It was late in the forenoon of the same day when Mr. Blake rose from
his bed in the tenement to which he gave the sonorous and impressive
title of Blake’s Hall--a tumbledown hut of two stories, which long
years of neglect had reduced to a condition of almost complete ruin.
The ground-floor was occupied by Blake himself; the upper portion by an
ancient peasant woman, who acted as his cook, housemaid, caterer, and
general factotum. There was not a whole pane of glass or an unbroken
article of furniture in the whole building, and the little plot of
ground in which it stood was a wilderness of stones and weeds.
Biddy was made aware of her employer’s awakening in the fashion familiar
to her for years past--by his roaring at the full stretch of his
lungs for a draught of whisky. That draught despatched, he arose, and
proceeded with shaking limbs to shave and dress. He was still occupied
with his toilet when the voice of the elder Conseltine was heard in the
outer room.
‘Give him a glass of punch,’ Blake called out to Biddy. ‘I’ll be with
him in the squazing of a lemon. So,’ he continued, reeling out of his
bedroom a minute later, ‘ye’ve brought the cub with ye, though I forbade
ye.’
Richard, sullenly flicking at his boot with his riding-whip, looked at
Blake from under his lowering eyebrows, but took no further heed of
his ambiguous welcome. Blake unsteadily poured out a second bumper of
spirit, and the glass rattled against his teeth as he drained it.
‘And what’s the news with his lordship this day?’ he asked.
‘Still very ill,’ answered Conseltine.
‘He’s been upset by that old fool Peebles, who’s been hammering at him
all day long to recall that brat of a by-love of his.’
‘Faith!’ returned Blake, ‘and he might do worse, by a great deal. ’Tis
a fine lad, Desmond, as clever and handsome as that cub of yours is
stupid and ugly. Don’t stand there, ye imp of perdition, glowering at me
like a ghost. Sit down and drink like a Christian.’
Richard obeyed a scarcely perceptible motion of his father’s eyebrows,
sat at the battered table, and poured out for himself a glass of whisky,
to which he put his lips with an awkward affectation of goodfellowship.
‘Have ye got that two hundred pounds?’ asked Blake.
‘I have,’ said Conseltine; ‘I’ve brought it with me.’
He unbuttoned his coat, and took a bundle of bank papers from the inner
breast-pocket. Blake took it with shaking hands, and rammed it in a
crumpled mass into his breeches pocket without counting.
‘You’re as good as your word, Dick Conseltine, for once in your life,’
said he. ‘Have another drink.’
Conseltine profited by Blake raising his glass to his lips to fling the
contents of the tumbler which Biddy had filled for him on to the earthen
floor of the hut, and filled it again, principally with water.
‘Why,’ said Blake, ‘ye’re gettin’ friendly and neighbourly in your old
age. Ye’ll be a dacent man before ye die, if ye live long enough.’
‘Blake,’ said Conseltine, ‘I want to talk to you. Did ye ever think of
emigration?’
‘Did I ever think o’ _what_?’ asked Blake, pausing with his tumbler
half-way to his lips.
‘Emigration,’ repeated Conseltine.
‘I never did,’ returned Blake. ‘Why would I?’
‘Well,’ said his companion, ‘there are many reasons why ye might think
of it. Ye’re just spoiling here--wasting yourself. If ye’d go out West,
a man of your abilities, with a little capital, would do well. Land and
hiring are cheap; it’s a lovely climate, and there are no end of chances
of making money. I’ll tell ye what, now. ’Tis a sin and a shame to see
a man like you wasting yourself in this cursed country. I’ll make that
two hundred five, and pay your passage out, if ye’ll take the next
steamer to New York.’
‘By the saints!’ cried Blake, ‘ye’re mighty generous all of a sudden. Ye
want to get rid of me? Spake the truth, now, isn’t that it?’
