BARGAINING
The melancholy which underlies the Celtic temperament finds something
congenial in the shadows that at close of day fall about an old ruin.
On fine summer evenings, and sometimes when the south-wester was
hurling sheets of rain from hill to hill, and the birch-trees were
bending low before its blast, Flavia would seek the round tower that
stood on the ledge beside the waterfall. It was as much as half a mile
from the house, and the track which scaled the broken ground to its
foot was rough. But from the narrow terrace before the wall the eye not
only commanded the valley in all its length, but embraced above one
shoulder a distant view of Brandon Mountain, and above the other a peep
of the Atlantic. Thither, ever since she could remember, she had
carried her dreams and her troubles; there, with the lake stretched
below her, and the house a mere Noah's ark to the eye, she had cooled
her hot brow or dried her tears, dwelt on past glories, or bashfully
thought upon the mysterious possibilities of that love, of that joint
life, of that rosy-hued future, to which the most innocent of maidens
must sometimes turn their minds.
It was perhaps because she often sought the tower at sunset, and he had
noted the fact, that Luke Asgill's steps bore him thither on an evening
three days after the Colonel's departure for Tralee. Asgill had
remained at Morristown, though the girl had not hidden her distaste for
his presence. But to all her remonstrances The McMurrough had replied,
with his usual churlishness, that the man was there on business--did
she want to recover her mare, or did she not? And she had found nothing
more to say. But the most slavish observance on the guest's part, and
some improvement in her brother's conduct--which she might have rightly
attributed to Asgill's presence--had not melted her. She, who had
scarcely masked her reluctance to receive a Protestant kinsman, was not
going to smile on a Protestant of Asgill's past and reputation; on a
man whose father had stood hat in hand before her grandfather, and
whose wealth had been wrung from the sweat of his fellow peasants.
Be that as it might, Asgill did not find her at the tower. But he was
patient; he thought that she might still come, and he waited, sitting
low, with his back against the ruined wall, that she might not see him
until it was too late for her to retreat. By-and-by he heard footsteps
mounting the path; his face reddened, and he made as if he would rise.
Remembering himself, however, he sat down again, with such a look in
his eyes as comes into a dog's when it expects to be beaten. But the
face that rose above the brow was not Flavia's, but her brother's. And
Asgill swore.
The McMurrough understood, grinned, and threw himself on the ground
beside him. "You'll be wishing me in the devil's bowl, I'm thinking,"
he said. "Yet, faith, I'm not so sure--if you're not a fool. For it's
certain I am, you'll never touch so much as the sole of her foot
without me."
"I'm not denying it," the other answered sulkily.
"So it's mighty little use your wishing me away!" The McMurrough
continued, stretching himself at his ease. "You can't get her without
me; nor at all, at all, but on my terms! It would be a fine thing for
you, no doubt, if you could sneak round her behind my back! Don't I
know you'd be all for old Sir Michael's will then, and I might die in a
gutter, for you! But an egg, and an egg's fair sharing."
"Have I said it was any other?" Asgill asked gloomily.
"The old place is mine, and I'm minded to keep it."
"And if any other marries her," Asgill said quietly, "he will want her
rights."
"Well, and do you think," the younger man answered in his ugliest
manner, "that if it weren't for that small fact, Mister Asgill----"
"And the small fact," Asgill struck in, "that before your grandfather
died I lent you a clear five hundred, and I'm to take that, that's my
own already, in quittance of all!"
"Well, and wasn't it that same I'm saying?" The McMurrough retorted.
"If it weren't for that, and the bargain we've struck, d'you think that
I'd be letting my sister and a McMurrough look at the likes of you? No,
not in as many Midsummer Days as are between this and world without
end!"
The look Asgill shot at him would have made a wiser man tremble. But
The McMurrough knew the strength of his position.
"And if I were to tell her?" Asgill said slowly.
"What?"
"That we've made a bargain about her."
"It's the last strand of hope you'd be breaking, my man," the younger
man answered briskly. "For you'd lose my help, and she'd not believe
you--though every priest in Douai backed your word!"
Asgill knew that that was true, and though his face grew dark he
changed his tone. "Enough said," he replied pacifically. "Where'll we
be if we quarrel? You want the old place that is yours by right. And I
want--your sister." He swallowed something as he named her; even his
tone was different. "'Tis one and one. That's all."
