The Unwritten Law

Prologue

The golden haze of a late April afternoon is filling the valley. It hangs in the purple hollows of the hills like a veil pierced here and there with lances of light where the sun flashes through and strikes on the foam of some mountain torrent that, swollen with recent rain, rushes down over a cataract of rocks and stones to join the broader river winding to the lake. The air is soft with the balmy caress of an Irish spring, that has all the smiles and all the tears of the people in its sunshine and its showers. Down by the riverside the vivid green of the hawthorn is already splashed with the fragrant snow of its blossoms and buds, and about their roots hart's tongues, like sword-blades of emerald, guard the dew-jewelled stars of the primroses and the pale amethyst of the dog-violets. Away beyond the narrow strip of green pasturage that borders the stream, barren and rush-grown fields slope upwards to the hills, or spread away to tracts of bogland, brown and purple where the cloud shadows lie upon them.

Above and around rise the wild hills of Northern Connaught, the mysterious haze softening their outlines and blending the colours of the landscape in its golden tint. There is a stillness and a drowsiness in the air, and the only sound that breaks the silence is the rush of the river. Peace seems to have folded the valley in her embrace, and kissed the life from all living things. But to him who listens, and hearing, can understand the song of the river, it tells of days when the floods swell its voice to a roar ; when its music is set to the snapping of tree-trunks, and the shriek of the storms that sweep in from the Atlantic ; and it tells, too, of voices, wild and terrible, that have power to wake the hearts of the people and to stain their hands with blood. To those who know not the Celt, it is incom prehensible that the progress of seven hundred years should not have reconciled him to his position, and forced him to recognise unquestioningly the rights of the conquering race.

It is strange that time has not done so; but it is true — true as the existence of that racial hatred, which, though it may slumber for a generation, bursts forth from time to time, and dyes this land, " where law secures not life," with the hues of crime. Yet, wild, reckless in the means he employs, revengeful, and, alas ! careless of human life as the Irishman too often is, there is in him that strong and undying love of home and country — that passion for the spot, rock-strewn and barren though it may be, where he and his were born, that in other countries, and under happier circumstances, has earned men the names of heroes. Wild legends of these wilder hills still foster in the minds of an imaginative and unreasoning people the memory of a long dead past. Still, on the Eve of St. John, the flash of fires answers signal for signal along the shadowy mountains, and, whatever the probable origin of the custom may be, old men will tell you the story of a great victory of some chieftain over the Danes, and of the beacons that spread the news from hill to hill throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.

Is it strange that amongst these people ancient right should appear stronger than might, and the glow of a Celtic imagination colour lawless deeds till they stand transfigured in a halo of patriotism ? Pause for a moment before condemning them, these people with the poetry of the northern mountains in their hearts. Gather your sympathies together, and, forgetful of creeds and politics, listen while the Angelus rings out on the silence — listen, and reflect that at this moment, from hill to hill, from shore to shore, wherever the voice of the Church penetrates and summons her sons to pause and adore ; from the worker in the field ; from the toiler on the highway ; from the pallet of the dying, the same words are ascending from the lips of a people, and lifting many a sad heart on the wings of faith, from the sordid cares of life to the mystic poetry of religion and an unseen world.

To the weary that voice speaks of rest, to the worker of promise, and to the dull ear closing to earthly voices, it brings an echo from beyond the golden west. As the clear notes float down the valley, let your heart follow the soundwaves, and remember that the lowliest lives are set to some strain of melody, and that here amongst these violet hills and silver lakes hearts beat, and love, and suffer, even as they did in the days when O'Rourke of Breffni saw the twilight fold its grey cloak about them, and, alone in the bower of his faithless wife, vowed the vengeance that forged the first link of the conqueror's chain.

