Chapter XIX: Through Connemara

Maxwell Drewitt sat alone in the dining-room at Kincorth, waiting for his son; he had waited many days and yet the fugitive came not, neither had any tidings of Arthur reached him.

He had watched for the post, he had strained his ears to catch the sound of horses’ feet, the noise of coming wheels. He had risen early, and gone to bed late; he had lain through the night wakeful and restless, and still there arrived no tidings; he had no data to go upon except Mr. Pryor’s telegram which he held in his hand.

Sorrow had told upon him; the suspense, the agony, the alternations of hope and fear had broken him down more and more. He was old—old and stricken; and as he crouched over the fire, which a damp autumnal evening had rendered acceptable, I think a more hopeless picture of the vanity of human wishes, of the end of human desires, could not have been presented for consideration.

Where was the erect carriage, the bold, defiant glance, the indolent grace of movement, the insolent overbearing manner? Gone, friends, gone—like the raven hue of his own glossy hair; like the cold brightness of his eyes; like the beauty he had been proud of, and that women had been won by; gone—gone for ever.

The passionless sneer had left his lips and given place to a sort of irrepressible convulsion. He could not walk now as he had walked in former years along the shore of Duranmore Bay, kicking the pebbles before him; but when at last he arose from his chair, in order to make his way to one of the windows, he had to support himself with a stick and to catch at chairs and tables as he passed by.

It was a wild night; the equinoctial gales were blowing their fiercest, and Maxwell, standing leaning against the window-frame, thought of how the waves must be lashing up against Eversbeg Head; how the billows must be raging and tossing outside the bay.

There was a something so dreary in the idea of that limitless ocean; those thousands of miles of tempestuous waters; that great expanse of sea without an island, without a shore, without a rock; those great deeps, shouting under the night to one another, while the floods clapped their hands—that Maxwell could not bear it; he had to turn from the window, and make his way feebly to the hearth, and stir up the fire, and try to think of a more cheerful subject.

But what cheerful subject had he to think of—this man, who had lived for the midday, and not for the night?

He could think of his boy, but of nothing else—of his boy, who, all unknown to him, was fleeing through Connemara towards Kincorth; who was trying to outstrip his pursuers, whom Ryan had promised to mislead, if possible, at Oughterard.

Through the night he was riding as if for his life; while the wind howled down among the mountains and through the valleys, and washed the waters of the lakes over the low stone walls that are in some places all that separates them from the highway—he rode on.

He had lost his hat about six miles on the Duranmore side of Oughterard, and now, as he galloped through the darkness, the wind tossed his hair hither and thither, now leaving his forehead bare, and again blinding him with locks that were dead-black as Harold’s had been. On—on—without a pause, except when the steepness of the ground necessitated pulling up his horse and walking—on past the giant mountains; past the eternal lakes; past the long low line of hills that lay between him and the sea; past bogs and morasses; over mountain-streams, over brawling torrents—still on through the darkness towards Kincorth.

Having gained the Calgillan road, he dismounted, unfastened his girths, took the saddle off his good steed’s back, and the bridle off his head, and then turned the animal adrift. Saddle and bridle he carried till he reached the plantations of Kincorth, when he left the main road, and hiding his belongings deep in the underwood, made his way across the fields towards the house.

“They are after me, father,” were his first words; “but I have got the start. Mr. Ryan said you were not to keep me here, but forward me on to Durrow. I don’t know my way there.”

He stood in the centre of the room while he spoke, with the firelight flickering over his pale face, with his straight hair tangled and matted, with a weary, anxious look on his countenance, with a hunted expression in his dark eyes.

“Who let you in?” Maxwell asked. It was no time for the interchange of much ceremony—for many words to be wasted.

“Dickson; and I have warned him.”

“Go into the next room for a minute while I ring the bell. Bring wine,” Maxwell ordered, “and, Dickson, come here for a moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is Flynn gone?”

“He leaves at six, you know, sir, usually, and it is now eleven.”

“Could you put the roan horse in the car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The other servants are gone to-bed, I suppose?”

“All, except the cook, sir.”

“Take the horse and car round to the back avenue, and then sit up for me. If anybody comes here asking where I am, say I have gone to Lord Marsden’s to dinner, and will not be back till late—perhaps not till morning, and—and—you know the rest, Dickson.”

“Yes, sir. I am to say Mr. Arthur has not been here.”

“Now go. Of course you will sit up for me. Should there be danger, light a candle in the blue room, and I will be on my guard; you understand?”

“Perfectly, sir. But surely you are not going out to-night; excuse me, sir, but——”

“Necessity knows no law,” finished Maxwell Drewitt, with something of his old decision of manner. “Now, Arthur, drink some wine, to put life into you; for it may be many a night before you are able to put your head under a roof again.” And while his son followed his advice in silence, the wretched father sat and looked at the only child he ever had.

