Shon McGann had fallen on a smooth pavement of ice. The gold-pan was
beneath him, and down the glacier he was whirled-whirled, for Shon had
thrust his heels in the snow and ice, and the gold-pan performed a series
of circles as it sped down the incline. His fingers clutched the ice and
snow, but they only left a red mark of blood behind. Must he go the
whole course of that frozen slide, plump into the wild depths below?
"'Mon Dieu!--mon Dieu!'" said Pretty Pierre, piteously. The face of the
Honourable was set and tense.
Jo Gordineer's hand clutched his throat as if he choked. Still Shon
sped. It was a matter of seconds only. The tragedy crowded to the awful
end.
But, no.
There was a tilt in the glacier, and the gold-pan, suddenly swirling,
again swung to the outer edge, and shot over.
As if hurled from a catapult, the Irishman was ejected from the white
monster's back. He fell on a wide shelf of ice, covered with light snow,
through which he was tunnelled, and dropped on another ledge below, near
the path by which he and his companions had ascended. "Shied from the
finish, by God!" said Jo Gordineer. "'Le pauvre Shon!'" added Pretty
Pierre.
The Honourable was making his way down, his brain haunted by the words,
"He'll never go back to Farcalladen more."
But Jo was right.
For Shon McGann was alive. He lay breathless, helpless, for a moment;
then he sat up and scanned his lacerated fingers: he looked up the path
by which he had come; he looked down the path he seemed destined to go;
he started to scratch his head, but paused in the act, by reason of his
fingers.
Then he said: "It's my mother wouldn't know me from a can of cold meat
if I hadn't stopped at this station; but wurrawurra, what a car it was to
come in!" He examined his tattered clothes and bare elbows; then he
unbuckled the gold-pan, and no easy task was it with his ragged fingers.
"'Twas not for deep minin' I brought ye," he said to the pan, "nor for
scrapin' the clothes from me back."
Just then the Honourable came up. "Shon, my man . . . alive, thank
God! How is it with you?"
"I'm hardly worth the lookin' at. I wouldn't turn my back to ye for a
ransom."
"It's enough that you're here at all."
"Ah, 'voila!' this Irishman!" said Pretty Pierre, as his light fingers
touched Shon's bruised arm gently. This from Pretty Pierre!
There was that in the voice which went to Shon's heart. Who could have
guessed that this outlaw of the North would ever show a sign of sympathy
or friendship for anybody? But it goes to prove that you can never be
exact in your estimate of character. Jo Gordineer only said jestingly:
"Say, now, what are you doing, Shon, bringing us down here, when we might
be well into the Valley by this time?"
"That in your face and the hair aff your head," said Shon; "it's little
you know a tobogan ride when you see one. I'll take my share of the
grog, by the same token."
The Honourable uncorked his flask. Shon threw back his head with a
laugh.
"For it's rest when the gallop is over, me men!
And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last;
And it's here's--"
But Shon had fainted with the flask in his hand and this snatch of a song
on his lips.
They reached shelter that night. Had it not been for the accident, they
would have got to their destination in the Valley; but here they were
twelve miles from it. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate may be
seen later. Comfortably bestowed in this mountain tavern, after they had
toasted and eaten their venison and lit their pipes, they drew about the
fire.
Besides the four, there was a figure that lay sleeping in a corner on a
pile of pine branches, wrapped in a bearskin robe. Whoever it was slept
soundly.
"And what was it like--the gold-pan flyer--the tobogan ride, Shon?"
remarked Jo Gordineer.
"What was it like?--what was it like"? replied Shon. "Sure, I couldn't
see what it was like for the stars that were hittin' me in the eyes.
There wasn't any world at all. I was ridin' on a streak of lightnin',
and nivir a rubber for the wheels; and my fingers makin' stripes of blood
on the snow; and now the stars that were hittin' me were white, and thin
they were red, and sometimes blue--"
"The Stars and Stripes," inconsiderately remarked Jo Gordineer.
"And there wasn't any beginning to things, nor any end of them; and whin
I struck the snow and cut down the core of it like a cat through a glass,
I was willin' to say with the Prophet of Ireland--"
"Are you going to pass the liniment, Pretty Pierre?" It was Jo Gordineer
said that.
What the Prophet of Israel did say--Israel and Ireland were identical to
Shon--was never told.
Shon's bubbling sarcasm was full-stopped by the beneficent savour that,
rising now from the hands of the four, silenced all irrelevant speech.
It was a function of importance. It was not simply necessary to say How!
or Here's reformation! or I look towards you! As if by a common
instinct, the Honourable, Jo Gordineer, and Pretty Pierre, turned towards
Shon and lifted their glasses. Jo Gordineer was going to say: "Here's a
safe foot in the stirrups to you," but he changed his mind and drank in
silence.
Shon's eye had been blazing with fun, but it took on, all at once, a
misty twinkle. None of them had quite bargained for this. The feeling
had come like a wave of soft lightning, and had passed through them. Did
it come from the Irishman himself? Was it his own nature acting through
those who called him "partner"?
Pretty Pierre got up and kicked savagely at the wood in the big
fireplace. He ostentatiously and needlessly put another log of Norfolk-
pine upon the fire.
The Honourable gaily suggested a song.
"Sing us 'Avec les Braves Sauvages,' Pierre," said Jo Gordineer.
But Pierre waved his fingers towards Shon: "Shon, his song--he did not
finish--on the glacier. It is good we hear all. 'Hein?'"
And so Shon sang:
"Oh it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise."
The sleeper on the pine branches stirred nervously, as if the song were
coming through a dream to him. At the third verse he started up, and an
eager, sun-burned face peered from the half-darkness at the singer. The
Honourable was sitting in the shadow, with his back to the new actor in
the scene.
"For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men I
And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last!
And it's here's--"
Shon paused. One of those strange lapses of memory came to him which
come at times to most of us concerning familiar things. He could get no
further than he did on the mountain side. He passed his hand over his
forehead, stupidly:--"Saints forgive me; but it's gone from me, and sorra
the one can I get it; me that had it by heart, and the lad that wrote it
far away. Death in the world, but I'll try it again!
"For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men!
And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last!
And it's here's--"
Again he paused.
But from the half-darkness there came a voice, a clear baritone:
"And here's to the lasses we leave in the glen,
With a smile for the future, a sigh for the past."
At the last words the figure strode down into the firelight.
"Shon, old friend, don't you know me?"
Shon had started to his feet at the first note of the voice, and stood as
if spellbound.
There was no shaking of hands. Both men held each other hard by the
shoulders, and stood so for a moment looking steadily eye to eye.
Then Shon said: "Duke Lawless, there's parallels of latitude and
parallels of longitude, but who knows the tomb of ould Brian Borhoime?"
Which was his way of saying, "How come you here?" Duke Lawless turned to
the others before he replied. His eyes fell on the Honourable. With a
start and a step backward, and with a peculiar angry dryness in his
voice, he said:
"Just Trafford!"
"Yes," replied the Honourable, smiling, "I have found you."
"Found me! And why have you sought me? Me, Duke Lawless? I should have
thought--"