Priscilla's Spies
“To a sanctuary,” said Miss Rutherford, “an inviolable sanctuary.
Priscilla has that written down on the cover of a jam pot, so there’s no
use arguing about it.”
“She says we’ll be safe,” said Lady Isabel.
“I refuse to move,” said Mr. Pennefather, “until I know where I’m going
and why.”
“You talk to him, Cousin Frank,” said Priscilla. “I see Jimmy Kinsella
coming round the corner in his boat and I really must bail out the
Tortoise.”
“If you don’t move out of this pretty quick,” said Frank to Mr.
Pennefather, “Lord Torrington will have you to a dead cert.”
“‘And fast before her father’s men,” said Miss Rutherford, “‘three days
we fled together. And should they find us in this glen----’”
“Oh, Barnabas,” said Lady Isabel, who knew Campbell’s poem and
anticipated the end of the quotation, “Oh, Barnabas, let’s go, anywhere,
anywhere.”
“I never saw any man,” said Frank, “in such a wax as Lord Torrington.”
“I haven’t met him myself,” said Miss Rutherford, “but I expect that
when he begins to speak he’ll shock you even worse than I did.”
“We don’t mind Father,” said Lady Isabel. “It’s Mother.”
“They’re both on your track,” said Frank.
Mr. Pennefather looked from one to another of the group around him. Then
he turned slowly on his heel and began to roll up his tent. Lady Isabel
and Miss Rutherford set to work to pack the camp equipage. Frank took
off his coat and wrung the water out of it. Then he spread it on the
ground and looked at it. It was the coat worn by members of the First
Eleven. He had won his right to it when he caught out the Uppingham
captain in the long field. Now such triumphs and glories seemed
incredibly remote. The voices of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella reached
him from the shore. They were arguing hotly.
Frank looked at them and saw that they were both on their knees in the
Tortoise scooping up water in tin dishes.
The bailing was finished at last. The packing was nearly done. Priscilla
walked up to the camp dragging Jimmy Kinsella with her by the collar of
the coat.
“Barnabas,” she said, “have you got a revolver?”
Mr. Pennefather looked up from a roll of blankets which he was strapping
together.
“No,” he said. “I don’t carry revolvers.”
“I think you ought to,” said Priscilla. “I mean whenever you happen to
be running away with the daughter of the First Lord of the War Office
or any one like that. But, of course, being a clergyman may make a
difference. It’s awfully hard to know exactly what a clergyman ought
to do when he’s eloping. At the same time it’s jolly awkward you’re not
having a revolver, for Jimmy Kinsella says he won’t go to Inishbawn and
we can’t all fit in the Tortoise.”
“Leave him to me,” said Frank. “Just bring him over here, Priscilla, and
I’ll deal with him.”
“I’ll not take you to Inishbawn,” said Jimmy.
Priscilla handed him over to Frank. It was a long time, more than two
years, since Frank had acquired some reputation as a master of men in
the form Room of Remove A.; but he retained a clear recollection of the
methods he had employed. He seized Jimmy Kinsella’s wrist and with
a deft, rapid movement, twisted it round. Jimmy had not enjoyed the
advantages of an English public school education. Torture of a refined
kind was new to him. He uttered a shrill squeal.
“Will you go where you’re told,” said Frank, “or do you want more?”
“I dursn’t take yez to Inishbawn,” said Jimmy whimpering. “My da would
beat me if I did.”
Frank twisted his arm again.
“My da will cut the liver out of me,” said Jimmy.
“Stop that,” said Mr. Pennefather. “I cannot allow bullying.”
“It’s for your sake entirely that it’s being done,” said Priscilla.
“You’re the most ungrateful beast I ever met. It would serve you jolly
well right if we left you here to have your own arm twisted by Lord
Torrington.”
Miss Rutherford was kneeling in front of a beautiful canteen, fitting
aluminium plates and various articles of cutlery into the places
prepared for them. She stood up and brandished a large carving fork.
“This,” she said, “will be just as effective as a revolver. You take it,
Frank, and sit close to him in the boat. The moment he stops rowing or
tries to go in any direction except Inishbawn you----”
She made a vicious stab in the air and then handed the fork to Frank.
A quarter of an hour later the party started. Mr. Pennefather and Lady
Isabel refused to be separated. Priscilla took them in the Tortoise.
They sat side by side near the mast and held each other’s hands.
Priscilla, after one glance in their direction, looked resolutely past
them for the rest of the voyage. Miss Rutherford sat in the bow of Jimmy
Kinsella’s boat. Jimmy sat amidships and rowed. Frank, with the carving
fork poised for a thrust, sat in the stern. The wind, following the
departed thunderstorm, blew from the east. Priscilla set sail on the
Tortoise. Jimmy hoisted his lug, but was obliged to row as well as sail
in order to keep in touch with his consort. The boats grounded almost
together on the shingly beach of Inishbawn.
Joseph Antony, who had made his way home through the thunderstorm, put
his hand on the bow of the Tortoise.
“It’ll be better for you not to land,” he said.
“I know all about that,” said Priscilla. “You needn’t bother to invent
anything fresh.”
“You can’t land here,” said Joseph Antony. “Aren’t there islands enough
in the bay? Jimmy, will you push that boat off from the shore and take
the lady and gentleman that’s in her away out of this.”
The carving fork descended an inch towards Jimmy’s leg. His father
menaced him with a threatening scowl. Jimmy sat quite still. Like the
leader of the House of Lords during the last stage of a recent political
crisis, he had ceased to be a free agent.
“I don’t want to land on your beastly island,” said Priscilla. “If there
wasn’t as much as a half-tide rock in the whole bay that I could put my
foot on I wouldn’t land here, and you can tell your wife from me that if
that baby of hers was to die for the want of a bit of flannel, I won’t
steal another scrap from Aunt Juliet’s box to give it to her.”
