The silk of the kine; a novel

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II

" In truth I have. Stay not my comrade and me on our way, lest peradventure a misfortune befall thee.**

"Do you not recognize my rank?*' asked the officer. " You shall ride the wooden horse for this."

The soldier turned and looked at him, and his manner instantly changed; yet a certain insolence lurked in his tone. " I do now perceive, sir, that you are an officer in Ireton*s Horse — brave lads who have not yet ceased to weep for their general's death. Truly this is an accursed land, where the devil and the plague have done their worst."

" Where did you get that girl ?** demanded the officer, abruptly.

** I found her not. I am but here helping my friend in his labor. He is an agent appointed by the Commissioners to see to the deportation of the Papist Irish to the Tobacco Islands. I pray thee, friend," he added, suavely, turning to his companion, " tell the officer where you took this maid."

The man gave him a glance, then coughed and cleared his throat. " I had a damnation work in keeping her," he replied. " She hath several times tried to escape, and hath spoken evilly of the Commonwealth. I found her — why, truly I found her in this wise. She and others have been committed to my charge by the Lord President for embarkation to the Tobacco Isles."

At these words Margery stirred. Then the knowledge that it was but another enemy before whom she stood kept her still and frozen.

The officer glanced at her again. " Remove that scarf," he commanded.

For a moment Boggas hesitated before he slowly unwound it from her mouth.

" Who are you ?" came the question from the rider.

She looked up and saw a young man, whose gray eyes met hers from under his montier cap. A crimson sash was wound round the waist of his buff coat ; a long sword swung -by his side. But to her in her fear he was not human ; her eyes only saw one of the terrible soldiers whose swords had bit deep at Drogheda and Wexford. Then almost involuntarily she held up the Transplanter's Certificate, and an. ugly light leaped into Boggas's eyes as he saw the officer stoop and take it.

The certificate ran thus :

" Barony of Dartree^ Co. of Monaghan, We, the said Commissioners y do hereby certify that

Phelim M^Mahon of Dartree, in the Co, of Monagltatiy hathy upon the igth day of Feb. 1654, inpursuaftce of a declaration of the Commissioners of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England for the affairs of Ireland^ bearing date of the \th of October 1653, delivered unto us, in writing, the names of himself and of such persons as are to remove with him, with the quantities of their stocks and tillage, the contents whereof are as followeth : The said Phelim M^Mahon, adged sixty years, white haire, tall stature ; Lady Margery Ny* Guire, his grand-daughter, daughter of the late delinquent and Irish rebel, Conner, Earl of Fermanagh. Id, Vis, Maguire, adged twenty years, flaxen haire, middle stature ; Edmund O'Donelly, tenant, adged twenty-five years, brown haire, middle stature ; Teage M^Donagh, adged thirty years, brown haire, middle stature ; Dermod Regan, adged thirty, middle stature, black haire ; Joan Ny Mahony, adged thirty -three years, middle stature, red haire ; Nuala Ny Dzvyer, adged tiventy years, flaxen haire, middle stature. His substance fifty winter acres of corn; cows sixty ; forty garrans; three ploughs of

* Ny or ni, a contraction of mgkean, a daughter, which in Irish was always prefixed to the surnames of the daughters in a family.

H oxen; forty swine ^ great and small ; four geldings; out of which he payeth contribution. The contents whereof we believe to be true.'*

The officer looked from the paper to the girl. " There are two flaxen - haired women here. Which are you ?"

Her eyes fell. " Margery Ny Guire."

" How is it you have fallen out from your party ?"

" I fainted," she said, slowly, and her lips trembled.

" To what part of Connaught is your father transplanted ?"

** To Erris ; but he is dead. He died as we came along.*'

" His substance is then yours.'*

" The Commissioners took more than half of it. The rest was taken or died on the road."

There was a pause. " Have you any relation in Ireland ?*'

She held her head erect. " No. My brother is with the king.**

" What portion of Erris was assigned to your grandfather ?"

The girl's eyes dilated. " Land where the heather barely covers the rocks. Where there is neither a house to live in nor soil to be tilled."

This was a very accurate description of Erris, as he knew, having lately ridden through its wilds. He made no comment and continued his examination. " When did you fall into the hands of these men?**

" Two hours ago. They forced me to come with them.'*

All her answers were given in a dreamy, expressionless tone, her voice forming a contrast to the sharp, clear accent of her interrogator. He turned to Boggas, who had already begun to speak. " This damsel is wholly given over to lies,*' said the soldier, resuming the nasal intonation, " even as Jezebel, the accursed wife of King Ahab. Hearken not to her words, and let my comrade and me continue our way.**

" Your name and regiment ?** demanded the officer. The man looked boldly into his face.

