feigned politeness, as the constables emerged baffled from the inner room of the hovel, their investigations there having been productive of no better result than in the outer apartment. "Maybe 'tis potheen herself is stirrin' to give us for our breakfast."

Amidst the shout of laughter which this sally evoked from the other occupants, the baffled members of the constabulary made haste to withdraw from the scene. Captain Lester, however, lingered at the door before following his retreating forces.

"Listen to me, boys, and let me give you a word of good advice before I go," he said gravely. "You have been too many for me this time, I admit freely, whether it was through getting warning of my coming or not. But I know well enough that half a dozen able-bodied fellows like yourselves are not up on this desolate spot, where there is no work or lawful trade of any sort, for nothing. And I warn you that the way you are in is not a good way, that whether you succeed in evading the law in future or not, your present courses are certain to bring ruin on yourselves and on everyone belonging to you. Therefore my advice to you is to abandon your way of life without delay and take to some honest calling."

"Sure, 'tis the great counsellor yer honour wud make intirely," said one of the men; "and it's much beholden we shud be for such gran' advice, an' free an' for nothin', mirover."

Captain Lester took no notice of the sneer, but turned to Roderick.

"Come along," he said, "we'd better follow those fellows of mine."

Norah watched them through the open door as they went up over the short grass towards the lake and disappeared round one of the folds of the moorland. Ugly scowls and fierce execrations followed them, clenched fists were shaken at their retreating figures; and when they had passed out of sight, Norah realized the strangeness of her own position for the first time, and felt just a little frightened as she remembered that she was alone with that wild-looking crew of men in the low, smoke-darkened hut, the sheer black cliffs on one side of her, the dark mountain tarn on the other, and that she had their secret in her keeping. Lanty's presence, however, was an assurance that not much harm could befall her, and divesting herself of the shawl which had served as disguise, she said politely:

"I think, if you please, if I may have my hat, I will go home now, or I shall be late for breakfast."

"Thin, begor, alanna, ye'll not set fut to the ground while meself's in it to carry ye!" Malachy exclaimed, and before Norah well understood what he was about to do, he had wrapped the shawl round her once more and lifted her on to his back, knotting the ends of the shawl round his waist, so as to form a sort of hammock for her to sit in, with her hands resting on his shoulders. "Sit ye still, darlint, an' hould yer hoult, an' ye'll have as iligant a roide home as if 'twas yer own carriage ye was sottin' in."

The other men crowded to the door and raised a sort of cheer as Norah departed on her novel charger. "Blessin's on the little lady that give us the warnin', an' on the ould shtock she comes of!"

Malachy did not take the roundabout course by the cliffs by which Norah had come, nor follow the search-party, who were making their way towards the nearest point of the road, where their conveyances waited for them. Instead, he struck straight across the moorland, following a track which was evidently well known to him. Swamps had to be crossed here and there by the aid of stepping-stones, and in one or two places white stones had been bedded in the heather to serve as guiding marks for those who might have to traverse Drinane Head at night. Malachy travelled sometimes at a jog-trot and sometimes at a long, swinging walk, which covered the ground almost as rapidly, the burden on his back scarcely seeming to incommode him at all. Not a single word did he utter till the verge of the moorland had been reached, where he set Norah down, and pointed out the way to her by which she was to reach Kilshane.

"'Tis meself wud carry ye to the very doore, an' proud to do it, but for the fear o' meetin' some wan on the road that wud be axin' questions an' passin' their remarks. But ye'll be home, mavourneen, soon a'most as thim that's had their horses an' ekeepages to dhraw them—bad cess to them for the dirty work they wor afther!"

He lifted his ragged old hat with the air of a courtier, and turned to retrace his steps; then, rushing back suddenly, he caught her small sunburnt hand in his rough grasp and covered it with passionate kisses.

Norah was rather frightened by the vehemence of this address, of which, to say the truth, she understood very little. She only said, however:

"Oh, I shall not tell anyone, Malachy! you may be quite sure of that, except Manus, my brother. He knows all about your place on Drinane Head already, but he's quite as good at keeping secrets as I am."

