FLIGHT
He heard the clock strike twelve. There were two mortal hours yet to be
consumed in idleness. He could do nothing, and the whole of his future
happiness was in the hands of Patsy and Larry Lyburn. He sought for and
found a rank old briar root—true friend in the past on many a moor, at
many a covert side, filled it with cut cavendish, and lit it.
He was only taking a hunting kit-bag. It was already packed, but he
unpacked it, and packed it again to kill time. In the midst of these
occupations the clock struck one.
There was something sinister in the extreme silence of the house. One
could not but fancy subterfuge in it; and under its cloak armed
surprise.
Mr Fanshawe, seated on his bed, smoking and staring at the hunting
kit-bag now stuffed, locked and strapped, heard in imagination the
banging of doors, the screaming of maid-servants, and the raucous voice
of his uncle crying, “Stop them!”
Then he began to find fault with himself for not ordering a special
train. A wire had come that afternoon from the General Manager of the
Great Midland of Ireland, saying that the express from Carlow would stop
at Tullagh as directed, but, all the same, a special would have been
safer, for, should anything happen to delay him on the drive to Tullagh
the express would not wait.
It is in this way that men discover holes in their armour at the last
moment, just before the fight, a faulty string in their banjo when they
are on the platform, and the audience is preparing to wreathe itself in
smiles at the comic song.
Mr Fanshawe went to the window and peeped out.
The moon, just after the full, was swinging in a cloudless sky, the park
lay under the moon covered with a thin winter mist. The great funereal
masses of the woods, the distant hills like a troop of gigantic horsemen
cloaked, and riding under the night, made a picture after the heart of
Gustave Doré.
Mr Fanshawe looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to two. He took the
hunting kit-bag in one hand and the solitary candle in the other and
left the room.
The house was solidly constructed, and the stair carpets were thick, so
he could move without making the least sound. As he came down the last
steps to the hall the place looked vast, and the men in armour
interested and not too surely amiable spectators of the scene.
A small figure stood at the foot of the stairs. It was Patsy.
“Is all right, Patsy?” whispered Mr Fanshawe.
“I b’lave so, sir,” said Patsy in the same tone of voice. “I slipped out
quarter of an hour ago, and Larry, he’s strawed the yard, and he was
openin’ the coach-house dure to get the cart out. He’s done everything
all right, but he’s rockin’ drunk.”
“Good heavens!” said Dicky.
“Oh, he’ll drive all right, sir,” said Patsy. “Drunk or sober is all the
same to Larry, as long as he’s got the ribbons in his hand.”
A slight sound from above drew Mr Fanshawe’s attention. It was Doris
fully dressed, with a candle in her hand, and Bob. Bob was making short
slides down the banisters as he came, with one leg hanging over the
hall. It only required that he should tumble over and break his leg to
precipitate the disaster Mr Fanshawe dimly felt to be impending.
“If he does,” thought Dicky, “I’ll break the little beast’s neck, to
complete the business.”
“Here we are, Mr Fanshawe,” said Doris in a joyful whisper, as she and
Bob arrived at the foot of the stairs without accident.
Mr Fanshawe did not answer, he was looking up. A faint star of light was
gliding downwards, ghostly and glow-worm like. It was Miss Lestrange
dressed in a mole-skin cloak, a travelling bag in one hand, and a candle
in the other.
“Boom—Boom.” The great clock in the turret was striking two.
“I’m not frightened,” gasped the girl, as Dicky, forgetting the children
and Patsy, clasped her in his arms, “I’m only nervous.”
“Now, then, Patsy,” whispered Mr Fanshawe, “lead the way with the
candle, we have no time to lose.”
Patsy led the way down the corridor to the kitchen.
“I’ve iled them,” said Patsy with a grin as he slid the bolts back
silently of the kitchen door. “Howld the candle over me shoulder,
Misther Fanshawe, that I may see where Larry is.”
Mr Fanshawe did as he was asked. Patsy turned the key in the lock and
opened the door.
“O Glory be to God!” said Patsy.
It did not require a candle to light the picture, the full moon did it.
In the middle of the yard, which was deeply strawed, stood the great old
family coach in which Lady Seagrave took her airings, harnessed to it
were the two stout white coach horses, one of which, hearing the faint
sound of the opening door, turned its fiddle-shaped head and surveyed
the newcomers with a flickering, subdued whinny.
On the straw, face down, arms spread out, and the moonlight exhibiting
the two tarnished buttons on the back of the old livery coat he had
slipped on, lay Larry.
“Great heavens!” said Mr Fanshawe, “look at the thing he has harnessed!”
“He’s got it all muddled wid the whisky, sir,” whispered Patsy. “There’s
nothin’ to be done but get the dogcart out ourselves and put the old
mare to.”
He gave Larry a kick with his foot, and Larry gave a grunt.
“He’s full up,” said Patsy, as though he were speaking about a decanter.
“Couldn’t we go in this thing?” asked Mr Fanshawe. “I could drive.”
“There’s only Larry and the coachman that can make thim two ould horses
go beyond a walk,” replied Patsy. “Better get the dogcart out and we’ll
put the mare to in no time.”
“Right!” said Mr Fanshawe. “Violet, what will you do whilst we’re
harnessing?”
“I’ll stand and watch you,” replied she. “And O Dicky, _don’t_ make a
noise.”
“Mr Fanshawe,” whispered Doris, “_his_ room is just above.”
