The Wild Geese

by Stanley John Weyman

"I'm fearing, then, it will be the garr'son from Tralee," was Uncle Ulick's contribution. And he shook his head. "The saints be between us and them, and grant we'll not be seeing more of them than we like, and sooner!"

"Amen to that same!" replied old Timothy Burke, with an uneasy look behind him.

There was nothing comforting in this. And the messengers sent to learn what was amiss and why the expected party did not arrive had as little cheer to give. They could learn nothing. On which Uncle Ulick and his fellows rubbed their heads: the small men wondered. A few panic-stricken, began to slip away, but the mass were faithful. An hour went by in this trying uncertainty, and a second and part of a third; and messengers departed and came, and there were rumours and alarms, and presently something like the truth got abroad; and there was talk of pursuit, and a band of young stalwarts was detailed and sent off. Still the greater part of the assemblage, with Irish patience, remained seated in ranks on the slopes of the hills, the women with their drugget shawls drawn over their heads, the men with their frieze coats hanging loose about them. The chill mist which clung to the hillsides, and the atmosphere of doubt which overhung all, were a poor exchange for the roaring bonfires, the good cheer, the enthusiasm, the merriment of the previous evening. But the Irish peasant, if he be less staunch at the waiting—even as he is more forward in the hand-to-hand than his Scottish cousins—has the peasant's gift of endurance; and in the most trying hours—in ignorance, in doubt, in danger—has often held his ground in dependence on his betters, with a result pitiful in the reading. For too often the great have abandoned the little, the horse has borne off the rider, and the naked footman, surprised, surrounded, out-matched, and put to the sword, has paid for all.

But on this day a time came, about high noon, when the assemblage—and the fog—began at last to melt. Sir Donny was gone, and old Tim Burke of Maamtrasna. They had slipped homewards, by little-known tracks across the peat hags; and, shamefaced and fearful of the consequences, the spirit all gone out of them, had turned their minds to oaths and alibis. They had been in trouble before, and were taken to know; and their departure sapped the O'Beirnes' resolution, whose uneasy faces as they talked together spread the contagion. Uncle Ulick and several of the buckeens were away on the search; the handful of Spanish seamen had returned to the house or to the ship: there was no one to check the defection when it set in. An hour after Sir Donny had slipped away, the movement which might have meant so much to so many was spent. The slopes about the ruined gables which they called Carraghalin, and which were all that remained of the once proud abbey, had returned to their wonted solitude; where hundreds had sat a short hour before the eagle hovered, the fox turned his head and scented the wind. Even the house at Morristown had so far become itself again that a scarcity, rather than a plenitude of life, betrayed the past night of orgy; and a quietness beyond the ordinary, the things that had been dreamed. The garrison of Tralee, the Protestant Settlement at Kenmare, facts which had been held distant and negligible in the first flush of hope and action, now seemed to the fearful fancy many an Irish mile nearer and many a shade more real.

Doubtless, in the minds of some, a secret thankfulness that, after all, they were not required to take the leap, relieved the disappointment and lessened the shame. They were well out of an ugly scrape, they reflected; well clear of the ugly shadow of the gallows—always supposing that no informer appeared. It might even be the hand of Providence, they thought, that had removed their leaders, and so held them back. They might think themselves happy to be quit of it for the fright.

But there was one—one who found no such consolation; one to whom the issue was pure loss, a shameful defeat, the end of hopes, the defeat of prayers that had never risen to heaven more purely than that morning.

Flavia sat with her eyes on the dead peat that cumbered the hearth—for in the general excitement the fire had been suffered to go out—and in a stupor of misery refused to be comforted. Of her plans, of her devotion, of her lofty resolves, this was the result. She had aspired, God knew how honestly and earnestly, for her race downtrodden and her faith despised, and this was the bitter fruit. Nor was it only the girl's devotion to her country and to her faith that lay sore wounded: her vanity suffered, and perhaps more keenly. The enterprise that was to have glorified the name of McMurrough, that was to have raised that fallen race, that was to have made that distant province blessed among the provinces of Ireland, had come to an end, derisive and contemptible, before it was born. Her spirit, unbroken by experience and untrained to defeat, fearing before all things ridicule, dashed itself against the dreadful conviction, the dreadful fact. She could hardly believe that all was over. She could hardly realise that the cup was no longer at her lip, that the bird had escaped from the hand. But she looked from the window; and, lo, the courtyard which had hummed and seethed was dead and silent. In one corner a knot of men were carrying out the arms and the powder, and were preparing to bury them. In another, a woman—it was Sullivan Og's widow—sat weeping. It was the Hic jacet of the great Rising that was to have been, and that was to have regenerated Ireland!

And "You must kill him!" she cried, with livid cheeks and blazing eyes. "If you do not, I will!"

Uncle Ulick, who had heard the story of the ambush, and beyond doubt was one of those who felt more relief than disappointment, stretched his legs uneasily. He longed to comfort her, but he did not know what to say. Moreover, he was afraid of her in this mood.

"You must kill him!" she repeated.