The O’Clory, a big, silent man, leaned over and laid his hand on his host’s shoulder.
“What are you going to do about it?” he demanded.
“For the moment I do not know,” Sir Denis confessed. “Advise me, all of you. I undertook this enterprise partly because of its danger, partly for a great sum of money which I should have handed over to our cause, partly because if I succeeded it would hurt England. Now I have come back and I find you all moved by a different spirit.”
“There isn’t a man in this island,” Michael Dilwyn said slowly, “who has hated England as I have. She has been our oppressor for generations, and in return we have given her the best of our sons, their life-blood, their genius, their souls. And yet, with it all there is a bond. Our children have married theirs, and when we’ve looked together over the side, we’ve seen the same things. We’ve made use of Germans, Denis, but I tell you frankly I hate them. There are two things every Irishman loves — justice and courage — and England went into this war in the great manner. She has done big things, and I tell you, in a sneaking sort of way we’re proud. I am honest with you, you see, Denis. You can guess, from what I’ve said, what I’d do with that packet.”
Sir Denis turned to the O’Clory.
“And you?” he asked.
“My boy,” was the reply, “sure Michael’s right. I’ve hated England, I’ve shouldered a rifle against her, I’ve talked treason up and down the country, and I’ve known the inside of a prison. I’ve spat at her authority. I’ve said in plain words what I think of her — fat, commerce-ridden, smug, selfish. I’ve watched her bleed and been glad of it, but at the bottom of my heart I’d have liked to have seen her outstretched hand. Denis, lad, that’s coming. We’ve got to remember that we, too, are a proud, obstinate, pig-headed race. We’ve got to meet that hand half-way, and when the moment comes I’d like to be the first to raise the boys round here and give the Germans hell!”
Another blue ball shot up into the sky. Sir Denis took the packet of papers from the table and stood by the great open stone hearth. Michael Dilwyn moved to his side, a gaunt, impressive figure.
“You’re doing the right thing, Denis,” he declared. “What fighting we’ve done, and any that we may still have to do with England, we’ll do it on the surface. I was down at Queenstown when they brought in some of the bodies from the Lusitania. To Hell with such tricks! There’s no Irishman yet has ever joined hands with those who war against women and babies.”
Denis drew a log of burning wood out on to the hearth and laid the packet deliberately upon it. He stood there watching the smoke curl upwards as the envelope shrivelled and the flames crept from one end to the other.
“That seems a queer thing to do,” he observed, with a dry little laugh. “I’ve carried my life in my hands for those papers, and there’s a hundred thousand pounds waiting for them, not a mile away.”
“Blood-money, boy,” the O’Clory reminded him, “and anyway there’s a touch of the evil thing about strangers’ gold. — Eh, but who’s this?”
A large motor-car had suddenly flashed by the window. With the instinct of past dangers, the little gathering of men drew close together. There was the sound of an impatient voice in the hall. The door was opened hurriedly and Crawshay stepped in. “It is a gentleman in a great hurry, your honour,” Timothy explained.
Crawshay, dour and threatening, came a little further into the room. Behind him in the hall was a vision of his escort. Sir Denis looked up from the hearth with a poker in his hand.
“My friend,” he observed, “it seems to be your unfortunate destiny to be always five minutes too late in life.”
Crawshay’s outstretched hand pointed denouncingly through the window towards the bay.
“If I am too late this time,” he declared, “then an act of treason has been committed. You know what it means, I suppose, to communicate with the enemy?”
Denis shook his head.
“As yet,” he said, “we have held no communication with our visitors. If you doubt my word, come down on your knees with me and examine these ashes.”
Crawshay, with a little exclamation, crossed the floor and crouched down by the other’s side. A word or two in the topmost document stared at him. The seal of the envelope had melted, and a little thread of green wax had made a strange pattern upon the stones.
“Is this the end, then?” he demanded in bewilderment.
“It is the end,” was the solemn reply. “Perhaps if you take the ashes away with you, you will be able to consider that honours are divided.”
“You burnt them — yourself?” Crawshay muttered, still wondering. “Every gentleman in this room,” Denis replied, “is witness of the fact that I destroyed unopened the packet which I brought from America, barely five minutes ago.”
Crawshay stood upright once more. He was convinced but puzzled.
“Will you tell me what induced you to do this?” he asked.
“We will tell you presently. As for the submarine outside, well, as you see, he is still sending up blue lights.”
Crawshay gathered the ashes together and thrust them into an envelope.
“Your friend will be trying some of our Irish whisky, Denis,” Michael Dilwyn invited. “We are hoping to make the brand more popular in England before long.”
.
CHAPTER XXVIII
One by one, the next morning, in all manner of vehicles, the guests left the Castle. Sir Denis bade them farewell, parting with some of them in the leaky hall of his ancestors, and with others out in the stone-flagged courtyard. Crawshay alone lingered, with the obvious air of having something further to say to his host. The two men strolled down together seaward to where the great rocks lay thick upon the stormy beach.
“These,” Sir Denis pointed out, “are supposed to be the marbles with which the great giant Cathley used to play. Tradition is a little vague upon the subject, but according to some of the legends he was actually an ancestor, and according to others a kind of patron saint…. Just look at my house, Crawshay! What would you do with a place like that?”
They turned and faced its crumbling front, majestic in places, squalid in others, one whole wing open to the rain and winds, one great turret still as solid and strong as the rocks themselves.
“It would depend very much,” Crawshay replied, “upon the extremely sordid question of how much money I had to spend. If I had enough, I should certainly restore it. It’s a wonderful situation.”
The eyes of its owner glowed as he swept the outline of the storm-battered country and passed on to the rich strip of walled-in fields above.
“It is my home,” he said simply. “I shall live in no other place. If this matter which we discussed last night should indeed prove to have a solid foundation, if this even should be the beginning of the end of the great struggle—”
“But it is,” Crawshay interrupted. “How can you doubt it if you have read the papers during the last six months?”
“I have scarcely glanced at an English newspaper for ten years,” was his companion’s reply. “I fled to America, hating England as a man might do some poisonous reptile, sternly determined never to set foot upon her shores again. I left without hope. It seemed to me that she was implacable. The war has changed many things.”
“You are right,” Crawshay admitted. “In many respects it has changed the English character. We look now a little further afield. We have lost some of our stubborn over-confidence. We have grown in many respects more spiritual. We have learnt what it means to make sacrifices, sacrifices not for gold but for a righteous cause. And as far as regards this country of yours, Sir Denis,” he continued, “I was only remarking a few days ago that the greatest opponents of Home Rule who have ever mounted a political platform in England have completely changed their views. There is only one idea to-day, and that is to let Ireland settle her own affairs. Such trouble as remains lies in your own country. Convert Ulster and you are free.”