Hungry Hill (9 page)

There was still no rain, but the wind came in gusts, and the clouds raced one another across the sky. It was about half-past eight, and the night was dark. No moon shone, and the stars were mere pin-pricks of light that came and vanished.

Copper John and his two sons joined the others on the drive, and Jane, standing by the open door, watched them disappear, heard the stolid clump-clump of their boots as they crunched the gravel. while round the corner from the stable came Casey and Tim with the horses, and in a moment the whole party were hidden by the bend in the drive, and so up through the park and away to Hungry Hill.

Doonhaven was quiet and still, a village asleep. The doors were closed, and the windows showed no light. No person walked the street or lingered in the square, and the only sound to be heard was the sea breaking on the beach below the harbour wall.

Once clear of the village, Copper John called a halt, and the party divided. One half, led by Copper John and Henry, continued up the road towards the mine; the rest, with John amongst them, struck across country to the outlet in the hill.

Here on the high ground they were exposed to the full force of the wind, which drove them onward blindly, causing them to stumble amongst the loose stones and the heather, and the younger Brodrick, now that he was alone, without either his father or his brother, was aware of a new sense of excitement, almost of exultation, not connected in any way with the mine or the angry men of Doonhaven, but because this was something that he loved and understood, this fighting with the wind on Hungry Hill. Away below him was the sea, sweeping the long length of Mundy Bay, rolling on towards Castle Andriff, where maybe Fanny-Rosa could hear it from her window, and the sound of the sea came to him now, borne on the wind, not a sullen, angry sound, but loud and insistent, a chant of triumph. The men behind him were cursing at the rough ground, their coats bellying around them in the tearing wind. John looked up, and watched the black clouds racing across the sky, felt the first stinging drop of rain upon his cheek, heralding the storm that was to come, and, laughing, climbed yet faster than before, gaining a foothold amongst the stones and the wet, clinging moss, while the wild, sweet scent of heather filled the air. They came at last to the outlet in the hill, so well concealed by the tangle of gorse that in the darkness and the spitting rain it was well-nigh impossible to find, and there they waited, gaining what shelter they could from the weather by the shoulder of the hill, and the wind went on blowing and the night grew darker yet. Ned Brodrick was of the company; he crouched beside his nephew in the heather, his face lugubrious and long, and now and again he would bite his fingers to restore the circulation.

“Your father should have come to terms with Morty Donovan, Master John,” he said. “Many is the time I have come to arbitration with the family myself, in a friendly fashion, over a glass of whisky maybe. But your father is a proud man, and high-handed, and Morty Donovan is proud too. I tell you no good will come of this night, and had I my way I would be sitting now in my cottage in Oakmount, with the curtains drawn, knowing nothing of the business.”

“I have no doubt you would, Ned,” said John, “but here we are on Hungry Hill, with no choice in the matter, and must make the best of it.”

“It’s a spice of discretion that is needed, Master John,” continued Ned. “I have made it a practice this long while, since acting as agent to your father, to agree with him when in his company, and to agree with the tenants when in theirs. Therefore I have pleased both parties and offended none. Never in my life have I held a quarrel with any man.”

“And how do you manage, Ned, when the tenants are in arrears with their rent, and you have to drive them for the money?”

“Why, between you and me, Master John, I so work the figures on the rent-roll as to have the appearance that the money is paid, when oftentimes I have not seen a penny of it. But will you take a small drop of something, to keep up your spirits?” And glancing furtively over his shoulder, the agent produced a bottle from the deep pocket of his coat, and, kneeling, with hunched shoulders, in the heather, tipped it to his mouth with a sigh of satisfaction. “I tell you, Master John,” he said, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his coat, “but I am devoted to your family, and Morty Donovan would have to walk across my dead body rather than harm should come to any of them.

As for yourself, you’re the best of the bunch, and that’s meaning no disrespect to Master Henry.”