Following the line which Malachy had pointed out to her, Norah made her way across the fields and struck the road not far from the gate of Kilshane. She had just scrambled over the loose-built stone wall which skirted the roadside, when she heard the clatter of the whole cavalcade of horses and cars coming down the road behind her. She shrank back behind a bramble bush in the vain hope of escaping being seen, and the next instant they swept past her. First came Roderick and Captain Lester in a dog-cart, and the police followed on two cars. They had hoped to cover themselves with glory by capturing the still and the whole gang, who had succeeded hitherto in carrying on their contraband trade in defiance of the law; but instead, they were returning baffled and somewhat crestfallen from their raid.

Roderick looked rather surprised as he caught sight of his little sister screening herself behind the briar, but he smiled and nodded to her, as they tore past at the full speed of Captain Lester's fast-trotting mare.

Norah had hoped to slip into the house without being perceived, but when she came down the avenue a few minutes later, she found Roderick and Captain Lester standing outside the door enjoying the fresh sea-breeze. Roderick caught hold of her as she tried to pass him by and pulled her to him.

"Hullo, little woman!" he said pleasantly. "Come here and tell me what mischief you've been up to, careering over the country at this hour of the morning."

For the first time in her life Norah could not meet the gaze of those kindly dark eyes that were looking down at her. She hung her head awkwardly, and drew patterns on the gravel with the toe of her boot.

"It was such a fine morning," she began confusedly, "and so—I thought I might as well—that is, I wanted to go out."

Anstace's voice interrupted her, speaking through the open window of the dining-room close at hand.

"Oh, Norah, dear! you have come back. I could not think what had become of you. I suppose you went up to old Mrs. Connor's about those fresh eggs I wanted. Can she let me have them?"

"Yes—that is, I think so—I'm not quite sure," stammered Norah.

"Well, you might have made certain when you set off at such an unearthly hour, There was not such a tremendous hurry; it would have done quite well later in the day. And, my dear child," with just a shade of annoyance in her tone, "what a state you are in! Really, one would think your clothes had been put on you with a pitchfork. And look at your shoes and stockings! I don't know how you found so much mud to walk through on this fine dry morning."

Norah glanced down at her footgear, on which the bog mould had dried by this time, and could not wonder at Anstace's remark.

"Really, Norah, you are getting old enough to be a little more careful," Anstace went on, but in judiciously suppressed tones, so as not to put her sister to shame by a scolding administered before Captain Lester: "Run upstairs now, and make yourself tidy as fast as you can. Breakfast will be ready directly."

Roderick, who had kept his arm round Norah all this time, let her go. He had a suspicion that something was wrong, more than could be accounted for by that expedition in quest of fresh eggs. He prudently refrained from asking questions, however, and Norah lost no time in disappearing into the house.

When she came downstairs again the rest of the party were already assembled at the breakfast-table, and Captain Lester was entertaining them with a humorous account of the fruitless descent he and Roderick had made upon the potheen-brewers' lair, and of the reception which Malachy Flanagan had accorded them.

"I do believe," he said with comic despair, "that not only every man, woman, and child in the county are on the side of lawlessness, but that in Ireland the very winds of heaven are in league with criminals, to carry them intimation of any efforts that may be on foot against them. I declare to you, Miss O'Brien, I did not breathe a word of my object in coming here to anyone except your brother and yourself; and neither of you, I suppose, betrayed my confidence to those gentlemen on Drinane Head. Yet I am as sure as that I am sitting here, receiving this very excellent cup of tea from your hands, that they had been engaged in brewing that infernal stuff—which is the cause of half the crime in the county—not half an hour before we turned up, and that by some means or other, warning of our coming had been conveyed to them."

A sudden thought struck Roderick.

"By the way, I am nearly sure that one of the fellows inside that cabin was that idle young scamp Lanty. I could not be absolutely certain, as he kept as far back as possible, with his back to me, but I think it was he. You were in the room last night, Manus, when Captain Lester was talking of his arrangements for capturing the still. Are you sure that you did not say anything about them to Lanty or to the servants?"

"Not a word," Manus was able to assure him with perfect truthfulness and a most unembarrassed air. "I didn't mention it to a soul except Norah, after she was in bed last night, and I haven't as much as seen Lanty for a week."

He tried to telegraph across the table with his eyes to Norah, "There, wasn't that well done?" but failed in the attempt, as Norah had her face down over her plate, to conceal the burning crimson flush which was surging up to her forehead, and accordingly she did not see his signals.

