The Northern Iron by George A. Birmingham

Author:George A. Birmingham
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620137192
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter X

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Early next morning Neal bade farewell to Hope and started on his walk to Donegore. For a while he kept along the side of the hill above the homesteads that clustered on the lower slopes. Nearing Carnmoney he descended and entered a small inn in order to obtain some breakfast. He found the master and his wife in a state of great excitement at the news which had just reached them that their son had been arrested in Belfast. It was some time before Neal could persuade the poor people to attend to his wants, and it was a wretched breakfast which he obtained in the end. Leaving the inn, he walked along the high road through Molusk. He felt tolerably safe, though bodies of troops and yeomen occasionally passed him. His appearance was known to very few, and the people of the district through which he was going were either United Irishmen or in strong sympathy with the society. It was unlikely that any small body of troops would venture to make an arrest unless the officer in command was perfectly certain of the identity of his prisoner. So bold and determined were the people that Neal, stopping opposite a forge, saw the smith fashioning pike heads openly, and apparently fearlessly. A number of men stood round the forge door talking earnestly together. Among them was Phelim, the blind piper, whom Neal had seen in the street of Antrim. They did not care to be silent or to lower their tones when Neal came within earshot.

"The place of the muster," said the piper, "is the Roughfort. Mind you that now, and let them that has guns or pikes bring them."

"And will M'Cracken be there?"

"Ay, he will. Did you no see the proclamation?"

"Will Kelso," said some one to the smith, "are you working hard, man? We'll be needing a hundred more of them pike heads by the morrow's morn."

The smith let his hammer fall with a clang on the anvil, and wiped his brow.

"If you do as good a day's work the morrow with what I'm working on the day there'll be no cause to complain of you."

For the first time since he left Dunseveric Neal felt a glow of hope for the success of the movement. He knew what kind of men these farmers and weavers of Carnmoney and Templepatrick were—austere, cold men, difficult to stir to violent action; much more difficult to cow into submission when once roused. And it appeared to him that they were effectually roused now. He recalled his father's fanciful application of the verse from the prophet Jeremiah. He felt, as he listened to the men round the forge, the hardness of "the northern iron and the steel." Was there among the blustering yeomen and the disciplined troops of the King iron strong enough to break this iron?

He left the forge and passed on. His thoughts wandered from the enterprise to which he had pledged himself, and went back, as time after time during the last week they had gone back, to Una.

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