“Surely you are not coming with me?” said Arthur, as his father arose and intimated it was time for them to depart. “It is an awful night, cold, and bleak, and threatening for rain. Let me try to find my way alone, if you would rather not trust Dickson.”

“I am not afraid of trusting Dickson,” was the reply; “but I must leave some one to answer their inquiries should they come.” Arthur shuddered; too well he knew who _they_ meant. “And as for the night, I shall be better out; the cold air will not hurt me.”

Would not it? He knew better; but he knew, also, that anything would be preferable to remaining at home in suspense; and, besides, after all, whom could he trust so well as himself—who could keep the secret like he and Arthur?

Through the night they pressed on together—father and son.

As they drove along that interminable road towards Durrow, Maxwell could not help thinking, that at some previous time he had traversed it under circumstances similar to the present; and all at once, as they drew near Castle Cronach, he remembered what Mr. Gyton had said about riding for one’s life through Connemara; and about how a man who was doing so would curse those bends and twists and curves.

There are some things which impress us with such a sense of reality—with such a feeling that at a future day we shall pass through what we fancy then—as gives us the idea, when the future day arrives, that we have not prefigured the event, but that it has actually happened at some former period.

This was Maxwell’s state of mind, at all events; and as the keen wind swept by—as the rain began pattering in his face—as he felt the nipping night air blowing through and through him, he could not help occasionally marvelling which was the dream, and which the reality—which was the shadow, and which the substance. Had he ever ridden along that road with three companions? Was he driving it in very truth then? Had he ever been strong enough to ride? Was he only imagining he was driving now? Were there people following them? Did he hear the sound of horses’ hoofs behind?

“It is only the wind,” Arthur kept saying; but Maxwell lashed the roan on for all that.

How long the road was! How he did curse those curves! how he did anathematize the engineer who planned, and the men who made it! How every winding seemed to double itself in length! how every mile appeared to quadruple itself in distance! But there, at last, thank God! at last, was Durrow!

They soon knocked Mr. Connor up, and explained to him the state of the case.

“You are on good terms with the fishermen, Connor,” said Mr. Drewitt; “get Skerritt to stow Arthur away till he can be taken off in some smuggling craft. Make it all right with the men; and say, I don’t mind five hundred pounds when I hear he is safe in France. It is more than you are worth, boy,” he added. “Don’t you think, now, you have been more trouble than profit to me, all your life long?”

His voice shook and trembled as he spoke; and Mr. Connor drew back, knowing they were about to say farewell to one another.

“It will be safest for us to leave you in their hands entirely,” explained Mr. Drewitt; “I am not afraid of any informers among them. Write to me, when you get clear off. You will have money and clothes provided for you on board the vessel. If I can, I will join you in France; but do not attempt to come back to these countries. And now good-bye, for the present. Good-bye!”

He held out his hand—he had never been much given to caressing, and it was the only mode of leave-taking he knew; but Arthur fell on his neck and wept; and Maxwell felt those tears dropping down into his heart, one by one.

It had been a cold heart and a dead—it had lain numb through life, only to waken up with pain and grief towards the last; and now he felt not only his son’s tears softening him, but the memory of other tears he had seen flow—of other sobs he had heard in the night—of other anguish he had let go away unsoothed—came up before him then—the ghosts of dead realities, the shadows of things that had all once been.

A few seconds and it was over; that was no time at which to waste precious moments in grief or in adieux; and while Connor took Arthur with him down to the shore, Maxwell drove back to Kincorth through the night alone.

That seemed to be his doom—alone—alone for ever—in adversity as in prosperity—at the end as in the beginning. But in the beginning solitude had not seemed terrible as it did towards the end; and that fact made all the difference.

Through that desolate wilderness he drove back, as I have said, alone; past great stretches of country, across which the wind went howling and howling as though, with shrieks and laughter, the storm were running races over the flat tracts of moorland. For a little distance the road wound along by the side of Durrow River, where the chesnut had died taking her leap so gallantly, and then great mountains hemmed him in for a mile or so, when they swept grandly off to right and left, leaving the traveller breathing space once more.

It is a grand country, this Connemara, but desolate beyond all power of description; the ends of the world seem to be reached when you are journeying through it; and even when a person has no pressing care, no special cause for unhappiness, when he is strong and free from anxiety of mind, there is a weirdness and a solemnity about a night-ride through his part of that land of the Wild West which must be felt to be comprehended.