"Those illicit stills are the very curse of the country," Captain Lester went on. "You saw those men up there to-day, O'Brien, fine stalwart fellows all of them, and the heavy sodden look they had all got? They've been sitting up night after night in that cabin, in a stifling atmosphere, for once the grain is 'wet', as they call it, it has to be watched incessantly till the process is finished, and as you can imagine, a good deal of drinking goes on during these vigils. Then every idle vagabond in the country drops in without being invited, to gossip and taste the brew. And when the stuff is finally manufactured, half of it is generally expended in drunken hospitality. I speak strongly, Miss O'Brien, because I've seen so much of the ruin that this demoralizing trade brings on everyone who embarks in it. I spoke my mind to these fellows on Drinane Head this morning, without getting much thanks for my pains, but the best thing that could have happened for themselves, quite as much as for the Revenue, would have been if I had succeeded in my raid this morning, and had marched the whole lot off to jail. That would have put an end to their distilling once and for all. There, O'Brien, I'm due at the Ballyfin petty sessions, and I've no time to lose. May I ring to have my trap brought round? Good-bye, Miss O'Brien, many thanks for your hospitality."

And the good-humoured, chatty resident magistrate took himself off.

"You see it was a precious good thing you didn't get me to go off on a wild-goose chase to Drinane Head in the middle of the night," observed Manus, when Norah and he found themselves alone in the dining-room, Roderick having gone to see Captain Lester off, and Anstace having departed to her household duties. "I told you Lanty and the boys up there knew how to take care of themselves, and that they could show Captain Lester a trick or two. And a pretty gaby you were at breakfast, turning the colour of a boiled beet-root when they talked of someone having warned those fellows. Why, if anyone had happened to look at you, they'd have twigged at once that you knew something or other about it!"

"I couldn't help it, Manus," pleaded Norah, humbly. "I tried to stop getting red, but I couldn't, and I was so frightened when you said you had told no one but me. Because, you see, Roderick and Captain Lester passed me on the road coming back, and I thought they must guess."

"Passed you on the road? Why, you don't mean to say it was you who warned the fellows?"

"Oh yes it was. I was awake and up, you know, so I thought I might as well go; and it was awfully lucky I did, for they'd only just had time to hide their things away when Captain Lester and the police came. I was inside the house the whole time they were there, and I thought Roderick would be sure to know me, for he stood just at the door, staring straight in at me; but they'd put a shawl over my head, and I stood beside Malachy Flanagan, and pretended to be his little girl, and no one had the least notion who I was."

Manus looked put out and rather ashamed.

"I say, Norah, you've no business to go skying all over the country by yourself like a wild thing. I wonder what all those men thought of your coming up there alone. You ought to have kept pegging on at me until I was really awake, I'd have gone like a shot then. When a fellow's half asleep, as I was, he doesn't know what he's saying, and you oughtn't to have gone without me."

Considering the reception which Manus had given her when she went to wake him, Norah thought that this was hardly fair.

CHAPTER XIII

MALACHY'S ORATION

Norah was very silent and thoughtful all the rest of that day; so much so, indeed, that her preoccupation could hardly have escaped Anstace's notice if she had not been more than usually busy, making all the needful arrangements for her brief absence from home. In the afternoon she and Roderick set out upon Connor's car for their long drive to Dromore, Lady Louisa Butler's place, where, according to invitation, they were to dine and sleep.

"Do be good children, and don't get into any mischief while we are away," was Anstace's parting exhortation to Norah and Manus, as the car drew off.

They turned back into the house with the comfortable knowledge that they had a whole long evening before them, in which to do exactly as they pleased, and that even its termination, bed-time, was a very indeterminate epoch, since there was nothing but their own inclination to decide when it should be.

They tried and grew weary of various amusements and occupations, till at last Manus, throwing down the chisel with which he had been shaping the keel of a toy boat, exclaimed:

"Oh, I say, Norah, wouldn't it be fun to pay a visit to the mine, Uncle Nicholas's mine, you know? Roderick never would let me go there, because none of the Moyross lot have taken any notice of us since we came here; but now that Uncle Nicholas has stopped the work, and turned off all the men, there won't be a soul about the place, and no one will know of our going there."