"And you're the one who wants the most," James replied cunningly.
"Asgill, my man, you'd give your soul for her, I'm thinking."
"I would."
"You would, I believe. By G--d," he continued, with a leer, "you're
that fond of her I'll have to look to her! Hang me, my friend, if I let
her be alone with you after this. Safe bind, safe find. Women and fruit
are easily bruised."
Asgill rose slowly to his feet. "You scoundrel!" he said in a low tone.
And it was only when The McMurrough, surprised by his movement, turned
to him, that the young man saw that his face was black with
passion--saw, indeed, a face so menacing, that he also sprang to his
feet. "You scoundrel!" Asgill repeated, choking on the words. "If you
say a thing like that again--if you say it again, do you hear?--I'll do
you a mischief. Do you hear? Do you hear?"
"What in the saints' names is the matter with you?" The McMurrough
faltered.
"You're not fit to breathe the air she breathes!" Asgill continued,
with the same ferocity. "Nor am I! But I know it, thank God! And you
don't! Why, man," he continued, still fighting with the passion that
possessed him, "I wouldn't dare to touch the hem of her gown without
her leave! I wouldn't dare to look in her face if she bade me not!
She's as safe with me as if she were an angel in heaven! And you
say--you; but you don't understand!"
"Faith and I don't," The McMurrough answered, his tone much lowered.
"That's true for you!" When it came to a collision of wills the other
was his master.
"No," Asgill repeated. "But don't you talk like that again, or harm
will come of it. I may be what you say--I may be! But I wouldn't lay a
finger on your sister against her will--no, not to be in Paradise!"
"I thought you didn't believe in Paradise," the younger man muttered
sulkily, striving to cover the check he had received.
"There's a Paradise I do believe in," Asgill answered. "But never mind
that." He sat down again.
Strange to relate, he meant what he said. Many changes corrupt loyalty,
and of evil times evil men are the natural fruit. In nearly all
respects Asgill was as unscrupulous a man as the time in which he lived
and the class from which he sprang could show. Following in the steps
of a griping, miserly sire, he had risen to his present station by
oppression and chicanery; by crushing the weak and cajoling the strong.
And he was prepared to maintain his ground by means as vile and a hand
as hard. But he loved; and--strange anomaly, bizarre exception, call it
what you will--somewhere in the depths of his earthly nature a spark of
good survived, and fired him with so pure an ardour that at the least
hint of disrespect to his mistress, at a thought of injury to her, the
whole man rose in arms. It was a strange, yet a common inconsistency;
an inconstancy to evil odd enough to set The McMurrough marvelling,
while common enough to commend itself to a thinking mind.
"Enough of that!" Asgill repeated after a moment's pause. While he did
not fear, it did not suit him to break with his companion. "And,
indeed, it was not of your sister I was thinking when I said where'd we
be if we quarrelled. For it's not I'll be the cuckoo to push you out,
McMurrough, lad. But a man there is will play the old grey bird yet, if
you let him be. And him with the power and all."
"D'you mean John Sullivan?"
"I mean that same, my jewel."
The young man laughed derisively. He had resumed his seat by the
other's side. "Pho!" he said, "you'll be jesting. For the power, it's
but a name. If he were to use, were it but the thin end of it, it would
run into his hand! The boys would rise upon him, and Flavvy'd be the
worst of them. It's in the deep bog he'd be, before he knew where he
was, and never'd he come out, Luke Asgill! Sure, I'm not afraid of
him!"
"You've need to be!" Asgill said soberly.
"Pho! It takes more than him to frighten me! Why, man, he's a soft
thing, if ever there was one! He'll not say boh! to a goose with a
pistol in its hand!"
"And that might be, if you weren't such a fool as ye are, McMurrough!"
Asgill answered. "No, but hear me out, lad!" he continued earnestly. "I
say he might not harm you, if you had not the folly we both know of in
your mind. But I tell you freely I'll be no bonnet to it while he
stands by. 'Tis too dangerous. Not that I believe you are much in
earnest, my lad, whatever others may think--what's your rightful king
to you, or you to him, that you should risk aught? But whether you go
into it out of pure devilment, or just to keep right with your
sister----"
"Which is why you stand bonnet for it," McMurrough struck in, with a
grin.
