The Northern Iron. George A. Birmingham
for Hearts of Oak boys, nor Hearts of Steel boys, nor for burning ricks, nor firing guns.”
She led the way through the kitchen, up a narrow flight of stone stairs, and opened the door of the room where the minister sat over his bodes.
“Here’s Master Neal home again,” she said, “and he’s brought your brother Donald Ward along with him.”
Micah Ward rose to his feet and met his brother with outstretched hands.
“Is it you, Donald? Is it you, indeed? I’ve been thinking long for you this many a time, my brother, and wearying for you. We want you, Donald, we need you sore, sore indeed.”
“Why, Micah,” said Donald, “you’ve grown into an old man.”
The contrast between the two brothers was striking, more striking than the likeness of their faces, though that was obvious. Micah was stooped and pallid. He walked feebly. His limbs were shrunken. His hair was thin and white. Donald stood upright, a well-knit, vigorous man. The point of his beard and the hair over his ears were touched with iron grey, but no one looking at him would have doubted his energy and capacity for physical endurance.
“Grey hairs are here and there upon us, and we know it not—Hosea, 7th and 9th,” said the minister. “But there’s fifteen years atween us, Donald. It makes a difference. Fifteen years age a man, but I’m supple and hearty yet.”
“Will I cook the salmon for your supper?” said the housekeeper. “You’ll not be contenting yourselves with the stirabout now that you have your brother back again with you.”
“Cook the salmon, Hannah; plenty of it, and some of the ham and the eggs. And, Neal, do you take the key of the cellar and get us a bottle of wine and the whisky that old Maconchy brought in from Rathlin last summer. It’s not often I take the like, Donald, but it is meet that we should make merry and be glad.”
Mistress Hannah Macaulay was a competent cook and housekeeper. It is noticeable that women with sharp tongues are generally more efficient than their gentler sisters. Solomon, who knew a good many things, seems also to have known this. He was of opinion that a peaceful dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox and contention therewith. He knew that he could not have both. It is the shrew who succeeds in giving the males dependent on her stalled oxen and such like dainties to eat.
The caressing wife and the sweet-tempered cook accomplish no more than dinners of herbs, and generally even they are not particularly appetising. The fact is, that the management of domestic affairs is the most trying of all occupations. Cooking, washing, cleaning, and generally doing for men in a house means continuous irritation and worry. A woman, however sweet-natured originally, who is condemned to such work must either lose her temper over it, in which case she may cook stalled oxen, but will certainly serve them with sauce of contention, or she may give up the struggle and preserve her gentleness. Then she will accomplish no more than dinners of herbs, boiled cabbages, from which tepid water exudes, and dishes of pallid turnips, supposed to be mashed but full of lumps. Solomon preferred, or said he preferred, kisses and cauliflowers. On questions of taste there is no use disputing.
Mistress Hannah Macaulay’s salmon steaks came to the table with an appetising steam rising from their dish. Her slices of fried ham formed an attractive nest for the white-skinned poached eggs. She had plates of curly oatcake and powdery farles. She had yellow butter in saucers. She brought the porridge to table in well-scoured wooden bowls with horn spoons in them.
“The stirabout is good,” she said. “I thought you’d like to sup them before you ate the meat.”
Neal poured the wine into an old cut-glass decanter, and set Maconchy’s bottle of whisky, distilled, no doubt, by Maconchy himself among the Rathlin Hills, beside his father’s plate.
Micah Ward said a long grace, in which he thanked the Almighty for the fish, the ham, the eggs, the porridge, and his brother’s return from America. As a kind of supplement, he added a prayer for the peace of his household, in which Hannah Macaulay, appropriately enough under the circumstances, was especially named.
After supper the two brothers drew their chairs to the fire. It was late in May, but the air was still chilly in the evenings. Hannah took down from the mantel-piece two well-polished brass candlesticks, fitted them with tall dipt candles, and set them on the table she had cleared of plates and dishes. Donald took a tobacco-box from his pocket, and filled a pipe.
“Neal,” said his father, “you may go to your own room and complete the transcription of the passages of Josephus which you left unfinished this morning.”
“Let the lad stay,” said Donald.
“Neal knows nothing of the matters about which we must talk, brother, nor do I think it well that he should know; not yet, at least.”
“Let the lad stay,” repeated Donald. “I’ve seen younger men than he is doing good work. Neal ought to be working, too. We cannot do anything without the young men.”
Micah Ward yielded to his brother.
“Draw your chair to the fire, Neal,” he said. “You may stay and listen to us.”
At first the talk was of old days. An hour went by. Donald filled his pipe more than once, and finished his tumbler of punch. Story followed story of the doings of the Hearts of Steel and Hearts of Oak. Donald, as a boy, had taken his part—and that a daring part—in the fierce struggle by which the northern tenant-farmers gained fuller security and a chance of prospering a whole century before their brethren in the south and west, with the aid of the English Parliament, won the same privileges. Then Donald, speaking oftener and smoking less, told of his own share in the American War of Independence. Neal, listening, was thrilled with the stories of unequal battles between citizen soldiers and trained troops. He glowed with excitement as he came to understand the indomitable courage which faced reverse after reverse and snatched complete victory in the end. Donald dwelt much on the part which Irishmen had taken in the struggle, especially on the work of Ulster men, Antrim men, men of the hard northern breed, of the Presbyterian faith.
“There’s no breaking our people, Micah; men of iron, men of steel.”
“Shall iron break the northern iron, and the steel?” quoted Micah Ward, and then, with that wonderful Puritan accuracy of reference to the Bible, gave chapter and verse for the words—Jeremiah the 15th and 12th.
“And the spirit’s not dead in you at home, is it, Micah? The breed is pure still.”
It was Micah’s turn to speak. Neal sat in astonishment while his father told of the wrongs which the northern Presbyterians and the southern Roman Catholics suffered. Never before had he heard his father speak with such passion and fierceness. There was a pause at last, and Donald rose to his feet. He re-filled his glass from the punch-bowl, raised it aloft, and said:—
“I give you a toast. Fill your glass, brother. No, that will not do. Fill it full, and fill a glass for Neal. Stand now. I will have this toast drunk standing. ‘Here’s to America and here’s to France, the pioneers of human liberty, and may Ireland soon be as they are now!’ ”
“Amen,” said Mica h Ward solemnly.
“Drink, Neal, drink. Drain your glass, boy. I will have it,” said Donald.
“The northern iron, the northern iron, and the steel,” muttered Micah.
Then the brothers drew their chairs closer together, and Micah, speaking low, as if he dreaded the presence of some unseen listener, began to tell of the plans of the United Irishmen. He mentioned the names of one leader and another; told how the Government, vigilant and alert, had already struck at the organisation; of the general dread of spies and informers. He entered into details; told how the cannon, once given by the Government to the Volunteers, were hidden in one place, how muskets were stored in another, how the smiths in every village were fashioning pike heads, how many men in each locality were sworn, how every male inhabitant of Rathlin Island had taken the oath. Donald interrupted him now and then with sharp