Chapter I

The name of Kilreagh will not be found on the map, nor will those of Drumrossan or Lough Corragh. If, therefore, anyone who reads the following pages feels sufficient interest in the scenes and characters de scribed therein to care to inquire into the accuracy of the writer's local information, and, in order to do so, commences by studying an atlas, or even the ordnance maps of Connaught, he or she will be baulked in the endeavour to obtain any information as to the precise whereabouts of those places. For the benefit of those readers who prefer to take their fiction leavened by fact, the writer hastens to say that though she has chosen to adopt fictitious names for the spots which form the background of the pictures she has en deavoured to paint, they are no creations of her imagination, but places well known to her.

On the afternoon when this story opens, the un usual quiet that prevailed in Kilreagh was due to the fact that every man who had attained to years of discretion, and some who had not, were at that moment engaged in furthering the cause of their country by swelling the numbers of the monster meeting which was being held at Drumrossan. Kilreagh and the surrounding country had, till but a few months previous to that time, borne a character for peacefulness, and one might say backwardness, in recognising its own interests in which it was far behind many parts of Ireland. Even at the period of which I write it was lamentably inferior in displays of patriotism to other districts, though probably, judged by the standard of the Saxon, it would have appeared a seething cauldron of sedition and conspiracy.

It is true that on moonlight nights the tramp of men marching and counter-marching was said to have been heard, and that arms were reported to be .recretly conveyed into the country, and a pleasing atmosphere of insecurity thereby diffused amongst the few who regretted the old order that was so rapidly changing and saw no particular beauty in the new. But, as yet, outrages of an agrarian character had been few and far between. A process-server had been beaten to a jelly, to warn him to mend his ways and pursue a more honourable calling when his stripes were healed ; and a man who had taken a farm from which the tenant had been evicted had had his house fired into one dark night. But these were trifles. A process server, after all, is naturally regarded as a little lower than the beasts, and it was felt that the man had been leniently dealt with ; an opinion not shared by the authorities, who were, however, as unsuccessful as usual in discovering the perpetrators of the assault.

Still, these were signs that the inhabitants of Kilreagh were awaking to some sense of duty and manifesting a certain amount of public spirit, and on the occa sion of the Drumrossan meeting they answered the summons to attend almost to a man. Low down by the riverside a small cluster of whitewashed houses, with the smoke-wreaths hanging motionless like suspended breath above them, obtruded themselves on the landscape. Yet they, too, were wrapped about and etherealised by the haze; they, too, seemed, like all the wild land that lay about them, to be plunged in a magic sleep. Distance softened their ugliness and squalor, and they melted into the hues of pearl, and took their place harmoniously in the picture. They stood on the road to Drumrossan, and consisted of some dozen slated, one-storeyed cottages built by the former owner of Kilreagh House in the palmy days when rents were paid and landlords at peace with their tenants as abodes for labourers on the estate.

In the centre of the row, conspicuous and imposing by reason of its two storeys and more recent coat of whitewash, stood the Kilreagh Post Office, and above the door hung a board inscribed with this legend, " Francis Clancy, licensed to sell spirits and tobacco." Ugly as the group of buildings was when the enchantment of distance and golden haze was removed, it was looked upon with admiration as a triumph of architecture by the natives, and the shop kept by the postmaster as an emporium of untold wealth and wonders by the ragged urchins who clustered round the portals. As the afternoon wore on, the main road began to present a more lively appearance, and by sunset a goodly group of thirsty patriots filled the premises of Mr. Clancy, and crowded round the rough counter. Drumrossan was some eight miles from Kilreagh, and the day being warm for the season, and the road dusty, and excitement having heated the blood and combined with the state of the temperature and the condition of the highway to produce a thirst, the postmaster was doing a remarkably good business that evening.

The talking was loud and vigorous, and it grew more animated with each fresh arrival. One man alone stood aloof from the group. He had entered, scarcely exchanging a word of greeting with anyone, gruffly demanding a pound of tea as he flung his money down on the counter, and he stood waiting, while Clancy, with glances none too friendly, weighed out the tea in a pair of copper scales and proceeded to envelop it in blue paper. "I'm not sayin' but fwhat ye're in the right, Shamus," said the postmaster cautiously, in answer to some forcible remarks from a tall and powerfullybuilt man who had made a few cheerful allusions to bullets as convincing arguments for obstinate landlords who declined to see the error of their ways, and to '98 with its accompaniment of pikes and plunder. " I'm not sayin' but fwhat ye're in the right.