"That's possible. But I do that, my lad, because I hope naught may come
of it, but just a drinking of healths and the like. So, why should I
play the informer and get myself misliked? But you--you may find
yourself deeper in it than you think, and quicker than you think, while
all the time, if the truth were told"--with a shrewd look at the
other--"I believe you've little more heart for it than myself."
The young man swore a great oath that he was in it body and soul, swore
it by the bones of his ten toes. But he laughed before the words were
out of his mouth. And "I don't believe you," Asgill said coolly. "You
know, and I know, what you were ready to do when the old man was alive,
and if it had paid you properly. And you'd do the same now, if it paid
you now. So what are the wrongs of the old faith to you that you should
risk all for them? Or the rights of the old Irish, for the matter of
that? But this being so, and you but half-hearted, I tell you, it is
too dangerous a game to play for groats. And while John Sullivan's
here, that makes it more dangerous, I'll not play bonnet!"
"What'll he know of it, at all, at all?" James McMurrough asked
contemptuously. And he took up a stone and flung it over the edge.
"With a Spanish ship off the coast," Asgill answered, "and you know who
likely to land, and a preaching, may be, next Sunday, and pike-drill at
the Carraghalin to follow--man, in three days you may have smoking
roof-trees, and 'twill be too late to cry 'Hold!' Stop, I say, stop
while you can, and before you've all Kerry in a flame!"
James McMurrough turned with a start. His face--but the light was
beginning to fail--seemed a shade paler. "How did you know there was
pike-drill?" he cried sharply. "I didn't tell you."
"Hundreds know it."
"But you!" McMurrough retorted. It was plain that he was disagreeably
surprised.
"Did you think I meant nothing when I said I played bonnet to it?"
"You know a heap too much, Luke Asgill!"
"And could make a good market of it?" Asgill answered coolly. "That's
what you're thinking, is it? And it's Heaven's truth I could--if you'd
not a sister."
"And a care for your own skin."
"Faith," Asgill answered with humorous frankness, "and I'm plain with
you, that stands for something in it. For it's a weary way west of
Athlone we are!"
"And the bogs are deep," McMurrough said, with a sidelong look.
"Maybe," Asgill replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But that I've not
that in my mind--I'm giving you proof, James McMurrough. Isn't it I am
praying you to draw out of it in time, for all our sakes? If you mean
nothing but to keep sweet with your sister, you're playing with fire,
and so am I! And we'd best see it's not carried too far, as it's like
to be before we know it. But if you are fool enough to be in earnest,
which I'll never believe, d'you think to overturn the Protestant
Succession with a few foreigners and a hundred of White-boys that
wouldn't stand before the garrison of Tralee? You've neither money nor
men nor powder. Half a dozen broken captains who must starve if there's
no fighting afoot, as many more who've put their souls in the priests'
hands and see with their eyes--these and a few score boys without a
coat to their backs or breeches to their nakedness--d'you think to oust
old Malbrouk with these?"
"He's dead!"
"He's not, my jewel; and if he be he's left more of his kidney. No; if
you must be a fool, be a fool with your eyes open! I tell you old
Ireland had her lesson thirty years back, and if you were Sarsfield
himself, and called on 'em to rise against the Saxon to-day, you'd not
find as many follow you as would take a sessions town!"
"You know a heap of things, Asgill," James McMurrough answered
disdainfully. But he looked his discomfiture.
"I do. And more by token, I know this!" Asgill retorted. He had risen
to depart, and the two stood with their faces close together. "This!"
he repeated, clapping one hand on the other. "If you're a fool, I'm a
bigger! By Heaven, I am! Or what would I be doing? Why, I'd be pressing
you into this, by the Lord, I would, in place of holding you back! And
then when the trouble came, as come it would, and you'd to quit, my
lad, and no choice but to make work for the hangman or beg a crust over
seas, and your sister 'd no more left than she stood up in, and small
choice either, it's then she'd be glad to take Luke Asgill, as she'll
barely look at now! Ay, my lad, I'd win her then, if it were but as the
price of saving your neck! There's naught she'd not do for you, and I'd
ask but herself."