John laughed, knowing full well that the agent would have said exactly the same thing to his brother had he been there instead, and when he had taken his “small drop,” which must have been some hell-brew of Ned Brodrick’s own creation, for it tasted of liquid fire, he handed the bottle back, only just in time, for one of the men, who had been watching a little distance away, came running through the heather towards them.

“There’s a glow in the sky to the eastward, Mr.

John,” he shouted.

“It’s my belief the miners are not coming this way at all tonight, but have set fire to the mine.”

The other men were stumbling now down the hill, all of them calling and gesticulating, and John could see an angry tongue of flame leap into the sky from beneath the shoulder of the farther hill.

“He’s right, Master John,” cried the agent, “there’ll be no crawling In the burrows this night, but whatever mischief goes on will be above ground, and in the sheds and buildings. May God curse the creatures for their treachery and devilry.”

“Why, look yonder,” called one of the tenants; “here’s someone coming this way with a donkey and cart.

Watch how the cart rocks in the heather-he’ll be over for sure.”

“You’d say the animal knows every inch of the ground, or the driver has him bewitched,” said another.

“He’s down-no, he’s not- he has him guided in the little bit of track, and he’s driving the brute with a stick like a madman.”

The donkey and cart advanced towards the party, rocking and lurching over the rough ground in wild, crazy fashion, and the man who was seated in the cart waved his whip at the party in derision, shouting and laughing, while his great black cloak bellied about him in the wind, making him a giant fantastic figure.

“It’s the devil himself,” cried someone, “it’s the devil come out of hell to destroy us,” and for a moment the party hesitated, uncertain whether to fly or to fling themselves upon their faces and ask for mercy. And then one of the men, less superstitious than his fellows, gave a shout of recognition, and turned to his companions.

“It’s Morty Donovan,” he cried.

“Look at his face, look at his eyes! Mr.

John, it’s my belief he has gone stark staring mad.”

The old man was balancing on the side of the cart, his bad leg propped up in front of him; in one hand he held the reins that guided the donkey, and in the other his whip, which he flourished round his head. As he drew near to the party he pulled the donkey to a standstill, and peering down through the darkness, he recognised John, and once more fell to laughing and shouting, shaking from side to side in a wild extravagance of mirth.

“So you thought to entrap them, did you,” he cried, “and bind them here on the hillside, and bear them away to prison? Well, I can tell you that you’re wasting your time, every one of you. The boys have a big fire lit at your father’s mine, Mr.

John, and not a stick or stone of it will be left by morning. So go join him and your brother, and roast yourselves to cinders, and be damned to the lot of you. I say.”

Once more the old man cracked his whip, cursing the donkey to go forward.

“Stop him,” shouted someone, “stop him; get hold of the animal; he’ll do himself some damage.”

One of the men hurled himself at the donkey’s head, which, bewildered and frightened, stumbled in the heather, causing the man to fall, while John, climbing on to the step of the cart, endeavoured to wrench the whip from Morty Donovan’s hand. The old man was too quick for him. He turned with an oath, and cut the boy over the head with a stinging lash, blinding him for the instant, while a torrent of curses poured from his lips, the wild, extravagant laughter turning in a moment to senseless rage.

“I have cursed your father tonight, and your brother, and now I curse you, John Brodrick,” he cried, “and not only you, but your sons after you, and your grandsons, and may your wealth bring them nothing but despair and desolation and evil, until the last of them stands humble and ashamed amongst the ruins of it, with the Donovans back again in Clonmere on the land that belongs to them.”

John reeled back from the cart, his face cut and bleeding from the whip, and his senses dazed from the force of the blow, while the group of men, shocked and frightened momentarily by the old man’s passion, stood aside from the track. Only Ned Brodrick, with a shaky smile and outstretched hand, seemed undismayed.

“Come now, Mr. Donovan,” he said; “why now, not a man here, not Master John himself, wishes you any harm, and that’s God’s truth. I will see Mr. Brodrick myself and ask him as a personal matter to give his true impartial judgement…”

But Morty Donovan cut him short, laughing scornfully.

“Will you shut your mouth, you fool,” he said, “and go and hide your face amongst the petticoats?