But thim conditions of things is bad for thrade, an' as they're to be done widout let thim be done aisier an' quieter." Shamus M'Govran, otherwise known as Shamus More (big James), was in that condition known as " having drink taken," a subtle descriptive distinction between strict sobriety and positive inebriation, and a state in which blackthorns are apt to be to the fore, and language is likely to become more picturesque and forcible than polite. Before, however, Shamus could reply, the man who had taken no part in the conversation swung round and faced Clancy as he tendered the pound of tea and swept the money off the counter. " Thrade, is it ? Be the holies, as it's yer dhirty thrade ye're considherin', ye might as well have paid the rint an' boulstered up th' ould shtock wid the divil's ha'pence ye shcrew out av the widdy an' th' orphan, Frank Clancy.

It's thrade enough ye done wid the big house, an' right glad ye were to git the same." The postmaster gazed about him with a smile, no whit disturbed by his customer's remarks. He was well aware that the speaker was regarded with suspicion in the country as a man too well disposed towards "the ould shtock." "The divil's ha'pence ull never burn the hole in my pocket that the shillin' ye give the Lague ull bore in the breeches av whoiver's got it, Terence Regan," he said significantly. The allusion to Mr. Clancy's extortions, and the usurious system of trade that prevails amongst his class in Ireland might have aroused some sympathy had it been made by anyone else, and had it not contained a reference to landlords. It was un fortunate for Regan that he had allowed his feelings to get the better of him, for there was a strong suspicion that he was guilty of the heinous offence of having paid his rent in full.

Shamus More turned on him fiercely. "There's thim that had betther mind thimselves, or there'll be more orphans in Kilreagh," he said brutally, his hand clenching on his blackthorn as he spoke. Suddenly, however, the big man was seized by the shoulders and pushed down on to an adjacent bench. " Hould yer whist, Shamus," said the young man who had executed this manœuvre, and had placed himself before the truculent giant. "As ut plazes Terence to go in for conshtitutional agitation, shure ut's only fwhat the Lague advises, more power to ut." " Whativer ut plazes me to do, ut's not your lave or James M'Govran's I'll be afther axin'," replied Regan, with a scowl, and he turned his back and walked out of the shop. Shamus was understood to devote constitutional agitation to destruction. But being in a condition when a man is apt to become either hilarious or quarrelsome, or both by turns, he contented himself with a joke at the youth's expense.

" Maybe there'd be faymale orphans wantin' a roof over their hids, Brian," he remarked, with a leer as an accompaniment to his grim pleasantry. The young man's face flushed, and he turned angrily on M'Govran. " Maybe there's fools that's got more whishky thin sinse in their thick shkulls," he said, with withering sarcasm, for a roar of laughter followed Shamus's words, which had reference to the fact that Brian Dermot was, from the paternal point of view, an unwelcome suitor for the hand of Regan's daughter. Much delicate chaff followed the retort, and the shouts of laughter echoed far up the road as Regan stuck his stout stick under his arm and walked away. He was seething with suppressed rage. Those were not times when a man who valued his life could afford to hold opinions of his own, much less express them in public.

The necessity for holding his tongue was very bitter and humiliating, and occasionally some speech like the one which had roused the ire of Shamus More would imperil the already insecure hold he possessed on popularity. Clancy's allusion to the Land League shilling had planted a sting in a very tender spot. Terence Regan was not a coward. He was a man of determination, and piqued himself on his obstinacy. He had little of the impressionable nature of his countrymen, and none of their impulsive ness. The Land League shilling was the outward and visible sign of his one lapse into weakness. How often since had he stigmatised himself as a " dhirty coward " for yielding to the entreaties of his better half, and, by paying tribute to the " uncrowned king," securing to himself comparative safety in those troubled times ; comparative only, for, in spite of the shilling, he remained an object of suspicion to the more advanced spirits of the country, and it was well known that if the League had got his money, it had not secured his sympathy.