‘Well,’ said Conseltine, with a great appearance of candour, ‘that
is it! I’d rather have you out of the country. You’re dangerous here,
Blake--dangerous to us and to yourself.’
‘To myself!’ echoed Blake. ‘And how am I dangerous to meself?’
‘Ye’ll be splitting some day on a certain matter that we know of--easy
now, we needn’t name names--and if ye did speak, ’twould be worse for
you than for us.’
‘Make that good,’ said Blake.
‘Well,’ said Conseltine, ‘you’d very likely get a sum of money down
from the other parties; but that once spent--ye’d get no more, and you’d
spend the rest of your days in an Irish gaol. Now, so long as you’re
faithful to our cause, you know you have a faithful friend in me. I’ll
give ye five hundred down to go to America, and another two hundred
a year as long as you live. Don’t answer now,’ he continued, as Blake
opened his lips to speak. ‘Think it over, and I’m sure ye’ll see things
as I see them, and admit that it’s best for you to be out of the way of
temptation.’
Blake swallowed another tumbler of punch.
‘’Tis a mighty fine idea,’ he said thoughtfully, with a thickening
of the voice which showed that he was fast nearing his normal pitch
of intoxication. He rubbed his head dubiously, and, to clear his wits,
poured out and drank a half-glass of neat whisky. ‘Leave my ancestral
possessions! Desert Blake’s Hall! What are ye grinning at, ye thief of
darkness?’ he demanded angrily of Richard, who had glanced round the
barren room with a smile of pitying contempt; then he lurched forward in
his chair, with bloodshot eyes glaring at Conseltine, who, having thrown
away his second glass of whisky, filled a third. ‘Tell me, now,’ he
said, ‘is the whisky good out there?’
Conseltine smiled and nodded.
‘Well,’ said Blake, ‘an Irish gentleman ought to travel. Five hundred
pounds, ye said?’ Conseltine nodded again. ‘Five hundred on the nail,
and two hundred a year for life?’ Conseltine nodded a third time. ‘Hand
over the bottle,’ said Blake. ‘’Twill take a dale o’ whisky to settle
this question.’
His wavering hand had scarcely steered his glass to his mouth, when
a hurried step was heard in the garden, and a moment later the lawyer
Feagus burst into the room, panting and perspiring. Blake stared at him
for a moment without recognising him, and then rose, with the obvious
intention of falling foul of this unwelcome visitor.
‘Hold him back!’ cried Feagus. ‘Hold him back, for the love of heaven!’
‘Ye sneaking coward!’ cried Blake, trying to get past Conseltine. ‘How
dare ye intrude into my apartments? I’ll have your life!’
Feagus, who, under ordinary circumstances, would have at once accepted
the challenge, once more called to Conseltine to keep Blake back, and,
unbidden, filled and drank a glass of spirits.
‘I’ve no time to waste with _you_, Mr. Blake. I’ve news, Mr. Conseltine;
we’re cooked entirely!’
Conseltine thrust Blake into his chair, and turned.
‘What d’ye mean?’ he asked.
‘Moya Macartney’s _alive!_’ cried the lawyer.
Conseltine staggered as if he had been shot, and Blake, who had risen
to his feet to make a rush at Feagus, checked himself, and stood
still, swaying heavily on his feet, as he glared at the bearer of this
extraordinary news.
‘Are ye mad or drunk?’ asked Conseltine, with an ashen face.
‘I’m neither, sir,’ answered Feagus. ‘God be good to me, I’m too sober
for my pace of mind! I tell ye Moya Macartney’s alive. I’ve seen her.’
Conseltine stared at him like a man newly awakened from a nightmare, as
he went on: ‘’Twas last night, in the churchyard down by the lake. I
was passin’ by, and I saw a woman standing there among the graves, and
old Peebles coming along the road. Thinks I, “I’ll have a fine story
to tell my lord next time I dine with him,” and I just slipped behind a
gravestone and listened. He didn’t know her till she _told_ him who she
was--Moya Macartney, who’s been drowned and in her grave this eighteen
years! Holy Moses! I’m wringing wet only to think of it!’
