“Ay, he will. Did you no see the proclamation?”
“Will Kelso,” said some one to the smith, “are you working hard, man? We’ll be needing a hundred more of them pike heads by the morrow’s morn.”
The smith let his hammer fall with a clang on the anvil, and wiped his brow.
“If you do as good a day’s work the morrow with what I’m working on the day there’ll be no cause to complain of you.”
For the first time since he left Dunseveric Neal felt a glow of hope for the success of the movement. He knew what kind of men these farmers and weavers of Carnmoney and Templepatrick were—austere, cold men, difficult to stir to violent action; much more difficult to cow into submission when once roused. And it appeared to him that they were effectually roused now. He recalled his father’s fanciful application of the verse from the prophet Jeremiah. He felt, as he listened to the men round the forge, the hardness of “the northern iron and the steel.” Was there among the blustering yeomen and the disciplined troops of the King iron strong enough to break this iron?
He left the forge and passed on. His thoughts wandered from the enterprise to which he had pledged himself, and went back, as time after time during the last week they had gone back, to Una. He walked slowly, wrapped in a delicious day dream. Neglecting all fact, driving from his mind the pressing realities which separated him hopelessly from the girl he loved, he imagined himself walking with her hand-in-hand in some fair place far from strife and the oppression which engendered strife. A feeling of fierce anger succeeded his day dream. The sun shone around him, the fields were fair to see. Life ought to be like the sun and the fields—simple and good and beautiful. Instead it was difficult and cruel. He was being dragged into a vortex of hate and battle. He loathed the very thought of it. He wanted peace and love. And yet, what escape was there for him? Did he even want to escape if he could? The wrong and tyranny he was to resist were real, insistent, horrible. He would be less than a man, unworthy of the love and peace he longed for, if he failed to do his part in the struggle for freedom and right.
At midday he reached Templepatrick village, and found the inn occupied by a company of yeomen. He sought the house of the weaver with whom he had dined, in company with James Hope, on his way to Belfast. The door was closed, which struck Neal as strange, for the day was hot and bright. Coming near, he was surprised not to hear the rattle of the loom. Birnie was a diligent man; it was not like him to leave his loom idle. And the house was not empty; he could hear a woman’s voice within. He tapped at the door, intending to ask for a meal and for leave to rest awhile in the kitchen. There was no answer, and yet he heard the woman still speaking in low, even tones. He tapped again, and then, despairing of attracting attention, raised the latch, half opened the door, and looked in.
In the centre of the room, before the table, a young woman knelt motionless, her hands stretched out before her. Neal heard her words distinctly. She was praying aloud, steadily, quietly, but with intense earnestness, repeating petition after petition for her husband’s safety. Very softly Neal withdrew, and closed the door. He might go dinner-less, but he would not interrupt the woman’s prayer. He turned, to find a little girl gazing at him. He recognised her as the Birnies’ child.
“Were you wanting my da?”
“Yes, little girl, but I see he’s gone away.”