I had not long to wait before the footsteps sounded in the long passage
which led to the kitchen, and a dim streak of light appeared at the
doorway. Two of the company, rather by their voices than their faces, I
recognised--one as Martin, the other as Jake Finn, the treasurer of the
rebels, whom I had last seen in this very place on the night that Paddy
Corkill was appointed to waylay and shoot his honour on the Black Hill
Road. The other two, who carried cutlasses at their belts, were
strangers to me, but seemed to be men of importance in the rebel
business. Evidently a fifth man was expected.
"Sure, he'll come," said one.
"It's myself met him this blessed day no farther than Malin, and he
promised he'd be here."
"Did he know this about Gorman?"
"How should he? Sure, I didn't know it myself. Besides, he's just from
the Foyle, and our news doesn't travel east."
"How will he take it?"
"Whisht!" cried Martin. "There he is."
Three low taps sounded at the window, and Martin, taking the candle,
hurried down the passage to admit the new arrival.
The other three men advanced to the door.
A quick, jaunty step sounded down the passage. The door opened, the men
drew themselves up and saluted, Martin held the candle above his head,
and there entered--Tim! At the sight of him the great fount of
brotherhood that was in me welled up and nearly overflowed.
Tim was in the dress of a merchant sailor, and very handsome he looked,
although the cut of his beard gave him a half-foreign look. His frame
was knit harder than when I saw him last. His open face, tanned by the
weather, was as fearless and serene as ever, and the toss of his head
and the spring of his step were those rather of the boy I had known on
Fanad years ago than of the dangerous rebel on whose head a price was
set.
"Well, boys," said he, as Martin replaced the light on the table,
"what's the best of your news?"
"Faith, that you're welcome, Tim Gallagher," replied Finn; "and it's
right glad we are to get our captain."
"'Deed if it pleasures you to call me captain, you may," said Tim; "but
I've no time to spend in these parts. I have business that won't keep.
How goes the cause since I was here last?"
"Badly enough," replied one of the men. "The boys are slack, and we've
been desperately thwarted by traitors and dirty informers and the
English gang."
"And, saving your presence," said Martin, "we've to thank your own
brother Barry for some of that same trouble. It was him who thwarted us
on the Black Hill Road, and nearly spoilt our trip to Holland--"
"Barry?" said Tim sharply. "What of him? He's no 'dirty informer.'
What's all this about Black Hill Road and Holland?"
"'Deed, Tim," said Finn, "it's an old story, and has been righted by
now. You mind his honour, Maurice Gorman of Knockowen?"
"Mind him? of course I do--a coward that blew hot and cold, and led the
boys on to mischief only to betray them. Yes; I mind Maurice Gorman."
This invective seemed greatly to encourage the men present, who had
evidently feared Tim might for some reason have harboured a regard for
their victim.
"It was him was to be settled with on the Black Hill Road a year ago;
and settled he would have been but for Barry."
Tim's anger, I could see, was rising.
"Settled?" he said; "do you mean murdered?"
"Shot, any way. He got off that time; and a purty use he made of his
chance, hanging boys by the dozen, and giving us no peace at all, at
all. But since the young lady was lost to him--"
"What?" exclaimed Tim again; "how lost?"
"Didn't we have her over the seas to Holland for a hostage? And ever
since he durstn't do a hand's turn against us. But he wouldn't come in
for all that, or pay the money. It was Barry as nearly spoilt that game
for us too; for he spirited the girl away in Holland, and if it hadn't
been for some of the boys who got hold of her again in Dublin, she'd
have been clane lost to Ireland for all our trouble."
"You dogs!" cried Tim, starting forward with his hand on his sword.
"You mean to say you carried away an innocent girl to spite her father?
You're a shame to your country!"