‘Get on, man, get on!’ said Conseltine hoarsely.
‘I kept as still as death,’ continued Feagus, ‘though ’twas all I
could do to hold meself from cryin’ out when I heard her say “I’m Moya
Macartney.” Then she went on to say that she’d come back to the old
place to see the boy, and at that very minute he kem along the road
singin’.’
‘Desmond?’ cried Conseltine.
‘Desmond himself,’ said the lawyer. ‘Peebles cried out to him, and he
comes into the churchyard and talks with Moya.’ ‘For God’s sake go on,’
cried Conseltine; ‘what did they say?’
‘She never let on who she was. She said she was a poor wandering
creature who wanted to give him her blessin’. And she did; and
she cried, and he cried, and Peebles cried, and I was near cryin’
meself,--it was so affectin’!’
‘Well?’ said Conseltine. ‘And what was the upshot of it all?’
‘Faith, there was no upshot at all,’ said Feagus. ‘The boy went away
no worse than he kem, promisin’ not to lave the district till he’d seen
ould Peebles once more.’
‘If this is true----’ cried Conseltine, shaken out of his ordinary
cynical calm by the news; then he stopped short, staring before him with
a haggard face.
‘True, is it?’ cried Feagus. ‘Go and see for yourself. She’s staying
incog, at Larry’s mill.’
‘And Peebles knows it,’ said Conseltine. ‘By Heaven! I thought something
had happened. The old rascal’s been going about all day long as full o’
mystery as an egg’s full o’ meat. If Henry hears of this!’ ‘He won’t
yet awhile,’ returned Feagus. ‘She swore Peebles to silence till she
hersilf gave him leave to speak.’
‘My God!’ said Conseltine, scarcely above his breath. ‘What’s to be
done? We’re standing on a mine of gunpowder while that woman’s in the
district.’
Blake laughed. He had been as much astonished at the first hearing
of the news as either of his companions, but by this time had shaken
himself back into his usual condition of half-sodden, half-ferocious
humour.
‘Faith,’ said he, ‘’tis a case of the divil among the tailors. By the
Lord, Conseltine, but things are looking mighty quare. I’m thinkin’ I
won’t emigrate just yet. Sure, I’ll stop and see the fun! There’ll be
great doin’s at the Castle by-and-by, I’m thinkin’.’
He laughed again, and drank another glass of whisky.
Conseltine took no notice of the interruption, which he seemed scarcely
to hear.
‘What are ye goin’ to do, sir?’ asked Feagus.
‘I don’t know yet,’ answered Conseltine slowly. He sat down, and leant
his head upon his hand, Feagus and Richard watching him keenly. ‘She’s
living at Larry’s mill, you say?’ he said presently, without raising his
eyes from the floor.
‘At Larry’s mill,’ repeated Feagus. ‘She’s living all alone, under a
false name, at that ould antiquated rat-trap.’
‘Alone?’ repeated Conseltine meaningly.
‘Alone!’ repeated Feagus.
‘It’s ruin,’ said Conseltine, looking up,--‘it’s ruin for all of us if
we don’t get that woman out of the way.’
‘Bedad it is, then,’ said Feagus. His pale face went whiter as he looked
from Conseltine to Richard, and then back again, before stealing a look
at Blake, who, with his chin propped in his hands and his elbows on the
table, followed their dialogue as well as his muddled wits would allow,
with his habitual expression of dogged humour slightly deepened. ‘See
here, now,’ continued the lawyer; ‘we’re all friends here. The danger’s
pressin’, and what’s goin’ to be done has got to be done quick.’
Conseltine’s generally smooth and expressionless face was as a book in
which he read strange matter. Richard’s heavy hangdog countenance was
white with rage and distorted with apprehension. Blake was the only one
of the trio who preserved anything like his customary appearance.
