How Mr. Denis O'Halloran Transgressed His Code

by B. Fletcher Robinson

HOW MR. DENIS O'HALLORAN
TRANSGRESSED HIS CODE

By B. FLETCHER ROBINSON

MR. DENIS O'HALLORAN paused in the shelter of the inn porch, clasping his long horseman's cloak about him. He was a man below the middle height and of a spare and active figure. His expression was resolute and his eyes of a merry audacity. The light from behind him threw his shadow in gigantic relief upon the spreading puddles of the highway. Above him the gale roistered among the chimneys and gables of the old house. An April moon, sailing dear in a hurrying sky, showed him where, to the southward, his road crept up from the village into the shadows of the hills.

"'Tis no night for travelers, sir," said the landlord, pushing forward. "A young gentleman would be safer employed with a bowl of punch, or it might be a spike of mulled claret, than in riding the moors."

"Safer, ye say?" The brogue betrayed him.

Indeed, sir," urged the landlord, "if you were of this country you would know that we have been much plagued of late by knaves that the late unhappy rebellion has let loose upon us. 'Twas not a week since that Sir Francis Grove, of Oakdale, was waylaid."

"Pish, man, I know ye've a bed to let," grinned Mr. O'Halloran.

"There be yet worse things than a cut-purse," said the landlord, wagging his head.

"Faith, but I'd make their acquaintance."

"The powers of evil, young gentleman. For when a body is freshly swung by the Beacon Hill, which I would have you remember that you must pass, there have been substantial folk come riding here, calling loudly for strong drink and telling of things that crouched beneath the tree like toads, and things that screamed and chattered in the air. The Lord preserve us."

"Let me be plain with ye, landlord," said Mr. O'Halloran. "On to York I must. As f'r what I may meet by the way, I take it that a sword an' pistol will serve f'r the wan and a clane conscience f'r the other. My horse, if ye plase."

"'Tis here, sir, 'tis here," said the landlord. He bustled out into the road as he spoke, waving an arm to an advancing hostler.

Denis O'Halloran rode swiftly through the village street, easing his mount as he met the shoulder of the hill. To right and left, as his horse stumbled and grunted up the ill-kept road, there spread a succession of vast and melancholy moorlands that rose and fell in long undulations until they were merged in the gloom of the middle distance. From the ridges above him the gusts swooped down in sudden squalls like the firing of cannon. Not a cottage, not a barn, nor any creature that might house therein, was to be seen. Bold as he might be, his courage did not save him from uneasy glances toward the shifting pools of shadow which the scattered bushes threw upon the track. It was an age when the wayfarer had still to rely upon his own weapon for safety, and he knew that after nightfall such waste places must have their perils.

He reached the crown of the hill and pushed forward at a livelier gait. It was a rolling country, however, and within a mile he found himself descending a sharp incline into a valley deep in shadow. Once his hand slipped round to his sword; but it was no more than the cry of a distant owl, and he was jeering at himself for a coward as his horse stumbled among the bowlders of a ford and breasted the opposing slope.

The wind was still blowing in fitful gusts, but the high crest of the hill, beneath which he now found himself, afforded him an absolute shelter. Moreover, it hid the moon. Silence on a solitary and dangerous way is ever suggestive in its possibilities. He found himself leaning forward with eager ears. Suddenly he drew rein, cocking his head with a queer trick he had, like a dog at a door. From somewhere beyond the bend of the road there came a faint sound as of metal on metal or metal on stone. Yet it was neither beat of hoof nor clink of stirrup iron.

For man Denis O'Halloran had little fear. He had already acquired some reputation in campaigns under an alien flag. But it was a superstitious age and he came of a superstitious people. The tales of the landlord had not left him unaffected. Therefore, when pushing warily forward he rounded the spur of the hill into the full light of the moon, the spectacle which met his gaze shook his heart into his mouth and his hand to the pistol in his holster.

On a little plateau some fifty paces from the road and circled by a rising slope, stood a gallows whereon hung the body of a man. The sight was familiar; by such means were the highways rightfully protected. But the corpse did not swing unattended. A few paces from the foot of the gibbet were two figures, the one erect, wrapped in a trailing cloak, the other crouching to some labor. And there fell on him the conviction that these creatures were not of earth nor of God.

The crouching figure moved; the light gleamed on a pick as it rose, and the clicking sound came again to his ears. It was digging a grave painfully and slowly. Presently it stopped, dropping the tool, and as it did so the other struck it so that it raised a loud wail of pain. A woman's voice, thought the traveler, and his blood stirred within him. He glanced about him like a man waking from a dream. On the road two hundred yards away was the blurred outline of a coach. These were neither ghosts nor wizards then; but a man and with him a woman suffering distresses. With an oath he set spurs to his horse and galloped headlong toward them.

The man never moved from where he stood, but the woman ran toward him, crying, with outstretched arms. The traveler was out of the saddle in a flash and slipped an arm about her, for she seemed near to falling.