He had that devotion to the memory of his old master which is rarely to be met with in these days, but which, when it does exist in the heart of an Irishman, is one of the strongest feelings in the nature of man, and for the son who had succeeded to a ruined property, he entertained an affection second only to that with which he regarded his own family. That the rent he had never yet failed to pay went to swell the interest due to mortgagees was a fact he did not trouble himself about. It was " Misther Hinry's" due, and, Land League or not, he was not the man to defraud him of it. He trudged on along the dusty high road, across a stone bridge that spanned the stream, from which point deep woods of larch and fir, and oak and birch climb the lower slopes of Corrigmore. The woods are bounded by a stone wall where the road skirts them, and a few hundred yards beyond the bridge the chimneys of a lodge become visible.

Terence Regan stopped before the high, wrought iron gates from which the paint was peeling in flakes, and gazed up the weedy avenue for a few moments. Then he drew his hand across his eyes. " Root an' branch, root an' branch, cut down an' desthroyed. An' the land goin' to desthruction an the counthry to hell. Begorra, it's a gran' exchange to git for th' ould masther, God rest his sowl," he muttered as he turned away. In the meantime Brian Dermot was having a bad time of it, and a considerable amount of fun was being poked at him under the influence of Mr. Frank Clancy's fiery liquor, and the excitement produced by the day's proceedings. But Shamus More, having cracked his joke, and washed it down with another glass of neat whisky, had become ferocious again. Moreover, standing as he did in the relation of brother in-law to young Dermot, he considered himself bound to offer advice.

" Wasn't there enough girls in the counthry wantin ' a man widout goin' to Terence Regan's to look for one?" he said, turning round as Brian answered angrily to some remark he considered not quite in good taste. "An' I say agen that Terence had betther mind himself, or there'll be wurrk he'll not bargain for, an' that afore long." "There'll be wurrk ye'll not bargain for yourself, Shamus, if ye go on with Frank's whisky as ye're doing. Ye'll hear some talk ye won't like when ye get home to-night, I guess," said another man, who was leaning against the counter. " It's well to talk big abroad when one doesn't get lave to speak at home." Brian laughed as the last speaker jerked out his remarks in a voice in which an American twang strove with the remnants of a brogue. It was well known that his sister "wore the breeches," as the saying is, and that the truculent Shamus trembled before her sharp tongue.

" That's thrue for ye, M'Sharry," he said. " I'll be passin' that way, an' I'll sind Bridget down to look for him, for it's too dangerous he is intirely to be left to go home his lone the night." M'Sharry moved towards the door, and Brian followed him, and they strolled slowly up the road. " Drink and talk, drink and talk, it's all the most of them are good for. If we had a few more like you, Brian, we'd do," said M'Sharry. The young man's face flushed with gratification, then he frowned, resenting the contemptuous reference to his friends. " There's plinty more like me, an' fwhin the time comes, thim that talks ull act too," he said, his dark eyes kindling as he spoke. " Maybe, maybe," said his companion. " But there's a deal too much talk in this blessed old country, and always has been, and it's time there was some thing to show for it."

He paused as they reached a gate leading into a field path and held out his hand. " Well, I'll wish you good evening, Brian," he said in the harsh tones that were a strong and unpleasing contrast to the soft, slow Connaught accent of the younger man, for soft and musical the western brogue is, especially when spoken in a mellow baritone voice. Young Dermot stood leaning on the gate, watching his friend as he made his way up the hill. The national school education which had enabled Brian Dermot to write a legible hand and read the ill-printed pages of the North Connaught Banner, had not taught him discrimination, and the highly-coloured articles which emanated from the pen of Mr. Michael M'Sharry appeared to his untutored mind gems of patriotic composition. It is true that in print Mr. M'Sharry did not, for excellent reasons, favour the world with the plain and unvarnished revolutionary views he professed, but there was nevertheless a seditious flavour about those articles, that made them the admiration of Kilreagh.