“Sure you know well enough, Miss,” said Joseph Antony, “that there’s
ne’er a one would be more welcome to the island than yourself. But the
way things is at present----”
“I’ve a pretty good guess at the way things are,” said Priscilla, “and
the minute I get back tonight I’m going to tell Sergeant Rafferty.”
Joseph Antony smiled uneasily.
“You wouldn’t do the like of that,” he said.
“I will,” said Priscilla, “unless you allow me to land these two at
once.”
Joseph Antony looked long and carefully at Mr. Pennefather.
“What about the other young gentleman?” he said, “the one that has the
sore leg?”
“He doesn’t want to set foot on Inishbawn,” said Priscilla.
“And the young lady,” said Joseph Antony, “that does be taking the water
in the little boat along with Jimmy?”
“She’ll let Jimmy row her off to any corner of the bay you like,” said
Priscilla, “if you’ll allow the other two to land.”
Joseph Antony looked at Mr. Pennefather again.
“I wouldn’t say there was much harm in him,” he said.
“There’s none,” said Priscilla, “absolutely none. Isn’t he paying £4 a
week for that old boat of Flanagan’s. Doesn’t that show you the kind of
man he is?”
“Unless,” said Joseph Antony, “it could be that he’s signed the pledge
for life.”
“Have you signed the pledge for life, Barnabas?” said Priscilla. “Let go
of her hand for one minute and answer the question that’s asked you.”
“Does he mean a temperance pledge?” said Mr. Pennefather.
“I do,” said Joseph Antony. “Are you a member of the Total Abstinence
Sodality?”
“I take a little whisky after my work on Sunday evenings,” said Mr.
Pennefather, “and, of course, when I’m dining out I----”
“That’ll do,” said Joseph Antony. “A man that takes it one time will
take it another. I suppose now you’re not any ways connected with the
police?”
“He is not,” said Priscilla. “Can’t you see he’s a clergyman?”
“It’s beyond me,” said Joseph Antony, “what brings you to Inishbawn at
all.”
“The way things are with you at present,” said Priscilla, “it wouldn’t
be a bad thing to have a clergyman staying with you on the island. It
would look respectable.”
“It would, of course,” said Joseph Antony.
“If any question ever came to be asked,” said Priscilla, “about what’s
going on here, it would be a grand thing for you to be able to say that
you had the Rev. Barnabas Pennefather stopping along with you.”
“It would surely,” said Joseph Antony.
Priscilla jumped out of the boat and drew Kinsella a little way up the
beach.
“If anything was to come out,” she whispered, “you could say that it was
the strange clergyman and that you didn’t know what was going on.”
“I might,” said Joseph Antony.
Priscilla turned to the boat joyfully.
“Hop out, Barnabas,” she shouted, “and take the tents and things with
you. It’s all settled. Joseph Antony will give you the run of his island
and you’ll be perfectly safe.”
Mr. Pennefather climbed over the bows of the Tortoise.
Lady Isabel tugged at the hold-all, which was tucked away under a thwart
and heaved it with a great effort into her husband’s arms. He staggered
under the weight of it. Joseph Antony Kinsella’s instinctive politeness
asserted itself.
“Will you let me take that from you?” he said. “The like of them parcels
isn’t fit for your reverence to carry.”
Lady Isabel got the rest of her luggage out of the Tortoise. Then she
and Mr. Pennefather went to Jimmy Kinsella’s boat and unloaded it. They
had a good deal of luggage altogether. When everything was stacked on
the beach Mrs. Kinsella, with her baby in her arms, came down and looked
at the pile with amazement. Three small, bare-legged Kinsellas, young
brothers of Jimmy’s, followed her. She turned to Priscilla.
“Maybe now,” she said, “them ones is after being evicted? Tell me this,
was it out of shops or off the land that they did be getting their
living before the trouble came on them?”
“Arrah, whist, woman,” said Joseph Antony, “have you no eyes in your
head. Can’t you see that the gentleman’s a clergyman?”
“Glory be to God!” said Mrs. Kinsella, “and to think now that they’d
evict the like of him!”
Lady Isabel held out her hand to Priscilla.
“Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you so much for all you’ve done. If you
see my mother----”
“We’ll see her tonight,” said Priscilla. “I shan’t be let in to dinner,
but I’ll see her afterwards when Aunt Juliet is smoking in the hope of
shocking your father.”
“Don’t tell her we’re here,” said Lady Isabel.
“Come along, Frank,” said Priscilla. “I’ll help you out of that boat and
into the Tortoise. We must be getting home. Goodbye, Miss Rutherford.”
“It really is goodbye this time,” said Miss Rutherford. “I’m off
tomorrow morning.”
“Back to London?” said Frank. “Hard luck.”
“To that frowsy old Museum,” said Priscilla, “full of skeletons of
whales and stuffed antelopes and things.”
“I feel it all acutely,” said Miss Rutherford. “Don’t make it worse for
me by enumerating my miseries.”
“And I don’t believe you’ve caught a single sponge,” said Priscilla.
“Will they be frightfully angry with you?”
“I’ve got a few,” said Miss Rutherford, “fresh water ones that I caught
before I met you. I’ll make the most of them.”
“Anyhow,” said Priscilla, “it’ll be a great comfort to you to feel that
you’ve taken part in a noble deed of mercy before you left.”
“That’s something, of course,” said Miss Rutherford, “but you can’t
think how annoying it is to have to go away just at this crisis of the
adventure. I shall be longing day and night to hear how it ends.”
“I’ll write and tell you, if you like,” said Priscilla.
“Do,” said Miss Rutherford. “Just let me know whether the sanctuary