"Save me," she said, "for the love of heaven."

"Faith, madam, an' I will be blithe to do so," said Mr. O'Halloran. He looked down at her with satisfaction. She was indeed a fine woman, though not in her first youth.

The man advanced from beneath the shadow of the corpse, dropping his cloak as he did so. The moon showed him tall and lean, with a long face and a stern and melancholy expression. He carried himself with an air of dignity. Plainly he was of gentle breeding.

"It would be well, sir, if you do not interfere in that which nowise concerns you," he said sternly.

"By the blessed saints, but did ye ever hear the like!" cried Mr. O'Halloran, clasping the lady a thought more closely.

"I perceive you are an Irishman," sneered the tall man.

"An' I perceive that ye ar-re an impertinent scoundrel," returned Mr. O'Halloran.

"I do not desire to brawl with you, my good fellow. Let it suffice you that I have an explanation for what I am about."

"An explanation, have ye?" cried Mr. O'Halloran in vast indignation. "Then let me tell ye that amongst Irish gentlemen the striking iv a lady admits no explanation. Sor, ye lack gentility. If I had the time I would tache ye manners with a cane. Is that your coach, madam?" He turned, pointing a finger to where it stood. She nodded her head, watching him with eager eyes.

"Then permit me to escort ye to it."

"That you shall not do, by heaven," cried the tall man.

The Irishman made him a mock reverence. Plainly the situation pleased him greatly.

"'Tis the first word iv sinse that ye've spoken," he said. "The moon shines bravely, sir, though the company"—he glanced at the gallows—"might well be bethered."

"My preserver," whimpered the lady, clinging to his arm.

"That, madam, is as the saints may direct," he said. "Though our melancholy friend yonder seems more apt with his tongue than with his weapon."

"What are you?" said the tall man. "Jacobite fugitive, cutthroat, or an Irish bogtrotter on a journey? Pray give me so much of your confidence."

"I hold a captain's commission," replied Mr. O'Halloran with becoming dignity, "though in what ar-rmy it is not precisely convanient f'r me to mention. Does that content ye?"

"I am at your service," said the other.

"May heaven aid you," murmured the lady.

Mr. O'Halloran stooped and kissed her hand.

"Ye do me great honor, madam," said he.

"My knight in time of need," she smiled into his eyes.

"I account meself the more fortunate," he said, and then in a lower tone, "While we ar-re engaged, I pray you, madam, away to your coach. 'Twill be safer—in case——"

"Sir," she said very loud and bold, "I stay here that I may see you kill him."

Mr. O'Halloran slipped off his cloak, drew his sword, and stepped forward with a lean activity. He made a pretty figure of a man as he stood in the moonlight, examining the ground. The moor was rough with tufted heather, save for a level patch in the midst of which the gibbet had been planted. A score of feet to the right he marked the open grave with its banks of dark mold. He did not dwell upon so suggestive a spectacle.

"It must be here or nowhere," he said. "May the poor lad yonder pardon us."

"For his pardon I will answer, sir," said the tall man with a sad sort of smile. "He would not have wished it otherwise."

Mr. O'Halloran did not reply save by a fencing-room salute.

"The moon shines justly for both," said the tall man; and the swords rang together.

In the French capital there was not a maître d'armes but spoke well of the sword of the Irishman. Yet before the sudden and infernal onslaught of his opponent he gave back five paces and more. The man crowded in upon him with a contained and glowing fury, so that he fought for his life, making no effort beyond the parrying of the deadly stabs hurled at him. Blue shone the blades as they flickered under the moon, save when now and again a spark sprang from a fiercer thrust met by a stronger parry. The ground was bad, the light was bad, and if O'Halloran was by far the more accomplished swordsman, he knew too much to risk an attack against a man to whom death seemed a matter of no concern at all.

In that first mad rush of his opponent the Irishman had been forced back to the very foot of the gallows tree, so that it almost seemed that he fought with his back against it. Above them the corpse swung in its chains so that now its shadow fell upon the blades as if to lend its aid to the fiercer, if less expert, of the duelists. He noticed it and laughed aloud in a high, inhuman note. Yet it was the renewed strength that it seemed to lend him which proved his undoing. He lunged too wildly—too far; the Irishman met him by a keen riposte. He stopped with an oath, dropping his sword to the ground.

"Again, again!" screamed the woman.

Mr. O'Halloran paid her no attention, but stepped back, lowering his point. The other swayed where he stood, plucking at his shoulder with red and dripping fingers. In another moment the Irishman was beside him, supporting him.

"It was the charge iv a bull," he panted. "Man, ye were beside yourself. Are ye badly hurted?"

"The shoulder, not the lung, I think," said the tall man. "May I ask you, sir, to keep that woman off me?"

Mr. O'Halloran looked round just in time. The lady had picked up his sword and was running in upon them. She halted, gesticulating.

"You fool!" she cried. "Kill him!"

