The Landleaguers

by Anthony Trollope

"I didn't see anything," said Florian sulkily.

"I don't believe he knew anything about it," said Mr. Jones to Edith afterwards. Edith could only receive this in silence, and keep her own opinion to herself. Ada was altogether of her mind, but Frank at last came round to his father's view. "It isn't probable," he said to his sisters, "that a boy of his age should be able to keep such a secret against four of us; and then it is most improbable that he should have seen anything of the occurrence and not have come at once to his father." But the girls held to their own opinion, till at last they were told by Frank that they were two pig-headed nincompoops.

Things were going on in this way, and Mr. Jones was still striving to find out evidence by which a case might be substantiated against Pat Carroll, when that gentleman, one winter afternoon, was using his eloquence upon Master Florian Jones. It was four o'clock, and the darkness of the night was now coming on very quickly. The scene was a cottage, almost in the town of Headford, and about two miles from the nearest part of the Morony estate. In this cottage Carroll was sitting at one side of a turf fire, while an old woman was standing by the doorway making a stocking. And in this cottage also was another man, whose face was concealed by an old crape mask, which covered his eyes and nose and mouth. He was standing on the other side of the fireplace, and Florian was seated on a stool in front of the fire. Ever and anon he turned his gaze round on the mysterious man in the mask, whom he did not at all know; and, in truth, he was frightened awfully through the whole interview by the man in the mask, who stood there by the fireside, almost close to Florian's elbow, without speaking a word; nor did the old woman say much, though it must be presumed that she heard all that was said.

"Faix, Mr. Flory, an' it's well for you you've come," said Carroll. "Jist you sit steady there, 'cause it won't do the laist good in life you're moving about where all the world'd see you." It was thus that the boy was addressed by him, whom we may now call his co-conspirator, and Carroll showed plainly, by his movements and by the glances which he cast around him, that he understood perfectly the dreadful nature of the business in which he was engaged. "You see that jintl'man there?" And Carroll pointed to the man in the mask.

"I see him," said poor Florian, almost in tears.

"You'd better mark him, that's all. If he cotches a hould o'ye he'd tear ye to tatthers, that's all. Not that he'd do ye the laist harum in life if ye'd just hould yer pace, and say nothin' to nobody."

"Not a word I'll say, Pat."

"Don't! That's all about it. Don't! We knows,—he knows,—what they're driving at down at the Castle. Sorra a word comes out of the mouth o' one on 'em, but that he knows it." Here the man in the mask shook his head and looked as horrible as a man in a mask can look. "They'll tell ye that the father who owns ye ought to know all about it. It's just him as shouldn't know."

"He don't," said Florian.

"Not a know;—an' if you main to keep yourself from being holed as they holed Muster Bingham the other day away at Hollymount." The boy understood perfectly well what was meant by the process of "holing." The Mr. Bingham, a small landlord, who had been acting as his own agent some twenty miles off, in the County of Mayo, had been frightfully murdered three months since. It was the first murder that had stained the quarrel which had now commenced in that part of the country. Mr. Bingham had been unpopular, but he had had to deal with such a small property, that no one had imagined that an attack would be made on him. But he had been shot down as he was driving home from Hollymount, whither he had gone to receive rent. He had been shot down during daylight, and no one had as yet been brought to justice for the murder. "You mind's Muster Bingham, Muster Flory; eh? He's gone, and sorra a soul knows anything about it. It's I'd be sorry to think you'd be polished off that way." Again the man in the mask made signs that he was wide awake.