Haven’t you the same tainted blood in your veins?

Let me go, blast ye!”

Once more the donkey stumbled forward as Morty Donovan cracked his whip, and the little cart, swaying from side to side, travelled onward into the darkness, until it was lost to sight round the bend of the hill.

“Are you much hurt, Master John?” asked his uncle, peering into the young man’s face. “Should you not go home and let the women bathe it? I think we have done all we can for this night.”

“All right, Ned, it will soon mend; and as for going home, that is out of the question. You heard what that old lunatic said? The fellows have set the place on fire. We must get the shortest way to the mine, there’s nothing else for it.”

The blood was running freely down his face, and his head throbbed painfully, and somehow the exultation of the evening was no more, but turning once more into the wind and the rain, that was coming now faster than before, John led the way across the hill in the direction of the mine. In some twenty minutes the party found their way through the darkness to the track leading to the mine, and at the far end of it they could see the tall chimney, lit up by the glow of the fire, and could hear the roar of voices, shouting and calling directions. The scene was one of incredible confusion, men dashing against one another in the darkness, some calling orders, some jeering, the whole body of men so mingled together that no one knew for certain who was friend or foe.

“It’s the huts of the Cornishmen that are alight,” said a man of John’s party. “Look, sir, down the road there; they have every one of them in flames.”

Such proved to be the case, the wooden buildings lending themselves only too readily to fire, and in the little strips of gardens that they had cultivated for themselves stood the women with their children, dismayed and terrified and weeping, while their men-folk endeavoured to quench the fires with buckets of water passed from one to the other.

No part of the mine proper had yet been touched, and this was because John Brodrick and his party, with the aid of Captain Nicholson, had so stationed themselves before the sheds and buildings that the rebel miners dared not advance without fighting, which they were by no means fully prepared to do. They contented themselves, therefore, with destroying the little dwellings of the Cornishmen, pilfering what they could find, and terrorising the women and children. When John and his party arrived on the scene, some half-dozen of the miners, the leaders amongst them, had succeeded in penetrating into the cleansing-shed, and, encouraged by their more timid companions, were engaged in overturning the trolleys and scattering the contents through the open doors, with whoops of triumph and satisfaction.

Suddenly John’s arm was seized by Henry, who darted forward from the doorway of the counting-house and dragged him under cover of the building.

“Keep still-lie down,” whispered his brother; “father is going to give these fellows the shock of their lives.”

He was trembling with excitement, and pointed to two figures- that of his father and Captain Nicholson-who were standing slightly apart from the building, holding something in their hands. Copper John was hatless, and his coat too had been thrown aside, showing his square, powerful frame, while his thick grey hair was tossed and matted from the wind. He glanced up and saw his second son, and grinned, pointing to the instrument in Captain Nicholson’s hands.

At once John saw what he was about, and his heart went cold.

“Good God, Henry,” he whispered, “it’s murder.”

His brother did not answer, but kept his eyes fixed on his father and Captain Nicholson. The miners were too intent on their work of destruction to notice the two figures that advanced so steadily and so quietly to the rear of the cleansing-sheds, and, bending for a moment, were busy at the ledge of wall.

The figures waited a moment, and then retreated rapidly, returning to the counting-house where John and Henry waited, and, like them, they threw themselves to the floor.

“Now we have them,” said Copper John, and his second son, glancing at him, saw the look of triumph in his eyes, and the hard line of his mouth.

For a minute there was silence, then a shattering explosion rent the air, followed by the crashing sound of falling rubble, of flying sticks and stones, and the screams of men.

Copper John rose to his feet, and looked at Captain Nicholson without a word. Then he led the way out of the counting-house, and stood for a few moments watching the scene in front of him.

The cleansing-shed, fired so swiftly by the train of gunpowder, was nothing more than a heap of rubble and stones, with only the far end of it still standing, and this, ignited in some fashion, was now burning fiercely, while staggering from the ruins came the sole survivor of the team of six who not three minutes previously had been calling and shouting in triumph from within the shed.