Behind him lay the rolling moor, cloven by that one ribbonlike stretch of uneven road, broken here and there with great masses of lichen-covered grey rock, by huge clumps of purple heather, long, glittering streaks of yellow gorse. The morning was young, and little shrouds of white mist were still hanging around. His own clothes were damp. Little beads of moisture were upon his face. But below, where the Atlantic billows came thundering in upon a rock-strewn coast, the sun, slowly gathering strength, seemed to be rolling aside the feathery grey clouds. Downwards, split with great ravines, the road now sloped abruptly to a little plateau of farmland, on the seaward edge of which stood the ruins of a grey castle. Dotted here and there about that pastoral strip and on the opposite hillside, were a few white-washed cottages. Beyond these no human habitation, no other sign of life.
The traveller gazed downwards till he suddenly found a new mist before his eyes. Nothing was changed. Everywhere he looked upon familiar objects. There was the little harbour where he had moored his boat, scarcely more than a pool surrounded by those huge masses of jagged rocks; the fields where he had played, the cave in the cliffs where he had sat and dreamed. This was his own little corner, the land which his forefathers had sworn to deliver, the land for which his father had died, for which he had become an exile, to which he returned with the price of death upon his head.
After a while he slipped down from the car, examined the brakes, mounted to his seat and commenced the precipitous descent. Skilful driver though he was, more than once he was compelled to turn into the cliff side of the road in order to check his gathering speed. At last, however, he reached the lowlands in safety. On the left-hand side now was the rock-strewn beach, and the almost deafening roar of the Atlantic. On the right and in front, fields, no longer like patchwork but showing some signs of cultivation; here and there, indeed, the stooping forms of labourers — men, drab-coloured, unnoticeable; women in bright green and scarlet shawls and short petticoats. He passed a little row of whitewashed cottages, from whose doorways and windows the children and old people stared at him with strange eyes. One old man who met his gaze crossed himself hastily and disappeared. Jocelyn Thew looked after him with a bitter smile upon his lips. He knew so well the cause of the terror.
He came at last to the great gates leading to the ruined castle, gates whose pillars were surmounted by huge griffins. He looked at the deserted lodges, the coat of arms, nothing of which remained but a few drooping fragments. He shook the iron gates, which still held together, in vain. Finally he drove the car through an opening in the straggling fence, and up the long, grass-grown avenue, until he reached the building itself. Here he descended, walked along the weed-framed flags to the arched front door, by the side of which hung the rusty and broken fragments of a bell, at which he pulled for some moments in vain. To all appearances the place was entirely deserted. No one answered his shout, or the wheezy summons of the cracked and feeble bell. He passed along the front, barely out of reach of the spray which a strong west wind was bringing from seaward, looked in through deserted windows till he came at last to a great crack in the walls, through which he stepped into a ruined apartment. It was thus that he entered the home in which he had been born.
He made his way into a stone passage, along which he passed until a door on his right yielded to his touch. In front of him now were what had been the state apartments, stretching along the whole front of the castle save the little corner where he had entered. Here was dilapidation supreme, complete. The white, stone-flagged floor knew no covering save here and there a strip of torn matting. The walls were stained with damp. At long intervals were tables and chairs of jet-black oak, in all sorts and states of decay. On one or two remained the fragments of some crimson velvet, — on the back of one, remnants of a coat of arms! And here, entirely in keeping with the scene of desolation, were the first signs of human life — an old man with a grey beard, leaning upon a stick, who walked slowly back and forth, mumbling to himself.
A new light broke across Jocelyn Thew’s face as he listened, and the tears stood in his eyes. The man was reciting Gaelic verses, verses familiar to him from childhood. The whole desolate picture seemed to envisage thoughts which he had never been able to drive from his mind, seemed in the person of this old man to breathe such incomparable, unalterable fidelity that he felt himself suddenly a traitor who had slipped unworthily away and hidden from a righteous doom. Better that his blood had been spilt and his bones buried in the soil of the land than to have become a fugitive, to have placed an ocean between himself and the voices to which this old man had listened, day by day and night by night, through the years!
Jocelyn Thew stole softly out of the shadows.
“Timothy,” he called quietly.
The old man paused in his walk. Then he came forward towards the speaker and dropped on one knee. His face showed no surprise, though his eyes were strange and almost terribly brilliant.
“The Cathley!” he exclaimed. “God is good!”
He kissed his master’s hand, which he had seized with almost frantic joy. Jocelyn Thew raised him to his feet.
“You recognised me then, Timothy?”
“There is no Cathley in the world,” the old man answered passionately, “would ever rise up before me and call himself by any other name.”
“Am I safe here, Timothy, for a day or two?”
The old man’s scorn was a wonderful thing.
“Safe!” he repeated. “Safe! There is just a dozen miles or so of the Kingdom of Ireland where the stranger who came on evil business would disappear, and it’s our pride that we are the centre of it.”
“They’ve held on, then, in these parts?”
“Hold on? Why, the fire that smouldered has become a blaze,” was the eager response. “Ireland is our country here. Why — you know?”
“Know what?” Jocelyn Thew demanded. “You must treat me as a stranger, Timothy, I have been living under a false name. News has failed me for years.”
“Don’t you know,” the old man went on eagerly, “that they meet here in the castle, the men who count — Hagen, the poet, Matlaske, the lawyer, Indewick, Michael Dilwyn, Harrison, and the great O’Clory himself?”
“I thought O’Clory was in prison since the Sinn Fein rising.”
“In prison, aye, but they daren’t keep him there!” was the fierce reply. “They had a taste then of the things that are ablaze through the country. The O’Clory and the others will be here to-night, under your own roof. Aye, and the guard will be out, and there’ll be no Englishman dare come within a dozen miles!”
Jocelyn Thew walked away to one of the great windows and looked out seaward. The old servant limped over to his side.
“Your honour,” he said, his voice shaking even as the hands which clasped his stick, “this is a wonderful day — sure, a wonderful day!”
“For me, too, Timothy!”
“You’ve been a weary time gone. Maybe you’ve lain hidden across the seas there — you’ve heard nothing.”
“I’ve heard little enough, Timothy,” his master told him sadly. “There came a time when I put the newspapers away from me. I did it that I might keep sane.”
“You’ve missed much then, Sir Denis. There has been cruelty and wickedness, treason and murder afoot, but the spirit of the dear land has never even flickered in these parts. The arms we sent to Dublin were landed in yonder bay, and there was none to stop them, either, though they laid hands on that poor madman who well-nigh brought us all to ruin. There’s strange craft rides there now, where your honour’s looking.”