"But it's rather late," objected Norah. "It's six o'clock and past it."

"Well, and what does that matter on a lovely night like this? We'll tell Bride to leave our supper ready for us, and then we can poke about the place as long as we like. I'd like awfully to see all the machinery, and the shaft, and everything."

Norah offered no further objection; she was always very ready to agree to any proposal of Manus, and even more so than usual just now, when his return to school loomed large upon the horizon.

It was a lovely evening in late August, the corn was ripening fast in the little weedy fields on either side of the road—the same road off which Norah had branched that morning on her expedition to Drinane Head—and here and there the work of harvesting had already begun. They got beyond the verge of cultivation after a while; the small oat and potato fields, separated from each other by loose-built, lace-work walls, gave place to wild, open pasturage, with gorse and bracken growing up through it, and the heathery hillside rising above. The sun was sinking down towards the sea, turning the broad plain of the western ocean into a dazzling flood of gold.

"It will be quite dark before we get home," Norah remarked presently.

"What matter if it is? You're not afraid of meeting another ghost on the road, are you?"

Manus could afford to be quite jocular now about the spectre of the Monk's Walk, though for days and weeks after that episode he and Norah had only ventured to speak to each other of it in out-of-the-way corners, and with bated breath, so great had been their dread lest their guilt should be discovered, and they would be dragged forth publicly as the destroyers of their uncle's table-cloth. Everyone seemed to have forgotten the matter now, and they felt themselves secure.

The rough road, which was worn into deep ruts by the passage of heavy carts over it, surmounted a slight acclivity, and all at once they found themselves close upon the buildings belonging to the mine. There they stood, gaunt and ugly, the tall, square chimney, the stamping-houses and engine-house, and in their midst the quarried opening in the mountain-side, from which the galleries ran in far underground to reach the rich metalliferous lodes. Great heaps of slag and refuse lay on one side, and the whole seemed strangely out of keeping with the rugged grandeur of the spot, the great headland rising on one side, the Atlantic rolling in far below on the other.

The works were all silent and untenanted now, without any of the busy life and bustle that generally reigned there, and in the gathering twilight there was something weird and solemn about that grim range of deserted buildings that stood almost upon the verge of the cliff, thrown out sharp and clear against the background of sea. Even Manus and Norah were impressed with a sense of awe, and they hushed their steps involuntarily and lowered their voices as they approached.

When they got quite close, however, they became aware of a hoarse, suppressed murmur, a sound quite different and distinct from that of the sea chafing against the rocks—the sound as of a great crowd close pressed together. The children paused to listen, and then a voice became audible, speaking, somewhere behind those very buildings, in what seemed a torrent of wrath.

Norah and Manus exchanged questioning glances—no human being was in sight, but still that voice went on, growing fiercer and more rapid in its utterance as it proceeded. The children crept onwards cautiously, and on tiptoe, till they had reached a large shed, the door of which stood open. Shovels, pickaxes, and upturned wheel-barrows lay on the floor within, the implements of the industry that was at a stand-still, and in the opposite wall there was a window with dirt-encrusted panes through which a view could yet be had.

"Keep well back; don't let them see you. Who knows who they are!" whispered Manus as he and Norah stole towards the window. Tales which he had heard of the secret gathering of Ribbonmen and Whiteboys, and of the vengeance they had taken on those who had surprised them unawares, were floating in his brain.

Standing on one of the overturned barrows, some little distance within the shed, they were able to peer out without much risk of being seen, and then a strange spectacle presented itself to them.

A great crowd was gathered in an open space at the back of the mine buildings—wild, excited-looking men and half-grown lads for the most part, though the blue cloaks and red petticoats of a few women mingled with the throng. A warm, orange light which glowed in the west shone on the uplifted faces that were all gazing at a man who stood on an overturned trolly, one of the little trucks employed for bringing the metal out of the depths of the mine. To Norah's amazement it was none other than Malachy Flanagan, her acquaintance of that morning, who, with his arms raised above his head, was addressing the crowd which pressed round his extemporized platform with a vehemence which at times made him almost incoherent.