" Axteirs Regiment of Foot,*' he answered, with a ring of defiance. " I was sergeant to within a few days ago. My name is Jehu Boggas.**

" Then, Jehu Boggas, late sergeant in Axteirs Foot, return whither you have come. If i6

I mistake not, you will be brought before the drumhead for this/'

The man's eyes again darted round the scene and his hand went to the hilt of his sword. Then, quick as thought, he made a step forward, dragging Margery with him.

"Stop!" cried the officer, a sudden fire in his eyes.

Boggas's hand tightened on the girl's, and he forced her on.

** Stay me not !" he cried. " This damsel hath become my lawful spoil, and I will yield her to no man. Reflect that we are two here in this wilderness and you but one. Have I toiled and sweated to have my prey torn from my hands ?"

A metallic click followed his words. The officer had drawn and cocked his pistol.

" Listen, rascal," he said, his tone even and cool. " It was a leveller sych as you that the Lord Protector shot in front of the army on Triploe Heath. I give you three minutes to recross the bridge. After that, if you are still here, I will blow out your brains."

" Good sir, spare me," cried out the younger man, retreating to the bridge; " Til be over in a minute. Come, Boggas, good Boggas," he went on, " let the scurvily maid be. Lord !

ain't our lives worth more than a damned Papist wench !"

Seeing himself deserted, the soldier paused and looked from the rider's face to the barrel of the pistol pointed at his head. His eyes were ugly and fierce for a minute ; then, with sudden self - control, he dropped Margery's hand and made a salute.

" Since you are one in authority, sir," he said, speaking naturally, " I must fain obey you. But I would let you remember, sir, that, by the decree of the Parliament, any man, woman, or child of the Transplanted Irish found out of the province after the first day of May may be killed without trial or order of magistracy."

He turned and walked back to the bridge, striking his comrade contemptuously on the shoulder as he put his foot on the shaking wickerwork.

" If it were not for your mother I'd run you through, you cursed jack-pudding!" he muttered, and strode on.

The other grinned. " Bless my good mother," he chuckled, as he followed him.

The officer sat still, with his pistol pointed on the bridge till the men had crossed the river. Margery stood where Boggas had left i8 her, her face white and tearless, as much afraid of her rescuer as she was of the man-catchers. For five minutes neither moved nor spoke. The rattle of the bit and the rush of the water filled the pause. Then the horseman's eyes fell on the girl.

Her flaxen hair had fallen loose, framing the pallor and misery of her face. He noticed the rich material of her dress, the signs of birth and elegance about her, the present wretchedness of her condition ; a second later he looked away and scanned the horizon.

Trees and the winding line of river met his view, and a distant bog, and out towards the west the mountains, with the shadows lying each like a dark -blue cloak in the hollows. Not a sign of life was to be seen. A silence held the land — the silence that follows where sword and fire and the plague have been.

To ride on and leave her to her fate would be a reproach to his manhood. Slave-stealers haunted the kingdom, wolves infested the wilder parts of the country, the province was swept by horrors. Yet he was no knighterrant, nor, under the circumstances, dared be so. How dare he, an English oflScer in the army of the Commonwealth, take charge of a girl, a Catholic, an Irishwoman, and one of the damned Transplanted ?

He looked at her face again, and their eyes met. With a sudden impulse of fear she turned towards the water, and in a moment he was off his horse and caught her in his arms. She struggled for an instant, then a film crept over her eyes, and she felt herself falling into unfathomed depths, beyond the earth, beyond life.

He laid her on the ground, and drawing a flask of wine from his saddle-bag, put it to her lips. The color came back faintly to her cheeks, and in a few minutes she sat up. He rose to his feet and looked at her.

" Why did you try to take your life ?*' he said.

She shuddered. "Why should I live?"

" When had you last rest ?*'

"Yesterday,** she answered, sobbing, but without tears. " I have walked or ridden for twenty-four hours."

"Then you must sleep,** he said, authoritatively. " Lie under that tree.**

She obeyed him in a dazed way. He loosened the girths of his saddle, and, picketing his horse, moved a few yards off to walk up and down by the bank.