Mr. O'Halloran was by her side in two strides and recovered his weapon. He moreover took the precaution of picking up that of his adversary before he returned to him. It was a disabling but not a dangerous wound. In three minutes he had triced it up so as to stop the bleeding. He rose from his knees. The woman was standing beside him. He met her eyes without flinching.

"Madam," said he, "I have found this gentleman a very brave and iligant fighter. To be thruthful with ye, I would know more iv this business."

"Then I will bid you good night, sir," she said coldly. "I can find my way to the coach."

"I must ask ye, with due submission, to remain where ye ar-re," replied Mr. O'Halloran. "At least until such time as I have inquired further iv this gentleman."

The tall man was seated on the ground, nursing his arm, his back propped against the gallows. He regarded them curiously.

"I can trust my story to an antagonist who is as honorable as he is bold," he said. "If you can induce the lady to remain——"

"It would only be right," interrupted Mr. O'Halloran.

She laughed defiantly.

"And if I disobey?" she inquired.

"I trust ye will not," he said with a sharp decision.

She made no reply, but seated herself, drawing her cloak about her.

"I am at your service, sor-r," said Mr. O'Halloran.

The tall man bent his head for a moment, plucking at the grass with his uninjured hand.

"My name is Yorke," he said. "Colonel Francis Yorke. You may have heard it?"

"It was tolerably familiar after Fontenoy," laughed the Irishman. "I am proud to make your betther acquaintance."

"What I now have to tell you is the truth—upon my honor."

"That is sufficient for me," replied Mr. O'Halloran.

"An old man with grown sons about him married again," said the colonel. "Heavens, sir, does not the devil's opportunity lie in old men's follies? He had met the lady at a rout at York. He knew naught of her but that she was bold in spirit and pleasing to the eye. His elder son, a soldier serving abroad, saw neither the wooing nor the wedding; the younger did that which he could to check his father's doting desires. She met the lad and defeated him at every turn of the game. She laughed away his evidence of her past as malicious talebearing. So he perforce must watch this jade come flaunting into his home, knowing full well with what hatred she regarded him and what little hope of joy in life under his father's roof remained to him."

"Ye speak bitterly, sir," said Mr. O'Halloran.

"Is it a merry tale? Come, hear it out. Within a year of the marriage, over the border came the Highland cattle lifters with that Papist adventurer, Charles Stuart— What? Do I touch your politics? Forget it, sir, or I shall never have done. The lad was of an age for romance. His father's wife had raffish friends who made a pothouse boast of it to drink to their king over the water. Together they beguiled him until in the end he rode away to join—pshaw, but I must be careful—to join the most valiant army of the only true and puissant monarch of these islands, then about to retreat from Derby. 'Twas a pretty plot, worthy of the sex to which I observe, sir, you are a devoted champion. The old man was a Whig who hated the Pretender as he would the devil. To him comes his good wife with loud lamentations. The prodigal son had ridden away to join the invaders, a Jacobite declared. She hinted at fines and sequestrations. Whereat the father swore that his son should never darken his doors again; and this may I say of him, that the sterner the vow the more closely he ever held to it. He had been a strong man in his day, both of mind and body.

"I will not tire you, sir, with needless particulars. The lad was in hiding for six months, starving for a year. He crept back to his home, was turned from the doors, and in his desperation he stopped a coach here upon the moors. Information against him was already out, through whose agency you may best guess. He was apprehended and hanged in chains near by the scene of his offense as a warning to malefactors."

"Ye should have told me iv this before—before we fell to disputing," said Mr. O'Halloran.

"You understand, then?"

For answer the Irishman whipped out his sword and saluted the corpse where it clanked and swung.

"He died for his king," he said, "though I had rather it had been at Culloden. God save the king!"

"You do us honor, sir," said the colonel. "In my brother's name I thank you."

The lady rose from here she sat, throwing back her cloak with an angry gesture.

"Do you believe this man?" she cried.

"Faith, madam, but I do," said Mr. O'Halloran.

"This woman beater?"

She scored a hit. He hung undecided, with a toe scratching the turf.

"Permit me to finish my tale, sir," said the colonel. "I learnt that my good stepmother was journeying home this evening. Wherefore I took the occasion to invite her to my brother's funeral. I could not leave him here, poor lad. As she had hung my brother, it seemed but in due course that she should help me to dig his grave. Finding her opposed to the suggestion, I used the argument most likely to appeal to her. Our work was well-nigh ended when you appeared. Upon its termination it was my intention to escort her to her coach."

"You hear this villain," cried the lady. "He forced me to dig, to dig till my hands were blistered!"

"It would be a better grave were it a few inches deeper," said the colonel, "and the soil is light."

Mr. Denis O'Halloran thrust out his chest, fingered his sword hilt, and scowled at the gallows, the moon, and the moors.

"By the honor of me house, sor-r," he said, "but I think that your stepmother will do well if she takes to the spade again."