CHAPTER XIII

It was late, and the house was quiet. When I leaned out of my window I could hear the sound of the waves, but no other sound; then I opened my bedroom door softly, and crept out into the passage. From my father’s room there came a heavy, muffled snoring as I made my way downstairs. The hall-door I unfastened with the same elaborate precautions against noise, but I left it open behind me, only slipping in the door-mat to keep it from slamming. Once outside, I felt safe.

The night was clear and full of moonlight, and my black shadow danced fantastically before me on the white, bare road. Not a soul was abroad, and as I walked I had a curious sense of freedom and exhilaration; old songs of romance and adventure hummed in my ears, and I wanted them to come true. Contrary to my expectation and to my desire, Katherine and Gerald were waiting for me at the lodge-gate, in the shadow of the hawthorn hedge, and Katherine held a parcel in her hand.

We did not talk very much as we went quickly on, following the same road we had taken on the morning of our picnic. I kept a sharp look-out, but could see no sign of any of the other boys. Below us, on our left, the sea murmured and splashed through the warm delicious night; on the right, the Mourne Mountains rose, black against the sky.

“I’m afraid we’re rather late,” I remarked after a while. Then I added, “You’ll have to take an oath of secrecy.”

I had already told them all they would have to do, but I was a little nervous, for I had no idea what kind of reception they would get, and to help to tide matters over I had recommended Katherine, if she came, to bring a supply of provisions, which would always be so much in their favour. For myself I didn’t care a straw, though I knew what I was doing would make me unpopular.

We had walked for about a quarter of an hour and had left the village well behind us when down towards Maggie’s Leap I saw the red glow of a bonfire. We turned to the sea, clambering over the rough ground, till presently, in a hollow, we saw them, seven or eight boys, sitting round a fire. Thirty feet below, the sea looked black and strange; and the mysterious night floated about us, a night of wonderful beauty.

There was an awkward moment when we advanced into the firelight, and before I introduced them. A silence followed my very lame speech, in the chill of which Gerald lit a cigarette, and we took our seats, slightly beyond the main circle. Nobody made room for us, and when Katherine produced her contributions to the supper I feared at first they were going to be refused. We seemed to have dissipated the romantic atmosphere of the gathering, nor was anything said about the Dales taking a vow of secrecy, which was, nevertheless, one of the rules of the club. I could see Sam Geoghegan, a boy whom I had never liked, but who was the biggest boy there, whispering to his right-hand neighbour, and I knew he was talking about us.

However, as supper progressed, the atmosphere thawed somewhat, and I began to hope things would turn out all right. Willie Breen, who had been fumbling in his pocket, now produced a small bottle filled with some bright red liquid and held it up to the light, gazing at it in silence. Suddenly, when everybody’s attention was fixed on him, his face stiffened into an expression of suppressed agony, and he gasped for breath, drawing his hand across his forehead.

“What’s the matter, Billy? Stomach bad?” asked Sam.

But Willie’s eyes were closed. “If I fall down,” he sighed in a whisper, “an’ a deadly pallor creeps over me, force open my teeth with a knife, and pour a single drop of this blood-red liquid down my throat――――”

“How can you pour a drop?” interrupted Sam.

“Unless it is too late,” said Willie, “you will see the colour slowly come back to my cheeks and suffuse them with the glow of life, until at last, when you don’t expect it, I’ll open my eyes and say, ‘Where am I?’”

“_Does_ he have fits?” Katherine whispered.

“No: it’s only ‘Monte Cristo,’” I told her.

Katherine looked at him wonderingly, but Willie had already his mouth crammed with bread and sardines, the sardines she herself had brought.

Most of the boys now lit cigarettes, which Gerald had given them. From the darkness below, the sound of the sea rose up, weird and melancholy, full of an inexpressible loneliness. The warm, ruddy light of the fire flitted across fresh young faces. A dim fragrance seemed to be blown down from the woods, and to mingle with the saltness of the sea.

Sam Geoghegan said suddenly, “I’m a socialist.”