Brian Dermot possessed the quick intelligence of his race, and a vivid imagina tion, that answered only too readily to the teachings of the older man. He had an Irishman's respect for " larnin'," and felt the friendship of an individual who had spent half his life on the other side of the Atlantic to be a great compliment to himself. While Brian stands watching the retreating figure of his friend, let me take my readers in spirit up the field-path and show them the roughly-built cottage to which that gentleman had returned after his Western wanderings. Let me push open the door of the cabin (for the place is little better) and introduce them to the withered crone in her frilled cap (not over clean), her short homespun petticoat, and the three-cornered shawl pinned over her shoulders, who is bending over the pot hanging above the burning turf on the primitive hearth, which is nothing more than a hollow in the flagged floor ; and as she turns with the stick with which she has been mixing the stirabout in her hand, let me present them to the mother of Mr. Michael M'Sharry, leader-writer to the North Connaught Banner.

From abodes as humble as this one have come forth many more distinguished individuals than Michael M'Sharry, who, in spite of the admiration with which he is regarded in Kilreagh, will probably never be heard of out of Connaught. While Mr. M'Sharry enters the home which he is honouring with a temporary visit, we will follow Brian Dermot as he turns from the gate and pursues his way along the high road. He had not gone many paces before he was stopped by an elderly lady, of somewhat substantial figure and pleasant face, who was attired in a shawl of a brilliant scarlet plaid pattern, and a skirt of a crude green merino. " It's yer very silf I was lookin' for along the road, Briny," said the lady, in response to the young man's salutation. " Go up, darlin ', an' maybe Phaylim ull have a parshel or a message for Rosie Regan.

Shure I knew I'd find ye on the road or at Frank Clancy's, an' I tould him I'd sind ye up. It's a gran' day ye had in Drumrossan, they're tellin' me." "A gran' day intirely, Mrs. Maguire," replied Brian, looking somewhat bashful as she mentioned the name of his lady-love with a glance of much archness. " I'll go on to Phaylim, for maybe I'll spare him a thramp as he has a parshel for Rose." " An' give yersilf an exthry mile. It's too kind y' are intirely, Briny; but ye always were good to th' ould folks, an' maybe that's fwhy it's remimbered t' ye," said Mrs. Maguire, laughing, as she continued her way. LA W 22 Brian quickened his pace till he came in sight of a cottage that stood a short distance above the road. It was distinguished from the other scattered houses of the neighbourhood by a slated roof, a sure sign of dawning ambition and improving financial prospects — even when, as in the present case, the roof crowns the primitive walls of mud and stone whitewashed over which usually form the fabric of the Irish peasant's abode.

Away in the west the sky was a blaze of gold where the sun was sinking, and the long valley was flooded with the light. Dermot paused and doffed his hat as the bell of the chapel rang out the Angelus, and then hurried on and turned up the lane that led to the slated house from the road.

Chapter II

Phelim Maguire sat just within the door of his cottage, hammering at the sole of a shoe. He was a small, slight man, with a pair of blue eyes as sharp as his own awl, and as bright and twinkling as though they had looked out on the world for five-and-twenty years instead of five-and-fifty. A mingled odour of new leather and stale turf-smoke pervaded the place, and floating out of the door, tainted the warm spring air. Phelim was attired simply in his shirt and a pair of antique corduroy inexpressibles, and wore a venerable cap, the peak of which time had long since shorn away, set jauntily on his crisp, though grizzled locks. He whistled as he hammered, for he was a .man of light heart, and the world went well with him. Non-payment of rent produced no stagna tion in local trade, rather the reverse, and Phelim had golden visions of wealth and a boot-store in Drumrossan, when that centre of the civilisation of the district should expand into importance under the benignant and prosperous rule of Irishmen.