Twilight had fallen ; a salmon-colored bar of light spread along the edge of the southwest sky, dark-blue clouds swung above, and higher still lay a trail of paling yellow. The singing of the river seemed to swell into a great chorus of song as the night deepened around him.

When the stars danced out he took his cloak from the saddle and spread it over the sleeping girl. For a moment he paused to look at her face; the worn lines it had shown an hour before had gone. Her family, he knew, had been cast out, root and branch. She was an outlaw beyond the Shannon. She had no claim to any shelter on earth but the shelter that the heather and rocks of Erris might give her.

He regretted that she had crossed his path. His manhood demanded that he should feel a measure of sympathy for her; his profession forbade him to do so. It was playing with fire for an English officer to take an interest in an Irishwoman. Soldiers were forbidden to marry the women under the severest penalties. Officers who did so were removed from their command. Intrigues led to a flogging at the limbers of a piece of ordnance for the rank and file, to a court-marital and ruin for their superiors. Yet his duty was clear. He had recognized it as he paced the bank. He must bring her with him to Tuam to await the will of Sir Charles Coote, the Lord President of Connaught. That man of iron, or the Commissioners, alone had power to settle her fate.

He turned aside, and, lighting his pipe, walked again to and fro till the moon rode high across the sky and the white stream of the Milky Way made a path down the heavens. An hour later, as the girl still slept, he gathered sticks, and, kindling a fire, sat before it with his pistols cocked and ready for any Torie that might appear. The light gleamed on the water, and now and again he heard a salmon leap as it went down stream. It was close upon dawn when she suddenly raised herself on one arm, and stared across the circle of light at her guard.

Her eyes had the strained look of one who was picking up the dropped threads of her life. Presently her gaze cleared, and she laid her head down again. A gleam of firelight touched her hair, and her upraised arm hid her face. For half a minute he looked at her across the glow.

" She will get a chill,*' he reflected. *' I will tell her to come near the fire.**

Removing his cap from his head, he rose to his feet. A stick snapped under his jack-boot, and the girl looked up.

" The grass is damp," said the young man, "and I fear you will fall ill if you lie there longer.**

She glanced at him, but made no reply. Her face looked ghost-like in the half-darkness, but he was vaguely conscious of a difference in her — that she was no longer the despairing girl whom he had ordered to sleep. As he stood hesitating, she suddenly rose, letting his cloak fall to the ground. Raising it, he placed it over her shoulders, but, as if unaware of his act, she drew near the fire.

As she knelt before it on one knee, with her hands held towards the heat, he went to his horse and took some bread and meat from his saddle. These he offered her, and for a few minutes she ate, then, with a hurried gesture, put the food aside. " It chokes me,*' she said, as if to herself.

He poured out some wine, and she took a mouthful, and in the same agitated manner put the cup from her. A moment later she raised her hand to push back her hair, and accidentally touched the cloak. She looked closer at it and took it off.

" Why do you do that ?*' he asked.

" It hath been where my people have been killed/' she replied, with a shiver.

He threw a glance at her face. The girl was staring into the fire, her eyes fires themselves. To her he was not so much a man as something unhuman; one of the army that had eaten up the land, whose swords had never turned back at the cry of Irish woman or child. Their position — alone in the wilds, in the heart of the night — had not struck her, he saw.

" In another hour," he presently remarked, " I must ride on."

" You can go now," she said, briefly.

" We will wait for the dawn."

She started, and her eyes turned upon him.

" Do you take me with you ?" Her tone was indignant, protesting.

" Can I leave you here ?" he answered.

" The wolves — the man-catchers — ah ! But where do you take me ?"

" My squadron lies in Tuam," he said. " I am on my way thither."

Her lips quivered, a color rushed over her face. For a moment she tried to command herself, then she broke down.

" No, no !" she said, passionately. " Not there ! I cannot face those cruel men 1"

He knew she meant the Lord President and the Loughrea Commissioners. He also knew that it was his duty to see that she appeared before them. He turned his head aside and was silent.

" My brother is in France," she sobbed. " Let me go to him ! Oh that you were any other man than the man you are ! Then truly I would implore you on my knees to help me to escape."

His hand twitched his mustache as he kept his face averted.

" What will they do with me ?" Her voice was a sob. Rising suddenly, he went towards his horse, and busied himself tightening the girths and putting the bit in the animal's mouth. Once he looked back and saw her still on one knee, with the red light dancing on her figure. Of another race, and in England, he might dare to help her ; here she was an outlaw, and he and every man in the regiment had to see that such as she were driven across the Shannon and penned in between the twomile lines.

