"Well, well, you've got to obey orders like that, I suppose," Dyck said.

"They want to question us as to the state of the country here."

"I think we can tell them something. I wonder if they know how wide your travel is, how many people you see; and if they know, how did they come to know? There's spies all over the place. How do I know but the man who's just left this room isn't a spy, isn't the enemy of all of us here?"

"I'd suspect Michael Clones," remarked Dyck, "just as soon as Mulvaney."

"Michael Clones," said his father, and he turned to Captain Ivy, "Michael Clones I'd trust as I'd trust His blessed Majesty, George III.

He's a rare scamp, is Michael Clones! He's no thicker than a cardboard, but he draws the pain out of your hurt like a mustard plaster. A man of better sense and greater roguery I've never met. You must see him, Captain Ivy. He's only about twelve years older than my son, but, like my son, there's no holding him, there's no control of him that's any good. He does what he wants to do in his own way--talks when he wants to talk, fights when he wants to fight. He's a man of men, is Michael Clones."

At that moment the door opened and the butler entered, followed by a tall, thin, Don Quixote sort of figure.

"His excellency," said Mulvaney, with a look slightly malevolent, for the visitor had refused his name. Then he turned and left the room.

At Mulvaney's words, an ironical smile crossed the face of the newcomer.

Then he advanced to Miles Calhoun. Before speaking, however, he glanced sharply at Captain Ivy, threw an inquisitive look at Dyck, and said:

"I seem to have hurt the feelings of your butler, sir, but that cannot be helped. I have come from the Attorney-General. My name is Leonard Mallow--I'm the eldest son of Lord Mallow. I've been doing business in Limerick, and I bring a message from the Attorney-General to ask you to attend his office at the earliest moment."

Dyck Calhoun, noting his glance at a bottle of port, poured out a gla.s.s of the good wine and handed it over, saying:

"It'll taste better to you because you've been travelling hard, but it's good wine anyhow. It's been in the cellar for forty years, and that's something in a land like this."

Mallow accepted the gla.s.s of port, raised it with a little gesture of respect, and said:

"Long life to the King, and cursed be his enemies!" So saying he flung the wine down his throat--which seemed to gulp it like a well--wiped his lips with a handkerchief, and turned to Miles Calhoun again.

"Yes, it's good wine," he said; "as good as you'd get in the cellars of the Viceroy. I've seen strange things as I came. I've seen lights on the hills, and drunken rioters in the roads and behind hedges, and once a shot was fired at me; but here I am, safe and sound, carrying out my orders. What time will you start?" he added.

He took it for granted that the summons did not admit of rejection, and he was right. The doc.u.ment contained these words:

Trouble is brewing; indeed, it is at hand. Come, please, at once to Dublin, and give the Lord-Lieutenant and the Government a report upon your district. We do not hear altogether well of it, but no one has the knowledge you possess. In the name of His Majesty you are to present yourself at once at these offices in Dublin, and be a.s.sured that the Lord-Lieutenant will give you warm welcome through me. Your own loyalty gives much satisfaction here. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, JOHN MCNOWELL.

"You have confidence in the people's loyalty here?" asked Mallow.

"As great as in my own," answered Dyck cheerily. "Well, you ought to know what that is. At the same time, I've heard you're a friend of one or two dark spirits in the land."

"I hold no friendships that would do hurt to my country," answered Dyck sharply.

Mallow smiled satirically. "As we're starting at daylight, I suppose, I think I'll go to bed, if it may be you can put me up."

"Oh, Lord, yes! We can put you up, Mr. Mallow," said the old man. "You shall have as good a bed as you can find outside the Viceregal Lodge--a fourposter, wide and long. It's been slept in by many a man of place and power. But, Mr. Mallow, you haven't said you've had no dinner, and you'll not be going to bed in this house without your food. Did you shoot anything to-day, Dyck?" he asked his son.

"I didn't bring home a feather. There were no birds to-day, but there are the ducks I shot yesterday, and the quail."

