_ PART II CHAPTER XVII. THE MAN "DOON-THE-HOOSE"
But Bridget Connoway, instant and authoritative as she was, could not prevent her down-trodden husband from thinking. Who was the mysterious wounded man "down-the-house"? One of the White Smugglers? Hardly. Boyd had been in the thick of that business and knew that no one had been hurt except Barnboard Tam, whose horse had run away with him and brushed him off, a red-haired Absalom in homespuns, against the branches in Marnhoul Great Wood.
One of the crew of the
Golden Hind, American-owned privateersman with French letters of marque? Possibly one of the desperate gang they had landed called the Black Smugglers, scum of the Low Dutch ports, come to draw an ill report upon the good and wholesome fame of Galloway Free Trade.
In either case, Boyd Connoway little liked the prospect, and instead of going to bed, he remained swinging his legs before the fire in a musing attitude, listening to the moaning noises that came from the chamber he was forbidden to enter. He was resolved to have it out with his wife.
He had not long to wait. Bridget appeared in the doorway, a bundle of dark-stained cloths between her palms. She halted in astonishment at the sight which met her eyes. At first it seemed to her that she was dreaming, or that her voice must have betrayed her. She gave her husband the benefit of the doubt.
"I thought I tould ye, Boyd Connoway," she said in a voice dangerously low and caressing, "to be getting off to your bed and not disturbin' the childer'!"
"Who is the man that had need of suchlike?" demanded Boyd Connoway, suddenly regaining his lost heritage as the head of a house, "speak woman, who are ye harbouring there?"
Bridget stood still. The mere unexpectedness of the demand rendered her silent. The autocrat of all the Russias treated as though he were one of his own ministers of state could not have been more dumbfounded.
With a sudden comprehension of the crisis Bridget broke for the poker, but Boyd had gone too far now to recoil. He caught at the little three-legged stool on which he was wont to take his humble frugal meals. It was exactly what he needed. He had no idea of assaulting Bridget. He recognized all her admirable qualities, which filled in the shortcomings of his shiftlessness with admirable exactitude. He meant to act strictly on the defensive, a system of warfare that was familiar to him. For though he had never before risen up in open revolt, he had never counted mere self-preservation as an insult to his wife.
"
Whack!" down came the poker in the lusty hand of Bridget Connoway. "
Crack!" the targe in the lifted arm of Boyd countered it. At arm's-length he held it. The next attack was cut number two of the manual for the broad-sword. Skilfully with his shield Boyd Connoway turned it to the side, so that, gliding from the polished oak of the well-worn seat, the head of the poker caught his wife on the knee, and she dropped her weapon with a cry of pain. Jerry and the other children, in the seventh heaven of delight at the parental duel, were sitting up in their little night-shirts (which for simplicity's sake were identical with their day-shirts); their eyes, black and blue, sparkled unanimous, and they made bets in low tones from one bed to another.
"Two to one on Daddy!"
"Jerry, ye ass, I'll bet ye them three white chuckies[1] he'll lose!"
"Hould your tongue, Connie--mother'll win, sure. The Thick 'Un will get him!"
Such combats were a regular interest for them, and one, in quiet times, quite sympathized in by their father, who would guide the combat so that they might have a better view.
"Troth, and why shouldn't they, poor darlints? Sure an' it's little enough amusement they have!"
He had even been known to protract an already lost battle to lengthen out the delectation of his offspring. The Caesars gave to their people "Bread and the circus!" But they did not usually enter the arena themselves--save in the case of the incomparable bowman of Rome, and then only when he knew that no one dared stand against him. But Boyd Connoway fought many a losing fight that his small citizens might wriggle with delight on their truckles. "The Christians to the lions!" Yes, that was noble. But then they had no choice, while Boyd Connoway, a willing martyr, fought his lioness with a three-legged stool.
This time, however, the just quarrel armed the three-legged, while cut number two of Forbes's Manual fell, not on Boyd Connoway's head, for which it was intended, but on Bridget's knee-cap. Boyd of the tender heart (though stubborn stool), was instantly upon his knees, his buckler flung to the ground and rubbing with all his might, with murmurings of, "Does it hurt now, darlint?--Not baeaed, sure?--Say it is better now thin, darlint!"
Boyd was as conscience-stricken as if he had personally wielded the poker. But the mind of Bridget was quite otherwise framed. With one hand she seized his abundant curly hair, now with a strand or two of early grey among the straw-colour of it, and while she pulled handfuls of it out by the roots (so Boyd declared afterwards), she boxed his ears heartily with the other. Which, indeed, is witnessed to by the whole goggle-eyed populace in the truckle bed.
"Didn't I tell ye, Jerry, ye cuckoo," whispered Connie, "she'd beat him? He's gettin' the Thick 'Un, just as I told ye!"
"But it's noways fair rules," retorted Jerry; "father he flung down his weepon for to rub her knee when she hurt it herself wid the poker!"
Jerry had lost his bet, as indeed he usually did, but for all that he remained a consistent supporter of the losing side. Daily he acknowledged in his body the power of the arm of flesh, but the vagrant butterfly humour of the male parent with the dreamy blue eyes touched him where he lived--perhaps because his, like his mother's, were sloe-black.
Nevertheless, in spite of mishandling and a scandalous disregard of the rules of the noble art of self-defence (not yet elaborated, but only roughly understood as "Fair play to all"), Boyd Connoway carried his point.
He saw the occupant of the bed "doon-the-hoose."
He was a slim man with clean-cut features, very pale about the gills and waxen as to the nose. He lay on the bed, his head ghastly in its white bandages rocking from side to side and a stream of curses, thin and small of voice as a hill-brook in drought, but continuous as a mill-lade, issuing from between his clenched teeth.
These adjurations were in many tongues, and their low-toned variety indicated the swearing of an educated man.
Boyd understood at once that he had to do with no vulgar Tarry-Breeks, no sweepings of a couple of hemispheres, but with "a gentleman born." And in Donegal, though they may rebel against their servitude and meet them foot by foot on the field or at the polling-booths, they know a gentleman when they see one, and never in their wildest moods deny his birthright.
Boyd, therefore, took just one glance, and then turning to his wife uttered his sentiment in three words of approval. "I'm wid ye!" he said.
Had it been Galligaskins or any seaman of the
Golden Hind, Boyd would have had him out of the house in spite of his wife and all the wholesome domestic terror she had so long been establishing.
But a Donegal man is from the north after all, and does not easily take to the informer's trade. Besides, this was a gentleman born.
Yet he had better have given hospitality to Galligaskins and the whole crew of pirates who manned the
Golden Hind than to this slender, clear-skinned creature who lay raving and smiling in the bedroom of Boyd Connoway's cabin.
[Footnote 1: "Chuckies," white pebbles used, in these primitive times, instead of marbles.] _