"I'd ax ye this, boys," cried the orator fiercely and excitedly: "If 'twas Nich'las O'Brien's money that dug that mine undherground into Drinane Head, an' his cliverness an' his ingeenuity that consaved it all, an' made the thrack down the racks for the shtuff to thravel to the say, an' to the ships, whose toilin' an' moilin' was't that cut into thim racks for to bring the good ore out? Who crushed it, an' riddled it, an' sint it down in the thrucks? Wasn't it you an' me, boys, an' our childher, an' our fathers afore us, since first a pick was shtruck into the ground, here where we shtand? Nich'las O'Brien says he'll have us larn who's the masther of the Moyross mine, but if he's the masther we're the men, an' maybe 'tis ourselves might larn him somethin' too. We've worked the mine an' sarved him well this thirty years, an' now he brings in his manager from Scotland wid his new fashions, an' his new notions, to dhrive us, an' grind us, an' rack us, an' whin we renague an' say we'll work the mine as 'twas always worked or we'll not work at all, what's all the talk Misther M'Bain has for us? 'I'll bring over Scotchmin,' says he, 'ivery man o' whom'll do as much work in a day as a lazy Irish pisant wud do in three.' Aye, boys, that's the word for us—lazy Irish pisants."

A howl of hatred and of fury broke in upon his speech; the faces of the men were contorted with rage, and clenched fists were shaken over their heads.

"An' what'll yez do now, boys?" Malachy went on in wheedling tones as soon as he could make himself heard again. "Will yez kape tame, an' quite, an' saft as silk, an' see the Scotchmin brought in to take the wark out o' yer hands an' the bread out of yer childher's mouths, or will yez stand up like min an' show the ould masther, an' M'Bain, an' the whoule of thim, what thim same lazy Irish pisants is like whin the blood is hot widin thim?"

Another roar, wilder and fiercer than the last, answered him.

"Come on thin, come on, ivery mother's son of yez! Come on till we go to Moyross an' spake to the masther, to Nich'las O'Brien his own self. We'll malivogue it into him that we'll sarve no Scotchmin nor furriners. Isn't there thim of the ould shtock, of his own name an' his own blood, in the country? If he's ould an' wakely himself, why isn't he for puttin' in his brother's son? It's young Roderick O'Brien we'll have, an' the back of me hand to M'Bain, an' to that young spalpeen that's bein' larned in Jarmany for to tyrannize over us. We'll have our rights, boys, an' if the masther's not for givin' thim to us, or if he's not willin' to be shpoke to, there's ways an' manes of makin' him hear raison. There's arms in that house, boys, an' there's hands here as can use thim—"

His voice was drowned in an uproar of yells and hootings. A hundred throats caught up the cry: "To Moyross, boys! Come on to Moyross till we shpake to the masther!" One voice, high and strident above the others, shouted out: "An' whin we've spoke to Nich'las O'Brien we'll have a word for M'Bain that'll maybe not be plisant hearin'."

And the whole crowd swayed forward and made one wild, tumultuous rush for the road.

It had grown dark within the work-shed by this time, Norah and Manus could just see each other's white faces through the gloom, and Norah, without a word, caught her brother's hand, and pulled him away from the window, back into the darker recesses of the shed.

"Keep back, they mustn't see us," she whispered imperatively.

Manus had no inclination to disobey, and they remained motionless, still holding each other's hands, whilst with oaths and shouts and curses the human torrent swept past their hiding-place. Norah drew a long breath of relief when the voices and the trampling of feet had died away.

"Come now, quick, quick!" she cried, "we must run as fast as ever we can."

"Where to?" Manus asked stupidly.

"To Moyross, of course, to tell Uncle Nicholas and Ella that those men are coming."

Manus positively gasped at the suggestion.

"But I say, Norah, we've never been there before; not up to the house at least, and Uncle Nicholas hates us all like poison because of the family feud, you know. He may be awfully angry with us for coming, and we couldn't get there in time either."

"Oh yes, we can, they've all gone by the road, and we'll run straight across the fields. I should think Uncle Nicholas would be very much obliged to us for coming to tell him that his house is going to be attacked; if he isn't, we can't help it. You wouldn't stand here doing nothing, would you?"

It was a very unusual tone for Norah to adopt towards the brother whom she idolized. Perhaps her adventure of that morning had inclined her to be more independent and self-reliant; at any rate, without waiting for further parley, she darted out of the shed and dashed away down the hillside. Manus followed her after a minute's hesitation, and overtook her before she had got clear of the rubbish heaps and the rough, broken ground.