'* Twas a cursed mischance that brought her in my way," he thought, and he looked towards the river with an iron resolve to do his duty.

When he returned to the fire she stood upright and faced him steadily. She had wiped her tears away, and there was resolution and courage in her eyes. A faint light was springing in the sky, the white gray of dawn touched the river.

" Sir — I do not know your name,*' she began, proudly — "since you will bring me to Tuam, I must go with you, you being a man and the stronger.**

There was a fine contempt in her tone, and they looked straight into each other's face. The creeping light told him that his capture was fair, and her that her enemy was handsome and young. Yet she only thought of the racial gulf between them, the blood that had flowed wherever he and his troopers had ridden, while he wondered at the darkness of her eyes when her hair was so fair. For a few seconds he did not speak.

" My name is Piers Ottley,'* he said. " I am a major of Horse. It is true when I say, Lady Margery, I had rather this duty had fallen to another man. What influence I have shall be used to see you are treated with consideration.**

She bowed coldly, and, moving away, he stood by the bridge till a flame of pink light sprang up in the east, then he unpicketed his horse.

II

He led the animal up to the girl, who was leaning against the tree with her hands hanging by her side. She saw him put his cloak over the war-saddle before he turned to mount her.

" I will walk/* she said, fearing that she was to ride pillion.

"He made no answer, and with his hand on the bridle led the horse forward, passing the bridge, which looked too rotten to bear the hoofs. Margery followed him slowly, immature plans of escape rushing through her mind. A quarter of a mile farther they came to a ford, and he halted and looked back.

" We must cross here," he remarked. Her face grew agitated, for she thought the moment had come when she must ride with him. But Ottley lifted her into the saddle, observing that for the present he should lead the horse. The next minute the water was rushing past his jack-boots and the animaFs hocks. The long, floating grasses caught in his spurs as he waded through the stream with the eddies circling away in lessening paths from hoofs and feet. Once he threw a glance across his shoulder, and found that she had seized the moment to say a prayer on a rosary of tiny gold beads. He had a brief vision of lowered eyes and moving lips before he looked away. To do his duty he knew he should snatch the rosary from her hand ; and he was glad when, a minute later, he heard the beads rattle together as she hid them in her dress.

The sun had risen through the red light of the dawn as they climbed the opposite bank ; pearly clouds, pink-tipped, flecked the brightening blue, and the smell of flowers was in the air. Once beyond the patter of the river, a curious silence surrounded them. No birds sang in the thickets, or wild animals crossed their path. The land seemed cursed and blighted by a spell.

Now and again Margery's eyes fell on her companion. He was the arbiter of her fate for the day, and she tried to separate the soldier from the man. Ghosts, however, followed him ; pale faces, the dead of Drogheda and Wexford, and those to whom quarter had been denied in the storm of castles. Each time she shuddered and looked away.

Once or twice he spoke to her, but her answers were so brief that they fell into silence. Thus they went on through woods, by bogs, and across broken, uncultivated ground, where the track of the plough and spade of five years back could still be seen. Roofless houses with blackened walls and ruined churches met them here and there. Once a wan- faced peasant crossed their path, who fled into the wood at the sight of the English soldier. Bodies swung from trees, or had fallen in mouldering heaps under the branches, and everywhere the fury of a foe and the effects of the plague might be traced.

By noon they reached a wilder stretch of country, which showed no sign of former habitation, and entered a hollow where patches of moss pushed through the stunted grass. The slope was covered by clumps of gorse with blackthorn bushes growing among the furze, and here Ottley drew up the horse.

In front the ground rose in a ridge, the top being crowned by an ancient earthwork hedged with a ring of hawthorn and brier. From the hollow nothing but the sky could be seen beyond the fort.

" We shall rest here," he said, turning and facing the girl.

She met his eyes, and they looked to her cool and hard. A fresh thought seized her; he was still an agent of darkness, but he was also human as well. Though he had no pity upon her, she would not be afraid, she said to herself, to match her wit with his.

"Am I to alight?" she asked.

"As you will," he replied.

She sat hesitating for a moment, then slid from the saddle, and he loosened the girth and removed the bit. Taking the last of the food from the saddle-bag, he filled her a cup of wine. They ate, standing side by side, in silence, while a lark rose close at hand out of the moss and set the air thrilling. Presently he glanced at her face, and the look it wore made him speak.