‘I was thinking,’ said Feagus, ‘as I came along, unless--you see now,
the mill’s a mighty old place, worm-eaten and dry as tinder, and if--by
an accident intirely--in the night, when there’s nobody about to render
help--a stray spark’d do it, for there’s hay and sthraw scattered all
round convanient--and if--of course by accident--the old place were to
catch fire, powers alive! wouldn’t it be an odd happening? and if it
did, what fault o’ yours or mine would it be, and who’d be the wiser?’
‘God in heaven!’ cried Blake, rising to his feet, ‘’tis murder ye
mean! Now, mark me, Conseltine, I’ll be no party to this. The curses of
the son, the remorse of the old lord, and the spirit of that poor woman,
would haunt me to me grave. I’ll have neither art nor part in such a
plan.’
‘Of course not,’ said Conseltine, turning his white face from the last
speaker to Feagus. ‘It’s only Feagus’s fun!’
Feagus, looking at him, read more in his glance than could Blake and
Richard, from both of whom his face was hidden. What it was he did
not yet know, but in the score of years during which he had known
Conseltine, he had never seen in his eyes such an expression.
‘We must find legal means,’ Conseltine continued. ‘Good-day, Blake;
you’ll think of what I said to ye just now?’ Except for an added shade
of gloom, for which Feagus’s news of the presence of Moya Macartney in
the countryside would quite well have accounted, his face now was the
face of every day. ‘I’ll see ye again before long. Come, Dick; come,
Feagus.’
The three left the hut.
‘By the powers!’ said Blake, as he filled his seventh glass that day,
‘if the divil wants a fourth he’ll have to come _in propria persona_
himself an’ join them. I’m more than half inclined to take Dick
Conseltine’s offer, and go across the water. Your sins are finding ye
out, Pat Blake. You’ve lived on his money for years past; ’twould be
shabby conduct if ye turned on him now. But then, there’s Moya. Poor
colleen! Eh, the handsome slip of a girl she was--a long sight too good
for Kilpatrick, and ’twas I that ruined her--or helped. And the boy?
A fine lad, that; a handsome lad. Sure, many a time I’ve seen his mother
lookin’ out of his eyes at me, and heard her spake to me wid his voice.
Ah, be damn’d to me, now, I’m gettin’ ould and crazy! ’tis an ould
story--eighteen years ago. You might have got used to the thought of it
by now, Pat Blake. Put more of the right stuff into ye, and forget it.’
He obeyed his own prescription so promptly that, half an hour after his
guests had left him, he fell into a sodden sleep, with his head upon the
table.
Conseltine and his two companions had meantime walked on at a rapid
pace, and in dead silence, for the first half-mile. It was Conseltine
who was the first to speak.
‘That’s a good idea of yours, Feagus.’
‘It would be,’ responded the lawyer, ‘if it were not for that cowardly
drunken villain, who stops us puttin’ it into execution.’
‘But he won’t,’ said the other. ‘My mind’s made up. It’s that or
nothing.’
‘But if he splits?’ said Richard.
‘Split!’ repeated Conseltine. ‘The job once done, he has my leave to
split as wide as the Liffey. It’s one oath against three--the oath of
a drunken blackguard and beggar against the oaths of three men of
substance and position.’
‘And sure that’s true,’ said Feagus. ‘By the Lord, Mr. Conseltine, ye
should have taken to our profession. Ye’d have been an honour to it.’
‘Besides,’ said Conseltine, ‘he’ll _not_ split. He has his own skin to
save, and he’s as deep in the mud as we are in the mire.’ He paused, and
looked round cautiously. The plain stretched to the mountains on the
one side and the sea on the other, empty of any possible observer. ‘We
mustn’t be seen together,’ continued Conseltine. ‘We’d better separate
here. But before we part, we’ll just arrange the details.’