“My lad,” he said, “we shall have a fight to-day—a fight worth fighting. It won’t be the first time I’ve looked on bare steel or heard the bullets sing. I know what fighting means, and I know this, that many of us will lie low enough before the sun sets. It may be my luck to come through or it may not. I have a sort of feeling that I am to fire my last shots to-day. Don’t look at me like that, boy, I’m not frightened. I’ll fight none the worse. But I want to settle a little bit of business with you now that we are alone. I have a paper here, I wrote it last night while you slept; I signed it this morning, and I have it witnessed. I got a parson to witness it, a kind of curate man, a poor creature. I caught him going into the church to say prayers, and made him witness my signature. I had time enough, for you were longer at the inn than I was at the baker’s. Here it is for you, Neal. In case of my death it makes you owner of my share of a little business in the town of Boston. My partner is managing it now. We own a few ships, and were making money when I left. But it did not suit me. I got the fighting fever into my blood during the war. I couldn’t settle down to books and figures. Maybe you’ll take to the work. If you do you ought to stand a good chance of dying a rich man, and you’ll be comfortably off the day you hand that paper to my partner. Not a word now, not a word. I know what you want to say. Twist your lips into a smile again. Look as if you were happy whatever you feel, and when all’s said and done you ought to be happy. Whatever the end of it may be we’ll get our bellies full of fighting to-day, and what has life got to give a man better than that?”
CHAPTER XII
After breakfast Donald Ward led his party along the road up which M’Cracken’s force must march to reach Antrim. At about noon he met the advance guard of United Irishmen. Several of Donald’s companions were recognised by these men, and his party were led back to where M’Cracken himself marched with the central division of his army. It was then that Neal first saw this leader—a tall, fair-haired, gentle-faced man, dressed in a white and green uniform, armed with a sword. He spoke to Donald Ward, and then calling Neal, questioned him about the condition of the town of Antrim. Neal repeated all that Lord Dunseveric had said, and told how he had been shown a copy of the proclamation.
“You will not tell anyone else what you have told me, Mr. Ward,” said M’Cracken, “the news that our plans are known to the enemy might be discouraging to the men. It does not alter my determination to take Antrim to-day. Now I must give you your orders and your posts.” He called Donald Ward to him. “You will take charge of our two pieces of cannon,” he said. “They are at the rear of the force. Neal Ward, you will join the first division of the army—the musketeers—and place yourself under James Hope’s command. I think this is what both you and he would wish. Felix Matier and James Bigger will do likewise. Moylin, you and your two friends will march with the pikemen, whom I lead myself. Some of the men have arms for you.”
The party had fallen somewhat to the rear of the column during this conversation with M’Cracken. Neal and his two companions hurried forward at once in order to reach the division of musketeers which was in the van. They had opportunity as they passed along to admire the steady march and the determined bearing of the men. Green flags were everywhere displayed. The long pikes, iron spear-heads fastened on stout poles, were formidable weapons in the hands of strong men. An almost unbroken silence was preserved in the ranks. The northern Irishmen are not great talkers at any time. Set to work of deadly earnest, they become very silent, very grim.
There were men in the little army belonging to some of the finest fighting stocks in the world. There were descendants of the fiery Celtic tribes to whom Owen Roe O’Neill taught patience and discipline; who, under him, if he had lived, might well have broken even Cromwell’s Ironsides and sent the mighty Puritan back to his England a beaten man. Despised, degraded, enslaved for more than a century, these had yet in them the capacity for fighting. There were also the great-grandsons of the citizen soldiers of Derry—of the men who stood at bay so doggedly behind their walls, whom neither French military art nor Celtic valour, nor the long suffering of famine and disease, could cow into surrender. There were others—newcomers to the soil of Ireland—who brought with them to Ulster the traditions of the Scottish Covenantors, memories of many a fierce struggle against persecution, of conflict with the dragoons of Claverhouse. All these, whose grandfathers had stood in arms for widely different causes, marched together on Antrim, an embodiment of Wolfe Tone’s dream of a united Ireland. Their flags were green, vividly symbolic of the blending of the Protestant orange with the ancient Irish blue. M’Cracken, with such troops behind him, might march hopefully, even though he knew that the cavalry, infantry, and artillery were hurrying against him along the banks of the Six Mile Water, from Blaris Camp and Carrickfergus.
James Hope greeted Neal warmly.
“There is a musket for you,” he said, “and your own share of the cartridges you helped to save. There’s a lad here, a slip of a boy, who is carrying them for you.”
He looked round and pointed out the boy to Neal.