" You shall be provided for. I pass you my word," he said, and paused lamely. The lie, he knew, was so evident that he felt he had been a fool to say anything. The color sprang to her face. The note of feeling struck her as insolence. She stood very straight, and her eyes grew haughty ; then she moved away.

He watched her as she slowly crossed the hollow and went up the ridge, and for the twentieth time wished himself relieved of his duty. If he had not met Boggas she would have gone- to share the fate of hundreds of women as fair as herself. The alternative he had brought her was grim enough. Providence had not dealt kindly with him in throwing such a task on his shoulders ; and, leaning his arm on the saddle, he again hardened his heart.

Meanwhile hers beat in fear and indignation as she made her way up the slope to the fort. Insults were new experiences to her. Not so long ago she had had swordsmen enough to defend her with their lives ; but they were now among the forty thousand Irish soldiers who had carried their arms abroad. After a time, as her passion died down, she remembered the man -catchers. The thought of Boggas and his fellows made her eyes grow grave, and she stood hesitating for a minute at the base of the fort. Ottley, she knew, was still in sight. His sword and pistol had saved her, and would save her again as long as she was under his protection ; and she stamped her foot at the certainty of the fact. Then she went on, accepting his guard, and climbed through an opening in the hedge. Within the circle she stood on the roof of caves, and the hawthorns ringed her round. Pagan kings had built rude palaces here ; and she was conscious of a vague, haunting feeling of dim presences as she slowly crossed the mound. Below her, in the rath, the warriors slept each by his horse, who were to spring up with drawn swords when the hour had come. But the tramp of the Ironsides had not reached their ears in that deep, enchanted sleep.

On the other side the ridge sloped to an open space of grass land, bordered on the left, within a hundred yards of the fort, by a deep wood. A bog lay to the west, sending a tongue of its brown heather into this grass. Margery crossed to the outer ring and drew back a branch. Hardy plans of running away from Ottley, of hiding in a cave, seeking the famished peasants in the mountains, flitted through her brain. But the two gray shadows, the man-catchers and the wolves, fell ominously across each hope.

As she stood looking round the wild, unpeopled land, she heard sounds coming from the wood, and in a moment was ready poised for flight — flight back to Ottley. But in another minute her fears lessened as she saw a body of men break through the undergrowth, and recognized their dress. They formed into a double line, and marched half-way across the open ground, where they drew up, fifty men or more. The sunlight danced on their bare heads and long, saffron-colored kilted garbs, and on a steel corselet gleaming here and there. She drew a long breath as her eyes ran down their ranks; then her heart leaped at the sight. She was looking at a parade of the Tories, disbanded soldiers who had fought under Owen Roe 0*Neil, with Preston, with Ormond. Her father and brother had commanded such men. They were her friends. She could see their fierce, eager faces under their glibbes ; she knew that for a time the wilds hid them, that the fate of a wolf awaited each man if caught. Then all in an instant she remembered Ottley. These men would think it a very sacred duty to thrust a pike through his body or cut his throat with a skene.

The next second she understood why they had drawn up beneath the fort. A man dressed like a shepherd rose, as it seemed, out of the ground and went down to them. As he drew near both lines sank on their knees, and the few steel caps worn were thrown on the ground. The girl instantly knelt.

For a few moments she tried to feel a devotional spirit, but a sword hung over the scene. If Ottley entered the fort he might have the wisdom not to interfere, but he would mark the place, the men, the priest, and in a day or two bring a troop of horse to the spot. On the other hand, if the outlaws saw him his fate was sealed.

It appeared to her their lives, and the life of the Ironside, lay in her hands. The latter deserved to die, no doubt ; the swords of him and his fellows had been red to the hilt with Irish blood, but it was not for her to betray him to his end. She must prevent the meeting ; she must keep him in the hollow for twenty minutes. By that time mass would be over, the priest once more hidden, and the Tories in the wood.

The certainty of some violent deed if she did not act set her wits to work. She was of the old Irish blood, an earl's daughter, and though she feared the English troopers as devils, scorned them, too, in her pride of birth. Yet she knew she had but one power to move what might be left of the man in Ottley. That was her beauty. Up to that moment it had had no effect upon him. Twice his eyes had told her that he saw it, but his admiration had not made him swerve from what he thought was his duty. He had refused to connive at her escape; he was bringing her straight into the hands of her enemies. Her face flooded with color.

" I must go down to him," she thought. "O God ! how I hate and scorn him !**