"Oh, yes," said his father, "and there's the little roast pig, too. This is a day when we celebrate the anniversary of Irish power and life."

"What's that?" asked Mallow.

"That's the battle of the Boyne," answered his host with a little ostentation.

"Oh, you're one of the Peep-o'-Day Boys, then," remarked Mallow.

"I'm not saying that," answered the old man. "I'm not an Ulsterman, but I celebrate the coming of William to the Boyne. Things were done that day that'll be remembered when Ireland is whisked away into the Kingdom of Heaven. So you'll not go to bed till you've had dinner, Mr. Mallow!

By me soul, I think I smell the little porker now. Dinner at five, to bed at eight, up before daylight, and off to Dublin when the light breaks. That's the course!" He turned to Captain Ivy. "I'm sorry, captain, but there's naught else to do, and you were going to-morrow at noon, anyhow, so it won't make much difference to you."

"No difference whatever," replied the sailorman. "I have to go to Dublin, too, and from there to Queenstown to join my ship, and from Queenstown to the coast of France to do some fighting."

"Please G.o.d!" remarked Miles Calhoun. "So be it!" declared Mallow.

"Amen!" said Dyck.

Once again Dyck looked the visitor straight in the eyes, and back in the horizon of Mallow's life-sky there shone the light of an evil star.

"There's the call to dinner," remarked Miles Calhoun, as a bell began ringing in the tower outside. "Come with me, Mr. Mallow, and I'll show you your room. You've had your horse put up, I hope?"

"Yes, and my bag brought in."

"Well, come along, then. There's no time to lose. I can smell the porker crawling from the oven."

"You're a master of tempting thoughts," remarked Mallow enthusiastically.

"Sheila--Sheila!" said Dyck Calhoun to himself where he stood.

CHAPTER III. THE QUARREL.

The journey to Dublin was made by the Calhouns, their two guests, and Michael Clones, without incident of note. Arrived there, Miles Calhoun gave himself to examination by Government officials and to a.s.sisting the designs of the Peep-o'-Day Boys; and indeed he was present at the formation of the first Orange Lodge.

His narrow nature, his petty craft and malevolence, were useful in a time of anxiety for the State. Yet he had not enough ability to develop his position by the chances offered him. He had not a touch of genius; he had only bursts of Celtic pa.s.sion, which he had not mind enough to control.

Indeed, as days, weeks and months went on, his position became less valuable to himself, and his financial affairs suffered from his own and his agent's bad management. In his particular district he was a power; in Dublin he soon showed the weaker side of his nature. He had a bad habit of making foes where he could easily have made friends. In his personal habits he was sober, but erratic.

Dyck had not his father's abstention from the luxuries of life. He drank, he gamed, he went where temptation was, and fell into it. He steadily diminished his powers of resistance to self-indulgence until one day, at a tavern, he met a man who made a great impression upon him.

This man was brilliant, ebullient, full of humour, character and life, knowing apparently all the lower world of Dublin, and moving with an a.s.sured step. It was Erris Boyne, the divorced husband of Mrs. Llyn and the father of Sheila Llyn; but this fact was not known to Dyck. There was also a chance of its not becoming known, because so many years had pa.s.sed since Erris Boyne was divorced.

One day Erris Boyne said to Dyck:

"There's a supper to-night at the Breakneck Club. Come along and have a skinful. You'll meet people worth knowing. They're a d.a.m.ned fine lot of fellows for you to meet, Calhoun!"

"The Breakneck Club isn't a good name for a first-cla.s.s inst.i.tution,"

remarked Dyck, with a pause and a laugh; "but I'll come, if you'll fetch me."

Erris Boyne, who was eighteen years older than Dyck, laughed, flicked a little pinch of snuff at his nose with his finger.

"Dear lad, of course I'll come and fetch you," he said. "There's many a man has done worse than lead a gay stripling like you into pleasant ways. Bring along any loose change you have, for it may be a night of nights."