The old man turned away his head; his voice was still for some moments. Were there tears in those evil-glowing eyes, that never lowered before mortal man or quailed under the shadow of death? Who shall say? Wilfred played with his bridle-rein. When the henchman spoke next he gazed resolutely before him, towards the far purple mountain peak; his voice once more was strong and clear.
‘Whin I seen her again she was a woman grown, but her eyes were the same, and her heart was true to the wild boy that was born to ruin all that was nigh or kind to him. The old man scowled at me. There was little love between us.
‘“So you’ve grown into a useless man instead of a disobedient lad,” he said. “Why didn’t ye stay among the rebels and white-boys of the West? It’s the company that fits ye well; you’ll have the better chance of being hanged before you’re older. Change your name before it’s a by-word and a disgrace to honest folks.”
‘I swore then I’d make him repent his words, and that if I was hanged my name should be known far and wide. I went back to the wild West. But if I did I gave him good raison to curse me to his dyin’ day. I soothered over Mary to marry me, and the day after we were well on the way to Athlone.’
‘Surely then you had a happy life before you, Tom?’
‘True for you. If I wasn’t happy, no man ever was. But the divil was too strong in me. I was right for the first year. I loved my work with the hounds, and the master—rest his sowl—used to say there wasn’t a whip west of Athlone could hold a candle to me. He gave me a snug cottage. Mary was a great favourite entirely with the ladies of the house. For that year—that one blessed year of my life—I was free from bad ways. Within the year Mary had a fine boy in her arms—the moral of his father, every one said—and as she smiled on me, I felt as if what the priest said about being good and all the rest of it, might be true, after all.’
‘And what made the change, Tom?’
‘The ould story—restlessness, bad company, and saycret societies. I got mixed up in one, that I joined before I was married, more for the fun of the night walks and drillin’s and rides than anything else. The oath once taken—a terrible oath it was, more by token—I thought shame of breakin’ it. It’s little I’d care now for a dozen like it. The end of it was, one night I must go off with a mob of young fools, like myself, to frighten a strong farmer who had taken the land over a poor man’s head. I didn’t know then that the best kindness for a strugglin’ holder there, was to hunt him out of the overstocked land to this place, or America, or the West Indies. Anyhow, we burned a stack. After I left, the boys were foolish and bate him. He took to his bed and died—divil mend him! Two days afterwards I was arrested on a warrant, and lodged in the county gaol. ’Twas the first time I heard a prison lock turn behind me. Not the last, by many a score times.
‘I had no chance at the Assizes. A girl swore to me as Huntsman Tom. Five of thim was hanged. I got off with transportation. I was four miles away whin they were heard batin’ Doran. I asked the Judge to hang me with the rest. He said it couldn’t be done. Mary came every day to see me, poor girleen; she liked to show me the boy; but I could see her heart was broke, though she tried to smile—such a smile—for my sake. I desarved what I got, maybe. But if I’d been let off then, as there’s a God in heaven I’d have starved rather than have done a wrong turn agin as long as I lived. If them judges knew a man’s heart, would they let one off, wonst in a way? Mary was with me every day, wet or dry, on board the prison ship till she sailed. Is there angels come to hell, I wonder, to see the wretches in torment? If they do, they’ll look like her, as she stood on the deck and trembled whin the chained divils that some calls men filed by. She looked at me with her soft eyes, till I grew mad, and told her roughly to go home and take the child with her. Then she dropped on her knees and cried, and kissed my hands with the irons on them and the face of me, like a madwoman. She lifted the baby to me for a minute, and it held out its hands. I kissed its wheeshy soft face, and she was gone out of my sight—out of my life—for ever.’
‘How did you like the colony?’