What, then, must that solitary drive have proved to Maxwell Drewitt, whose strength was turned into weakness, whose powers of endurance were not equal to such an undertaking—who, racked with mental and bodily pain, prostrated by physical suffering, fancied, now that the mountains were advancing towards him—now that the road was slipping away—now that the air was full of strange sounds—and again that through the valleys and up the defiles were coming hundreds and hundreds of armed men seeking after his son?

It was fortunate that the roan knew his way to his stable, knew every turn in the road, every point of danger, every awkward curve, the position almost of every block of granite, or else Maxwell could scarcely have guided him home.

As it was, between two and three o’clock in the morning, when the wind was a little lulled, and the rain coming down in torrents, the unhappy man reached Kincorth, and lifting his eyes instinctively to the windows, saw no light in them.

“You must be just drowned, sir,” said Dickson, as he helped him off the car and took the reins out of his trembling hand and assisted him into the house; “I have a good fire in your own room, sir, and you had better get off your wet things and go straight away to bed.”

“Who is that, Dickson, who is that?” Maxwell whispered, seeing that a man had taken the horse’s head and was leading him round towards the stables. “There was no light burning—who is it?”

“No one, sir, but Mr. Brian Drewitt, who came in not ten minutes after you left. He said he would put up the roan, and set everything right for the morning, so that I could stay with you. He seems dreadfully downhearted, and he hasn’t put bite nor sup in his lips since he entered the doors.”

“Go to him, Dickson, and tell him not to lay a finger on any horse of mine; tell him that he shall not stay in my house, nor meddle in my concerns. It is owing to him that my son is a fugitive this night, without a place to lay his head in. He has come to gloat over me, to exult in my defeat; but he shall not stay here; he shall not, by——!”

Very unceremoniously, Dickson marched his master off to bed.

“I don’t think, sir,” he answered, “that you rightly know what you are talking about. I never saw a young gentleman seem in less notion of exulting, as you call it, than that same Mr. Brian was to-night; and I am certain sure if Mr. Arthur had been his own brother he could not have appeared more cut up than he was. When you’re warm in your bed, just see him, and hear what he has got to say; and if you don’t think then he means fair, why tell me to put him out, and if I don’t do it my name is not Michael Dickson. And sure, is not he making himself of use at this very minute, washing the car and rubbing down the horse, and doing a stable-boy’s work, only better than any stable-boy ever did it? I know what Mr. Brian can do. Many a time when I used to be coming up here, I saw him at work just like a labourer. Let him stay, sir, let him stay; we’ll want him yet.”

“It was he gave the information,” muttered Maxwell.

“So he told me; and he told me why he did it, and how sorry he had been since. He talked to me for an hour in the dining-room there—for an hour at the least. And he spoke about his mother, and Mr. Harold, so that it would have melted the heart of a stone.”

With a shudder, Maxwell Drewitt turned his head away, and laid it on the furthermost pillow.

“Let him come,” he said, faintly; “it may be that we have cross accounts to settle; let him come;” and Brian came accordingly.

“Maxwell,” he began, “I am here to help you, if I can. I am here to make what poor reparation is in my power. There was a time,” he went on, “when I swore I never would re-enter your doors at peace with you: over my dead mother’s body, I renewed that oath; and I swore then that if ever I had a chance of vengeance offered me, I would avail myself of that chance to the uttermost. Maxwell, I have recalled those oaths. I would undo that which I have done if I could. I want to help you, if in my power. Had I known who Arthur’s mother really was, I would have cut out my tongue before bringing sorrow upon her. Do you believe me, Maxwell? I never spoke falsely to you in my life; and you may believe it is the truth I am telling you now.”

There ensued a long silence, broken only by the sick man’s sobs. “I am so ill,” he said, “I am so weak—Brian, I thank you—I will take your offer, I will trust you. If you will, there shall be peace between us at last. Do you forgive me?”

“You are pressing me hard, Maxwell,” answered the other. “Hearing what I hear, guessing what I guess; with my dear ones where no reparation can be made to them, I cannot say I forgive. But I may try to forgive; will that content you?”

“And you will stay with me, Brian, you will stay. I am so sick, and I am so lonely. It was a fall off the chesnut did it; but I suppose you heard all about that?”

“Yes, poor Madcap!”

“It was not her fault, it was that fool of a Crabbe—it has made wild work with me, Brian, has not it? I shall never be a man again while I live—never!”

While he lived. Brian, keeping watch by the sick man’s bedside, knew that his existence could not be prolonged much longer, and looking at that poor wreck of mortality—at that old worn man—he found it hard to identify him with the Maxwell he had last seen standing just within the hall door of that house in which he was at length master.

Then he had been handsome, strong, resolute; now he was a stricken and hesitating creature, dying by inches, while there was not a human being related to him, by any close ties of blood, to take his hand and bid him be of good cheer, as he glided onward to that valley where is the blackness of the shadow of death.