Two or three old women, whom the crowd in their stampede had left behind, came round the corner of the shed just then.

"Musha! saints in glory! Did iver ye see the likes o' that?" they exclaimed to each other, as they caught sight of the two flying figures racing down the hill.

The children, however, never paused or turned their heads, on and on they ran, as if their lives depended on their speed.

CHAPTER XIV

MR. O'BRIEN SEES A VISION OF THE PAST

Moyross Abbey bore its wonted peaceful aspect upon that night. The broken arches of the ruin stood out against the pale gray sky, in which a star was beginning to twinkle here and there, and the air of the summer evening was heavy with the scent of flowers. The dining-room windows were unshuttered, and the light of the candles shone on the white table-cloth, and the silver and flowers upon it, and on the faces of the trio who sat round. Mr. O'Brien himself was not there. Wearisome and unending business connected with the troubles at the mine, and the proposal to bring in labour from a distance, had taken him once more to Dublin, and he was not expected home till the following day. In his place at the head of the table sat a handsome curly-haired lad, facing Ella and Miss Browne with a look of smiling defiance. The two latter were pale and tearful, and Miss Browne shook her head and sighed to herself with profoundest dejection every now and again.

Whilst dinner was proceeding, conversation had been impossible, but now that the dessert had been placed on the table, and the servants had withdrawn, Ella said apprehensively, as she had already said twenty times at least since her scapegrace brother had walked in, dusty and toil-worn, a couple of hours before:

"Oh, Harry, Uncle Nicholas will be so dreadfully, dreadfully angry when he comes home to-morrow!"

"No doubt, Nelly," said the culprit philosophically. "There'll be a bit of a shine over it, I expect. It's got to be faced, though, and you're not to blame for it, so don't look so doleful, old lady."

"But it's so ungrateful, Harry," sobbed Ella, fairly breaking down, "and Uncle Nicholas has done so much for us. He's let us live here all these years since Father and Mother died, and sent you to school, and—and—"

"I know all that, Nell," interposed her brother more gravely, "and I've tried my best to fall in with Uncle Nicholas's ideas. Do you suppose if it hadn't been for thinking of all we owe him that I'd have let myself be banished off to the Carpathian Mountains to live among a lot of Polish Jews and learn their gibberish. But it's no good. The more I've tried grubbing underground the more I hate it, so I just showed them a clean pair of heels, and made my way back here. I can't let Uncle Nicholas shape my life for me, for all my gratitude to him."

"Oh, my dear boy, don't be hasty, and don't anger your uncle!" pleaded Miss Browne in her thin, reedy tones. "He's not used to be thwarted or contradicted, Harry, and more depends on it than you have any idea of. There are harpies here," nodding her head mysteriously, "on the watch to seize on any advantage. We have kept them at a distance hitherto—"

Miss Browne's speech was cut short by a violent ring of the door-bell, which pealed and clanged far away in the depths of the house.

"My dears, what can that be at this hour, and at the front door?" she exclaimed apprehensively. "I am always so nervous in this dreadful country, and with your uncle away too."

"We'll hear what they have to say for themselves, whoever it may be," said Harry, getting up and opening the dining-room door a little way, so as to be able to hear what passed outside.

"If you please," said a voice, speaking in short gasps, as Norah's panting breath enabled her to find utterance. "We want to see Miss Ella at once; it's very important."

The dignified butler viewed the dishevelled pair on the door-step with much disfavour. Evidently he did not think that any communication they had to import could be of much consequence.

"Miss Ella is at dinner and can't be disturbed," he said loftily. "You'd best give me your message, unless you like to wait till dinner is over to see her."

"We can't do anything of the sort," said Manus bluntly. "We've got to see Miss Ella at once, or else Mr. O'Brien himself, and you'll please go in and say so."

What the butler would have replied to this bold speech remained unknown, for Miss Browne, opening the dining-room door a little wider, called out sharply:

"Who's that out there, Cartwright? Tell them that Mr. O'Brien is not at home, and if they want to see Miss Ella they must come at a proper hour."

"That's just what I was saying, ma'am," returned the indignant butler. "I think it's young Master and Miss O'Brien from Kilshane, and they say they want to see Miss Ella very particular."