“I know,” replied Mr Fanshawe, in the tone of a man who is driven to
extremity. “Patsy, you fetch out the mare, I’ll fetch the dogcart
out—that’s the coach-house door, isn’t it? Bother! the brute has put the
bar up—quick, it’s eight minutes past two.”
Whilst Patsy went to fetch the mare, Mr Fanshawe approached the
coach-house door. Larry, an automaton even in his cups, had done his
work carefully and well, even to barring the door. He must have done it
silently, too.
Mr Fanshawe had just lifted the bar when in his hurry it slipped from
his hands and fell on the flags with a bang. The straw of the yard did
not reach quite to the coach-house door, and the sound was loud, and
awful as the crack of doom. Mr Fanshawe removed the bar from the ground,
placed it end up against the wall, opened the coach-house door and
seized upon the dogcart, which was fortunately shafts towards the open
door. He was wheeling it carefully out when a window shot open above.
“Hullo!” cried Mr Boxall’s voice, “what’s this?”
“It’s the Tullagh mail-cart, sir, broke down and come to borrow a
horse,” cried Patsy, who was leading Fly-by-night out of the stable.
“What cart?” asked Mr Boxall. But Patsy did not answer; he had darted
into the harness room and returned with the collar on one shoulder and
dragging the harness after him.
“Quick, sir!” cried Patsy.
Mr Fanshawe did not need to be told. He had just passed the collar over
the mare’s head when another window shot up.
“Hullo! hullo! what’s this?” came General Grampound’s voice, “what’s
this? What the devil are you doing down there? Why, hi! Richard! Violet!
God bless my soul, Boxall, quick, they’re making away. Raise the house.”
His head vanished from the window.
“Don’t stop to answer him, sir,” cried Patsy. “Hould this strap wan
minit—wo, you baste!—Don’t stop to answer him, sir. I’ve tied their dure
handles togither wid a lingth of whipcord so’s they can’t get out till
some one lets ’em. Lift your tail, y’ divil—listen to ’em, they’re fair
thrapped.”
From the house could be heard the sounds that spoke of bedroom doors
being hammered upon and kicked against, and the screaming of women
wakened from their sleep, and the barking of Lady Molyneux’s pugs.
“Whin I saw Larry was drunk, I slipped upstairs wid the string and
fastened their dure handles together,” said Patsy, as he laboured away
at the straps. “Help me wid the trace, sir—it’s hitched. Faith, we’ve
beaten thim; one more strap, and we’ve done. Quick, sir, in wid the
lady—they’re out.”
The sounds upstairs had ceased.
“Jump into the carriage, children,” cried Violet, kissing Doris wildly,
“and hide!” She opened the door of the old family coach, and the
children popped in.
The next moment she was half lifted, half pushed into the dogcart. The
bags were shot in, Mr Fanshawe took the reins. Patsy clambered up behind
and they started.
“Let her have her mouth, sir,” said Patsy, as they turned out of the
yard, “and don’t press her till she warms to her work. We’ve time and
plenty, for it’ll take an hour before the ould Gineral kicks Larry
sober. Mind the post, sir—that’s right—but mind the turnin’ at the
drive.”
They passed the turning safely, then down the moonlit drive,
Fly-by-night dancing with her own shadow in the moonlight, then through
the park gates and the sleeping village of Castle Knock they went, the
mare’s hoofs ringing on the hard high-road to Tullagh.
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“I say, this is a go!” said little Lord Gawdor.
“Hush!” said Doris. “We can slip out when they put the carriage back in
the coach-house.” She pulled the carriage door to, and they listened.
They had not to listen long. Hurried steps came through the kitchen, and
then Mr Boxall’s voice and the General’s.
“They’ve gone in the dogcart. What’s this carriage doing. Hi you,
sir,”—the sound of a kick—“Hi you, sir—he’s drunk—Hi, you drunken
beast,”—kick, kick.
“Lit up,” came Larry’s voice. “Lave me be, or I’ll kick the stuffin’ out
of you when I get on me pins. Whoa-up—what’s the matter? Gineral—why,
it’s you. I wasn’t dhrunk, I’s only aslape—what do you say—Misther
Fanshawe? Why, he’s dew be this to be off to Tullagh to kitch the
train.”
“Up you get,” came the General’s voice, “on to your legs—up on the box
with you—there you are, take the reins, drive for all you’re worth, and
mark you, if you stop before we overtake them, I’ll thrash you within an
inch of your life. You can find the road to Tullagh, can you, you
half-drunken beast?”
“Arrah, get in wid you,” came Larry’s voice from the box—“in wid you,
and I’ll drive you to the divil (hic)—in you get. Tullagh is it?—Right
y’are.”
The General bounced in and shut the door, and the old coach started with
a jerk and took the corner of the stable-yard, just shaving overset and
destruction.
Mr Boxall, running to the corner, saw the vehicle in the moonlight
making full speed down the avenue; he saw the General’s head suddenly
protruded through the right window, and heard his voice, borne on the
night breeze, shouting, “Stop! hi, stop! the d—d thing is full of
children!” and Larry’s voice, “Aisy—sit aisy, we’ll be afther overtaking
thim in a minit.”
Who he would be “afther overtaking” must have been a very dark question
in Mr Lyburn’s mind, obsessed as it was with whisky and the two
ideas—Tullagh and speed.