This announcement fell rather flat. The beauty of the night had cast a vague spell upon the other members of the club, and they were content to be silent.

“Do you mean like the chaps who were round last week with the cart?” somebody asked indifferently, after a long pause.

“They gave one of the wee books they had with them to my father,” said Sam.

“What is it?” asked Willie Breen.

“What’s what?”

“A socialist.”

“It’s not an ‘it,’ it’s a man. It means that everybody ought to get the same chance. There should be no privileges nor private property nor anythin’.”

“But whenever you’ve got things they’re yours,” said Willie Breen, unconvinced.

“You don’t have things――isn’t that what I’m saying? Everything belongs to the State――they belong to everybody.”

“Socialists are always poor,” put in Sam’s chum, Robbie McCann, unenthusiastically. “Those lads that were round here tried to get up a collection.”

“Of course they’re poor,” said Sam, pityingly. “You can’t give up every thin’ and be rich, can you? For dear sake have a bit of wit!”

“Would _their_ aunt have to give up her place?” asked Willie Breen, jerking his head toward the Dales.

“Why wouldn’t she? Does it belong to her?”

This was a bold idea, and Sam accompanied it with a glare of defiance at Gerald, from whom, nevertheless, a minute ago he had accepted a second cigarette.

“Of course it belongs to her,” said Willie, wonderingly.

“Not rightly. Man alive, but you’re all thick in the head. The point is that nobody has a right to anything――more’n anybody else, I mean.”

“You know all about it, don’t you?” asked Gerald, gently.

“I know more than you, anyway, stink-pot,” said Sam. Two or three of the bigger boys laughed, and I began to foresee trouble.

“We needn’t start a row, need we?” I suggested, amicably.

“I’m not startin’ a row; it was him. What call has he to put in his jaw. He wasn’t asked to come.”

“He was asked,” I replied.

“Ay――maybe by you――that’s nothin’.”

“Let’s tell stories,” Willie Breen proposed. “Do you know how they make castor oil? There’s a woman told me she saw it. It was a big round room, and corpses hanging from hooks in the ceiling; and from the ends of their toes yellow drops were falling into a basin. That was castor oil.”

“I’m sure. Anybody can blether you up, Billy.”

“I’m not saying I believe it.”

“It’s a wonder.”

Suddenly a deep, low boom rose up from the sea, as if coming out of the infinite night, swelling, like the heavy bass note of an organ, and dying away.

Katherine laid her hand on my arm. “What was that?” she said.

“It’s nothing,” I murmured; but a vague sense of awe had crept over the little group.

“It came last summer for the first time, didn’t it?” asked George Edge, a boy who had not spoken before. He had been lying on his back, looking up at the floating stars, but he now raised himself on his elbow and looked out to sea. He was not one of the village boys, but his people came down every summer for two months, and I had known him all my life. “My mother gets frightened when she hears it,” he went on.

There was a pause, and then the sound came again, floating up, weird and mysterious, as from somewhere far out on the water. We drew closer round the fire, and began again to talk, but the conversation had grown darker.

“It was here that the murder was,” said another boy, hidden in the shadow of the rock, so that his voice seemed a disembodied sound speaking out of the darkness.

“Just over there,” said George Edge.

“What murder?” asked Gerald.

The voice from the shadow spoke again. “It was a man called Dewar. There was two of them comin’ home one winter afternoon from Annalong, O’Brian and Dewar. O’Brian had been gettin’ money, and they both had their load of drink. It was dirty weather and no one on the road, and maybe they fell out about somethin’. Any way, next day they got O’Brian down below there on the stones, his face bashed in you wouldn’t know him. Him and Dewar were seen leavin’ Annalong together, and they got Dewar lying drunk in his own house, and he confessed and was hung for it.”

“But how did he do it?” Gerald asked.

“He smashed him on the face with a lump of rock, and then threw him down into the sea. They say there are nights when you can hear O’Brian. It’s like this.” He gave a low wail that shrilled up to a cry.

“I’m goin’ home,” said Willie Breen, rising to his feet.