"The O'Brien children? At this hour? How extremely forward, and at the very instant when I was speaking of them."

And Miss Browne did not trouble herself to lower her voice or conceal the annoyance of her tones.

Ella, however, had heard too, and she ran out into the hall with a little eager cry.

"Oh, Norah, dear, what is the matter? I hope there is nothing wrong with any of you at Kilshane."

As the light of the hall lamp fell on Manus and Norah, it revealed very visible traces of their scamper across country. They were both greatly flushed and out of breath, and their faces and hands were scratched and bleeding with forcing their way through thickets and hedges. Norah's hat had fallen off and hung behind by its strings, and her frock exhibited innumerable rents.

"Oh, please," she began, forgetting in her excitement to answer Ella's question, or to go through any usual preliminaries of hand-shaking, "we were up at the mine, Manus and I, and there were a lot of people there, the miners, and ever so many besides, and a man was speaking to them about the work being stopped and Mr. M'Bain threatening to bring over Scotchmen!" Norah's instinctive loyalty kept her from betraying who the orator had been. "They're wild about it, and they're all coming here to speak to Uncle Nicholas, and make him promise that the mine shall be worked in the old way. Manus and I ran across the fields to tell you, and oh! we were so afraid we shouldn't get here in time."

Ella turned to her brother, who stood behind her.

"Oh, Harry, do you hear that, and Uncle Nicholas is away! Whatever are we to do?"

"Give them beans if they come; but I'm afraid they won't give us the chance. It was awfully good of you two to take so much trouble," the lad went on, rather patronizingly, to Manus and Norah, "but I expect you've had your run for nothing. Irishmen generally mean about half of what they say, and the rest goes off in bluster and shouting. I shouldn't wonder if the whole lot were sitting in the public-house at the cross-roads at this moment, airing their eloquence and abusing us all very comfortably. I just wish they would pay us a visit and we'll make it hot for them."

"Well, you won't have long to wait," said Manus shortly, "for they're on the avenue this minute; I hear them."

And indeed, as all bent forward to listen, there was audible, in the stillness of the night, a low ominous roll that came steadily nearer, the tramp of many feet, the deep growl of angry voices. Sharper, too, and nearer at hand, though no one at the time paid it any heed, sounded a rattle as if a conveyance were being driven in over the paving-stones of the yard. At the same instant a troop of terror-stricken maids burst into the hall.

"Oh, lor', ma'am! oh, lor' Master Harry, there's a mob of people coming up against us! Maria was out on the avenue and she saw them and ran for her life! They're screeching and hollering that it would lift the hair off your head to hear them. They'll murder us in cold blood! They'll burn the house down over our heads! It's us English that they're mad against."

Miss Browne, ashy white and trembling like an aspen leaf, was yet true to her wonted instincts. She threw her shaking arms round Ella, putting herself in front of her like a shield.

"My darling! my heart!" she cried, "they shall kill me before they touch a hair of your head."

Harry Wyndham drew himself erect, the half-unconscious air of bravado which he had worn all evening was gone, and instead he was cool, prompt, and collected, a typical English lad confronted with danger and difficulty.

"Bar every door and close the shutters of all the ground-floor windows. This house is pretty strong, and ought to be able to hold out for a bit. Thanks to you, Brownie, all the indoor servants are English, so there's no fear of anyone letting the rabble in at the back door."

Meanwhile the roar outside was growing louder and more menacing, and now the crowd appeared in view, rolling on up the avenue with shouts and groans and discordant yells. Their numbers had swelled considerably since the children had seen them last, as all the dwellers along the line of march had joined in as onlookers or sympathizers. Harry turned round angrily to the frightened maids, who were huddled in a corner, sending forth scream upon scream.

"What good do you expect to do yourselves by hullabalooing like that?" he demanded. "Go this instant and close all the windows as I desired you. In spite of Uncle Nicholas, it strikes me it was as well I happened to turn up to-night. Where's Cartwright? You come and help me to load the guns. You can shoot, I suppose?"

"Well, sir, I 'ave fired a gun," said that functionary modestly.

Ella sprang forward, her face almost as white as her evening dress.

"Oh, Harry, you won't shoot the people?" she gasped.

"Not if I can help it, but they won't come into this house while I can keep them out," her brother answered determinedly.