James McMurrough stared at him, confounded. For Asgill spoke with a
bitterness as well as a vehemence that betrayed how little he cared for
the man he addressed--whether he swung or lived, begged or famished.
His tone, his manner, his black look, all made it plain that the scheme
he outlined was no sudden thought, but a plan long conceived, often
studied, and put aside with reluctance. For the listener it was as if,
the steam clearing away, he'd a glimpse of the burning pit of a
volcano, on the shelving side of which he stood. He shuddered, and his
countenance changed. A creature of small vanities and small vices,
utterly worthless, selfish, and cruel, but as weak as water, he quailed
before this glimpse of elemental passion, before this view of a soul
darker than his own. And it was with a poor affectation of defiance
that he made his answer.
"And what for, if it's as easy as you say, don't you do it?" he
stammered.
Asgill groaned. "Because--but there, you wouldn't understand--you
wouldn't understand! Still, if you must be knowing, there's ways of
winning would be worse than losing!"
The McMurrough's confidence began to return. "You're grown scrupulous,"
he sneered, half in jest, half in earnest.
Asgill's answer flung him down again. "You may thank your God I am!" he
replied, with a look that scorched the other.
"Well--well," McMurrough made an effort to mutter--he was thoroughly
disconcerted--"at any rate, I'm obliged to you for your warning."
"You will be obliged to me," Asgill replied, resuming his ordinary
manner, "if you take my warning, as to the big matter; and also as to
your kinsman, John Sullivan. For, I tell you, I'm afraid of him."
"Of him?" James cried.
"Ay, of him. Have a care, have a care, man, or he'll out-general you.
See if he doesn't poison your sister against you! See if he does not
make this hearth too hot for you! As long as he's in the house there's
danger. I know the sort," Asgill continued shrewdly, "and little by
little, you'll see, he'll get possession of her--and it's weak is your
position as it is, my lad."
"Pho!"
"'Tis not 'pho'! And in a week you'll know it, and be as glad to see
his back as I should be to-day!"
"What, a man who has not the spirit to go out with a gentleman!"
"A man you mean," Asgill retorted, showing his greater shrewdness, "who
has the spirit to say that he won't go out!"
"Sure, and I've not much opinion of a man of that kind," McMurrough
exclaimed.
"I have. He'll stand, or I'm mistaken, for more than'll spoil your
sport--and mine," Asgill replied. "I'd not have played the trick about
your sister's mare, good trick as it was, if I'd known he'd be here. It
seemed the height of invention when you hit upon it, and no better way
of commending myself. But I misdoubt it now. Suppose this Colonel
brings her back?"
"But Payton's staunch."
"Ah, I hold Payton, sure enough," Asgill answered, "in the hollow of my
hand, James McMurrough. But there's accident, and there's what not, and
if in place of my restoring the mare to your sister, John Sullivan
restored her--faith, my lad, I'd be laughing on the other side of my
face. And if he told what I'll be bound he knows of you, it would not
suit you either!"
"It would not," The McMurrough replied, with an ugly look which the
gloaming failed to mask. "It would not. But there's small chance of
that."
"Things happen," Asgill answered in a sombre tone. "Faith, my lad, the
man's a danger. D'you consider," he continued, his voice low, "that
he's owner of all--in law; and if he said the word, devil a penny
there'd be for you! And no marriage for your sister but with his good
will. And if Morristown stood as far east of Tralee as it stands
west--glory be to God for it!--I'm thinking he'd say that word, and
there'd be no penny for you, and no marriage for her, but you'd both be
hat in hand to him!"
McMurrough's face showed a shade paler through the dusk.
"What would you have me do?" he muttered.
"Quit this fooling, this plan of a rising, and give him no handle.
That, any way."
"But that won't rid us of him?" McMurrough said, in a low voice.
"True for you. And I'll be thinking about that same. If it is to be
done, it's best done soon--I'm with you there. He's no footing yet, and
if he vanished 'twould be no more than if he'd never come. See the
light below? There! It's gone. Well, that way he'd go, and little more
talk, if 'twere well plotted."
"But how?" The McMurrough asked nervously.
"I will consider," Asgill answered.