He had a pretty taste for music, too, and could scrape many a merry tune out of the old fiddle that hung above Mrs. Maguire's tin porringers and willow-pattern plates on the dresser; ay, and pathetic ones too, when he chose, for the cobbler had sentiment, and hammered a good deal of it into the soles of his stout boots at times. His house was but a stone's-throw from the high road, and a rough and stony path led up the hill to the door. It was situated just above the point where the road that led across the bridge and past the gates of Kilreagh House turned off the highway between Drumrossan and another small town called Liskeg, and it thus combined convenience for customers with unlimited opportunities of gossip. A step on the path made Phelim look up from the delicate operation of boring holes in a piece of leather.

" The top av the mornin' to ye, Misther Donelly," he said, rising as he perceived his visitor and depositing the boot on the wooden bench. "An' fwhat brings ye this afternoon ? It's a new pair av shoes yer wantin', maybe, to take the flure wid thim nate little wans at Barney O'Hara's marryin' ; " and Phelim took up the boot and tapped the almost finished sole, winking the while with much meaning. The visitor laughed consciously, as though not ill-pleased at the soft insinuation. He was a young man, above middle height and well-made; but an otherwise rather good-looking face was spoiled by a LA W 25 pair of small grey eyes set unpleasantly close together, and at times, especially when annoyed or disturbed, disfigured by a very pronounced cast. He was attired in a suit of tweed and sported a silver watch chain ; two facts which pointed to his being a cut or two above the condition of the ordinary tenant farmer.

"Ye'll always be at yer jokes, Phaylim," he said. " An' who may that purty little pair be for ? " "Ah, go on, Misther Donelly," said the cobbler, seating himself. " Divil a wan knows betther thin yersilf the cut av the fut that's to go in thim boots, an' a nater thread an' a sthraiter ankle ye'll not find in Connaught. Maybe it's yer own weddin' shoes ye've come to ordher this evenin' ? " Donelly turned away, putting down the boot he had lifted from the bench, and avoiding Phelim's sharp glance. " I thought maybe Terence Regan was in here. I'd like to git spache with him. I was in Clancy's not tin minutes since, an' the boys there were very hot about some remarks he passed. Fwhat use is it at all rousin' thim more agin him thin they are already ? " The cobbler shook his head, and the twinkle left his eyes.

" It's hotter still Terence ull make the counthry agin him afore he's done, as he hasn't the wit to houl' his tongue. Throth, as it wasn't for Mary Regan an' Rosie, a dacint wife an' a rale beauty av a dather, he wouldn't git lave to live at all these times. There's not wan sowl that has a good word, or ud do a han's turn for him, barrin' mesilf, an' that only for ould frindship's sake, an' only for Brian Dermot he'd have foun' it out afore this. But the divil himself won't shtop thim as he doesn't begin to mind himsilf soon." Donelly's face changed and his eyes crossed glances as Phelim spoke. " It's small thanks Dermot '11 git for his inter farence," he said. " Well, good evenin' t' ye, Phaylim. Maybe I'll mate Terence on the road." "As it's the road beyant the gates ye're goin', maybe ye'll mate someone ilse," said the cobbler, as he tapped the last nail into the sole and set the pair of boots finished on the dresser.

He went to the door and gazed after Donelly's retreating figure with a comical expression on his face. " Maybe Brian gits thanks ye'd give yer two cross eyes to resave, Misther Donelly," he said medita tively. " An' be the same token he'll have a chance av gittin' thim this evenin', wid the blessing av God an' the help av Phaylim Maguire." He turned away from the door, and after searching for a minute or two in the corner, he produced an ancient and soiled copy of The Nation, in which revolutionary journal he proceeded to envelop the pair of boots. He had just finished wrapping them up, and was in the act of lighting his pipe, when a shadow fell across the threshold, and looking up, he perceived the figure of Brian Dermot outlined dark against the deepening yellow of the sky. " Is that yersilf, Briny ?