“Wee scaldy! You’ll have to go by yourself,” jeered Sam. “And you’ll meet him as sure as death. You’ll know him, because he won’t have any face on him, only a lock of blood. And Dewar with him, with his neck broke.” Sam’s head drooped horribly to his shoulder.

Willie Breen sat down.

“When you talk about ghosts or spirits it’s supposed to bring them near,” said George Edge. “It gives them a kind of power over you.”

“For goodness sake stop all that rubbish,” cried Katherine, indignantly. “Can’t you see you’re frightening the child out of his wits!”

“Go to her, baby. Hold her hand,” mocked Sam.

Willie turned angrily on his protectress. “I’m not frightened. It’s you that’s frightened. You shouldn’t be here at all. There shouldn’t be any women in the club.”

“Faith, he’s right there!” Sam exclaimed.

But George Edge, sitting up, pointed out to sea. “Listen,” he said impressively.

We all sat still, Willie Breen with wide-open eyes. A moment after, with a blade of grass between his thumbs, Sam made an unearthly screech in the little boy’s ear. It was too much, and Willie set up a howl.

At the same instant Katherine turned to Sam and he received a resounding slap on his fat face. Instantly there was tumult. Sam was on his feet, red as a turkey-cock, blustering of all he would do if Katherine were not a girl. Then he spied Gerald, and gave him a blow on the chest that almost sent him into the fire. “That’s for you, you ‘get.’”

Gerald drew back, neither speaking, nor returning the blow: the other boys had surrounded them. I saw Gerald’s face, and it was very white; but he did nothing, he was afraid. That he should be disgusted me, and at the same time I was furious with Sam, whom, for that matter, I had always detested. I waited just long enough to give Gerald a chance to face him, if he wanted to; then I gave Sam a slap with my open hand on his cheek. It was the second he had received within two minutes, and somehow, even in the excitement, I couldn’t help being amused.

We stripped to our shirts and trousers and moved out into the moonlight. Katherine hovered in the background, but made no attempt either to interfere or to go away. Gerald had disappeared. I looked at Sam’s big fists. I knew he was taller and heavier than I was, but I was not afraid of him; instead, I had a cold determination to lick him. I felt elated; I was glad Gerald had drawn back, since it gave me this chance of showing Katherine what a hero I was. We chose seconds, and there was a time-keeper, though no one had a watch, for mine was wound up and safe under my pillow at home. We had little science, but were mortally in earnest.

At the beginning of the second round the nervous tremor of Sam’s mouth as he stepped into the ring gave me a cruel pleasure. I did not believe very much in his pluck, and I was now quite confident as to the finish. It was in the middle of the third round, and we were both panting and bleeding, when Michael, the policeman, appeared on the scene, springing up as if from the bowels of the earth. How he came to be out of bed at such an hour, and in this particular spot, I never discovered, but he stepped in between us and stopped the fight.

“Well now, this is nice goings on! Will you tell me what it’s all about?”

“You go quietly to hell,” said Sam in a low voice.

The others chimed in. “It’s none of your business, Michael, we’re not in the town.”

“Do you tell me that, now? Well, I’ll be troubling you to go home to your beds every one of yous. This is no place for you, Miss,” he added, having discovered Katherine in the background, “with a lot of young rapscallions. I’ll see you safe home.”

But Katherine did not move.

“Let them finish, Michael. Nobody’ll ever know you were here. There’ll be no talk.”

Michael wavered. The presence of Katherine obviously both troubled and puzzled him, for of course he knew who she was. He turned to her again, but she had withdrawn into the shadow of the rocks, whither he followed her, and they whispered together in inaudible tones. Then he came back. Katherine had disappeared; possibly she had followed Gerald, who would hardly have gone very far without her; at any rate I could not look after her now.

“Well, I suppose you’ll be wanting to settle this,” said Michael, doubtfully.

His words were received with an outburst of cheers and laughter. A faint greyness of dawn was already spreading over the eastern sky. “Time!” called George Edge, and I noticed that he had actually borrowed Michael’s big silver watch.