‘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.’